Vocabulary
Core concepts
Vocabulary items test more than a dictionary definition. You need context clues - the words around a gap that narrow its meaning (definition, contrast, cause, example) - plus word parts: prefixes (bene-, mal-, circum-), roots (cred, dict, spect) and suffixes that reveal part of speech. Know the difference between denotation (literal meaning) and connotation (the feeling a word carries: thrifty vs stingy), and watch register - formal, informal, technical. Idioms and phrasal verbs (put off, carry out) cannot be decoded word by word, so learn them as fixed units. Collocation matters too: we say strong tea, not powerful tea.
Traps
- A synonym that fits the definition but breaks the sentence's grammar or tone.
- Near-miss pairs: continual/continuous, imply/infer, affect/effect.
- Options that simply repeat a word from the sentence - repetition is not evidence.
Worked example
"The documentary was praised for its candid portrait of factory life, an unvarnished account with no flattery." The phrases no flattery and unvarnished mark candid as "honest, direct". Rude is close in connotation but too negative; secretive contradicts the clue; polished is a false friend of nothing in the sentence. Answer: frank.
Rule of thumb
Cover the options, predict your own word from the clues, then pick the closest match and read the whole sentence again with it substituted in - it must sound right and mean the right thing.