Take this Exam: PSAT Reading — what the sentence makes the word mean | Zestly

Question 1

"Under heavy pressure from her board, the chief engineer refused to arrest work on the new alloy. The programme was over budget and had produced nothing a customer could buy, but she held that the third round of tests would settle the question of whether the metal could take heat, and that stopping short of it would waste everything spent so far." As used by the writer, what does the word "arrest" most nearly mean?

Accepted Answer

To halt the progress of

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To hurry along beyond control

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To take into legal custody

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To catch and hold the attention of

Question 2

"Senator Maren Dulcie has one reservation about the proposed conservation bill: she fears the new limits would fall hardest on small farms, which cannot spread the cost of compliance over many acres. She has asked the committee for figures on that point, and says she will decide how to vote once she has them." As used by the writer, what does the word "reservation" most nearly mean?

Accepted Answer

A doubt that holds back full agreement

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A tract of land set aside by law

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A booking made in advance

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A settled refusal to support the bill

Question 3

"Excavating a hillside above Corran Bay, the archaeologist Ines Ravel found two bronze fishhooks in a layer of ash her team dated to roughly nine hundred years ago. No settlement has ever been recorded on that coast so early. Ravel is careful in print: two hooks and a single dated layer, she writes, make the case ____ rather than settled." Which choice completes the writer's sentence with the most logical and precise word?

Accepted Answer

suggestive

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irrelevant

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invented

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conclusive

Question 4

"When the linguist Marta Oyelaran first proposed that two neighboring languages had borrowed grammar from each other rather than inheriting it from a common ancestor, few of her colleagues were persuaded. Over the following decade the idea gained traction: three separate teams found the same pattern in unrelated pairs of languages, and the objection that her evidence was purely local fell away." As used by the writer, what does the phrase "gained traction" most nearly mean?

Answer

Found a firmer grip on a rough surface

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Attracted a growing body of criticism

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Spread faster than anyone could check it

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Came to be accepted by more people

Question 5

"Cleaning the varnish from a portrait in the Halvern collection revealed a band of bright blue beneath the sitter's collar. That pigment was not manufactured until several decades after the date painted on the frame. The curators are not yet willing to propose a new date — only a hand's breadth of the surface has been examined — but they say the cleaning has ____ the accepted dating of the picture." Which choice completes the writer's sentence with the most logical and precise word?

Answer

catalogued

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complicated

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overturned

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confirmed

Question 6

"Professor Ilse Barrow's lecture on ancient trade routes was a real eye-opener for her students, most of whom had assumed that the civilizations in question had little to do with one another. By the end of the hour they had followed a single consignment of tin across four of them." As used by the writer, what does the phrase "real eye-opener" most nearly mean?

Answer

A physical sensation of waking up

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An hour they found painful to sit through

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Something that overturned what they had assumed

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A chart displayed during the lecture