How To Solve Sentence Completion

Let’s now take a look at the methods that we can use to solve Sentence Completion:

Read the Sentence:

Read the sentence thoroughly first and understand the structure. It might seem difficult at first because of the unknown and difficult words but once you break it down and understand the clues, it becomes easy.

Types of Approach:

There are two approaches to understand how to solve sentence completion.

• Proactive
• Reactive

Proactive Approach:

• Read the sentence first and guess what answer can fit in the blank
• Relate the guess with the options given
• Pick the option that resembles closely to your guess

Reactive Approach:

• Reading the sentence / passage first
• Jumping on to the options directly
• Picking an answer

Out of the two approaches, the proactive approach is highly recommended because it makes it easier for the student to guess the answer rather than looking at the options and confusing oneself completely.

Hints:

The hints in a sentence are give to help you understand the word should fit in the blank. Learn how to locate a hint – If you change the hint in a sentence then the choice of the word in the blank also changes.

Word Charge:

Once you get the structure and the hint you can move ahead to see if the sentence needs a positively charged word or a negative one. This can symbolize whether you should go for a synonym or an antonym.

Signpost Words:

Look for signpost words in the sentence that help to determine the required choice of word.

The signpost words which we divide into 2 parts:

• Supporting Signpost
  Words that help to relate the two or more clauses in a sentence in the same context.
  Example: and, so, hence, therefore, because, thus etc.
  
  
• Contrasting Signpost
  Words that present a contrasting relation between the two or more clauses.
  Example: but, despite, though, although, if, or, nevertheless etc.

Root Words:

Root Words are the main words that help us to form a different word in English grammar. Once you know the meaning of these words, it is easy to form new words and also interpret its meaning despite the prefix and suffix used along with it.

Example:

Aqua – means water. Now the words that you can form with it are:

• Aquarium
• Aquatic
• Aquaculture
• Seaquake

Now we know that the root word in all these words is same hence the meaning will be somewhat related to ‘water’.

Know Parts of Speech

Until and unless you know the basics of grammar, that is, the Parts of Speech thoroughly, it can be difficult for you to guess the hints in a sentence. So make an attempt to learn the Grammar Clues as well.