[Subodh Kant]

This thread is designed to help you prepare for the verbal and reading sections of CAT and other MBA entrance exams. By completing the questions offered here and by studying their answer explanations, you will develop the skills necessary to tackle each type of sentence completion question. You will also improve your vocabulary and your process of elimination skills

I hope you will enjoy it.

[Subodh Kant]

Sentence completions test your ability to use the information found in complex, but incomplete, sentences in order to correctly complete the sentences. Sentence completions test two separate aspects of your verbal skills: your vocabulary and your ability to follow the internal logic of sentences. These sentences are often quite complex. Fortunately, there are some strategies that will greatly increase your score on these questions. Each of these questions has one blank (or, on some tests, two blanks) within a single sentence. Often the sentences are long and difficult to follow, but with practice you can learn to master them.

Introduction
You might wonder what kinds of strategies you can use to master sentence completions. When it comes to sentence completions, the word that does not appear is the key to the meaning of the sentence. The words that do appear offer clues to the missing word. If you can find out how the words that appear are connected, you can find the correct answer. This means that you must know more than just the meaning of the words involved. You must also understand the logic of the sentence. Here is a sampling of strategies:

Read the entire sentence saying “blank” for the blank(s). This gives you an overall sense of the meaning of the sentence and helps you figure out how the parts of the sentence relate to each other. If an answer occurs to you before you even look at the choices, you may have a synonym for the answer or the answer itself.

Pay special attention to introductory and transitional words—but, although, however, yet, even though—because they are key to forming the logical structure of the sentence.

Be sure your choice is both logical and grammatically correct.

[Subodh Kant]

CASE ONE: If you don't know some words

If you don’t know some words, use elimination and educated guessing, which means you are able to eliminate one or more of the choices as definitely wrong; or guessing from context when you know a related word. There are several types of sentence completions:

_ restatement

_ comparison

_ contrast

_ cause and effect

Here is an example of a cause-and-effect sentence completion question:

After a brief and violent ______ that ousted the president, General Monsanto declared himself the dictator of the country.
a. nuance
b. coup
c. solicitation
d. upbraiding
e. lament

The answer is choice b. A coup (n.) is a sudden and decisive change of leadership illegally or by force, a takeover. What (the cause) led the general to declare himself dictator (the result)? Something brief and violent, that ousted the president, a coup.

Here is an example of a restatement question:
The city council formed a committee to simplify several dozen ______ city ordinances that were unnecessarily complicated and out-of-date.
a. feckless
b. empirical
c. byzantine
d. slovenly
e. pedantic

The answer is choice c, byzantine, an adjective that means “highly complicated and intricate.” Here, you are looking for a restatement of the clue words complicated and out-of-date, and for something that needs simplifying.

[Subodh Kant]

Types of Sentence Correction Questions in Details

As you practice sentence completions, you may discover signal words and phrases—clues that help you choose the correct answer. Here are common signal words and an example for each kind of question:

Restatement: namely, in other words, in fact, that is

Example: The pickpocket was a trickster, in other words, a ______.

(The answer, which restates “trickster,” might be knave or scoundrel.)

Comparison: likewise, similarly, and, just as, as ______ as, for example, as shown, as illustrated by

Example: Anna was cleared of all charges; similarly, Sam was ______.

(The answer compares to being “cleared of all charges,” so perhaps
Sam was vindicated.)

Contrast: though, although, however, despite, but, yet; on the other hand, but, however, despite, or on the contrary

Example: Although the tiger is a solitary beast, its cousin the lion is a ______ animal.

(The answer is something that contrasts with “solitary,” such as gregarious or sociable.)

Cause and effect: thus, therefore, consequently, and because and phrases such as due to, as a result, leads to

Example: A truck stole her parking spot; consequently, Sally’s ______ look showed her displeasure.

(The answer would be a look caused by someone stealing Sally’s parking spot, maybe scowling or sullen.)

[Subodh Kant]

The exercises in this thread will help you prepare for CAT in several ways. First, you will become familiar with the question format. You will get used to identifying the relationships of words within a sentence. The more comfortable you are with the question format and the more familiar you are with the range of sentence completion types, the easier the verbal or reading section of your test will be.

Second, your performance on these questions will help you assess your vocabulary strengths and weaknesses. For example, you may find that you do very well with words that are cognates (words from a common original form, such as asteroid and astronomy), but not so well on foreign words, such as ennui or angst.

Third, you will learn, through practice, to spot and disregard wrong answer choices. You may also discover a pattern to your wrong answers. (Are you weak on cause-and-effect questions?)

The sentence completion question sets in this thread increase in difficulty —from easy to intermediate to advanced. These divisions may reflect how challenging the vocabulary is or how complex the sentence structure is or how challenging the logic of the sentence is.

[Subodh Kant]

Fill in the Blanks Practice Exercise - 1

1. She hadn’t eaten all day, and by the time she got home she was ______.

a. blighted b. confutative c. ravenous d. ostentatious e. blissful

1. c. Ravenous (adj.) means extremely hungry.


2. The movie offended many of the parents of its younger viewers by including unnecessary ______ in the dialogue.

a. vulgarity b. verbosity c. vocalizations d. garishness e. tonality

2. a. Vulgarity (n.) means offensive speech or conduct.

3. His neighbors found his ______ manner bossy and irritating, and they stopped inviting him to backyard barbeques.

a. insentient b. magisterial c. reparatory d. restorative e. modest

3. b. Magisterial (adj.) means overbearing or offensively self-assured.


4. Steven is always ______ about showing up for work because he feels that tardiness is a sign of irresponsibility.

a. legible b. tolerable c. punctual d. literal e. belligerent


4. c. Punctual (adj.) means arriving exactly on time.

5. Candace would ______ her little sister into an argument by teasing her and calling her names.

a. advocate b. provoke c. perforate d. lamente e. expunge

5. b. To provoke (v.) is to incite anger or resentment; to call forth a feeling or action.

[Subodh Kant]

Fill in the Blanks Practice Exercise - 2

problems for practice

6. The dress Ariel wore ______ with small, glassy beads, creating a shimmering effect.
a. titillated b. reiterated c. scintillated d. enthralled e. striated

7. Being able to afford this luxury car will ______ getting a better paying job.
a. maximize b. recombinant c. reiterate d. necessitate e. reciprocate

8. Levina unknowingly ______ the thief by holding open the elevator doors and ensuring his escape.
a. coerced b. proclaimed c. abetted d. sanctioned e. solicited

9. Shakespeare, a(n) ______ writer, entertained audiences by writing many tragic and comic plays.
a. numeric b. obstinate c. dutiful d. prolific e. generic

10. I had the ______ experience of sitting next to an over-talkative passenger on my flight home from Brussels.
a. satisfactory b. commendable c. galling d. acceptable e. acute

Answers in the morning

[marijuana_user]

HERE IS MR SUBODH KANT playing a swash buckling innings of helping puys to become national toppers in VA section of CAT....Another gumption and another round of applause effort....THREE CHEERS FOR HIM PUYS....

[marijuana_user]

RESPECTED MR.KANT
I have a suggestion to make here....
If v cn discuss individual meanings of each of the option along with the rght answer and the thought process, den it wud be of tremendous help.....

VA/RC beware PUYS r coming.... :grab:

[marijuana_user]

Originally Posted by Subodh Kant

Fill in the Blanks Practice Exercise - 2

problems for practice

6. The dress Ariel wore ______ with small, glassy beads, creating a shimmering effect.
a. titillated b. reiterated c. scintillated d. enthralled e. striated

7. Being able to afford this luxury car will ______ getting a better paying job.
a. maximize b. recombinant c. reiterate d. necessitate e. reciprocate

8. Levina unknowingly ______ the thief by holding open the elevator doors and ensuring his escape.
a. coerced b. proclaimed c. abetted d. sanctioned e. solicited

9. Shakespeare, a(n) ______ writer, entertained audiences by writing many tragic and comic plays.
a. numeric b. obstinate c. dutiful d. prolific e. generic

10. I had the ______ experience of sitting next to an over-talkative passenger on my flight home from Brussels.
a. satisfactory b. commendable c. galling d. acceptable e. acute

Answers in the morning

I m more den ebullient to post first set of answers along with individual meanings....

1..options...
titillated - to stimulate pleasantly by tickling...
reiterated- to restate or to repeat...reiterated suggestion
scintillating- sparkling....scintillating stars....
enthralled - to keep some1 fascinated or spellbound
striated - marked wit parallel striae...more of placing a thing in a parallel manner.....

Nw herebeads embedded in d dress created a shimmering(bright lightening)effect...
so d only option dat goes is scintillating i.e option (c)

2..options..
too easy for discussion....
answer option (d)
AS something which will help in meeting d running cost will be d option so neccesity of a better paying job is dre...

3.options...
coerced - to pressurise or to force
proclaimed-to forcefully justify
abetted - to motivate in a wrong doing
sanctioned - more of a legal term-to sanction a law..to validate
solicited- to show care for

here d word is unknowingly helped d thief..thus abetted is d answer..option (c)

4. options...
obstinate - to stubbornly adhering to one's opinion
prolific- multiplying in numbers,producing abundantly..prolific writer...

Well d clue is many plays were written so shakespeare was a prolific writer....
option..(d)

5. options....
word to be discussed is
galling- irritating or exasperating...

thus an experience of sitting wid some1 overly talkative person must be irritating...as d sentence has a negative connotation to it...
thus option (c)..galling...

thus my set of answers...
1.c
2.d
3.c
4.d
5.c

ny corrections...????