SAT sentence completion practice test 09

1. His one vice was gluttony and so it is not surprising that as he aged he became increasingly ____ .

A. emaciated
B. despondent
C. corpulent
D. carping
E. lithe

2. Our once thriving High School Nature Club is now ____ ; the progams have had to be cancelled due to lack of support.

A. defunct
B. extant
C. resurgent
D. burgeoning
E. renovated

3. Having been chief accountant for so many years, Ms. George felt herself to be ____ and was unwilling to ____ control of the department after the merger.

A. slighted - truncate
B. irreplaceable - assume
C. insubordinate - retain
D. decisive - continue
E. indispensable - relinquish

4. Because Elaine's father was a field entomologist who trekked over the continent studying insect infestations, and insisted on taking his young family with him, Elaine and her brother had a(n) ____ childhood.

A. idyllic
B. itinerant
C. sedentary
D. propitious
E. equable

5. Frederica was ____ when her supervisor took only a ___ look at her essay over which she had taken so much care.

A. exultant - superficial
B. vexed - studious
C. disappointed - cursory
D. pleased - patronizing
E. relieved - perfunctory

6. When he was young he ____ ideas of becoming a doctor; however, he was ____ by his father who wanted him to join the family business.

A. harbored - backed
B. entertained - dissuaded
C. produced - critical
D. repudiated - deterred
E. eschewed - encouraged

7. Literary criticism has in recent years become increasingly ____ ; it is almost impossible for the non-literary person to understand its analyses.

A. abstruse
B. accessible
C. colloquial
D. wide-ranging
E. professional

8. The alchemists, though they are often supposed to have been ____ or confidence tricksters, were actually skilful technologists.

A. empiricists
B. polemicists
C. pragmatists
D. theorists
E. charlatans

9. Bullock carts and hand pumps seem ____ in a village whose skyline is dominated by telephone cables and satellite dishes.

A. anachronisms
B. exigencies
C. diversions
D. provocations
E. portents

10. A ____ child, she was soon bored in class; she already knew more mathematics than her junior school teachers.

A. obdurate
B. querulous
C. precocious
D. recalcitrant
E. contemporary

11. Stuart reveled in ____; he would never seek ____ until all possibilities for debate had been exhausted.

A. altercation - clarification
B. polemics - conciliation
C. ambiguities - consolation
D. asceticism - indulgence
E. digressions - direction

12. Turner claimed to paint what he saw; yet no painter ever departed further from close ____ or took more ____ with subjects.

A. imitation - liberties
B. observation - care
C. definition - vagaries
D. imagination - pains
E. resemblance - trouble