TEXT COMPLETIONS
Text Completions occupy a middle ground between Sentence Equivalence and Reading Comprehension. You will be given a small passage— one to five sentences—with one, two, or three blanks. If the passage has one blank, you will have five answer choices. If it has two or three blanks, you will be given three answer choices per blank. You have to independently fill in each blank to get credit for the question.
The overall approach is the same. Ignore the answer choices. Find the story being told (there will always be a story), and come up with your own words for the blank. Here’s what a three-blank Text Completion will look like:
Question 5
Proponents of the International Style in architecture called for reducing buildings to purely functional form and found beauty in highlighting ____(i)_____ features. They rejected references to _____(ii)____ and historical styles and fiered designs indifferent to location, a quality subsequently ____(iii)_____ by those who viewed the style as bland or unappealing.
Step 1—Find the Story
There will always be a story. There must be a complete enough story that you can identify what’s missing. The answer choices are there to mislead you, so don’t look at them. Stay with the passage until the story comes into focus. Pay particular attention to trigger words (see sentence Equivalence). They will indicate the direction of the sentence and will help to fill in blanks. If the sentence does not come into focus, skip it and come back after doing a few other questions.
Step 2—Prep Your Scratch Paper
As opposed to columns of A’s, B’s, C’s, D’s, E’s, and F’s, Text Completion scratch paper will look like this:
Step 3—Pick a Blank
Some blanks will be easier to fill in than others. In general, blanks have two roles. They either test vocabulary, or comprehension. A blank testing vocabulary may be easy to fill in with your own words, but then the answer choices may consist of difficult vocabulary words. A blank testing comprehension may depend upon what you put in another blank, or may contain multiple words, including a few trigger words and prepositions. Start with whichever blank seems the easiest.
Step 4—Speak for Yourself
The answer choices will all fit grammatically into the sentence and quite a few of them will make some sense. Plugging them in to see which
one “sounds” right, is just what ETS wants you to do. Sooner or later, with this approach, they will temp you into a wrong answer. Instead, stay with the sentence until the story becomes clear and then come up with your own word for the blank. If you don’t know exactly what word will fit, at least figure out whether the word in the blank will change the direction of the sentence or keep it the same.
Step 5—POE
Keep your hand moving. Do not do this process in your head. That leads to mental stress and unnecessary mistakes. Park your thinking on your scratch paper.
Step 6—Rinse and Repeat
Repeat this process for each blank. Remember that some blanks will test vocabulary, but others will test comprehension. Often the information you need for one blank may happen to be another blank. For this you will need to identify the relationship between the blanks. That may seem like a long process, but it’s really just a way of thinking. Find the story. Play close attention to trigger words. Come up with
words for the blank or establish direction. Keep the hand moving and eliminate.
Text Completions occupy a middle ground between Sentence Equivalence and Reading Comprehension. You will be given a small passage— one to five sentences—with one, two, or three blanks. If the passage has one blank, you will have five answer choices. If it has two or three blanks, you will be given three answer choices per blank. You have to independently fill in each blank to get credit for the question.
The overall approach is the same. Ignore the answer choices. Find the story being told (there will always be a story), and come up with your own words for the blank. Here’s what a three-blank Text Completion will look like:
Question 5
Proponents of the International Style in architecture called for reducing buildings to purely functional form and found beauty in highlighting ____(i)_____ features. They rejected references to _____(ii)____ and historical styles and fiered designs indifferent to location, a quality subsequently ____(iii)_____ by those who viewed the style as bland or unappealing.
Blank 1
|
Blank 2
|
Blank 3
|
Structural
|
Oracular
|
disparaged
|
Aesthetic
|
Vernacular
|
Embraced
|
hackneyed
|
secular
|
Reclaimed
|
Step 1—Find the Story
There will always be a story. There must be a complete enough story that you can identify what’s missing. The answer choices are there to mislead you, so don’t look at them. Stay with the passage until the story comes into focus. Pay particular attention to trigger words (see sentence Equivalence). They will indicate the direction of the sentence and will help to fill in blanks. If the sentence does not come into focus, skip it and come back after doing a few other questions.
Step 2—Prep Your Scratch Paper
As opposed to columns of A’s, B’s, C’s, D’s, E’s, and F’s, Text Completion scratch paper will look like this:
Step 3—Pick a Blank
Some blanks will be easier to fill in than others. In general, blanks have two roles. They either test vocabulary, or comprehension. A blank testing vocabulary may be easy to fill in with your own words, but then the answer choices may consist of difficult vocabulary words. A blank testing comprehension may depend upon what you put in another blank, or may contain multiple words, including a few trigger words and prepositions. Start with whichever blank seems the easiest.
Step 4—Speak for Yourself
The answer choices will all fit grammatically into the sentence and quite a few of them will make some sense. Plugging them in to see which
one “sounds” right, is just what ETS wants you to do. Sooner or later, with this approach, they will temp you into a wrong answer. Instead, stay with the sentence until the story becomes clear and then come up with your own word for the blank. If you don’t know exactly what word will fit, at least figure out whether the word in the blank will change the direction of the sentence or keep it the same.
Step 5—POE
Keep your hand moving. Do not do this process in your head. That leads to mental stress and unnecessary mistakes. Park your thinking on your scratch paper.
Step 6—Rinse and Repeat
Repeat this process for each blank. Remember that some blanks will test vocabulary, but others will test comprehension. Often the information you need for one blank may happen to be another blank. For this you will need to identify the relationship between the blanks. That may seem like a long process, but it’s really just a way of thinking. Find the story. Play close attention to trigger words. Come up with
words for the blank or establish direction. Keep the hand moving and eliminate.
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