SAT sentence completion practice test 1

1. Architects define a physical structure as a set of materials arranged in such a way that these materials can ------- the downward pull of gravity.

A. mimic
B. resist
C. amplify
D. dislodge
E. demonstrate

2. Just when the senator's opponent had ------- the lead in popularity polls, public opinion -------; as a result, the incumbent senator regained her front-runner position.

A. taken . . stabilized
B. challenged . . waned
C. captured . . shifted
D. conceded . . vacillated
E. relinquished . . changed

3. Any biographer of this playwright, who assumed an elaborate public facade in order to conceal private concerns, must examine the impulse behind such -------.

A. artifice
B. joviality
C. conceit
D. disbelief
E. erudition

4. It is said that as a legal team Charles Houston and Thurgood Marshall complemented each other thoroughly: Houston's sedate manner was ------- Marshall's -------.

A. analagous to . . trepidation
B. commensurate with . . formality
C. tempered by . . jocularity
D. adverse to . . gregariousness
E. superseded by . . inquisitiveness

5. Conflicting standards for allowable radiation levels in foods made ------- appraisals of the damage to crops following the reactor meltdown extremely difficult.

A. reliable
B. private
C. intrusive
D. conscious
E. inflated

6. The student's feelings about presenting the commencement address were -------; although visibly happy to have been chosen, he was nonetheless ------- about speaking in public.

A. positive . . insecure
B. euphoric . . hopeful
C. unknown . . modest
D. ambivalent . . anxious
E. restrained . . confident

7. Alice Walker's The Temple of My Familiar, far from being a tight, ------- narrative, is instead ------- novel that roams freely and imaginatively over a half-million years.

A. traditional . . a chronological
B. provocative . . an insensitive
C. forceful . . a concise
D. focused . . an expansive
E. circuitous . . a discursive

8. In a society that abhors -------, the nonconformist is persistently -------.

A. creativity . . glorified
B. rebelliousness . . suppressed
C. insurgency . . heeded
D. smugness . . persecuted
E. stagnation . . denigrated

9. The board members, accustomed to the luxury of being chauffeured to corporate meetings in company limousines, were predictably ------- when they learned that this service had been -------.

A. satisfied . . annulled
B. stymied . . extended
C. displeased . . upheld
D. disgruntled . . suspended
E. concerned . . provided

10. Both by ------- and by gender, American painter Mary Cassatt was an -------, because her artistic peers were Frenchmen.

A. background . . amateur
B. citizenship . . intellectual
C. nationality . . anomaly
D. style . . advocate
E. skill . . expert

11. Only if business continues to expand can it ------- enough new jobs to make up for those that will be ------- by automation.

A. produce . . required
B. invent . . introduced
C. create . . eliminated
D. repeal . . reduced
E. formulate . . engendered

12. Trinkets intended to have only ------- appeal can exist virtually forever in landfills because of the ------- of some plastics.

A. arbitrary . . scarcity
B. theoretical . . resilience
C. ephemeral . . durability
D. obsessive . . fragility
E. impetuous . . cheapness

13. The editor expected her reporters to be -------, but the number of ------- in the articles submitted clearly showed that her expectations were often not met.

A. impartial . . clichés
B. frank . . predictions
C. decisive . . facts
D. creative . . errors
E. accurate . . misquotations

14. Many people find Stanley Jordan's music not only entertaining but also -------; listening to it helps them to relax and to ------- the tensions they feel at the end of a trying day.

A. soothing . . heighten
B. therapeutic . . alleviate
C. sweet . . underscore
D. exhausting . . relieve
E. interesting . . activate

15. Instead of presenting a balanced view of both sides of the issue, the speaker became increasingly -------, insisting on the correctness of his position.

A. inarticulate
B. dogmatic
C. elliptical
D. tactful
E. ambiguous