English · Vocabulary in context
Redacted Files
Four words have been censored. Decode each one using the clues around it.
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Why this works
A censored word is never a guess, because the sentence around it has already narrowed the answer to one. The method has three steps. First, decide the flavour the gap needs: is this word positive or negative, mild or extreme? "Rattled like loose teeth" demands something violent, so gentle and pleasant are gone before you compare them. Second, hunt for a line that contradicts a candidate outright: the boat has gone from its mooring, so the sea cannot merely have sprinkled the steps. Third, check the register, meaning whether the word sounds like it belongs in this kind of writing about this kind of person: a keeper whose entries are ruled and dated is not careless, however tired he might be. Do those three checks and the right word is usually the only one left standing.
Helping a child through Redacted Files
Hints, least revealing first
- Never pick the word you like best. Pick the word the rest of the sentence has already forced.
- Two of the three choices are traps: one is far too mild for what is happening, one is contradicted by a line further on.
- Read past the gap before you choose. The clue is often in the next clause, not the one you are staring at.
When they finish it: “File cleared. Every word decoded.”
What usually goes wrong here
- Uses a familiar definition that does not fit the sentence.
This is the wrong answer 11+ papers are built to offer, so it is worth watching for directly: a child who does this will look confident and still lose the mark. If it keeps happening on interpret a word in context, the fix is the misunderstanding rather than more questions.
2 11+ skills this exercise practises
Each of these has its own page, with a worked example on it. 1 of the 2 names the mistake that skill attracts.
- Interpret a word in contextInfer the meaning of one word from its sentence and passage context.
- Complete a verbal context gapChoose the word that best satisfies sentence meaning and logic.
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