USING CONTEXT
When you read, there are times when you will come upon a word or phrases that you don't know. This can happen on a test, in a book, or with anything else you read. You can often use the meaning of the sentence or paragraph to help you understand the word or phrase. This is called using context.
Read the paragraph below.
The Louisiana Purchase was one of the most important events in American history. In 1803, the United States bought an enormous piece of land from France. President Thomas Jefferson sent Robert Livingston and James Monroe to France to negotiate the sale. Although they started out trying to buy just a small trading port, they eventually bought a huge area that doubled the size of the United States. The price of the purchase was $15 million, and it added 828,000 square miles of land to the United States, stretching from Louisiana to Montana.
Answer the question.
1. The Louisiana Purchase involved an enormous piece of land. An enormous piece of land is:
A. Small B. Expensive C. Dry D. Large
How to find answer:
Even if you don't know what enormous means, you can figure it out from the passage.
* Answer A, small, might be right, although it doesn't make sense with the rest of the paragraph. It's probably wrong, but let's look at the other answers.
* From the paragraph, you have no idea if enormous means "expensive." The price of the land was $15 million, but it was a lot of land. Answer B might be right, but another onemight be better. Don't choose this answer yet.
* Answer C, dry, is probably not right. There is no information in the passage that tells you about the kind of land that was bought. This answer is probably wrong.
* Answer D is large. The paragraph says that Livingston and Monroe "bought a huge area." You probably know that huge means large. Also, the Louisiana Purchase doubled the size of the United States, suggesting that enormous means large. The correct answer is D.
STRATEGY TIP: The people who make tests almost always give you enough information to answer a question correctly. Always use the information provided to answer questions.