Sentence Completion Strategies

　　Sentence Completions are sentences with one or two blanks that you must complete.

　　Peterson's Technique for Sentence Completions:

　　Look ahead: read the sentence and predict an answer

　　Make your choice: decide which answer choice best fits the blank or blanks

　　Read it back: verify your answer by plugging it back into the sentence

　　The most common types of Sentence Completions are:

　　Green Light

　　U-turn

　　S-curve

　　Green Light

　　These Sentence Completions go "straight ahead."

　　For example:

　　Everyone in the class respected Melissa, who received an award for her ---- contributions.

　　In the above sentence, the missing word will agree with the theme of "respect," so you'll look for something positive.

　　U-turn

　　These sentence completions start in one direction, but then go in the other direction.

　　For example:

　　Everyone in the class respected Melissa, so they were surprised to learn of her ---- activities.

　　This time, the word "surprise" lets you know that her activities weren't what they expected. They respect her, so the missing word will be something negative.

　　S-curve

　　These sentences reverse course more than once.

　　For example:

　　No one in the class had a(n)---- opinion of Melissa, so they were surprised to learn of her ---- activities.

　　This time, we can't tell whether the words will be positive or negative. But they'll either be both positive or both negative. These are the hardest Sentence Completions.

　　Peterson's Technique for Two-Blank Sentence Completions

　　Look Ahead: Read the sentence to yourself and make a prediction for the EASIER blank.

　　Make Your Choices: Decide which choices you can eliminate from the second blank.

　　Read it Back: Read back each of the remaining choices, picking the one that works for both blanks. After you eliminate a choice, don't look at it again! Trust your judgment and you will save yourself a lot of time. Remember to read the entire sentence back to yourself again, though, just to make sure.