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Vocabulary in Context — ISEE Upper practice questions

Vocabulary in Context on the ISEE Upper Reading Comprehension section tests whether a student can infer the meaning of a word from how it is used in a passage. The student has to go back to the cited line, read nearby sentences, and pick the sense that fits that usage rather than the most common definition. Items typically ask what a word most nearly means as used in a given line. Answer choices are usually four single words or short phrases that are all plausible synonyms in isolation. A frequent trap is choosing a familiar meaning that does not work in the author's sentence.

  • Section: Reading Comprehension 36 questions on the paper
  • 68 practice questions in the app

Sample questions

The Notes Between

1
Leena had been told to save the rare books
2
first. The neighborhood reading room was
3
moving into a renovated building, and she
4
was helping Ms. Chen decide what belonged
5
in the display cabinet. Its glass held
6
eleven shelf inches, and the key hung on a
7
nail behind the desk, so every book chosen
8
pushed another back onto the open shelves
9
where anyone could take it home. Most
10
choices were obvious: a hand-bound atlas,
11
a first edition with brittle pages, a book
12
signed by a poet who had once lived
13
nearby. Then Ms. Chen placed an ordinary
14
field guide to orchard trees on the cart
15
marked KEEP.
 
16
Its green cover was faded, and the spine
17
had been repaired with cloth tape. A date
18
stamp on the flyleaf ran from 1961 to
19
1974, thirty-one entries in violet ink,
20
and the last of them sat just above a
21
price of ninety cents written in the
22
corner beneath the mark of the shop that
23
had sold it. Inside, pencil crowded the
24
margins. Some notes corrected the author's
25
descriptions—*Not this early on our
26
hill*—while others simply asked questions.
27
In a second hand, using blue ink, answers
28
appeared between them. Oddly, several blue
29
comments began halfway through a sentence,
30
as if their writer had known what the
31
pencil would say before reaching the end.
 
32
"Wouldn't a clean copy be better for the
33
new room?" Leena asked.
 
34
Ms. Chen turned a page by its corner.
35
"Better for what?"
 
36
Leena knew the answer expected of a
37
volunteer: for reading. Instead, she said,
38
"For showing that we take care of books."
 
39
Ms. Chen smiled without agreeing. She
40
asked Leena to dust the guide, but not to
41
erase anything. As Leena worked, the notes
42
began to feel less like damage. A penciled
43
complaint about an illustration was
44
followed by a blue sketch correcting it.
45
Beside a paragraph on grafting, pencil
46
asked, Would you risk the whole branch?
47
Blue replied, *Only if you let me choose
48
the tree.* The exchange was too playful
49
for a lesson and too patient for an
50
argument.
 
51
On moving day, Ms. Chen did not put the
52
guide behind glass. She left it open on a
53
low table. Near closing time, two older
54
women entered together. One walked
55
directly to the book, while the other
56
paused at the doorway and looked around as
57
if measuring the room against a remembered
58
one.
 
59
The first woman touched a penciled line.
60
"You gave me almost no space here," she
61
said.
 
62
"You always asked the long questions," the
63
other answered. From her bag she took a
64
blue pen, though Ms. Chen gently shook her
65
head before it reached the page.
 
66
Leena looked again at the notes that began
67
in the middle of sentences. She had
68
imagined one reader returning later to
69
respond to another. Now she pictured two
70
students bent over the same small table,
71
one writing before the other had finished.
72
The guide was still ordinary as a guide.
73
As a record of reading together, there was
74
no cleaner copy.

Question 1

As used in line 36, “expected” most nearly means

  1. Apredicted as the most likely future result.
  2. Bconsidered proper or required in a role.
  3. Cawaited with interest or eagerness.
  4. Dassumed to occur at a scheduled time.
Show answer

Answer: B — considered proper or required in a role.

Leena thinks a volunteer is supposed to favor an unmarked copy, making the word about a role's perceived requirement.

Question 2

As used in line 73, “record” most nearly means

  1. Aan account preserved as evidence of an event.
  2. Bthe best performance officially achieved.
  3. Ca captured sound or image stored for replay.
  4. Da published collection of musical performances.
Show answer

Answer: A — an account preserved as evidence of an event.

The marked guide preserves evidence of the women's shared reading and therefore serves as an account of it.

Practice 68 Vocabulary in Context questions in the app

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