Vocabulary for TOEFL iBT

14 VOCABULARY FOR TOEFL iBT

while the second part essentially restates the meaning of the word. Here’s another

example of a sentence that uses these two types of context clues:

➥ Hani suddenly found himself destitute, so poor that he could barely afford

to eat.

The context clearly reveals that destitute is not a positive word; it is not a good

thing to be so poor one can barely afford to eat. The context also restates the mean-

ing of destitute, essentially defining the word within the sentence, so that you can

tell exactly what destitute means—extremely poor.

There are two other types of context clues to watch for. Read the following para-

graph as an example (but don’t look up the italicized words!):

Sarah had worked so hard for the past few weeks that she decided she owed

herself a day of complete indolence. Saturday, she slept until noon, ordered

take-out so she wouldn’t have to cook, and left the dishes in the sink. She

left her chores for another day and spent the afternoon lying on the couch,

reading and watching television. But on Sunday, she was back to her old

assiduous self, and by noon, she had already cleaned her whole apartment,

done her grocery shopping, and paid her bills.

How do you know what indolence means? From two more types of context clues:

contrast and specific detail. The first sentence suggests that indolence is in contrast

to working hard, while the second and third sentences confirm this with specific

details. Thus you can determine what indolence means. Let’s say you were given the

choices below:

a. luxurious

b. hard labor

c. deep sleep

d. laziness

The correct answer is d , laziness. The specific details tell you that Sarah did her

best to laze around the house all day. Besides, you know the other answers are incor-

rect because Sarah didn’t do anything luxurious (choice a ) and she didn’t do any

work or chores (choice b ). There’s no mention of sleep in the paragraph, so choice

c is also incorrect.

Now let’s look at the context in which assiduous is used. Again, you have two kinds

of context clues: contrast and specific detail. You know that the assiduous Sarah of