Question 1Easier
As used in line 36, “expected” most nearly means
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.
Study on the flyISEE UpperReading ComprehensionVocabulary in Context
Reading Comprehension
Vocabulary in Context — ISEE Upper practice questions
- 36 questions on the paper
- 68 practice questions in the app
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What this topic is
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.
Sample questions
Pick an answer to see whether it is right — nothing is saved, and nothing needs an account.
1
Leena had been told to save the rare books
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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
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eleven shelf inches, and the key hung on a
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nail behind the desk, so every book chosen
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pushed another back onto the open shelves
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where anyone could take it home. Most
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choices were obvious: a hand-bound atlas,
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a first edition with brittle pages, a book
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signed by a poet who had once lived
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nearby. Then Ms. Chen placed an ordinary
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field guide to orchard trees on the cart
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marked KEEP.
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Its green cover was faded, and the spine
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had been repaired with cloth tape. A date
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stamp on the flyleaf ran from 1961 to
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1974, thirty-one entries in violet ink,
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and the last of them sat just above a
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price of ninety cents written in the
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corner beneath the mark of the shop that
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had sold it. Inside, pencil crowded the
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margins. Some notes corrected the author’s
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descriptions—*Not this early on our
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hill*—while others simply asked questions.
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In a second hand, using blue ink, answers
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appeared between them. Oddly, several blue
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comments began halfway through a sentence,
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as if their writer had known what the
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pencil would say before reaching the end.
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“Wouldn’t a clean copy be better for the
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new room?” Leena asked.
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Ms. Chen turned a page by its corner.
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“Better for what?”
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Leena knew the answer expected of a
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volunteer: for reading. Instead, she said,
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“For showing that we take care of books.”
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Ms. Chen smiled without agreeing. She
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asked Leena to dust the guide, but not to
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erase anything. As Leena worked, the notes
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began to feel less like damage. A penciled
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complaint about an illustration was
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followed by a blue sketch correcting it.
45
Beside a paragraph on grafting, pencil
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asked, Would you risk the whole branch?
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Blue replied, *Only if you let me choose
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the tree.* The exchange was too playful
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for a lesson and too patient for an
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argument.
51
On moving day, Ms. Chen did not put the
52
guide behind glass. She left it open on a
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low table. Near closing time, two older
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women entered together. One walked
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directly to the book, while the other
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paused at the doorway and looked around as
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if measuring the room against a remembered
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one.
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The first woman touched a penciled line.
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“You gave me almost no space here,” she
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said.
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“You always asked the long questions,” the
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other answered. From her bag she took a
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blue pen, though Ms. Chen gently shook her
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head before it reached the page.
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Leena looked again at the notes that began
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in the middle of sentences. She had
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imagined one reader returning later to
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respond to another. Now she pictured two
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students bent over the same small table,
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one writing before the other had finished.
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The guide was still ordinary as a guide.
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As a record of reading together, there was
74
no cleaner copy.
Question 2Easier
As used in line 73, “record” most nearly means
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.
Every question is picked for where you are right now, wrong answers come back until they stick, and it all works offline.
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Reading Comprehension
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