Vocabulary College Prep Advanced — Set 4: Practice flashcards
6 of 33 questions free to study here · 9 topics · the whole deck is built into Willys
Thirty-three sentence-completion questions on the Set 4 words: four choices, one blank, context clues that settle it, and why the most tempting wrong answer fails.
Practice deck · part of Vocabulary Level 9 · College Prep Advanced · written against: Our own grade placement (VOCABULARY-PLAN.md): word frequency (wordfreq, CC BY-SA 4.0) and editorial review; no publisher's grade or word list is reproduced. Updated 2026-10-10.
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By the end of his two-week visit, even fussy Aunt Lorna had to admit that her nephew's manners were ______: he cleared every plate, kept his room spotless and never once lectured her own children about their sloppier habits.
A) priggish
B) obstreperous
C) censorious
D) irreproachableD) irreproachableCharacter & Behavior
Manners that even a fussy aunt could not fault are irreproachable. Priggish is tempting because he behaved so correctly, but priggish means smugly proper and looking down on others who are less correct, and he never once lectured his cousins about their habits. -
Emeka took his first job at the zoo expecting to cuddle baby animals, but he was quickly ______ by the head keeper, who cheerfully handed him a shovel and pointed him toward the goat pen.
A) browbeaten
B) upbraided
C) disabused
D) reprovedC) disabusedThinking & Knowing
A keeper who hands Emeka a shovel instead of a baby animal shows him that his idea of the job was wrong: he is disabused of it. Reproved is tempting because the keeper sets him straight, but to reprove is to let someone know their behavior was wrong, and Emeka did nothing wrong; he only expected the wrong thing. -
For months after moving in, Mrs. Halloran ______ at one trifle after another in polite little emails to her architect: doorknobs a shade too brassy, a mailbox an inch too low, a cabinet latch that clicked too loudly.
A) connived
B) exulted
C) gibed
D) caviledD) caviledSpeaking & Arguing
Complaining about doorknobs a shade too brassy and a mailbox an inch too low is nitpicking over details that hardly matter: she caviled at them. Gibed is tempting because she keeps finding fault, but to gibe is to hurl mocking taunts, and her emails were polite. -
Every September the Reyes family baked enough pear crisp for the whole block, all from one ______ old tree in their yard that looked too scraggly to bear a single pear.
A) fathomless
B) effete
C) equable
D) fecundD) fecundChange & Growth
One scraggly tree that bears enough pears to feed a whole block is producing growth in abundance: fecund. Effete is tempting because the tree looks scraggly and worn out, but effete means worn out and no longer vigorous, and a tree that still bears enough pears for the whole block is far from spent. -
The first morning of summer vacation brought the cousins at Grandma's lake house ______ happiness: no alarm clocks, no homework, no chores, just pancakes on the porch and a whole lake to explore.
A) maudlin
B) peevish
C) unalloyed
D) reproachfulC) unalloyedSize & Amount
Happiness with nothing unpleasant mixed in, no alarms, homework or chores, is unalloyed. Maudlin is tempting because a summer morning at Grandma's lake house is the stuff of fond family memories, but maudlin means tearfully sentimental, often in a foolish or self-pitying way, and no one here is in tears: the cousins are simply, completely happy. -
For fifty years after inheriting the throne, the ______ of the little mountain kingdom named every judge and set every tax himself, yet he lived in a plain stone house and never sought an acre beyond its borders.
A) potentate
B) megalomaniac
C) technocrat
D) demagogueA) potentateSociety & Power
A king who alone named every judge and set every tax was a ruler with great power: a potentate. Megalomaniac is tempting because he kept so much power in his own hands, but a megalomaniac craves power or has an inflated sense of importance, and he lived plainly and never sought more land.
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Review status: Second-reader reviewed, with corrections applied.
Checked against:
- Senses, parts of speech and sense order checked against Merriam-Webster.com, the American Heritage Dictionary and the frequency-ordered Oxford, Longman and Cambridge learner's dictionaries; all definitions, notes and example sentences are original.
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