Uncertainty and Qualifications

Objective: Understand ambiguity and choose it accurately in context.

ambiguity (noun): Uncertainty about meaning because something can reasonably be understood in more than one way. Context sentences 1. The ambiguity in the phrase “old friends and teachers” left readers unsure whether the teachers were also old. 2. By withholding the narrator’s motive, the novelist preserves an ambiguity that invites competing interpretations. 3. The committee removed the ambiguity from its deadline by specifying both the date and the time.

Objective: Understand ambivalence and choose it accurately in context.

ambivalence (noun): The experience of having conflicting feelings or attitudes toward the same thing. Context sentences 1. Mara felt ambivalence about transferring schools because she wanted new opportunities but dreaded leaving her friends. 2. The essay captures the author’s ambivalence toward fame, which offers influence while threatening privacy. 3. His ambivalence about the proposal persisted even after he understood every detail.

Objective: Understand contingency and choose it accurately in context.

contingency (noun): A possible future event or circumstance that may require a change of plans. Context sentences 1. The outdoor theater kept a tent available for the contingency of rain. 2. A careful project budget leaves some money available for an unexpected contingency. 3. The expedition leader considered equipment failure a contingency worth preparing for.

Objective: Understand caveat and choose it accurately in context.

caveat (noun): A warning or qualification that limits how a statement, recommendation, or agreement should be understood. Context sentences 1. The reviewer praised the laptop with one caveat: its battery lasted only a few hours. 2. The researcher added a caveat that the findings applied only to the volunteers who participated. 3. The grant came with a caveat requiring the money to be spent on equipment.

Objective: Understand reservation and choose it accurately in context.

reservation (noun): A doubt or concern that prevents complete acceptance or approval. Context sentences 1. My main reservation about the proposal is its reliance on volunteers who have not yet agreed to help. 2. Although the critic admired the argument, she expressed a reservation about its limited evidence. 3. The board approved the expansion despite one member’s reservation about future maintenance costs.

Objective: Understand anomaly and choose it accurately in context.

anomaly (noun): Something that differs noticeably from an established pattern or expectation. Context sentences 1. One bright yellow flower was an anomaly among the greenhouse’s rows of purple blooms. 2. The analyst investigated an anomaly in the temperature readings before changing the model. 3. In a novel where every chapter follows the same narrator, the chapter told by a stranger is an anomaly.

Objective: Understand discrepancy and choose it accurately in context.

discrepancy (noun): A difference between accounts, measurements, or records that are expected to agree. Context sentences 1. The discrepancy between the receipt and the bank statement suggested that one payment had been entered twice. 2. A discrepancy in the witnesses’ accounts concerned the color of the departing car. 3. Before publishing the table, the editor resolved the discrepancy between the total and the individual figures.

Objective: Understand inconsistency and choose it accurately in context.

inconsistency (noun): A failure of statements, actions, or standards to remain logically compatible or be applied in the same way. Context sentences 1. The essay contains an inconsistency: it first denies that exceptions exist and later lists three. 2. Students challenged the inconsistency of punishing one class for behavior permitted in another. 3. The story contains an inconsistency: two passages give different birthplaces for the same character.

Objective: Understand fallacy and choose it accurately in context.

fallacy (noun): An error in reasoning that makes an argument fail to support its conclusion. Context sentences 1. Rejecting a proposal solely because its author is unpopular is a fallacy. 2. The advertisement relies on a fallacy when it treats celebrity approval as proof of scientific effectiveness. 3. The tutor exposed the fallacy in assuming that two events occurring together must have a causal connection.

Objective: Understand counterexample and choose it accurately in context.

counterexample (noun): A specific case that shows a general claim is not always true. Context sentences 1. One successful flightless bird provides a counterexample to the claim that every bird must fly to survive. 2. The student disproved the proposed rule by finding a counterexample among the smallest numbers. 3. A single peaceful transfer of power would be a counterexample to the historian’s claim that every succession involved violence.