Vocabulary in context on the Grade 10 ELA MCAS: using context clues (definition, example, contrast, and inference from surrounding sentences) to determine the meaning of an unfamiliar or multiple-meaning word as it is used in the passage, and choosing the meaning that fits the sentence rather than the most common definition.

What this skill is asking

Vocabulary in context is the MCAS way of testing word knowledge: instead of asking for a dictionary definition in isolation, the test gives you a word in a passage and asks what it means as used there. You determine the meaning from context clues, the surrounding words and sentences, and choose the meaning that fits, which is often not the most common definition. Many of these are two-part items: Part A asks for the meaning, Part B asks for the clue that establishes it. The skill students lose points on is picking the most familiar meaning of a multiple-meaning word without checking the context, or guessing from the look of a word rather than reading around it. This page covers the kinds of context clues, the discipline of testing a meaning in the sentence, and handling multiple-meaning words. The transferable skill is reading a word the way the passage uses it, not the way you first assume.

The kinds of context clues

The first move is to know what to look for around the word.

Each clue type points you to the meaning a different way, so scan the sentence and the ones around it before choosing. A restatement clue may hand you a synonym; a contrast clue tells you the word means roughly the opposite of something nearby; an example clue lets you infer the category. When no single clue is obvious, the broader logic of the passage still constrains the meaning, because a word has to make sense where it sits. Reading for the clue, not the dictionary, is the whole method.

Multiple-meaning words and testing the fit

This is why a vocabulary item is really a close-reading item: the answer lives in the sentence, not in your memory. When two answer choices both seem possible, the deciding factor is which one the clues actually support, and substitution settles it. The same alertness to how words shift meaning helps with figurative and connotative meaning, where a word carries more than its plain sense, and with precise word choice in your own writing, where you pick the word that fits the exact meaning you intend.

Working a vocabulary-in-context item

Try this

Q1. What does "vocabulary in context" ask you to do, and where is the answer found? [Recall]

• Cue. It asks for a word's meaning as it is used in the passage; the answer is found in the context clues around the word, not in the most common dictionary definition.

Q2. In "The bridge could not bear the weight of the trucks, so it was closed," what does "bear" most nearly mean, and what clue tells you? [Short explanation]

• Cue. "Bear" means support or hold up. The clue is "the weight of the trucks" and "so it was closed", a bridge that cannot support heavy weight is closed, which fixes the meaning as support rather than carry or endure.