Explaining Relationships

Objective: Understand elucidate and choose it accurately in context.

elucidate (verb): To make a difficult idea or relationship clearer through explanation. Context sentences 1. The instructor used a diagram to elucidate how the two arguments depended on different assumptions. 2. A worked example can elucidate why the same rule produces different outcomes. 3. The essay uses a familiar household dispute to elucidate the conflict between individual freedom and shared responsibility.

Objective: Understand explicate and choose it accurately in context.

explicate (verb): To explain the meaning of a text or idea through detailed analysis of its parts. Context sentences 1. In her commentary, Maya will explicate the poem's final stanza by examining its images and unusual punctuation. 2. The assignment asks students to explicate the philosopher's argument one premise at a time. 3. To explicate the passage, the teacher traces how each repeated phrase changes meaning.

Objective: Understand articulate and choose it accurately in context.

articulate (verb): To express an idea, feeling, or position clearly in words. Context sentences 1. Before the debate, each team must articulate its position on the proposed attendance policy. 2. The interview helped Lena articulate a concern she had previously expressed only through frustrated gestures. 3. A strong introduction should articulate the question that connects the essay's examples.

Objective: Understand delineate and choose it accurately in context.

delineate (verb): To describe or mark the exact features, limits, or divisions of something. Context sentences 1. The agreement will delineate which decisions belong to the student committee and which require faculty approval. 2. Use separate colors to delineate the regions assigned to each survey team. 3. The report should delineate the stages of the review process, including where one stage ends and the next begins.

Objective: Understand contextualize and choose it accurately in context.

contextualize (verb): To explain something by relating it to the circumstances or background surrounding it. Context sentences 1. The introduction will contextualize the fictional mayor's speech by describing the crisis that prompted it. 2. To contextualize the diary entry, the editor explains the writer's relationship with its intended reader. 3. The curator uses photographs of the original workshop to contextualize the tools on display.

Objective: Understand characterize and choose it accurately in context.

characterize (verb): To describe the distinctive qualities or nature of someone or something. Context sentences 1. The reviewer uses the protagonist's repeated evasions to characterize him as unreliable. 2. Researchers in the classroom simulation will characterize each sample by its texture, flexibility, and appearance. 3. The essay will characterize the partnership as cooperative but unequal.

Objective: Understand differentiate and choose it accurately in context.

differentiate (verb): To recognize or explain the differences between things. Context sentences 1. The lesson helps students differentiate a speaker's stated opinion from the evidence offered to support it. 2. Small differences in the seals allow collectors to differentiate the two editions. 3. The analyst must differentiate temporary delays from recurring failures before recommending changes.

Objective: Understand reconcile and choose it accurately in context.

reconcile (verb): To make apparently conflicting ideas, accounts, or demands consistent or compatible. Context sentences 1. The historian tries to reconcile the two accounts by checking whether their dates refer to different stages of the journey. 2. A revised schedule could reconcile the club's need for rehearsal time with the library's need for quiet. 3. The final paragraph must reconcile the essay's claim of broad agreement with its examples of continuing disagreement.

Objective: Understand synthesize and choose it accurately in context.

synthesize (verb): To combine information or ideas from different sources into a coherent new whole. Context sentences 1. The conclusion should synthesize the interview findings and survey responses into a single explanation. 2. Our team will synthesize several design proposals to create a plan that draws on the strongest features of each. 3. The essay asks readers to synthesize insights from economics and literature when considering the fictional town's choices.

Objective: Understand juxtapose and choose it accurately in context.

juxtapose (verb): To place things close together so their similarities or differences become noticeable. Context sentences 1. The exhibit will juxtapose early sketches with finished paintings so visitors can compare the artist's choices. 2. Writers sometimes juxtapose a character's confident speech with a description of trembling hands. 3. The presentation will juxtapose the two proposed layouts on a single slide to reveal their different uses of space.