Which is a good strategy to understand an unfamiliar word in a paragraph?

• A. Read only the title
• B. Look at the capital letters
• C. Skip the word and continue
• D. Use surrounding words to predict its meaning

Answer: (D)

Understanding an unfamiliar word comes from using clues in the surrounding sentences. When you read, the words around the hard term often describe it, give a synonym, or show an opposite idea. These context clues help you guess what the word means without stopping to look it up. For example, if a sentence says, “The air was crisp after the rain, and the forest smelled fresh,” you can tell that crisp describes the air as cool and clear, because those ideas are in the same sentence. You can check your guess by seeing if a word you chose fits smoothly in place of the unknown word throughout the sentence.

This approach is helpful because it uses information that’s already in the paragraph and keeps you moving through the text. Reading only the title, noticing capital letters, or skipping the word wouldn’t give you the same understanding or keep the flow of reading intact.