iBT Reading Question: Vocablulary - Similar Choices From the mailbag: An instructor in Uzbekistan sent us the following query: I teach TOEFL iBT, and I need your recommendations on acing the vocabulary questions in the reading section. The problem in this type of questions is the meanings of the words that are very close to each other. What can you recommend, what do we need to pay attention to? Let’s look at an example: The seeds of the counterculture had been germinating since the early 1960’s. however by end of the decade, the controversies over Vietnam, segregation, women’s rights, and the right to vote had given weight to their vision and compelled many to become more activist in their politics. In this sentence, weight can best be replaced with: a) gravity b) levity c) credence d) faith In this example, gravity seems similar to weight. Credence resembles faith. So how to choose? Generally, the best thing to do is to throw out any known wrong answers. That eliminates levity, which means humor or gaiety. Clearly, the sentence is not about humor. That still leaves us with three possibilities. credence, faith, and gravity. It is here that things get tricky. Consider both literal and figurative meanings. Consider common turns of phrase using the choices, if you know any. Consider wherein the difference may lie when words appear similar in meaning. The trick will usually lie in the s-v-o construct. Let’s look at credence vs. faith. Faith may be the more familiar. "a faith in God", "a faithful servant". Credence means believability (as the root "cred" suggests). A person has faith in something or someone, while a common turn of phrase is "lends credence to the argument..." So an argument can have credence, but a person has faith. Since "the controversies" had "given weight" to a "vision", we can eliminate faith. vision cannot have faith. So that leaves credence and gravity. Can something be given credence? Yes, an idea, concept, or vision could be given credence. Gravity seems to also fit. it looks like a substitute for heavy, and it means, figuratively, "great importance", which seems to also fit. But also consider the literal meaning. Is gravity something that is given? Or does it always exist? Something can have gravity, but it’s hard to conceive of it being given.