SAT® · Reading and Writing: Craft and Structure
Connotation as the Tiebreaker Between Two Defensible Words
When two words fit a sentence's meaning equally well, the sentence's own attitude toward its subject tells you which one is correct: its connotation, not its definition, breaks the tie.
Many words share a core definition but carry different charges. Thrifty, frugal, and cheap all mean someone spends carefully, but thrifty praises, cheap sneers, and frugal mostly just describes. A sentence calling a politician admirable needs the praising word even though all three would technically fit the blank. This is why these questions often give you three or four choices that are near-synonyms: the test isn't checking whether you know what the word means, it's checking whether you can hear how the sentence feels about the thing being described.
To find the charge a blank must carry, read the sentence for its verdict on the subject, not just its topic. Look for a verb or phrase that already judges: praised, admires without softening, condemns, celebrates. That judgment sets the charge the blank has to match. A negative word isn't automatically wrong in a sentence about something admirable, because some admirable qualities are hard or sharp by nature. Calling someone unsparing is still a compliment if the sentence is admiring her honesty even when it stings.
Irony flips this rule instead of breaking it. When an author's real attitude runs opposite to the words on the page, the blank should carry the charge the author does not actually mean, so the brightest word lands on top of the bleakest facts. This topic sits alongside the other word-in-context questions in the domain: both ask you to use everything around the blank, but here the deciding clue is tone rather than logic or grammar.
Key terms
- Connotation
- The positive, negative, or neutral feeling a word carries beyond its literal definition.
- Charge
- Shorthand for whether a word leans approving, disapproving, or neutral in tone.
- Near-synonym
- A word that shares a core definition with another word but differs in tone or shade of meaning.
- Irony
- A gap between what a sentence says and what the author actually means, which flips the expected charge of a word.
Watch it explained
- How it worksHow does the positive, negative or neutral charge of a word decide between two definitions that both fit?
- How it worksHow do you read a sentence's own attitude toward its subject to find the charge a blank has to carry?
- Worked exampleFind which fits 'The committee praised her ______ handling of the crisis': shrewd, cunning, or calculating.
- Common mistakeWhy isn't a negatively charged word automatically wrong when a sentence describes something admirable?
- Going furtherWhat changes about connotation when an author is being ironic about the thing being described?
Check yourself
End of topic.