Lesson: Sentence Completion - 13

Sentence Completion Structural Key Points

Similarity

In a sentence fitting this pattern, one part describes something similar to something described in another part of the sentence. Here’s a single-blank example:

Example

Solved Example

Explaination

The sentence’s first two words (“Just as”) tell you that the two parts of the sentence are describing similar situations. Musicians during Bach’s time reacted to the organ the same way that musicians in the 1970s reacted to the synthesizer. Since the sentence indicates that musicians of the 1970s “were amazed by” the synthesizer, the words for the blank should express something similar about the reaction to the organ. Only marveled at provides the similarity.The correct answer is (B).

Here are some other words and phrases that act as similarity signposts:

as	similarly
in the same way	by the same token
like	not unlike
likewise

Try redrafting the sentence about synthesizers using each of these signposts instead of the phrase Just as. You’ll notice that some words work only for beginning the first clause and others work only for beginning the second clause. Back Next

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