Passing the Police Officer Exam: Synonym questions

The fifth type of uncommon question that sometimes appears on the Police Officer Exam is the synonym question.  Each of these questions will ask you to identify a word that has the same meaning as an underlined word in the sentence or identify the word that correctly completes a sentence.  These questions are similar to the reading comprehension questions that are designed to assess your vocabulary except that these questions are related to a single sentence instead of an entire passage.  Most versions of the Police Officer Exam use reading comprehension questions instead of synonym questions so you will probably not see very many, if any, of these questions on the exam.  However, just in case these questions do appear, there are several approaches to these questions that you may want to keep in mind.
 
Understand the sentence
Get an idea of what the sentence actually means and how the word that you need to define fits into the sentence.  Ask yourself 'What is this sentence saying?' and 'What does this word have to do with the idea that the sentence is trying to convey?'  
 
Example: A sentence reads:'According to the report, the young woman was waylaid by a man that jumped out of a bush with a knife.'  
 Options include: (A) Ambushed(B) Advised(C) Hugged(D) Shot
 
The sentence is talking about a woman being attacked since a man with a knife jumped out of a bush and did something to her so you are looking for a word that seems to fit with an attack.  Obviously, options B and C do not fit with an attack because most attackers do not offer advice or hug their victims so these options are incorrect in this particular example.  Options A and D both fit with the theme of an attack, but, since people are not shot with a knife, Option A is the correct answer because it is the only option that fits the sentence.
 
Omit the word
If you are having difficulty, read the sentence without the word that you are attempting to define.  Then read the sentence with each of the options in place of the term that was originally in the sentence.  This will allow you see which option seems to fit the overall meaning of the sentence.  
 
Example: Read the example above as 'According to the report, the young woman was ____________ by a man that jumped out of a bush with a knife.'  
 
Fill the blank with the options above: 'According to the report, the young woman was ambushed by a man that jumped out of a bush with a knife' or 'According to the report, the young woman was advised by a man that jumped out of a bush with a knife.'  
 
Similarity to reading comprehension
Synonym questions that ask you to define a term included in a sentence are very similar to the reading comprehension questions on the exam that ask you to define a term in a passage.  Use these techniques to answer any definition question on the exam whether it is associated with a passage or a single sentence.  The only major difference is that you won't need to go looking for the sentence for the synonym questions because the sentence will be right in front of you instead of being hidden in a passage.
 
Missing word
Some of the synonym questions may ask you to identify a single word that completes a sentence (rather than asking you to define a word within the sentence).  In this case, if there is only one word missing, read the sentence as though there was no word missing, looking for the meaning of the sentence.  This will allow you to figure out the type of word that is missing from the sentence.  Then read the sentence with each of the options to determine if that option seems to be the type of word that completes the sentence.
 
Multiple words
Some of the synonym questions that sometimes appear on the exam may ask you to identify more than one word that completes the sentence.  Read these sentences with the first word in each option as if it appeared in the first blank.  This eliminates the incorrect options very quickly.  If the sentence doesn't make sense with the first word in the first blank, it is safe to assume that the option is incorrect.  Once you have identified all of the incorrect options, you can then place the second word from the possible options into the sentence to determine which option makes sense when both words are placed into the sentence.