Using context clues is a strategy for understanding a sentence when you don’t understand all the vocabulary in that text. The activities below can help you test and improve your ability to use context clues.  

A note for instructors: These exercises are designed to gradually get more difficult (Exercise 1 is easier than Exercise 2) for ELL students. Non-ELL students may find the reverse to be true. Essentially, Exercise 1 focusses on using grammatical context clues while Exercise 3 focusses on using denotation and connotation elsewhere in the sentence as context clues. Exercise 2 incorporates both. 

Academic Strategist