What strategy do readers use to infer or predict a word based on the context in which it appears?

• A. contextual analysis
• B. phonemic analysis
• C. morphological analysis
• D. semantic mapping

Answer: (A)

Readers use context to infer or predict an unfamiliar word by looking at surrounding words and ideas to guess its meaning and how it fits in the sentence. This strategy is called contextual analysis. It relies on cues from nearby text—such as topics, how the sentence is structured, and the clues the author gives—to narrow down what the word could be and how it works in that moment.

Phonemic analysis would focus on the sounds to figure out the word, rather than how it fits with the surrounding text. Morphological analysis looks at the parts of a word—like roots and prefixes—to determine meaning, not necessarily how the word functions in a specific sentence. Semantic mapping involves connecting ideas across the text to understand meaning and relationships, rather than guessing a specific word based on context.