Graduate Record Examinations Vocabulary: Description

Smoke from the sealed kiln drove the rakes aside in the charcoal yard outside Red Creek. Jonah Pell got his sleeve over his mouth once the fume turned acrid halfway across the cinder pad. Which sensation is climbing into the crew's throats?

The smoke stings and bites on the way in. Acrid is the word for an odor sharp enough to irritate the throat.

Tipped in a glass tray in the cold room at Moss Harbor Marine Lab, the salp slumped into a new outline every time Doctor Inez Calder breathed on the water. She wrote amorphous on the slate and set her species sketch aside. Why did one fixed drawing fail her?

The animal slumps into a new outline whenever the tray moves. Amorphous fits a body whose outline keeps changing.

Three strokes of vine charcoal, above the chandlery on Duluth's waterfront, fixed Ellison's profile on Leo Hart's sheet. Ellison asked that the aquiline hook from brow to lip be left alone. Which contour is Hart under orders to keep?

Hart is to leave the strong downward hook of the nose. An aquiline nose curves like an eagle's beak.

Before Adele Cho struck a match in the cedar loft behind her Santa Fe shop, a customer on the stair called up to ask what was cooking. The split piñon threw an aromatic cloud far enough to reach the stair. What left the loft and reached the stair?

Dried piñon sends a pleasant scent far enough to reach a customer on the stairs. Something that fragrant is aromatic.

Forty minutes after the collision on Route 9, the dome light showed a face with the color washed out of it. Paramedic Ruth Okonkwo noted the skin ashen against the red seatbelt and called for a second set of vitals. How should that face be pictured?

Shock has washed the face to a pale gray. Ashen names that drained, ash-colored look.

One drop of witch hazel reached Nia Brooks's lip while she loaded cotton pads in the compounding room of the King Street pharmacy. Astringent on the lip, the witch hazel tightened her mouth before she capped the bottle. On contact with the lip, the witch hazel produces which feeling?

The drop draws the lip tight and dry. Astringent names a liquid that puckers the tissues.

Oak-gall ink from the bottle in the library annex manuscript room dried darker than the printed caption beside it. Seth Lang held the vellum scrap to the north window and called the stroke atramentous. How dark is the line he laid down?

Oak-gall ink dries a deep, inky black. Atramentous is that kind of darkness.

Vines, shells, and small gilded faces crowded the wooden case Clara Nguyen was brushing inside the pipe chamber at Saint Brigid's. She shifted the headlamp twice while tracing that baroque carving. What manner of ornament surrounds the pipes?

Vines, shells, and gilded faces crowd every inch. Baroque ornament is extravagantly elaborate.

A thumb along the hand mirror in Pavel Ruiz's Water Street frame shop met a polished slope running down to the felt. He told the apprentice the beveled edge was safe to set into the rabbet. How was that rim finished?

The edge is a sloping polished face. A beveled edge is cut on a slant.

Dark bars crossed the tan coat of the goat Elena Marquez knelt beside on the ridge above the Rio Puerco. She entered the animal as brindled in the herd book so the solid-colored kids would stay distinct. What pattern did she record?

Dark streaks cross the goat's tan hair. A brindled coat carries that barred pattern.

Green hills and a painted fence rolled across the canvas on the paint deck of the Omaha theater. Priya Raman wanted the drop to read as bucolic before any actor mentioned a farm. What impression should those hills give the audience?

The painted fence and green slopes are meant to look like quiet countryside. A bucolic scene has that peaceful rural look.

Wider than its pot, the new growth in the succulent house of the city botanical garden swelled and then narrowed above the soil. Helen Duarte measured it and wrote bulbous on the tag. What form has the cactus stem taken?

The cactus swells into a round bulge and then narrows. Bulbous names that ball-like, swollen shape.

Under the lamp in the museum metals lab, a band of light traveled the breastplate as Tessa Quinn rocked it on the padded rest. Hours of rouge had left the steel burnished, bright enough to show the ceiling grid. The rouge left the breastplate with which surface?

Hours of rubbing have brought the steel to a bright polish. A burnished surface gleams from that kind of work.

Half-levels, locked cages, and numbers that restarted at every stair turned Omar Haddad around in the stack tunnels under the county records building. He had already searched the range he came out in, lost in a byzantine shelving plan. Why is a single file so easy to lose down there?

Half-levels, locked cages, and restarted numbers tangle the stacks. A byzantine layout is intricately complicated.

Twenty drum cadences collided in the rehearsal hangar, and Luis Ortega still could not pick his own snare out of them with one earpiece off. He logged the room as cacophonous and sent half the lines outside. Inside the rehearsal hangar, the mixed cadences strike the ear as which sort of noise?

Twenty cadences at once make a harsh jumble. Cacophonous noise is a confused clash of sounds.

In the hospital solarium, the water glass made the patient's wrist look still thinner beside the linen. Medical illustrator June Park waited until he settled, then drew the arm as cadaverous, cheeks fallen in above it. How will that body read on her page?

The wrist is wasted and the face hollow. Cadaverous describes a gaunt, corpselike appearance.

From a single concrete anchor on the Pittsburgh bank, the river-walk path reached out over the water with no post at the outer end. Grace Lin, on a creeper underneath with a flashlight, confirmed the cantilevered span. From the bank anchor alone, the path over the water is held in which manner?

The path reaches over the water from one anchor on the bank. A cantilevered structure is supported at one side while the rest projects free.

Black swallowed one side of the face and white burned the other in the wet print Naomi Berg pinned up in her north-light studio. She called the portrait chiaroscuro and refused to soften it in the fixer. What contrast is she protecting?

One side of the face drops into black while the other burns white. Chiaroscuro is that strong contrast of light and dark.

Dust from the cinder slope grayed the sample vial Kenji Sato held up to a pale sky. Cinereous dust, the color of a fire gone cold, covered the ground from the ridge to his boots. Which hue is he standing on?

The cinders are the gray of a fire gone cold. Cinereous means ash-gray.

Tuberose sweetness pushed Mei Laurent from the flower cooler onto the loading dock after a single breath. A cloying sweetness from that small refrigerated room stayed on her coat. Why did she step outside so fast?

The tuberoses are so heavily sweet that the cooler becomes unpleasant. A cloying scent is sweetness past the point of pleasure.

Shadows sat in a grid of deep wooden panels over the lobby of the old customs house. Daniel Okoye tipped his head back until his hat brim fell, counting the coffered squares. What construction is he studying overhead?

Deep wooden panels repeat overhead, each holding a shadow. A coffered ceiling is built as that recessed grid.

Cloth, resin, and a foam core came together under Anika Shah's roller in the layup shed. She counted six layers and told the crew the racing shell's skin would be composite once it cured. Cloth, resin, and foam are being combined into a skin by which method?

Cloth, resin, and a foam core cure into one hull. Building from those materials joined as a single skin is what composite means.

A gloved finger lost the groove halfway around the preserved brain under the lamp in the neuroanatomy lab. Doctor Paul Ike called the surface convoluted and started the trace again at the stem. What course do those folds take?

The grooves wind and turn back into themselves. A convoluted form twists and doubles over.

Chalk marked a new waist number in Victor Hale's fitting room after yesterday's pattern failed to meet at the buttons. Around his corpulent client, the tape had to travel farther than the old card allowed. Why does the waistcoat need a fresh pattern?

The tape has to travel a long way around a large, heavy body. Corpulent names that substantial stoutness.

Ridge after ridge flexed under Samir Patel's boots as he walked the warehouse roof at the port toward the gutter. Corrugated ridges ran the length of every sheet, fasteners sitting in the valleys. What texture is he walking on?

Ridge follows ridge, with fasteners down in the valleys. Corrugated metal is bent into regular waves.

Points of light jumped to the wall opposite Lila Goldberg's bench each time she turned the diamond under the north window. On the dop the stone kept coruscating, and she stopped the wheel to watch one flash travel. What does the turning stone do with the sun?

Each turn throws points of light onto the opposite wall. Coruscating light sparkles and flashes.

Noses and shelves of rock broke the cliff into a route a rope team would have to wander. Spray off the Oregon surf wet Nora Blake's notebook while she mapped the face as craggy from the tide line up. Nora's map is recording a rock face with which character?

Noses and shelves of rock break the wall above the surf. A craggy face is rugged and rocky.

Tree trunks flattened and the cypress water lost its color while Andre Cole waited on the boardwalk. He wrote crepuscular beside the herons and kept them in his notebook until full dark. Which part of the day is that light?

Color has left the water and the trunks have gone flat. Crepuscular light is the dimness of dusk or dawn.

Spots of sun moved across Yuki Tanaka's sleeves, the crate, and the fallen fruit under the apple trees. Late-day light came through the leaves in a dappled scatter he could not brush off. How is sunlight reaching the orchard floor?

Spots of brightness and shade shift over the grass and the fallen fruit. Dappled names a surface marked with those patches of light.

Every bolt hitch shook the freight cage Carla Mendes rode to the third floor of the old grain mill. Decrepit in every bolt, the lift had a gate wired shut and a motor smelling of hot dust. What condition did that ride reveal?

The cage hitches at every bolt on the way up. Decrepit names something worn out and weakened by long use.

The fern stem ticked against the sheet when Owen Price slid it from the herbarium cabinet. Decades on dry paper had left the specimen desiccated, brown where the living plant had been supple. What have those years done to the fern?

The stem is brown and stiff where a living fern would bend. Desiccated means dried out, the moisture gone.

Work light in the wardrobe loft showed Leila Hassan's fingers through the stage veil. Diaphanous as a gray mist, the cloth would leave the actor's face visible from the third row. How much will that veil conceal?

The gray cloth lets light and the actor's features through. Diaphanous fabric is sheer enough to see through.

Paint on the riverside cottage porch hid the damage until Tom Reyes put a boot down and felt the board go soft. The flood left a dilapidated house, one corner sagging and a shutter hanging by a single hinge. What state is the cottage in?

A corner sags and a shutter hangs on one hinge. Dilapidated names a building that has fallen into serious ruin.

Altos held their note against the sopranos in the choir practice room until several singers winced. Maya Chen cut them off and called the interval discordant. Why did those singers flinch?

The two held notes clash. Discordant tones conflict with each other.

Overtones beat against each other after Ivan Petrov struck the chord in his rented piano studio. He marked the measure dissonant and left it unresolved on purpose. What harmonic effect is he keeping?

The overtones beat and the harmony feels unfinished. Dissonant harmony is tense and unsettled.

Fan-shaped oak pins showed against the maple when Hana Suzuki held the drawer corner to the wood-shop window. Dovetailed pins held the joint in a fit she could trace at the window. Oak pins and maple sides meet through which fastening?

Fan-shaped pins lock the boards. A dovetailed corner is joined by those interlocking wedges.

Sanding stopped in the next room after Marco Bellini drew one bow across the open string in his small workroom. The note came out dulcet, and the apprentice stayed quiet to hear it die. What quality did that stroke have?

The note is sweet and gentle. A dulcet sound is soothing to hear.

Fine bubbles climbed the beaker and popped at the rim after Doctor Sofia Alvarez tipped powder in at the chemistry bench. The mixture had turned effervescent before she set the spoon down. Bubbles at the rim are evidence of which behavior in the beaker?

Fine bubbles rush up and pop at the rim. An effervescent liquid fizzes.

The bay went white when Ben Carter pulled the cloth off the lens in the lighthouse lamp room. An effulgent beam edged the gulls on the rail with fire. Across the bay, the uncovered lens sends light that behaves in which way?

Light pours across the bay in a fierce brightness. Effulgent light shines outward with great brilliance.

A hospital blanket looked too large across the chest in the recovery ward when Nurse Farah Iqbal turned the wristband toward the lamp. Emaciated after the illness, he showed bone under the skin of the forearm. What has illness done to his frame?

Bone stands out along the forearm. Emaciated means extremely thin, the flesh wasted away.

Fingertips could read the title with eyes shut after Edith Marsh lifted the cover from the finishing press in the bindery. Raking light showed the letters embossed, standing proud of the leather. A fingertip with eyes closed can read the title for which reason?

The words stand proud of the leather in the raking light. Embossed letters are raised in relief.

White shoots flopped over the crate rim when Felix Moreau carried the potatoes up from the root cellar into full sun. They were etiolated, long and white and floppy beside the short green stems in the garden bed. Beside the garden stems, the cellar shoots show which appearance?

They are long, white, and floppy after growing in the dark cellar. Etiolated growth is pale and spindly from lack of light.

A short peal left the bell tower and came back off the brick school across the street. Agnes Holt called the combination euphonious and copied it onto the Sunday list. Coming back off the school, the peal has which effect on the ear?

The bells are pleasing in the street. Euphonious sound is agreeable to the ear.

Flat planes had replaced the dull pebble surface by the time Chris Adelman stopped the faceting machine. He wiped the garnet with a wet finger and saw it faceted all the way around. What now covers the stone?

Flat planes cover the stone. A faceted surface is cut into those small faces.

Heat lifting from the storm drain after a week without rain turned Dee Broussard's face aside before she fully raised the grate. Fetid sweetness, rotten and heavy, stuck to the iron. Rot clinging to the iron tells Dee the drain air has which quality?

A rotten sweetness clings to the iron. Fetid air smells of decay.

Cotton threads caught the high window when Rosa Kim held a fresh sheet up at the paper-mill vat. The page looked fibrous for the moment before the press closed on it. What structure is showing in the wet sheet?

Cotton threads catch the light. Fibrous paper is full of those fibers.

A fingertip could carry the brooch, there was so much open space in the silver on Amina Diallo's bench. She soldered one more hair-thin curl and called the piece filigreed. Silver curls light enough for a fingertip belong to which craft?

Hair-thin curls leave more opening than silver. Filigreed ornament is delicate openwork.

Even channels ran from base to neck on the column shaft in the stone yard, and Peter Walsh counted them with a fingernail. Fluted channels crossed the marble at a spacing he checked against the order sheet. What was cut into the shaft?

Even channels run from base to neck. A fluted column is carved with those grooves.

A cuff pushed back in the boiler room left a black smudge on Ray Dominguez's wrist after he crawled from the shut-down furnace breech. The glove had gone fuliginous in the few minutes he spent inside. What is coating the wool?

A soft black smudges the wrist. Fuliginous means sooty, darkened by smoke.

Traffic slowed at noon in front of a motel facade Jolene Harris had just finished from the scaffold. Garish orange against a pink door made drivers squint. Drivers squinting at the orange and pink are responding to paint with which quality?

Hard orange against a pink door glares in the sun. Garish color is unpleasantly bright.

Plastic gems flashed beside sequins and gold braid when Nate Feldman spread the pageant jacket under the costume vault's dim lamps. Even there the jacket looked gaudy, and he tagged it for the exhibition of excess. Sequins and plastic gems put the pageant jacket in which decorative class?

Sequins, plastic gems, and gold braid shout even under dim lamps. Gaudy trim is showy in a cheap way.

The roll of the research skiff made the jellyfish in Doctor Camille Berger's white tray spread flat and gather again. She noted the animal as gelatinous and kept the tray shaded. What consistency does that body have?

The jellyfish quivers like a clear soft mass. Gelatinous tissue has the feel of jelly.

A thumb on the underside of a magnolia leaf in the garden's magnolia house found none of the fuzz Yusuf El-Sayed had recorded on the young shoots. He labeled the mature leaf glabrous and moved to the next branch. What is missing from that leaf?

The surface is smooth and bare. Glabrous names a leaf or skin with no hairs.

No straight line remained under Giulia Ferraro's palms on the oldest trunk in her olive grove. A century of cut branches had left the wood gnarled, knuckles standing out of the bark. What shape has that trunk taken?

Knuckles of wood stand out where branches were cut long ago. Gnarled wood is knotted and twisted.

Dawn light in the meadow erased the strand the moment Leah Cohen turned toward the sun, though she had felt it stick to her lip. The spider's line, gossamer in the dawn, showed for a moment and then vanished. How much substance does that thread have?

The spider's line is almost weightless. Gossamer is the name for something that fine and light.

Clippers hovered at the chin in the Canal Street barbershop, where white hairs lay thickest through the black. Anton Weiss turned his customer's head and called the beard grizzled before he cut. What color mix is he about to trim?

White hairs salt the black, thickest at the chin. Grizzled hair is streaked with gray.

The actor's tongue barely moved in the recording booth, yet the consonant still scraped. Helen Park stopped the tape, had him repeat the word, and marked the take guttural. Where is that sound being produced?

The sound scrapes up from low in the throat. A guttural consonant is made there, rough and deep.

A nut from the same bin matched the groove rising around the steel rod on Karim Farouk's lathe. He shut the feed off once he saw a helical cut that would seat. What path does that groove follow?

It rises in a screw-like spiral. A helical cut winds in that coil.

Both hands were required to keep the hair off the catalog notes when Wes Abebe pulled a musk-ox hide from the drawer in the museum mammal range. Hirsute hair on the hide was long enough to bury the leather tag. What covers that skin?

Long hair swallows the leather tag. Hirsute hide is thickly hairy.

Lichen and weather had left the boulder on the granite outcrop looking older than the pines around it. Doctor Bethany Crowe blew dust from her hand lens and described the crust as hoary. What gives the rock that aged look?

A pale crust lies over the granite. Hoary names a gray-white look of age.

Cell walls thinner than a fingernail showed across the cut face when Doctor Ping Zhao sawed the metal-foam sample in the materials lab. Under the scope the interior showed a honeycombed cell structure. The sawn face of the metal foam shows which interior?

Tiny cells sit wall to wall, thinner than a fingernail. A honeycombed material is full of those cavities.

The doorway marker vanished in shadow as Mia Torres signaled the crane to creep the press frame into the factory bay. The hulking frame advanced an inch at a time, wider than the painted clearance. What presence is entering that bay?

It is huge, awkward, and slow through the opening. Hulking names a bulky, ungainly form.

A lamp behind a melt sheet no thicker than a pane showed the filament clearly in the ice tunnel. Doctor Soren Lind called the ice hyaline and sketched the glassy edge. A filament showing through the melt sheet means the ice resembles which material?

The filament shows through a smooth clear edge. Hyaline material is glassy and translucent.

A loose thread matched a red that had bled into the white stripe when Ingrid Solberg unfolded the battle flag on the conservation table. She recorded the dye as incarnadine and pinned the tear for support. What hue is she matching?

The dye is a deep red that has run into the white stripe. Incarnadine means blood-red.

A gel frame curled during lighting rehearsal once Jordan Pike left it off the lamp above the singer. Incandescent and white-hot, the bare filament was too fierce for the singer's mark. With the gel off, the filament appears in which state?

The filament burns white with heat. Incandescent light glows at a very high temperature.

Pink replaced green along the scales as Mateo Brennan turned a netted trout toward the skylight over the hatchery raceway. He called the side iridescent and lowered the fish back before the color settled. As the trout meets the skylight, its color undergoes which change?

Green gives way to pink as the scales move. Iridescent color shifts with the angle of light.

Survey tape snagged twice before Nina Varga found the chalk mark she had made an hour earlier in the limestone cave. Labyrinthine passages split, looped, and dropped behind stone curtains. How is this cave laid out?

Passages split, loop, and drop behind stone. A labyrinthine place is a maze of paths.

The apprentice was waved off the tray Kenzo Mori slid from the drying cabinet. Thin coats had left the tabletop lacquered, a hard film that made the wood look wet under the dust-free lamp. What finish is on that surface?

Thin layers have built a hard coat that makes the grain look wet. A lacquered surface is sealed under that glossy film.

One sconce stayed on for Imani Rowe's night round of the museum gallery, and the far wall remained dark. Lambent over the marble limbs, the light moved softly and died before the next pedestal. Over the marble limbs, where does the sconce-light stop?

The glow moves softly and fades before the next pedestal. Lambent light flickers or glides gently across a surface.

Seen from behind the turntable in Rafael Santos's clay studio, the sitter's hair fell past the shoulders in one heavy mass swept back from the forehead. Santos stopped the wheel and called the head of hair leonine. What look is he building into the clay?

A heavy mass sweeps back from the forehead and falls past the shoulders. Leonine hair resembles a lion's mane.

A coin Esther Blum dropped into the stone basin at Cold Spring rocked on pebbles that stayed perfectly sharp. Sheltered in the springhouse, limpid water barely moved on the surface. What can a visitor see in that basin?

Every pebble stays sharp under water that barely stirs. Limpid water is clear and calm.

A diagonal crossing in the dance studio rose and fell without a stiff joint, and Dana Ellis marked the phrase with a clap. Lithe from the first step to the corner, the dancer finished the phrase. Along the diagonal, the dancer's joints and line show which quality?

The body dips and rises along the diagonal with an easy bend. Lithe movement is slender, flexible, and quick.

Green numerals hung above the felt after Colin Briggs clicked off the bench lamp in the watch studio. He waited, and the dial stayed luminous in the dark. In the dark watch studio, the dial numerals continue to do what?

They hang green in the dark. Luminous marks give off light.

Catwalk railings turned black against the gas flare Denise Kruger watched from the base of the stack. A lurid orange in the evening sky was fierce enough to make her shade her eyes. The flare at the refinery stack is difficult to watch for which reason?

The orange is fierce enough to turn the railings black. Lurid color is harshly vivid.

Folded over Anjali Mehta's arm in the silk warehouse, a yard of cloth kept its shine with no help from the window. She approved the bolt because it stayed lustrous in the crease. What quality survives away from the light?

A soft shine stays in the crease. Lustrous cloth has a gentle, rich sheen.

Water on the slab in the marble yard made gray veins jump through the cream. Paolo Ricci wiped a second pass and watched the stone show itself as marbled, smoke trapped in the block. What pattern appears once the slab is wet?

Gray veins wander through the cream like smoke in the block. Marbled coloring is streaked and clouded that way.

The last sentence on the studio speakers poured one word into the next with no hard edge. Greta Holm let the sign-off finish in the radio booth and smiled at how mellifluous the playback sounded. How are those words connected?

Each word pours into the next. A mellifluous voice is sweetly flowing.

A hand found no seam from the drill line to the end paint when Gus Eberhardt walked the granite piece in the quarry. The monolithic block was one mass the crane would have to take whole. What is significant about how this stone was cut?

One mass runs from the drill line to the end paint. Monolithic stone is a single huge piece.

No two dark patches were the same size on the frog Caleb Nwosu cupped at the blackwater pond behind the field station. He waited out the kicking and sketched the skin as mottled over a muddy green. What interrupts that green?

Dark blotches of unequal size scatter over the skin. Mottled coloring is patchy and uneven.

Low sun slid a pale glow across the inner face of an oyster Yuna Ishikawa opened on the pearl-lease pontoon. She turned the shell with the boat's shift and watched it stay nacreous. What sheen is moving inside that shell?

A pale glow slides across the interior. Nacreous luster is pearly.

The end of the pier stayed a blur through the wheelhouse window, though harbor pilot Tess Madigan leaned close. Fog had made the cranes and masts nebulous, soft gray suggestions where steel should have been. What has happened to those outlines?

Steel has softened into gray suggestions. Nebulous outlines are cloudy and indistinct.

Two walkers crossed the street before they reached the municipal compost pad, and Vince Harlow was not surprised. A noisome wind off the piles left a heavy stink that stayed in the mouth. Why did they change sides?

A heavy stink stays in the mouth and turns people aside. A noisome smell is offensive and unwholesome.

The parking lot vanished the moment Odette March set the glass sample in the window frame of the architecture office's materials library. She marked the pane opaque and returned it to the rack. What happens to whatever stands behind that sample?

The view disappears the moment the pane fills the opening. An opaque material blocks light.

Blue shot through milky white as curator Neil Abrams turned an opal in the mineral-hall drawer. Opalescent color moved under the surface with each tilt of the stone. Each tilt of the opal produces which play under the surface?

Milky white flashes blue under the surface. Opalescent stone has that cloudy, shifting play of color.

Seventeen gold leaves sat on a single plaster flower while Lucia Ferro stood on the opera-house scaffold. Fruit, masks, and curling ribbon loaded every rib of a ceiling ornate past the count she had started. How decorated is the surface above her?

Fruit, masks, and ribbon load every rib. An ornate surface is richly covered with decoration.

The back row of the black-box theater heard the speech bounce off the rear wall. Malcolm Reid had asked for the delivery to turn orotund, and the actor's round voice filled the room. What vocal quality is reaching that far?

A round tone bounces off the rear wall. An orotund voice is full, strong, and resonant.

A lamp at the cage landing of the copper mine showed Ellis Boone's lips with the color gone after the underground shift. He blinked hard, pallid after the long shift underground. How does he look coming up?

The cage lamp shows an unhealthy paleness, lips included. Pallid skin has that wan, washed-out color.

The wiping cloth came away clean from a bronze shoulder in the city sculpture garden, and the green stayed. Bridget Yoon told the volunteer the patinated film had grown through thirty winters. Thirty winters on the bronze have left which surface film?

The film grew through thirty winters and is part of the metal's surface. A patinated bronze wears that aged layer.

A trout's shadow lay on the gravel as sharply as the fish when Sasha Petrov lowered a viewing box into Cedar Creek. Pellucid over the stones, the water let her count them without guessing. How clearly can the creek bed be read?

A trout's shadow lies as sharp as the fish. Pellucid water is transparent enough to keep what is under it distinct.

Foam pulsed blue-green along the gulf beach after every field-station light had failed. Doctor Noor Rahman walked the wash and watched each wave go phosphorescent with no lamp near it. What are the waves doing in the dark?

Each wave pulses blue-green in the foam. Phosphorescent light is given off without heat.

Children at the fair-paddock rail pointed at black islands on a white coat as Simone Clarke led the mare in. The halter tag already called her piebald, and the patches matched the card. What division of color is on that horse?

Large black islands sit on white. A piebald animal is patched in black and white.

Chile brine reached Otto Krieger's nose in the pickle room before the spoon left the crock. A piquant sharpness cleared his head and made him want a taste. Before any taste, the chile brine acts on Otto's nose in which way?

It is sharp enough to clear his nose and invite a taste. A piquant scent or flavor has a pleasant bite.

Warehouse walls sent the harbor horn back to the jetty after the horn itself had stopped. Sal Romano stood in the evening damp and let the tone stay plangent over the water. What feeling remains in that call?

The tone rings, loud and mournful, off the warehouse walls. A plangent sound resounds with sorrowful force.

Red occupied one end of the empty lecture-hall seats and violet the other after Doctor Adaeze Obi tilted a glass wedge into the beam. The light had become prismatic across the row. What happened to that white beam?

Red falls at one end of the row and violet at the other. Prismatic light is spread into the colors of the spectrum.

No track crossed the snow between Ranger Patrice Solano's boots and the far rocks above the treeline. She stopped at the edge, saw pristine snow, and chose a line along the rim. What human mark is absent?

The field is an unbroken white. Pristine snow is clean and still untouched.

Eyes watered before the split horseradish root went into Edie Kaminski's bag in the field row. Pungent flesh threw a sharpness that hit the back of her throat in the open air. Out in the field row, the split horseradish makes itself known by which sensation?

A sharp smell hits the back of the throat in the open air. A pungent odor is strong and piercing.

A shoulder was enough to feel the wall give when Harbormaster Colette Dunn leaned on the shack standing on pilings. Boards at odd angles and a roof on a rope and a brick left the shack ramshackle. How soundly was it put together?

Boards run at odd angles under a roof held by rope and a brick. A ramshackle structure is loosely and poorly made.

The park path emptied under oaks full of yelling crows at dusk, and Amos Wright closed his notebook against the noise. The raucous roost kept him on the bench until the first birds lifted. Under the dusk oaks, the crow roost produces which noise?

Hundreds of crows yell together until the path clears. A raucous noise is loud, rough, and rowdy.

A flapping shirt showed ribs as the new distance runner took the curve at the high-school track, elbows out. Coach Ruben Salazar watched the breathing and judged the frame rawboned. The distance runner's ribs and long arms add up to which build?

Long arms and visible ribs show when he breathes hard. A rawboned frame is lean and angular, with the bones apparent.

Fresh shavings sweetened the whole shop the moment Miguel Okafor raised the lid of the cedar chest. Cedar he had planed that morning left the chest redolent from lid to floor. What takes over the room?

Fresh cedar from the morning's planing sweetens the whole room. A place redolent of cedar smells strongly of it.

Noon sun on Blackcap Hill made the heliograph impossible to sight without a shaded glass. Surveyor Gail Horton's refulgent mirror drew a hard white flash back from the far ridge. What is her mirror doing with the sunlight?

It throws a hard white flash back from the far ridge. A refulgent surface shines with reflected brilliance.

Six veins met the one Doctor Piotr Nowak followed under the microscope across a dragonfly wing. A reticulated net of dark lines enclosed clear cells from base to tip. What pattern covers that wing?

Dark lines enclose clear cells from base to tip. A reticulated wing is netted with those veins.

A gloved thumb stayed near, never on, the row of tiny teeth the blade had left in a cedar plank at the Cascade sawmill. Lena Ortiz shut the saw off and sighted the edge as serrated. What margin did the blade leave?

A row of tiny teeth stands in the fresh cut. A serrated margin is notched like a saw.

Looking back from the cut above the slot canyon, Rosa Delgado saw the trail drop out of sight twice before it reached her boots. The tortuous route doubled around boulders the whole way. From the cut above the slot, the route behind Rosa takes which course?

It doubles around boulders and drops out of sight twice. A tortuous path is full of twists and bends.

Yesterday's slack seed pod shone, stretched tight, after Iris Bell shut off the forgotten hose in the greenhouse. She checked the tag and found the pod turgid where it had been wrinkled that morning. After the hose was shut off, which change showed in the pod?

The pod is stretched tight and shiny with water. Turgid tissue is swollen and distended.

Orange sat beside green on a lorikeet wing that also carried blue at the bend and a yellow bar across the middle. Doctor Hugo Stein slid the skin from the specimen cabinet and described the plumage as variegated. How is color arranged on that wing?

Green, orange, blue, and a yellow bar share the same feathers. Variegated plumage is marked with several distinct colors.

Pine pitch followed the paddle in a slow ribbon that folded over itself in the still shed before it let go. Elise Navarro watched the kettle and called the batch viscous enough to jar. Off the paddle, pine pitch shows which manner of flow?

A slow ribbon folds over itself before it lets go. A viscous liquid is thick and resistant to flow.