Commonly Confused Words, Grades 9–10: List 3

Now there was talk of medical college, which after a literature degree seemed rather pretentious. Atonement

Before me stretched the portentous menacing road of a new decade. The Great Gatsby

Mama Mwanza shouted again and clapped her hands, bringing a reluctant son out of the house, dragging the flat, pinkish soles of his feet. The Poisonwood Bible

He had been a reticent child, and later became a timid man. The House of the Spirits: A Novel

People are probably familiar with the adverse effects of sleep deprivation: You’re groggy, cranky, unable to focus. Salon

He seemed uninterested in and even averse to the dramas unfolding before us, but I was fascinated. Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing

Scientists were seen not as immoral, but amoral — immune to what’s outside the field of their microscopes. Washington Post

Alex knew immediately that this would be something gruesome and disgusting, and if not illegal, most certainly immoral. The Dead and the Gone

It had been years since he’d gone a whole night without television, and he wasn’t sure how else to amuse himself. Hoot

She studied me with an extra, bemused curiosity, as if trying to place where I came from and how precisely I’d landed on her doorstep. Becoming

None of the boys had ever ridden an elevator more than a few floors in a hotel, and the rapid ascent both thrilled and frightened them. The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics

When I ask if I can serve myself, he nods assent. The Hunger Games

Drums beat and fifes blew and beneath everything was the steady clockwork blast of the British cannons firing at the troops stationed north of us. Chains

By then I’d read Chancellor Williams, J. A. Rogers, and John Jackson—writers central to the canon of our new noble history. Between the World and Me

The movie’s climactic moment features a dark-cloaked hero chasing a villain in white on horseback, finally toppling him from his horse in front of a church. Salon

If these climatic and geological disasters occurred throughout the Norte Chico, they could have brought to an end the civilization that began in the area two millennia before. 1491

So Theseus became King of Athens, a most wise and disinterested king. Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes

But when she tried to engage him in conversation he seemed uninterested, taking my hand and backing away, his gestures saying, “Thanks, but no thanks.” The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother

New beekeepers are told that the way to find the elusive queen is by first locating her circle of attendants. The Secret Life of Bees

There were no shadows under the trees but everywhere a pearly stillness, so that what was real seemed illusive and without definition. Lord of the Flies

The virus had been endemic in Europe for centuries, which meant that most Europeans were exposed to it before adulthood. 1491

A smallpox epidemic in 1713 was the biggest single step in the destruction of South Africa’s native San people by European settlers. Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies