Carcass, in the guide, you have mentioned:
However, NOT always two words among the answer choices are synonyms, we might have also two words, which are the correct answers, that are closely related words in the list.
Another important caveat is that typically SE has not so many clues to find the right words as we do have in a TC sentence. Paraphrasing the sentence is not always a viable option or strategy.
Paraphrasing is not feasible in SE questions. I have an exhaustive list of contrast words that gregmat prepared. That is quite helpful.
In comparison, SE questions are shorter. We need to focus on the idea of the sentence at first right?
Kindly, help in improving SE questions as I screw these up. I bookmarked the SE question bank hope it helps!