10. The students ___________ the meaning of the unfamiliar word by examining its context in the paragraph.

A. imagined
B. looked up
C. inferred

C. inferred

The students inferred the meaning of the unfamiliar word by examining its context in the paragraph.

To arrive at this answer, we need to understand what the word "inferred" means. Inference is the process of using evidence or clues to make a logical conclusion or guess about something.

Next, we should determine how the students were able to determine the meaning of the unfamiliar word. The sentence tells us that they examined its context in the paragraph. This means they looked at the surrounding words and sentences to gather information and make an educated guess about the word's meaning.

Now let's consider the answer choices.

A. "Imagined" does not accurately describe what the students did, as they used evidence from the paragraph to determine the meaning, rather than simply imagining or making up a meaning.

B. "Looked up" refers to the act of searching for a word's definition in a dictionary or other reference source. However, the sentence specifically states that the students examined the word's context in the paragraph, not that they used a dictionary.

C. "Inferred" accurately describes what the students did, as they used the surrounding context in the paragraph to make a logical conclusion about the meaning of the unfamiliar word.

Therefore, the correct answer is C. inferred.