GRE Prep Club Daily Prep
Thank you for using the timer - this advanced tool can estimate your performance and suggest more practice questions. We have subscribed you to Daily Prep Questions via email.
Customized
for You
Track
Your Progress
Practice
Pays
Not interested in getting valuable practice questions and articles delivered to your email? No problem, unsubscribe here.
Couple confusing sentence completions (difficult level)
[#permalink]
05 Dec 2015, 05:42
05 Dec 2015, 05:42
Hi, following are some text completion questions that I don't quite understand.
1. The proponent of recombinant DNA research have decided to ___________ federal regulation of their work; they hope that by making this compromise they can forestall proposed state and local controls that might be even stiffer.
a. protest
b. institute
c. deny
d. encourage
e. disregard
(the answer is (d), but I chose (b). I thought "encourage" would be too positive of a word to be describing a "compromise." Any thoughts?)
2. The powers and satisfactions of primeval people, though few and meager, were __________________ their few and simple desires.
a. simultaneous with
b. commensurate with
c. substantiated by
d. circumscribed by
e. ruined by
(the answer is b. Here I don't quite understand the nuance of the sentence. Why was the phrase "THOUGH few and meager" used? I thought it qualified something, but if you plug in (b), "commensurate with," the meaning isn't qualified at all.)
3. Without seemingly unworldly, William James appeared wholly removed from the ______________ of society, the conventionality of academe.
a. ethos
b. idealism
c. romance
d. paradoxes
e. commonplaces
(the answer is (e), but I chose (a). I thought ethos, meaning "the distinctive spirit of a culture or an era," would fit best with "conventionality." I also don't 100% get the meaning of the sentence either. Is it saying that William James is a conventional academic who hides from the quotidian world? Or is he hiding from the conventional-ness of the academia?)
1. The proponent of recombinant DNA research have decided to ___________ federal regulation of their work; they hope that by making this compromise they can forestall proposed state and local controls that might be even stiffer.
a. protest
b. institute
c. deny
d. encourage
e. disregard
(the answer is (d), but I chose (b). I thought "encourage" would be too positive of a word to be describing a "compromise." Any thoughts?)
2. The powers and satisfactions of primeval people, though few and meager, were __________________ their few and simple desires.
a. simultaneous with
b. commensurate with
c. substantiated by
d. circumscribed by
e. ruined by
(the answer is b. Here I don't quite understand the nuance of the sentence. Why was the phrase "THOUGH few and meager" used? I thought it qualified something, but if you plug in (b), "commensurate with," the meaning isn't qualified at all.)
3. Without seemingly unworldly, William James appeared wholly removed from the ______________ of society, the conventionality of academe.
a. ethos
b. idealism
c. romance
d. paradoxes
e. commonplaces
(the answer is (e), but I chose (a). I thought ethos, meaning "the distinctive spirit of a culture or an era," would fit best with "conventionality." I also don't 100% get the meaning of the sentence either. Is it saying that William James is a conventional academic who hides from the quotidian world? Or is he hiding from the conventional-ness of the academia?)
Economist GRE Tutor Instructor
Joined: 05 Nov 2015
Posts: 13
Given Kudos: 0
Re: Couple confusing sentence completions (difficult level)
[#permalink]
05 Apr 2016, 21:00
05 Apr 2016, 21:00
Expert Reply
1. It is not the job of proponents of research to institute regulation. Government authorities would do that. “Encourage” can be seen as the word in contrast to “forestall”.
2. They had some powers, though they only had a few. That is the contrast presented with “though”. The few powers are commensurate with the few desires.
3. James is removed from the commonplaces, the conventionality. You need something to link with the conventionality. “Commonplaces” does this. “Ethos” does not.
2. They had some powers, though they only had a few. That is the contrast presented with “though”. The few powers are commensurate with the few desires.
3. James is removed from the commonplaces, the conventionality. You need something to link with the conventionality. “Commonplaces” does this. “Ethos” does not.
gmatclubot
Re: Couple confusing sentence completions (difficult level) [#permalink]
05 Apr 2016, 21:00
Moderators:
