"For an artist of such circumscribed talent, Mario was given ____________ attention, many connoisseurs ____________ over works that warranted nothing more than a(n) ____________ glance."

Meaning- Circumscribed means restricted and even if we don't get that the phrase "that warranted nothing more than a ___ glance." should suggest that Mario has given undue footage. Critics were absorbed over works that warranted nothing but a casual glance.

A- Scant means little. Opposite of what we want.
B- Sporadic means irregular. Illogical in context.
C- Scrupulous means dilligent. Works well to highlight level of attention.
D- Poring means absorbed. Works.
E- Passing means hasty and is the opposite of what we want.
F- Faltering means losing strength or momentum. Illogical.
G- Derisive means mocking. Also illogical.
H- Cursory means casual. Works well.
I- Tentative means provisional. Illogical.

The sentence says that Mario's talents were circumscribed, which means that his talents were rather limited or restricted. This is a negative so now we know the tone that the sentence follows. The sentence starts with 'For an artist of such circumscribed talent, Mario was given _____ attention', since Mario's talents were circumscribed it follows that he received undue attention for his works. Thus we choose 'scrupulous on our first blank.

The rest of the sentence is easy, we know that many connoisseurs were looking at his works, so we choose poring for our second blank. The last sentence has the phrase 'warranted nothing more than' which again follows a negative tone. So Mario's works didn't deserve the attention they got. the opposite of careful attention would be 'cursory'. So we choose that for our last blank.

Thus our answer is (C),(D) and (H)

Hello, I would like to ask why the first blank is not "Scant" instead of "Scrupulous" since Mario doesn't have a lot of talent and LITTLE Attention should be given, right? So, can't we use "Scant" as little?

For an artist of such circumscribed talent, Mario was given ____________ attention


For his so limited talent he was giving a very attentive look

Scant means limited but we already have limited. So is redundant.

Also is important to understand the meaning of the sentence

More on TC and SE here

https://gre.myprepclub.com/forum/gre-text- ... 22140.html

https://gre.myprepclub.com/forum/gre-text- ... 22155.html

This is an excellent TC question; has all the elements of a medium-hard, three-blank question stem. Thanks, amorphous!

For an artist of such circumscribed talent, Mario was given ____________ attention, many connoisseurs ____________ over works that warranted nothing more than a(n) ____________ glance.

The phrase "For an artist of such circumscribed talent" expects us to imagine that he received more appreciation than he deserved. An expectation further proved by the phrase "over works that warranted nothing more than".

Thus we can imagine he was given plenty of attention, and hence the word for the first blank should be scrupulous. We can definitely rule out scant(little) and sporadic(intermittent).

Holding the same logic in our heads we can imagine connoisseurs poring over works that warranted the least attention. Hence the word for the second blank is poring.

And the word for the last blank which will give us the meaning of "deserving least attention" would be cursory. The sentence fragment would complete as
- warranted nothing more than a(n) cursory glance.

There is nothing in the sentence to suggest that his art deserved contempt and ridicule, so we can rule out derisive. Neither does the sentence suggest that his art deserved only a provisional look or a hesitant look. Hence we rule out tentative.

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