OE


A, E, G While you expect the final clause, which is preceded by a semicolon, to be related thematically to the rest of the sentence, grammatically it stands on its own. You can therefore figure out the third blank first without needing the other two. The key here is the word “deluge”—you know this is a major rainstorm. Hence, for the third blank, you can reject both (H) soaked and (I) sprayed because both are much weaker words than (G) inundated. For the second blank, the key clue is “sudden.” If it was sudden, then you can assume people were not expecting it—you can thus predict a word synonymous with “not expecting.” (D) waiting and (F) anxious would both imply people were expecting the downpour; thus, (E) unprepared is the correct choice. Finally, for the first blank, this word will be the reason that people were not expecting a sudden storm. (C) humid doesn’t work here, but between (A) arid and (B) calm, you may need to pause for a moment. (B) calm might work—it certainly contrasts with the eventfulness of the weather that followed—but (A) arid is a better answer because it implies that the weather was specifically very dry—the antithesis of the wetness of the storm. Plugging it all in, “The countless arid days left everyone unprepared for the sudden downpour; the deluge brought traffic to a halt as it inundated the roads.” You can see that everything agrees.