I love this question.

Really difficult to understand the concept of the first blank. Will it be possible to elaborate on all the 3 choices: ran the gamut, ran the gauntlet and held the line.

The official OE



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Regards

b,e,h

why is B the choice? For me the 'range' clue is subtle.

Honestly, I did not get what you meant

"The first blank should be 'range' the nearest choice is ''ran the gamut''"

I meant "range" is not mentioned in the sentence or paraphrased. I have completely missed this pivot. Can you please elaborate?

Ran the gamut = to encompass an entire range of something

Previously, we did not give the universal suffrage to women because several reasons: they ranged (ran the gamut ) from canceling out their husband' vote (The husband voted for Republicans and the woman voted for Democratic) to APE (which means to mock the husband's vote, which means the women voted but indeed they did not have a real consciousness of what they did, voting).

Once these reasons were somehow grounded, now they are shabby, inconsistent.

My personal opinion, especially questions from the verbal side, which are NOT official questions, they do not mimic very close the real ETS GRE exam.

They rely heavinly upon weird, fancy, arcane words in the answer choices to make difficult the question but indeed the sentences are NOT very well constructed. They do not have the real appeal of verbal ETS questions.

They are good only to build up your stamina, not more than.

I don't understand how by aping would cancel out their husbands’ votes--- If I vote for Party A and my wife votes for party A-- doesn't it make two votes. If I vote for Party A and my wife votes for Part B that will cancel out each others votes, no? Shouldn't it be override?

The sentence is saying that the women would just copy their husband's preference. Hence we need a word ape.

disclaim & override are similar in a sense so we can cancel them out.

The correct words for the blanks are (i) ran the gamut, (ii) ape, and (iii) shabby.

Breakdown of the Blanks
- Blank (i): (B) ran the gamut

The sentence describes a range of arguments, from one extreme ("cancel out their husbands' votes") to another ("merely...their husbands' preferences"). The phrase ran the gamut means to cover an entire range of things. This fits perfectly with the idea of a wide variety of arguments being used against women's suffrage.
- Blank (ii): (E) ape

The second argument claims that women would make their votes "redundant." The blank needs a word that means to imitate or mimic. Ape means to imitate, especially in a ridiculous or unthinking manner. This fits the context of women simply mimicking their husbands' voting preferences.
- Blank (iii): (H) shabby

The final blank describes how these arguments seem today. The sentence notes they were "once convincing," but now they appear to be the opposite. Shabby means in poor condition, or, in this context, morally disgraceful or unfair. It aptly describes how the onceconvincing arguments have lost their validity and now appear weak and disreputable.

The Complete Sentence
"Historically, arguments against women's suffrage ran the gamut from the claim that women would cancel out their husbands' votes to the charge that women would merely ape their husbands' preferences, thus making their votes redundant. Such arguments, while once convincing, today seem shabby indeed."