without a shadow of the doubt, the first part of the sentence is the trickiest one.

However, if you read very carefully, the poetic form wich is formed via specific number of lines, indeed wordiness, denoting an increasing in the elaboration of a composition Curtail means the opposite and juxtapose is out of scope.

From this, we do have that when no such limitations are in place (D) the poet can easily eliminate (I) what is superfluous.

Hope this helpès

Doesn't the specific also mean that the author may also have to limit himself?

Specific in this context means: not countless. Because the poetic form is fixed.

This is the OE



Hope this helps

regards

The first blank requires a 'verb' to be filled not an 'adjective'. Putting an adjective, pretentious, in the first blank makes the sentence makes a little erratic. I agree with the explanation that 'curtail' is the opposite of a word we are looking for, but 'pretentious' isn't correct too.

option b for the first blank is misprinted here. It should read "encourages" as opposed to Pretentious.

Constraint and eliminate are the right choices, but encourage is misprinted as pretentious.

To answer this question, one should note several tricks. One of these is to understand the meaning of the first sentence. When the poet keeps the number of lines and syllables in the poem, he/she can have a problem of wordiness. Other helping clues are the phrases, "when no such ____ exists" the author can eliminate the "superfluities." The word "superfluities" is another clue for this TC. Therefore, the sentence starts providing a sense. If the author avoids using the equal number of lines and syllables, he/she can avoid wordiness as well as have no constrain to eliminate the superfluities or the word-surpluses.

The answer choice pretentious is very confusing. Can someone please break it down for me.

Some critics maintain that fixed poetic forms, which require a specific number of lines and syllables, invite and may even (i) __________ wordiness; when no such (ii) __________ exists, the poet can easily spot and (iii) ___________ superfluities.

Some critics say that poetic invite (something) and is also assumptive (that is the meaning of pretentious). However, if such constraints are not set up, the poetic could be spot and eliminate what is unnecessary. Ending in a beautiful thing, after all.

Hope this helps.

Regards

Even with understanding that pretentious means assumptive, that answer still seems that it doesn't fit the blank.

This is an absolutely terrible example and should be removed.

agreed..

The first blank has to be a verb as it is parallel to verb invite, but the answer given is PRETENTIOUS, which is an adjective and can noway fit in.

Now, this could be corrected
a) by changing the blank choice
b) by removing AND and reforming the phrase as below
Some critics maintain that fixed poetic forms, which require a specific number of lines and syllables, invite and may even may even invite (i) __________ wordiness; when no such (ii) __________ exists, the poet can easily spot and (iii) ___________ superfluities.
Noun it maintains required stress and also pretentious may just fit in with NOUN wordiness.

But we would remove this from our database and lock this thread.