A. Nonchalance --- disinterest, apathetic, unwilling to involve in the matter – You might call this word a neutral word, but still it leans on the negative tone.
B. Criticism disapproval -- totally negative

C. Acclaim --- praise --- positive

D. Insouciance -- detachment – same as A; neutral but bordering negative tone, and a perfect synonym to A

E. Denigration --- derogation -same as criticism but a little on the higher side.

F. Appreciation – Praise; same as acclaim

But there is a catch. Now we have three pairs of synonyms: 1. Nonchalance and Insouciance 2. Criticism and Denigration and 3. Acclaim and Appreciation. The question is -- which is the most appropriate pair? So lets revisit the stimulus.

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The clue lies in the cue word ‘onslaughts’. Onslaught in literature means an outburst or outpouring. The blank filler should be a highly negatively- charged pair rather than a neutral or slightly negative word. That is the reason that nonchalance and insouciance don't fit in; obviously, we are not going to select a positive pair such as acclaim and appreciation and finally we are left with the pair “criticism and denigration” which matches the heavy negative tone of ’onslaught’. The answer is B and E.

The purpose of this topic is to confuse the test - takers with the three types of pairs such as positive, negative and neutral and make them befuddled. HTH

On your previous post you put OA as being A and D...

Yes, they are.

This is a sentence equivalence and you must give two answers alike in meaning.

Regards

I found this helpful, thanks!

What is actually the answer?

Posted from my mobile device

A and D are the OAs

then what is answer? is it b,e

final answer ?

The answer are A and D

Can you please explain the answer A and D

Frankly .....I do not even know what the sentence is talking about

I do not know the source but for sure, in my view, it is not a good source.

it is just a sentence out of who knows which context and put there to fill the blank.

it is just junk food

I think veiled onslaughts lead us to the answer. The blank has to be somewhat negative and then veiled suggest that if they are critics of it they need not to be veiled. So A,D is the answer.

As you state, the answers are B and E. Would you mind fixing this question then? For some reason, they are set to A and D.

It so happens that while we may enjoy the veiled onslaughts by some of the authors of the literary ---------, we tend to ignore the frenzy and rage into which they can lead even the people of the caliber of Byron and Shelly who had to retaliate with equal piquancy

Veiled onslaughts --> indirect aggression or indirect attack
Piquancy --> spiciness, edge
The sentence says --> some authors of literary (blank filler) make certain indirect attack which we (Audience) enjoy but we ignore that such comments/attacks can enrage people of high caliber who would retaliate with same kind of indirect attack.

Here Blank denotes something casual --> (A,D)

Some authors casually make indirect attack on others, which is retaliated in the same way.

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