Carcass wrote:
Perhaps then the greatest failing of this deluge of positive psychology books is not that they (i) ______ the complexity typical of psychology in general— and in this case replace it with a breezy glibness— but that they dispense advice that is so (ii) ______ and littered with platitudes as to be bereft of the very succor the public requires during our (iii) ______ times.
Blank (i) | Blank (ii) | Blank (iii) |
(A) invoke | (D) pat | (G) heady |
(B) address | (E) evocative | (H) trying |
(C) eschew | (F) convoluted | (I) halcyon |
To solve hard multi-blank GRE Text Completions, consider the subject of the blank and what is known about that subject to predict your own word(s) for the blanks one-at-a-time.
For the first blankSubject: "greatest failing of positive psychology books" as pertains to "typical complexity"
Know: matches "replace typical complexity with breezy glibness"
As our prediction for the first blank we can simply reuse "replace".
(A) invoke -
Does not match "replace" in this context. Eliminate Choice A.(B) address -
Does not match "replace" in this context. Eliminate Choice B.(C) eschew -
Matches "replace" in this context. Keep Choice C.For the second blankSubject: "advice of positive psychology books" as pertains to "this case" of "breezy glibness"
Know: matches "breezy glibness"
As our prediction for the second blank we can simply repurpose "glibness" into its simpler form "glib", which means overly simplistic.
(D) pat -
Secondary definition of "trite" or "simple" matches the prediction. Keep Choice D.(E) evocative -
Reversal of the prediction. Eliminate Choice E.(F) convoluted -
Reversal of the prediction as "convoluted" is the opposite of "simple". Eliminate Choice F.For the third blankSubject: "our times"
Know: matches "succor public requires" and is opposite of "glibness"
As our prediction for the third blank we can simply take the opposite of "glibness" such as serious.
(G) heady -
Broad reversal of the prediction. Eliminate Choice G.(H) trying -
Secondary adjectivial definition of "hard" or "difficult" matches the prediction. Keep Choice H.(I) halcyon -
Broad reversal of the prediction. Eliminate Choice I.Read each of the kept choices into the sentence to ensure it creates a coherent meaning throughout the sentence. Once confirmed, select Choices C, D, and H.