Carcass wrote:
Ironically, the party leaders encountered no greater (i) _______ their efforts to build a progressive party than the (ii) _______ of the progressives already elected to the legislature.
Blank (i) |
Blank (ii)
|
benefit from |
success |
obstacle to |
reputation |
praise for |
resistance |
Kudos for the right answer and explanation
Based on the sentence structure, no greater than means the first and the second blank should be quite similar. The word "ironically" indicates the overall meaning of the sentence would somehow generate a paradox that is opposite to what is normally expected.
Therefore, only "obstacle to" and "resistance" are similar to each other. If we plug in these words, then the sentence makes total sense. The party leader encountered no greater hurdles to build the party than the resistance of the progressives already elected to the legislature. You would normally expect the higher struggle to build the party, but ironically means the opposite to this intuition, and hence there were a no greater obstacle to building the party than to face resistance of the progressives already elected.