can someone explain me why 'buck' is in the first blank?

Why not underscore?

In the first blank you must have a word to show the confirmation of the trend.

Underscore is completely out of scope. Has no sense in the context.

Buck for me is wrong. Uphold a trend should be the right one.

Regards

a,d,h

Your explanation is great. However, the question itself, in my opinion, has a flaw.

Broken piece by piece the stem


What tradition has long known, science must labor through its usual rigorous protocols to arrive at the very same assessment.

Ok. The meaning of this is the following: the common wisdom or vulgar (stands for not rude but volgo = people from latin) often knows things that scientists discover after several years of rigorous studies.

So far so good


Concerning learning in infants, recent findings (i)______ this trend: the timeworn yarn that babies are (ii)______ - and oftentimes disregarding - stimuli from their surroundings has been turned on its head;

Regarding the learning by babies in their infant stage of life, recent findings: now what? buck or uphold?

According to Oxford Dictionary, which of course is the pinnacle of standard English AND is pacific that the GRE is an exam in which what is tested is primarily Standard English, https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/defin ... 9743175120 NO WHERE is reported that buck intend the meaning to confirm something that has derivated or concluded by previous official research by academic (here scientists, of course, belong to the academic world). At most it is used in an informal way or else. However, this is not the case: we care about and use of Standard English.

Moreover, the timeworn yarn that babies are (ii)______ - and oftentimes disregarding - stimuli from their surroundings has been turned on its head.

• has been turned on its head: this part of the sentence is referring to who or what ?? what is the reference of ITS??

Eventually, the phrase above should look like the following: the timeworn yarn that the babies passively received the stimuli from the surrounding - and that often they dismissed - environment is partially true, if not any.

As such, the real meaning is that we had the misconception that the babies passively interact with what they have around and the conclusion is that this is false. They INTERACT and have stimuli that they process in their head.

although (iii)______ exhibiting a mastery of their respective worlds, infants are constantly conducting experiments- very much like the scientists themselves- testing their limits vis-a-vis an environment at once enchanting and frustrating.


My explanation above is confirmed by the last part of the stem: even though the babies are far away to master completely the surrounding world and its stimuli, they interact a lot with it and tested it kinda as the scientists do. Pushing daily the boundaries of their knowledge.


Bottom line: NON-official material is far away to be even close to the Official material. For this simple reason, it is and will be just how we call it: NON-official material.

Buck has the meaning I mentioned (look under VERB in the link you posted. Second definition), but there is a higher level of stringency in ETS material than non-official material specifically to help with creating a test that, in theory, a student from India, Britian, China, the USA, and anywhere else would all be able to answer the same way no matter where they learned how to speak/write the language. Regardless of whether or not you accept the word "buck" to be a GRE quality word though, and whether or not it's the best written prompt ever, the answer to blank one still needs to be something with a meaning similar to buck or "oppose or resist." The research is bucking/opposing/resisting the trend, where "the trend" is the first sentence (that scientific research ultimately just confirms what we already know).

Read it like this: "Recent findings oppose the timeworn yarn that babies passively receive stimuli from their surroundings." Neither uphold (opposite meaning) nor underscore (opposite meaning) would work here, so even just knowing that B and C CANNOT be correct would be enough to put down A as your answer.

"turned on it's head" is an idiom that means "To misinterpret or misrepresent something so that it is completely incorrect or the opposite of what it should be." It is referring to "the timeworn yarn" (that babies passively gain information) where "a yarn" is another idiom that means "a tale or story." It is NOT saying "partially true." It is saying that it's been "turned on it's head" meaning "the opposite of the longtime story...the traditional story...is the actual truth according to some new research."

Read it like this now to link it back to the first sentence (the trend): "The traditional belief is contradicted by the research. This goes against the trend of traditional beliefs being cooberated by research."


Maybe I'm not explaining it well enough, but look at the structure like this maybe:

Sentence 1: This is telling you THE TREND that will be refered to later in the promt.

Sentence 2 first part: Main point of the prompt "The research has shown that the trend from sentence 1 is incorrect, that is, that THE RESEARCH DID NOT PROVE THE VERACITY OF THE LONG HELD BELIEF BUT RATHER WAS THE OPPOSITE." By being the opposite, it effectively bucked/opposed the trend (the trend being that our long held beliefs are usually cooberated by research).

Sentence 2 second part: Explains what the research learned that would oppose the long held belief (that babies passive receive information). What it learned was that the babies ACTIVELY (being the opposite of passive) receive the information. So much so that they even behave like scientists.


I might be jumping around a bit in my response, but I don't see anything wrong with the prompt beyond maybe the use of idioms (albeit rather common ones). It seems you mostly take umbrage with the word buck, but i believe people could answer that part even without knowing what the word meant. Maybe I'm missing some other key to your reason for believing the prompt is poorly written?

Great explanation. Kudo

However, for "timeworn yarn", which means indeed an effete story, yarn at most is not another idiom but at most a synonym

story=plot=yarn=tale and blah blah blah.

Moreover, has been turned on its head (not it's) means not shown to be true .

Once again, you gave a really in-depth and well-rounded explanation. And this is great. But the first sentence as per reading

What tradition has long known, science must labor through its usual rigorous protocols to arrive at the very same assessment means only and one only reason:

the science has to work really hard to arrive at the same conclusion that philosophers and thinkers - think about for instance to the stoicism: it teaches us things that the modern psychology now is confirming totally and Marco Aurelius was the Emperor of Rome 138 BC - already knew.

So for me, the second sentence should confirm this trend that the babies DO NOT passively receive the stimuli from the outside world and that they conduct experiments (very much like the scientists themselves) ALTHOUGH they do not master totally. This idea is also to be noted at the very end of the entire sentence where the environment explored by the babies themselves is enchanting and frustrating at the same time.

Anyhow, great discussion: we should have more of this on the board.

Thank you so much.

What tradition has long known, science must labor through its usual rigorous protocols to arrive at the very same assessment. Concerning learning in infants, recent findings (i) ______ this trend: the timeworn yarn that babies are (ii) ______ —and oftentimes disregarding— stimuli from their surroundings has been turned on its head; although (iii) ______ exhibiting a mastery of their respective worlds, infants are constantly conducting experiments— very much like scientists themselves— testing their limits vis-à-vis an environment at once enchanting and frustrating.

Blank (i)	Blank (ii)	Blank (iii)
(A) buck	(D) passively receiving	(G) far from
(B) uphold	(E) subtly parsing	(H) known for
(C) underscore	(F) actively misinterpreting	(I) poetentially

Any solution please?

So, my guess for the blank (i) is support and Buck is the correct answer. As per the context, the correct answer is passively receiving. Far from is the correct answer for blank(iii) as per the context of the question.

i guess it's first blank was (A) because it sounded negative.
(C) was negative as well but too light.

then (D) sounded negative since there was no sign in sentence transition.

then (G) also sounded negative

Pls give some explanation of the text.

What tradition has long known, science must labor through its usual rigorous protocols to arrive at the very same assessment. Concerning learning in infants, recent findings (i) ______ this trend:

Recent finding confirm or buck up this trend


the timeworn yarn that babies are (ii) ______ —and oftentimes disregarding— stimuli from their surroundings has been turned on its head;

they passively receive the stimuli and often disregard them

although (iii) ______ exhibiting a mastery of their respective worlds, infants are constantly conducting experiments— very much like scientists themselves— testing their limits vis-à-vis an environment at once enchanting and frustrating.

Even though the babies are WAY or far from understanding the world surrounding them , they, nonetheless, they test the stimuli, basically

A,D, and G are the answer

Ask if something is STILL unclear

does buck means confirm. i didnt find this in any dictonary.. thats y i m confused.

Buck up means confirmed or supported.

It is the verb back up

I back up my entire hard drive in case it would brake up.

Back up plan

Posted from my mobile device

But uphold also means maintain or confirm, why uphold cannot be answer?