Without seeming unworldly, William James appeared wholly removed from the (i) _______ of society, the conventionality of academe.
There are two ways of doing this:
The harder wayThe phrase "without seeming unworldly" means "without appearing unworldy".
The word "seeming" means "appearing to be real or true,
but not necessarily being so". So "seeming uworldly" means appearing unworldly, while in actuality it might be worldly. Therefore "without seeming unworldly" implies unworldliness.
So the sentence should complete as "William James appeared wholly removed from the
world"
OR
Without appearing unwordly, William James appeared wholly removed from the
world.
But we have "from the _________ of society".
The only word from the choice list which comes close to "world" is "commonplaces". For the world is indeed made up of "commonplaces of society".
Ethos comes close, but does not make the cut.
Ethos refers to the characteristic spirit of a culture, era, or community as manifested in its attitudes and aspirations.
Idealism, romance and
paradoxes are nowhere near close to "world".
The easier wayWithout seeming unworldly, William James appeared wholly removed from the (i) _______ of society, the conventionality of academe.
Now, we do not know from what aspect of the society he was removed from. But we do have a comma, which continues the idea and states "the conventionality of the academe"
So,
"the ________ of society" = "the conventionality of academe"
Therefore the word for the blank should be a synonym of "conventionality". Therefore
commonplaces is the correct choice.
The word conventionality also helps you to reject "ethos" when you do it the harder way enunciated first.
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