Term
The rumor was of the ------- variety, spreading slowly and almost imperceptibly until, finally, everyone seemed to have heard the story.
Rumor that spreads slowly and subtly can be described as “insidious |
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Definition
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Term
| The novel's protagonist, a pearl diver, naïvely expects that the buyers will compete among themselves to pay him the best price for his pearl, but instead they ------- to ------- him |
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Definition
| The sentence states that the pearl diver expected one kind of behavior from the buyers, but instead they behaved in a different way. Since the pearl diver expected the buyers to "compete among themselves to pay him the best price," the correct answer must be two words that make the last clause describe an opposite situation. Choice (E) is the best answer: Instead of competing to pay the pearl diver the best price, the buyers colluded (or plotted) to "swindle" him |
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Term
| Ramona had never visited Niagara Falls, but she could appreciate their splendor ------- through the descriptions of others |
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Definition
| Ramona hadn’t visited Niagara Falls but "could appreciate their splendor," so the word that fills the blank must be an adverb whose definition has to do with appreciating something indirectly, "through the descriptions of others" (based on their experiences). Choice (A) is correct because to experience something "vicariously" is to experience it through imaginative participation in the actual experience of someone else |
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Term
| Members of the research team were initially so adversarial that ------- seemed impossible; the project's inauspicious start made its final success all the more ------- |
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Definition
| cooperation . . remarkable |
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Term
| Joshua's radical ideas were frowned on by most of his coworkers, who found them too ------- for their conservative tastes |
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Definition
heretical
Joshua's colleagues are described as having "conservative tastes" and frowning on his "radical ideas." Such colleagues are likely to find Joshua's ideas too "heretical," or too divergent or different from conventional beliefs and standards |
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Term
| A discerning publishing agent can ------- promising material from a mass of submissions, separating the good from the bad |
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Definition
Winnow
To "winnow" is to sort through and select the desirable part of something or to get rid of the unwanted or undesirable part. If the publishing agent goes through the submissions, "separating the good from the bad," then he or she can be said to be winnowing "promising material from a mass of submissions." |
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Term
| A special lottery is to be held to select the student who will live in the only deluxe room in a dormitory. There are [image] seniors, [image] juniors, and [image] sophomores who applied. Each senior's name is placed in the lottery [image] times; each junior's name, [image] times; and each sophomore's name, [image] time. What is the probability that a senior's name will be chosen? |
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Definition
| To determine the probability that a senior's name will be chosen, you must determine the total number of seniors' names that are in the lottery and divide this number by the total number of names in the lottery. Since each senior's name is placed in the lottery [image] times, there are [image] seniors' names. Likewise, there are [image] juniors' names and [image] sophomores' names in the lottery. The probability that a senior's name will be chosen is .[image] |
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