After the séance ended, the participants were of two minds as to whether the psychic had ________ a spirit, but everyone had felt the presence of something new in the room.
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Solution
Evoked.
Evoke — to summon — is justified by the text. Convoke — to call a meeting to order — is not quite appropriate (maybe if there were multiple spirits — also a problem with coalesced). Elicit also has the wrong spin; it is more frequently used in the sense of eliciting information or opinions.
The silent-film pioneer Harold Lloyd made a virtue of the (i) _________ limits of his day, playing men so (ii) _________ it was easy to imagine it was the character rather than the medium who lacked a voice.
| Blank (i) | Blank (ii) |
| artistic | avant-garde |
| commercial | diffident |
| technical | reluctant |
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Solution
Technical, diffident.
Since the medium… lacked a voice, it was technology of the day that prevented Lloyd from speaking on film, so the first word should be something like “technological.” Technical will do. For the second word, you’d like an adjective that would explain why a character would fail to speak, perhaps something like “mute.” Dif ident means something like “self-effacing, very shy.” Reluctant is a bit of a trap answer — it does not mean “reluctant to speak” (the similar-sounding reticent does, and the two words are often confused).
Freud’s structural model of the psyche should be understood as (i) _________ device, useful for inciting and guiding discovery, rather than as an attempt to (ii) _________ physical relationships among parts of the human brain.
| Blank (i) | Blank (ii) |
| a heuristic | dictate |
| a hermeneutic | ameliorate |
| an allegorical | represent |
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Solution
Heuristic, represent.
The first word is defined in the sentence as a device useful for inciting and guiding discovery. That’s precisely what heuristic means. If you are not meant to take the model of the psyche as guide to the physical structure of the brain, then you want a word that means something like “show” or “depict” for the second word. Represent is the closest.
Children who are recognized as preternaturally intelligent often go on to fulfill their early promise, contrary to the stereotype of maladjusted _________ wasting their gifts.
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Solution
Prodigies.
The children who disprove the stereotype are the children stereotyped, so you want a word that means “children who are recognized as preternaturally intelligent.” Such children are prodigies.
Patients who stop taking antibiotics when symptoms subside contribute to the evolution of drug-resistant strains, because an incomplete course of treatment spares the most _________ bacteria.
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Solution
Robust.
The bacteria that survive antibiotics would presumably be those hardest to kill. You might also want a word that means something like “drug-resistant.” The only word that means anything like “hard-to-kill” is robust.
Economists have developed such sophisticated and (i) _________ mathematical tools for modeling human behavior that other social scientists often deploy those tools to model and help (ii) _________ even decisions that have no obvious economic consequences.
| Blank (i) | Blank (ii) |
| eclectic | interpolate |
| populist | replicate |
| versatile | explicate |
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Solution
Versatile, explicate.
For the first word, you want a word that agrees with “sophisticated,” but more importantly that explains why these mathematical tools are useful to those who aren’t even doing math, so you want a positive word that means “useful in many contexts.” Versatile is the best fit. For the second word, you’d want something like the “model,” in the sense of “explain,” that you saw earlier in the sentence. Explicate is the best match.
Jackson’s supporters praised his earthy speech as evidence of his common touch, while his (i) _________ condemned it as (ii) _________.
| Blank (i) | Blank (ii) |
| interlocutors | vulgar |
| detractors | obtuse |
| contemporaries | genteel |
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Solution
Detractors, vulgar.
While tells you that the clause after the comma will oppose the clause before the comma. So instead of “supporters,” you want “opposers.” The word condemned further hints that the first word will be something like “opposers/condemners.” Only detractors works. For the second word, you want a description that a detractor would apply to “earthy speech.” So you want “earthy, but in a bad way” — perhaps “coarse” or “unrefined” would serve. The word vulgar fits those descriptions. “common.”
Anne could have made a larger salary elsewhere, but such (i) _________ as ample vacation time and excellent insurance persuaded her to (ii) _________.
| Blank (i) | Blank (ii) |
| perquisites | negotiate |
| remuneration | abscond |
| disincentives | abide |
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Solution
Perquisites, abide.
For the first word you want something like “non-salary rewards,” and the only word that means that is perquisites (often informally abbreviated as “perks”). The word but tells you that Anne did not leave for a larger salary, but stayed for the perquisites. For the second word you want something like “stay,” and only abide can have that meaning. (Abide more commonly means “tolerate” or “wait for.”)
Of course we would all like to believe that our every success is of our own manufacture, but to believe that is to neglect the (i) _________ element present in all lives, beginning with a birth lottery that assigns to some such gifts as intelligence and to others such (ii) _________ as wealth.
| Blank (i) | Blank (ii) |
| notional | encumbrances |
| inchoate | dispensations |
| aleatory | piques |
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Solution
Aleatory, dispensations.
A “birth lottery” is offered as an example of the sort of element the first word describes. Since a lottery is random, based on chance, you would like your first word to be something like “due to luck,” and that is just what aleatory means. The second word looks to be roughly synonymous with “gifts.” Dispensations will work there, while encumbrances and piques are both negative.
The captain (i) ___________ (ii) ___________ for as long as he could, but eventually the crew became frustrated with the small portions of mead and the dearth of plunder, and decided to take matters into their own hands.
| Blank (i) | Blank (ii) |
| dissuaded | sea change |
| warded off | mutiny |
| depreciated | putsch |
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Solution
Warded off, mutiny.
The second half of the sentence says that the crew became frustrated and decided to take matters into their own hands, implying that they took over the ship. Mutiny fits perfectly. (A sea change is “a profound transformation,” while a putsch is “the overthrow of a government.”) For the first blank, you need a word implying that the captain tried to fight off the mutiny. Dissuading is something you can do only to people (i.e., “I dissuaded the pirates from mutinying.”). Warded of means “fended off” or “averted,” which is perfect here.