SECTION 1
1. The media once portrayed the governor as anything but ineffective; they now, however, make her out to be the epitome of ________.
A fecklessness
B brilliance
C dynamism
D egoism
E punctiliousness
2. For most of the first half of the nineteenth century, science at the university was in _______ state, despite the presence of numerous luminaries.
A a scintillating
B a pathetic
C a controversial
D an incendiary
E a veracious
3. Instant celebrity is often ________ asset because if there is no _______ to interest the public--- no stage or screen triumphs, no interesting books, no heroic exploits--- people quickly become bored.
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A a fleeting D competing attraction
B an incomparable E continuity of exposure
C an untapped F real achievement
4. Female labor was essential to the growth of eighteenth-century European textile industries, yet it remains difficult to _________. Despite significant ________ in research about women, the role of female labor remains the single most glaring omission in most economic analyses of the history of European industrialization. Women far outnumbered men as workers in the textile industries, yet wage indices and discussions of growth, cost of living, and the like _______ about the male labor force.
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A track D advances G incorporate data only
B overestimate E gaps H suppress most information
C ignore F disinterest I too rarely talk
5. It is a sad but just indictment of some high school history textbooks that they frequently report as ________ claims that historians hotly debate or that are even completely _________ by ________ primary sources.
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A factual D resolved G dubious
B controversial E corroborated H incomplete
C sensational F contradicted I reliable
6. The reason minimum temperatures are going up more rapidly than maximums may involve cloud cover and evaporative cooling. Clouds tend to keep the days coolers by reflecting sunlight, and the nights warmer by _______ loss of heat from Earth’s surface. Greater amounts of moisture in the soil from additional precipitation and cloudiness _______ the daytime temperature increases because part of the solar energy is ________ the evaporation of that moisture.
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A inhibiting D augment G intensified by
B exacerbating E mask H unrelated to
C replicating F restrain I used up in
7. Retrofitted with stabilizing devices, some of which ________ its aesthetics, the bridge has been reopened, no longer prone to excessive swaying but not quite the breathtaking structure it originally was.
A impair
B resist
C improve
D enhance
E restore
F compromise
8. Although cosmic objects have struck Earth since the planet’s very formation, humanity has only recently become aware of these events: two centuries ago the idea that objects orbiting the Sun could collide with Earth was widely _______.
A ridiculed
B doubted
C disseminated
D promulgated
E marginalized
F disbelieved
9. That people ________ the musical features of birdsongs suggests that despite the vast evolutionary gulf between birds and mammals, songbirds and humans share some common auditory perceptual
abilities.
A mimic
B recognize
C relish
D are confounded by
E can make out
F are puzzled by
10. Torpey’s study has turned a seemingly _______ topic, the passport, into a fascinating one by making an original contribution to the sociology of the state.
A ironic
B banal
C provocative
D witty
E insipid
F stimulating
SECTION 2
1. When she first came to France from Bulgaria, she was hardly the _______ student she late made herself out to be, since she had access to considerable family wealth.
A naïve
B precocious
C impecunious
D ambitious
E assiduous
2. Researchers have observed chimpanzees feigning injury in order to influence other members of the group, thus showing that the capacity to ________ is not uniquely human.
A cooperate
B instruct
C conspire
D dissemble
E dominate
3. At their best, _________ book reviews are written in defense of value and in the tacit hope that the author, having had his or her ________ pointed out, might secretly agree that the book could be improved.
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A abstruse D strengths
B adverse E transgressions
C hortatory F assumptions
4. The gaps in existing accounts of the playwright’s life are not ________, since much of the documentary evidence on which historians have relied is _________.
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A trifling D credible
B obvious E extant
C implicit F real achievement
5. That today’s students of American culture tend to _______ classical music is understandable. In our own time, American’s musical high culture has degenerated into a formulaic entertainment divorced from the contemporary moment. Thus, to miss out on what our orchestras are up to is not to ________ much. In the late Gilded Age, however, music was widely esteemed as the “ queen of the arts.”
Classical music was in its American heyday, ________ the culture at large.
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A promote D sacrifice G antagonistic toward
B reinterpret E appreciate H generally rejected by C ignore F malign I centrally embedded in
6. The serious study of popular culture by intellectuals is regularly credited with having rendered obsolete a once-dominant view that popular culture is inherently inferior to high art. Yet this alteration of attitudes may be somewhat _______. Although it is now academically respectable to analyze popular culture, the fact that many intellectuals feel compelled to rationalize their own ________ action movies or mass-market fiction reveals, perhaps unwittingly, their continued ________ the old hierarchy of high and low culture.
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A counterproductive D penchant for G aversion to
B underappreciated E distaste for H investment in
C overstated F indifference to I misunderstanding of
7. Britain is attractive to worldwide advertisers because it is ________ market, so there is no need to tailor advertisements for different parts of the country.
A a global
B an uncomplicated
C a vast
D a homogeneous
E a uniform
F an immense
8. The band’s long-standing strategy of laying leisurely explorations atop a steady funk beat has proven to be surprisingly _________: a concert in Cologne from 1972 sounds as if it could have taken place today.
A fortuitous
B foresighted
C prescient
D popular
E serendipitous
F lucrative
9. Factory production made an absence of imperfections so blandly commonplace that the __________ of hand-produced goods were now cherished where they once might have been shunned.
A advantages
B revivals
C benefits
D pretentious
E blemishes
F defects
10. Though its state associations, the American Medical Association controlled who could become a physician and dominated ________ professions like nursing and occupational therapy.
A commensurate
B proportionate
C kindred
D affiliated
E imperative
F voluntary
