In Germany her startling powers as a novelist are
widely -------, but she is almost unknown in the
English-speaking world because of the difficulties of
------- her eccentric prose.
a. ignored … editing
b. admired … translating
c. espoused ’ … revealing
d. obscured … comprehending
e. dispersed … transcribing
Why is ‘E’ wrong?
Hi manish! This is just a guess, but I believe ‘E’ is wrong, because when you try and match the words with the blanks, it doesn’t quite work with the context.
For example, it would not be that “her startling powers as a novelist are widely dispersed”, because it is not her POWERS that would be dispersed/spread, but her BOOKS, if she is a well known novelist. (I say well known because it’s the opposite of unknown, and I chose a word that it the opposite of unknown because of the “but” in the sentence)
And with “the difficulties of transcribing her eccentric prose” when I look very closely at that (versus translating), translating fits better. Is it harder to TRANSCRIBE (write down) the strange/unconventional (eccentric) words that this author uses for her books, or is it harder to translate them? I would say it is harder to translate them!
I hope this helps 
Here but is a contrast word so we can guess the first blank to be a word that is opposite of unknown which is known and when you look at the options, you can strike off A, D. Now if you look at the second blank, because is a support word so we can guess the blank to be something that’s tough to understand/translate. So I think the answer is B.
I couldn’t find out the difference between translate and transcribe, and can’t really say which one is difficult. I didn’t see any evidence for admired but spreading is exactly true. So I went for that. Anyway, this was a very good 50/50 question for me that I went wrong.
I believe E is wrong, and the answer is B because:
The clue for the first blank _____(1) is “unknown” with a “but” in the middle so we know it has to be a contrast for “unknown”. So ‘known’, ‘accepted’, ‘appreciate’, which leaves us with only B and C. Immediately E is eliminated. To be honest I don’t even know what espoused means but we look at the second blank _____(2). The second blank is giving a reason as to why the novelist is “well known” in Germany but “unknown” in the English-speaking world. Notice the test deliberately chose the word ‘English-speaking world’ as a strong clue that language and not geology is the problem here. So ‘translating’ is the one that fits most. Answer B.
Choice E with ‘transcribe’ is cut out early, but even if ‘transcribe’ is still a viable choice it means to write down a speech. That doesn’t have anything to do with going from German to English-speaking nations. Also I novel is already in written form to transcribe it would not make a lot of sense.
A very helpful piece of advice I heard from Greg’s video is that these test questions are designed to have one unambiguous answer. The test maker has to give us the clue within the passage otherwise it becomes a random ass test, so it’s almost like a game of finding clues rather than a test of language.
Thanks. It makes total sense now. I didn’t notice the clue “speaking” too. Great!