Here I had a hard time coming up with a guess for the blank. I did come up with “entity” due the presence of “the systemic organization”. Looking at the answer choices, none of them matched my guess. However, I could eliminate all but B and C due to a lack of evidence. “Ideal” I thought went with the idea of “transcendental claims” but it was apparently not the right answer. I was not able to gather enough evidence to pick “a practice”. Can somebody let me know how they would approach this?
In this one, I was able to guess the blank as “crossfire” and “credit” and could easily eliminate choices C, D, and E. Between A and B, I was having a hard time with “tout” and “advocate” as I was trying hard to semantically guess what word would fit better. I also thought both “crossfire” and “interplay” could fit as an answer choice and picked B which is wrong. How can I improve my approach here?
For #4, it is hard to predict. I’d use “copy-paste prediction” and predict “the systematic organization of common hatreds”, since that’s what supports the blank. That seems more like an activity, i.e. a practice, than any of the other options.
For #7, like many Big Book questions, we can make a usage elimination. You can’t really get caught in interplay; you have to get caught in something negative. Same thing with advocate - the usage is off.
I always recommend spending most of your TC practice time by practicing TC with the ETS Super Powerpack since the questions are more realistic than Big Book. The current test rarely allows us to make usage eliminations.
Hey Vince, your philosophy of getting my thought process critiqued by experts is what got me posting here in the first place (I think it was in a reddit post made by you) and I appreciate your reply here.
I understand your logic for number 4. Thank you.
I agree with not getting caught in “interplay” which is definitely off, but “tout” which means “promote” also was not exactly what I had in mind and I thought was off by the same degree as “advocate”. But “Interplay” is off by a larger margin, if that makes sense, and I think I would probably eliminate B just based on that. I think I was too fixated on “tout” and “advocate” and was experiencing tunnel vision.
