Business forecasts usually prove reasonably accurate
when the assumption that the future will be much
like the past is -------; in times of major ------- in the
business environment, however, forecasts can be
dangerously wrong.
Hey, have you tried to solve this question using the time-contrast strategy as this one is relatively more applicable than the math strategy?
But what two times are explicitly at contrast with each other? Past and future?
Acc. to me past and future are part of the same idea and block of 4 is much applicable here because of the following:
1)Forcast proved accurate-------Forcasts proved wrong
2)future like past--------future not like past
Nope, not the past and the future; rather, usual times and not usual times.
Look, if we paraphrase the first part of the question, it says, forecasts are accurate under the assumption that the future is like the past. Now, if we notice the second part of the sentence after the semicolon, it says, forecasts are wrong in times of major _____. We already know that future situations = past situations → accurate prediction. But as these predictions are wrong, meaning future situations are no longer equal to past situations. In other words, in the case of unusual times (or change in situations), these predictions are incorrect. And the answer choice “shifts” best fits blank 2.
For the first blank, we want anything with a positive meaning and only “specified” and “satisfied” work. The answer choice “satisfied” is correct as it captures the idea of being reasonably accurate. We can eliminate “specified” as it means precisely accurate.
We can apply the Math strategy here as well. Rephrase the sentence in the following way: Business forecasts usually prove reasonably accurate when the assumption that the future will be much like the past is ------; however, forecasts can be dangerously wrong in times of major ------- in the business environment. The “however” indicates that there is a clear contrast between the two ideas.
The block of four strategy works as well. To be honest, I haven’t looked at this TC from the block of four viewpoint. Thanks for pointing that out.
As Gregmat says, a well-written ETS problem gives us more than one route to solve it because, in reality, ETS is not that bad when it comes to GRE questions, and this is a perfect example of that.
That was one heck of an explanation !!! Thanks for sharing the idea of tackling it through multiple strategies. I was skeptical to go with time contrast strategy at first glance. Maybe because I overlooked the phrase “in times of”. But I believe the time contrast was not well evident in this TC ques. or maybe because I got so overwhelmed by the presence of “past” and “future” words that I forgot to look at “in times of” that indeed acted as a time contrasting phrase. Thanks a ton!
I tried 
!
