Confusion with support/contrast in TC/SE

GRE Verbal Problem Solving
1

Hi all - is the purpose of this strategy to identify whether the blank words will have a positive/negative sentiment?

Example (1) big book page 48 Q7: “Not wishing to appear ‘presumptuous’” - IS contrasting and IS negative

Example (2) same page Q5: “The significance of magna carta lies not in its ‘specific’…” IS contrasting but ‘specific’ does not seem negative.

Curious if any thoughts!

2

A better way to think of it is the ideas in the sentence support or contrast each other. The words that go in the blank(s) are there to facilitate the logical connection of those ideas. It’s not always just +/-.

So if you think two ideas in a passage need to, say, support each other, then your job is to predict / choose a word for a blank that makes that happen.