This sentence contains ‘though’ (contrast word) and ‘by"‘ (support word). Why did you focus on “by” and not though? Doesn’t a contrast word override a support word? Also, if I stuck to focus on though (-) and give false allegations of misconduct (-), the blank word is (+) which makes it go wrong
the senator’s reputation, though __ by false allegations of misconduct, immerged from the ordeal ______
What does the “though” actually contrast here?
It contrasts these two bits:
This doesn’t help us solve blank 1 since both ideas are missing/incomplete.
The blank describes what happened to his reputation, so we need to find some clue that can help us figure it out.
The best clue is the idea “false allegations of misconduct”
How does blank 1 connect with this clue idea? It’s a support with “by”.
So blank 1 needs to support the idea of “false allegations of misconduct”. Maybe something like “damaged”
Now, we can use the “though” to contrast these ideas and figure out blank 2