In this question, wouldn’t “could have” being a 'not ’ word make the first idea positive and I don’t really recall seeing “in reality” anywhere on the list for contrast phrases, so not sure how that was used instead and the effect of “could not” was ignored.
I am also finding it really hard in general to pinpoint what’s happening to ideas with blanks in multiple blank questions. Here I am not able to figure out what is being contrasted by what. Clearly, there is a contrast but what is contrasting blank 1?
Paradoxically, the lack of ___, enraptured the audience
The lack of _____ can only relate to one thing, the casual nature of the movements
How does it relate, would “the lack of _____” contrast “casual”
Or would it support it
Well, the entire phrase would have to be something that means “casual”
Hence the blank, would have to be something that contrasts casual
An example;
Despite being on the brink of losing his life’s work, John is calm, his lack of ______ (anxiety) is the only thing keeping everyone else from falling apart
Understood that the second blank contrasts the first idea, here I usually have trouble identifying what the idea with the first blank is doing. Can you help me out with that?
Well, I thought of “could have” being a ‘not’ word, when put together with ‘disaster’ would make the whole idea positive, and the semicolon ( ; ) being a support would mean that the second idea is positive making the blank positive as well. Is there something wrong with my reasoning?
