Mentor course verbal qs

GRE Verbal Problem Solving
1

Because the book is largely concerned with an examination of various (i)blank 1, often encountered in contemporary thinking, such as an exaggerated appreciation for meaningless coincidence and a credulous acceptance of pseudosciences, much of the writing has a (ii)blank 2 quality to it. Nevertheless, it avoids the overly earnest and scolding tone common to many such endeavors.

Blank (i)one,
  1. inadequacies
  2. abstractions
  3. complexities
Blank (ii)two
  1. debunking
  2. speculative
  3. generalizing

Answer is inadequacies ans debunking , and im not too sure how to land at that answer.

2

Walk us through your support/contrast process

3

I started with blank 2 first.

Referring to the idea next to it “nevertheless … common to many such endeavours”. This idea has a negative connotation to it referring to “overly earnest and scolding tone” … this statement is saying that most works of this genre has a bitter tone to it. Nevertheless sets up a contrast. And hence the whole idea 1 before it should imply the opposite of “overly earnest and scolding” and hence for blank 2 i chose “generalising” to fit into the translation.

For blank 1, with proof of “generalising” + samples of “such as exaggerated appreciation…. Credulous acceptance…” , i thought this refers to abstract?

I do think i need to work more on how do i translate the sentences cues into appropriate choice of words, usually am stuck in this eventho i followed the strategy, any suggestions on how i cam improve on that part?

4

Why do you think that is the opposite?

Have another go at this, and start with Blank 1, try supporting the idea of “such as exaggeration appreciation for meaningless”. Is this an abstraction, complexity or inadequacy?

5

I feel like inadequecies and speculative would fit the best here.
So not sure how the answer would be debunking.

Actually scratch whatever I said above.
I found an explanation on reddit from a few years ago:

The sentence basically says: “The book examines ____ often encountered in contemporary thought, such as an exaggerated appreciation of coincidence and a fondness for pseudoscience. For that reason, the writing is kind of ____, although it it isn’t overly harsh”.

  • An exaggerated appreciation of coincidence and a fondness for pseudoscience are not complexities nor abstractions, but rather errors or inadequacies in contemporary thinking. Hence, the correct answer for the first blank is (A)
  • The book examines some characteristics of contemporary thinking. In this sense, it is not speculative, but analytic. And it is neither generalizing, because it is concerned particularly with contemporary thinking. Rather, the book examines these characteristics of contemporary thought and reveals them for what they are: inadequacies. Thus, it has a debunking nature, although it isn’t as harsh as other similar books may be. The correct answer is (A).
1 Like