The concept of increasing complexity of organisms has _____ history among evolutionary biologists, and yet many laypeople would unhesitatingly say that the pattern applies to the history of life on Earth.
A an illustrious
B a sordid
C a curious
D a contentious
E a distinguished
F a fraught
So I found “yet”, and then read the sentence after it to find something meaningful.
But I cannot find the keyword. It seems to me that “the history of life” is important. But this is a neutral word.
I want to solve this question just by looking at the question. What should I do?
Believe the best way to solve SE question is to follow Greg’s pairing strategy. It more or less always helps me choose the potential answers and eliminate the non-pair words even before reading the Sentence. In this example it seems A and E are the only synonyms. So there’s a good chance that it’s the right choice even without using the Math strategy from Greg, which I see you tried.
Please note, below is not the official explanation rather just my opinion on how I’d go about it:
So once you apply math strategy, you realize that “and yet” is the ‘contrast’ in the sentence which means we need to find opposite relationship in the blank when compared to what follows the contrast. In the latter part of the sentence the keyword is “pattern applies to ABC”, whereas the contrast is trying to tell us that it’s not the case. Meaning the pattern doesn’t apply to whatever the laymen are saying but rather it is specific to what the biologists say. Making the blank as “something unique/noteworthy”. Which makes sense as per our initial answer choices Illustrious/Distinguished.