TC Help from GRE Big Book

GRE Verbal Problem Solving
1
  1. Not wishing to appear -------, the junior member of
    the research group refrained from ------- any criticism of the senior members’ plan for dividing up
    responsibility for the entire project.
    (A) reluctant … evaluating
    (B) inquisitive … offering
    (C) presumptuous … venturing
    (D) censorious … undercutting
    (E) moralistic … observing

Greg seemed to have eliminated the 2nd option based on inquisitive being a positive/neutral word in the answer solutions walkthrough I watched from the 2nd day of the one month study plan. However, I checked and found out that inquisitive also seems to be a negative word which can mean to pester someone. With the 2nd blank can be both offering and venturing then how do I choose one of the correct options between option B & option C?

2

I think you have to look at the context and the exact definition of the word(usage) to understand which word will fill the blank more aptly.

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3

Even if, in some cases, depending on the context, the word “inquisitive” may have a negative connotation, the word “offer” makes no sense!!

Offering a criticism?

Also, keep that in mind, you gotta choose the best option available, and certainly “C” is the best option.

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I checked the meaning of venturing and it is along the lines of offering.

5

Yep, it’s there, but, “the relation between a signifier (the word), its referent (the thing), and its signified (the meaning) is arbitrary, in linguist Ferdinand de Saussure’s famous formulation, and this arbitrariness is consistently shown by the simple fact that different languages have different names and different meanings for the same thing. Many signifiers can be used to designate the same referent; and the same referent has widely divergent meanings in different cultures or contexts. In other words, there is no “correct” or natural name for the thing that English designates as a tree, and trees don’t mean or signify the same thing in all cultures either: In a Druid culture they signify divinity, in a logging culture they signify profit, in a beach culture they signify shade, and in a bird culture they signify home.”

Hopefully this makes sense because, when you conjure up a word, you’re essentially pulling out a web of knowledge graph; however the meaning is realized how the word has been put in the context.

Stupid example: go to the wikipedia: read the article on science. And then to understand what science is, the website might prompt you to click the blue links and read articles apropos of science. And if you keep doing that it takes you another pages, from that to another page, it goes on and on recursively because word mapping is not a one-to-on relation.

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In the google dictionary: you will see a synonyms word of science is field

Now, if you say, I play soccer in the science.
It’s wrong.

Some dude presumptuously claim that, “hey look, it’s a synonym. What are you talking about?” Huh?”

Does it makes sense?

6

I do get it but that makes solving verbal questions quite difficult since working on vocabulary is challenging but manageable but knowing the context comes from extensive reading usually.