Biologists ------- isolated oceanic islands like the Galapagos, because, in such small, laboratory-like settings, the rich hurly-burly of continental plant and animal communities is reduced to a scientifically ------- complexity.
(A) explore … diverse
(B) desert. .manageable
© exploit. .intimidating
(D) reject. .intricate
(E) prize … tractable
Answer: “E”
Can anybody explain this …how do the Prize and tractable fit here ??
Hey, so here because means “support” since the island is laboratory-like, Biologists would be positive about it. For the second blank, the “rich” hurly-burly (wildlife) is reduced to something. Here “reduced to” gives the clue that the complexity is lesser.
So we are looking for sth that means small for the second blank, diverse does not fit, manageable can fit, intimidating does not fit, intricate does not fit, and tractable fits. Now the word in the first blank has to be positive, so desert doesn’t make sense. Prize means to cherish, and tractable is small so E makes sense.
Thanks for the explanation! However, I’m unclear about a phrase here. I thought “reduced to” implied a negative connotation- so I thought the first blank was a bad thing. Can someone please explain why this is wrong? Thanks!
While reduce do have a straight forward negative connotation in one of its meaning , I think we are using the first definition of reduce which means to minimize and its connotation depends upon the context that you’re provided with . Here, reduce is used in-parallel with laboratory-like settings which is a good thing for the scientist (because they can perform experiment in that setting ) and hence the situation is under scientists control or manageable(tractable) . So, the overall situation turns out to be positive.