Could you please clarify why the word “otherwise” does not contrast with “contemporary”? For instance, the sentence states that he is reviewing contemporary fiction, yet he usually finds greater merit in older literary works. Can this interpretation be considered valid? (I recall that the word “obscure,” or something similar, was the suggested option for the second blank. However, I fail to comprehend how we could assume that such literary gems were obscure.)
Is it acceptable to use “surprising” for the first blank in this question and “preserve” for the second? I can understand using “justify” for the second blank, but since there is no option, I wanted to confirm if my assumption works.
I understand the first blank, but filling the second blank with “rejected” seems somewhat confusing to me. I initially tried to connect “they” to legislators, but it seems to refer to people who enjoy high speed, correct? Additionally, what does “legislators surprised no one” actually mean? Does it imply that they did not surprise anyone, or that they themselves were not surprised? I would greatly appreciate it if you could clarify this exercise in detail.
Question 3:
Humans, by nature, want to cover long distances in a short time, so they want to exceed the speed limit. Also people in general don’t want to pay heavy fines when they do get caught for speeding.
No, ‘they’ refers to legislators.
Former,. Everybody expected them to be against increasing penalties for speeding, so when they did, no one was surprised.
Since the general public is against penalties for speeding, the sentence says legislators acceded, which means to accept a demand. In this case, the legislators accepted the the public demand not to increase the penalties for speeding.
Thank you for your clarification. I assumed legislators would generally agree to increasing penalties, as it is uncommon for them to approve such demands in reality. Does the text, therefore, highlight something that rarely occurs in real-life scenarios?
Furthermore, could you kindly assist me with question 1 as well?
Your assumption is subjective, different people might naturally have contrasting opinions on this. You can’t make a broad assumption like that.
The sentence clearly states that the legislators acceded to public demand. Real-life scenarios are irrelevant here since they vary greatly depending on location. It’s better to focus on what the question explicitly states.
