The wonder of De Quincey is that although opium dominated his life, it never __________ him; indeed, he turned its use to __________ when he published the story of its influence in the London Magazine.
A. overcame…altruism
B. intimidated…triumph
C. distressed…pleasure
D. conquered…gain
E. released…necessity
Source: The GRE Big Book
Conquered and gain. Option D
Explain your reasoning
him ; indeed
Now, this means support between the two parts.
Let’s first solve blank 1.
Here, it says opium dominated his life but has an “although” so, it means it was bad, but not worst. For eg., he is kinda bad but not EVIL. We are now looking for a word that’s stronger than dominated. C and D are kinda close while D is strong (conquered).
Looking at blank 2, they are still supporting the idea that it was bad was not conquered by it, this means something positive due to the “;” in middle. So the contenders of earlier blanks are C and D out of which D is more relevant mainly because of conquered.
Answer: D. conquered…gain
The wonder of De Quincey is that although opium dominated his life, it never conquered him; indeed, he turned its use to gain when he published the story of its influence in the London Magazine .
Although indicates a contrast. so the word in the first blank will be the opposite of the word dominated. As we know sometimes contrast exists in terms of a superlative/stronger version of the first word, which is dominated here, I chose to put a synonym of took complete control. In the option choice conquer seems to be a great fit.
For the second blank it is a support of the first idea. The first part is positive so the second part has to be positive. Moreover he used it to to his advantage publish a story that also indicates a positive word, and indicates that he gained.
Hence the answer choice D.
We can also use usage strategy,
A) is out because how can opium “overcame” him
B) intimated - meh , but triumph is to extreme to define publishing one story
C) turned its use to pleasure doesn’t make sense either
E) opium never released him ??? also use to necessity doesn’t make sense.
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