Hi. I have a few big book questions that I still don’t quite understand after watching the bigbook solution video by Greg.
- As serious as she is about the bullfight, she does not allow respect to _____ her sense of whimsy when painting it.
(A) inspire
(B) provoke
(C) suppress
(D) attack
(E) satisfy
The Ans is C. Greg said in the video that “As … as” is a CONTRAST phrase and it blows my mind. I always think it is a supporting phrase. I also check greg’s support/contrast clause sheet it doesn’t mean the nature of “as…as”.
Greg explained that the meaning of the sentence is: “She is serious abt bullfight, but actually not that serious”. But I don’t understand Greg’s interpretation and he didn’t explain further as well.
Would like to confirm whether “as…as” is a supporting/contrasting phrase ? Or it can be either supporting/contrasting phrase depending on the context?
- The First World War began in a context of jargon and verbal delicacy and continued in a cloud of ------- as ------- as language and literature, skillfully used, could make it.
(A) circumlocution. literal
(B) cliché… lucid
(C) euphemism. impenetrable
(D) particularity. deliberate
(E) subjectivity. enthralling
Ans: C
I pick (D) here. Because I thought “verbal delicacy” somewhat means “precision / accuracy”. Not sure if I’m wrong here? I checked the Merriam-Webster dictionary and it seems to suggest so.
Even though I understand Greg’s reasoning here, saying “jargon” is hard to understand. So option C’s pair of words (" euphemism…impenetrable) make more sense to match with the implication of “hard to understand”.
But I don’t know why (D) is logically wrong here given the “verbal delicacy”. Could someone point out my logical mistakes?
Here is my logic:
Option D’s 2nd word: “deliberate” matches with “verbal delicacy”. And “jargon” means terms in specific realms, so it also matches D’s 1st word: “particularity” as it is SPECIFIC.
- While Parker is very outspoken on issues she cares about, she is not --; she concedes the – of opposing arguments when they expose weaknesses inherent in her own.
(A) fickle… validity
(B) arrogant. restraint
(C) fanatical… strength
(D) congenial. incompatibility
(E) unyielding. speciousness
Ans: C
This one is not difficult. But I want to ask about the phrase “while”. Usually, “while” is a contrast phrase. However, it seems like it is used as a supporting phrase, using math strategy here.
While being outspoken (+ idea), not fanatical (extreme) (+ idea)
So may I ask whether “while” is actually both a support/contrast phrase (just like “or”, according to Greg’s support/contrast phrase spreadsheet) , depending on the context? In other questions, the “while” phrase are sometimes being used as supporting clauses as well.
Thank you very much for reading this post!