hard sentence completion

Test Preparation SAT Preparation
1

<p>At its purest, professional wrestling has much in common with morality plays: its stark oppositions between good and evil, and honesty and guile, create a world ____________ of _____________. </p>

<p>A. bereft.....theatrically
B. exclusive....adversity
C. emblematic.....happenstance
D. Innocent....polarity
E. devoid...........ambiguity</p>

<p>Can someone explain why the answer to this sentence completion is E? I don't understand how that can be?</p>

2

<p>Let's go through each one:</p>

<p>A: Bereft would be a good word for the first one, but theatrically isn't even a noun, so that doesn't work. Plus, it makes no sense</p>

<p>B: To be "exclusive of adversity" is also syntactically wrong. Also, adversity has nothing to do with anything hinted at in the beginning</p>

<p>C: Emblematic simply means symbolic, but symbolic of chance has nothing to do with the sentence</p>

<p>D: Polarity might be a tempting word, but "innocent of polarity" doesn't really mean anything</p>

<p>E: This is correct. Devoid means lacking in, ambiguity is lack of clarity. So something that lacks opaqueness and confusion is something that's very clear. And the sentence talks about clarity, opposition, and moral dichotomies. So E is the right answer.</p>

3

<p>what practice test is this from b.c i feel like i have seen this question before?</p>

4

<p>this is from the psat this year...I got it wrong too lol</p>

5

<p>backing what applesandoranges said, the context clue in the sentence is "stark oppositions." the word stark implies clarity and definiteness while the word ambiguity deals with the unclear.</p>

6

<p>Indeed; this one was easy. In fact, the phrase "hard sentence completion" is a paradox.</p>

7

<p>Thanks, i kinda see now. so basically the reason that devoid and ambiguity works is that:</p>

<p>Because the oppositions are so obvious and "stark" in these plays, there would be no unclearness or ambiguity. so it would aessentiallly be devoid of ambiguity.</p>

8

<p>ARGHH!!!...</p>

<p>sorry, but I hate this question...it's the one, THE ONLY ONE question that I got wrong on the PSAT writing section in 2007.</p>