three sentence completion questions help

<p>Here I got severl problems in Barron's critical reading workbook for the new sat(the yellow one).Hope someone can help me to figure them out.Thanx a lot^^</p>

<p>1.If Amelia Earhart's acceptance was by no means____,her fame was unusually widespread and her popularity long-lived.</p>

<p>correct answer:A. universal.</p>

<p>Why?</p>

<p>2.For all of his turn-of-the-century trappings, the novel's hero is basically a <strong><em>voice;his values and cultural</em></strong>_are of the present more than the 1980s.</p>

<p>correct answer:C. contemporary...sensibility.Why answer B.modern...antiquity is wrong?</p>

<p>3.Grateful as we are for these splendid books,they remain isolated examples of excellence in a literature of____.</p>

<p>correct answer: D. mediocrity.Why answer B.distinction is wrong?</p>

<p>antiquities doesn't make sense in for #2 and in the second blank.</p>

<p>I think I saw #3 before, and I got it wrong. The trick is ISOLATED. Distinct books would not be isolated. It's a wack sentence, but mediocrity is right.</p>

<p>I dont' feel like doing #1.</p>

<p>(A) universal (B) ambiguous (C) expedient (D) partial (E) genuine</p>

<p>Ambiguous means unclear, which wouldn't make sense.
Expedient means advantageus, which doesn't make sense either.
Partial means incomplete, which is opposite to the "widespread" mentioned in sentence.
Genuine wouldn't make sense, acceptance can't be truthful or fake.</p>

<p>So the answer is universal, which makes sense - though she was famous and popular, not everyone accepted her.</p>

<h1>1 is a really bad question, and it's questions like these why you shouldn't practice on any other questions than official CB ones.</h1>

<p>1 is not a very bad question. the tricky part is the usage of 'if'. in this sense, 'if' is used like 'although'. its hard, but ive seen this before on sentence corrections in the writing section of past sats.</p>

<p>The first sentence was indeed poorly constructed and you won't see something like that on the SAT; the problem is that the phrase "by no means" conflicts with the intent of the sentence. The concept should be made clearer; for example, it could say, "If A.E.'s fame was not quite _______, her fame was nonetheless widespread and her popularity long-lived."</p>

<p>For the second sentence, "antiquity" means relating to the past, certainly not of the present. That can't be the correct answer.</p>

<p>For the third sentence, splendid books are "isolated"; that means they are rare and examples of them are few and far between. That means that other books are less than excellent, or, in other words, mediocre.</p>

<p>thank you all so much!!deeeeeply appreciate your help!I feel much clear now</p>