- Dependence on foreign sources of heavy metals, though----, remains----for United States foreign policy.
(A) deepening… a challenge
(B) diminishing… a problem
(C) excessive… a dilemma
(D) debilitating… an embarrassment
(E) unavoidable… a precedent
{this “though … remains” makes me think that the blanks must be either “getting worse, but still good”, or “getting better, but still bad”. Looking at the answers:
a. getting worse, but still bad - no
b. getting better, but still bad - yes!
c. bad, but still bad - no
d. bad, but still bad - no
e. this does not really fit the pattern, but unavoidable and a precedent would better be connected by “and”, because one does not really cause or create the other.
- Within the next decade, sophisticated telescopes now orbiting the Earth will determine whether the continents really are moving, ----the incipient ----among geologists about the validity of the theory of continental drift.
(A) obviating… consensus
(B) forestalling… rift
(C) escalating… debates
(D) engendering… speculation
(E) resolving… rumors
{if we can determine whether the continents are actually moving, the debate will be over, so escalating and engendering are wrong. “Rumors” sounds odd when describing a theory among scientists. The discovery would not reduce the “consensus”, it would reduce the lack of consensus. So the answer is B - those test writers have a sense of humor, because “rifts” play a major role in the theory of continental drift.
- Freud derived psychoanalytic knowledge of childhood indirectly: he----childhood processes from adult----.
(A) reconstructed… memory
(B) condoned… experience
(C) incorporated… behavior
(D) released… monotony
(E) inferred… anticipation
{to get knowledge indirectly, you need an “indirect” type of verb - I think reconstructed and inferred both are this type. But from “adult anticipation” does not really make sense, so I think the answer is A.
4.Broadway audiences have become inured to----and so----to be pleased as to make their ready ovations meaningless as an indicator of the quality of the production before them.
(A) sentimentality… reluctant
(B) condescension… disinclined
(C) histrionics… unlikely
(D) cleverness… eager
(E) mediocrity… desperate
{First, inured means accustomed, or “used to”. The second part of the reading says their ovations, which indicate praise, are meaningless, so they must really want to be pleased, so the answer must be D or E. Getting used to cleverness would not really result in the false praise, but getting used to mediocrity would, so the answer is E}
- Any language is a conspiracy against experience in the sense that it is a collective attempt to----experience by reducing it into discrete parcels.
(A) extrapolate
(B) transcribe
(C) complicate
(D) amplify
(E) manage
{reducing it into discrete parcels seems like simplifying it or organizing it, but those are not options 
. Saying “a conspiracy” seems to imply that the answer will have a bad connotation. I think “manage” is very similar to “organize”, but it does not really have a bad connotation though. Really none of the choices do, so that might have been a false path. To me, manage is the only answer that really works here.
