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Difficulty: MediumLeveraging Secondary and Obscure Word Definitions

Despite the historical society’s ambitious fundraising campaign, the restoration of the cathedral’s stained-glass windows stalled primarily due to a ________ of master artisans proficient in medieval glazing techniques. Which of the following pairs of words, when inserted into the blank, complete the sentence in a way that produces sentences with equivalent meanings?

  1. wantAnswer
  2. B
    desire
  3. dearthAnswer
  4. D
    poverty
  5. E
    abundance
  6. F
    surfeit

Answer

The correct words are 'want' and 'dearth', as both denote a scarcity or lack of resources—in this case, skilled artisans—which logically accounts for why the restoration project stalled despite successful fundraising.
The sentence establishes a contrast between successful fundraising and a stalled project, indicating that the stall was caused by a shortage of master artisans. The word 'dearth' explicitly means a scarcity or lack. The word 'want', when used as a noun, carries a secondary definition meaning deficiency or absence of something needed. Together, 'want' and 'dearth' form a semantically equivalent pair that completes the sentence logically.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Analyze structural signals and context clues in the stem.
The concession transition 'Despite... ambitious fundraising campaign' indicates that financial support was present, yet the phrase 'stalled primarily due to a ________' signals that a critical deficiency or shortage hindered progress.
Identifying the logic of the sentence establishes the required polarity and semantic focus of the blank (a word meaning lack or shortage).
2
Evaluate candidate words for contextual fit and secondary meanings.
'Dearth' directly means a scarcity or lack. 'Want', when used as a noun, secondary to its common verb sense of wishing for something, precisely means a lack, deficiency, or absence of something essential.
Recognizing secondary definitions prevents eliminating common words like 'want' that perfectly fulfill the context in an obscure or formal noun sense.
3
Verify pair equivalence and eliminate distractors.
Inserting either 'want' or 'dearth' yields coherent sentences with identical meanings. Distractors such as 'desire' exploit the primary meaning of 'want', while 'abundance' and 'surfeit' contradict the sentence logic.
GRE Sentence Equivalence requires both contextual fit and semantic equivalence between the two chosen words.

Key Concept

Leveraging Secondary and Obscure Word Definitions in Sentence Equivalence
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Topics

Leveraging Secondary and Obscure Word Definitions

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