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Question

Difficulty: HardInterpreting Contrast and Concession Structural Signals

Even while acknowledging that the early medieval commercial rolls were fraught with missing entries, the economic historian maintained that the surviving tax registers were surprisingly __________, offering a remarkably coherent baseline for regional price inflation.

Which two of the following answer choices, when inserted into the sentence, independently complete the sentence in a way that produces logically equivalent sentences?

  1. exhaustiveAnswer
  2. B
    equivocal
  3. C
    ambiguous
  4. comprehensiveAnswer
  5. E
    meticulous
  6. F
    fragmentary

Answer

The correct options are 'exhaustive' and 'comprehensive'.
The introductory clause opens with 'Even while acknowledging...', establishing a concession that contrasts the incomplete nature of the commercial rolls ('fraught with missing entries') with the unexpected completeness of the surviving tax registers. The correct choices, 'exhaustive' and 'comprehensive', both signify complete and thorough coverage, appropriately satisfying the structural pivot and completing the sentence with equivalent meanings.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Analyze sentence structure and identify transition signals
The sentence begins with the concession signal 'Even while acknowledging...', which introduces a contrast between a negative premise ('fraught with missing entries') and the main claim about the surviving registers.
Concessionary structures indicate that the main clause will reverse or qualify the concessionary clause.
2
Determine the required contextual valence of the blank
Because the concession mentions incomplete data ('missing entries') and the result is a 'remarkably coherent baseline', the blank must mean complete, thorough, or detailed.
The word 'surprisingly' emphasizes the unexpected positive quality of the surviving registers despite missing entries.
3
Evaluate option choices for semantic equivalence
'Exhaustive' and 'comprehensive' both mean complete/thorough and produce identical sentence meanings. 'Equivocal' and 'ambiguous' form a pair with the wrong polarity. 'Meticulous' and 'fragmentary' fail to form a matching equivalent pair.
Sentence Equivalence requires selecting two choices that independently yield sentences of identical meaning.

Key Concept

Interpreting Concession Signals in Sentence Equivalence
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Topics

Interpreting Contrast and Concession Structural Signals

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