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Question

Difficulty: MediumValidating Sentence Coherence and Pair Equivalence

Although the archivist initially suspected that the diplomatic logs from the late Ottoman era were entirely ________, subsequent cross-referencing with local court transcripts established beyond doubt that the logs contained verified historical facts.

Which TWO of the following answer choices, when inserted into the sentence, produce completed sentences that are coherent and equivalent in meaning?

  1. apocryphalAnswer
  2. B
    erroneous
  3. spuriousAnswer
  4. D
    authentic
  5. E
    inscrutable
  6. F
    opaque

Answer

The two choices that complete the sentence with equivalent meaning are 'apocryphal' and 'spurious'.
The sentence relies on the concession marker 'Although' to set up a contrast between the initial suspicion about the diplomatic logs and the subsequent discovery that they contained 'verified historical facts'. Therefore, the blank requires words that mean false, fabricated, or of dubious authenticity. Both 'apocryphal' and 'spurious' precisely capture this meaning, yielding two completed sentences that are logically coherent and semantically equivalent.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Analyze sentence structure and clue words
The concession transition 'Although' indicates that the initial suspicion about the logs contrasts with the later finding that they 'contained verified historical facts'.
Establishing the contrast helps determine that the missing word must describe something unverified, false, or fabricated.
2
Identify the required target definition and valence
The target word must mean false, fake, or of doubtful authenticity, creating a negative valence opposite to 'verified historical facts'.
This narrows down the candidate words to those expressing doubt about historical truth.
3
Evaluate candidate words and validate equivalence
'Apocryphal' and 'spurious' both mean false or of doubtful authenticity, creating sentences with identical meaning. Other options either lack a pair ('erroneous'), exhibit incorrect polarity ('authentic'), or form an off-target synonym pair ('inscrutable' / 'opaque').
Sentence Equivalence requires both contextual fit and semantic equivalence between the two completed sentences.

Key Concept

Validating Sentence Coherence and Pair Equivalence
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Topics

Validating Sentence Coherence and Pair Equivalence

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