Examkin

Question

Difficulty: Very hardLeveraging Secondary and Obscure Word Definitions

Although the nineteenth-century treatise on industrialization praised the expansion of steam-powered infrastructure for accelerating commerce, its concluding chapters warned that unbridled mechanization posed a ________ threat to agrarian villages, capable of utterly destroying traditional rural livelihoods. Which of the following words best completes the sentence?

  1. A
    salutary
  2. fellAnswer
  3. C
    innocuous
  4. D
    ephemeral
  5. E
    literal

Answer

The word 'fell' best completes the sentence, as its obscure secondary adjective definition means fierce, destructive, or deadly.
The correct option relies on the secondary definition of the word 'fell' as an adjective, meaning lethal, fierce, or destructive. This fits the logical structure of the sentence, which shifts from praising steam power to warning of its devastating impact on rural communities.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Analyze structural contrast and contextual clues in the sentence stem.
The sentence begins with the concession pivot 'Although', contrasting praise for commercial expansion with a warning of destruction ('utterly destroying traditional rural livelihoods'). The blank requires an adjective with strongly negative and severe connotation describing 'threat'.
Structural signals establish that the blank must express extreme destructiveness.
2
Evaluate the vocabulary options against primary and secondary definitions.
While 'fell' is commonly recognized as the past tense of the verb 'fall', its obscure secondary definition as an adjective means 'fierce, cruel, or lethal'. This secondary definition directly matches the sentence's contextual demand.
GRE Verbal Reasoning Sentence Equivalence and Text Completion items frequently leverage archaic or secondary meanings of familiar words.

Key Concept

Leveraging Secondary and Obscure Word Definitions
Estimated Time:1m 30s
Rate this question

Topics

Leveraging Secondary and Obscure Word Definitions

More questions from this topic