Question

Difficulty: HardVocabulary and Word Meaning in Context

Read the excerpt below regarding legal arbitration carefully. Fill in the blank with the single word that best captures the contextual meaning of the highlighted term as used in the passage.

Answer:Rather than siding with either faction in the land dispute, the state governor appointed a disinterested arbitrator whose primary duty was to review the deeds without personal bias or financial stake in the outcome.

In this context, describing the arbitrator as disinterested means that the arbitrator was completely 【impartial】 in evaluating the dispute.

Answer

The correct word to fill in the blank is 'impartial' (or 'unbiased' / 'neutral').
In formal English registers, particularly within administrative or legal contexts, 'disinterested' means having no personal involvement or receiving no private benefit, thereby remaining impartial. The excerpt reinforces this by explicitly mentioning an absence of personal bias or financial stake.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Analyze the surrounding context of the bolded word in the excerpt.
The text explains that the governor appointed an arbitrator 'without personal bias or financial stake in the outcome.'
Contextual clues in the sentence explicitly outline the expected attitude and standing of the arbitrator.
2
Distinguish between the colloquial misinterpretation and the formal contextual meaning of the word.
While 'disinterested' is often incorrectly confused with 'uninterested' (meaning bored or indifferent), in formal legal and academic prose it specifically means free from self-interest or personal bias.
Contextual word meaning requires selecting the sense that aligns strictly with text clues rather than popular misuses.
3
Substitute appropriate synonyms into the blank to ensure semantic and syntactic fit.
Replacing the blank with 'impartial', 'unbiased', or 'neutral' creates a coherent sentence that preserves the exact meaning of the excerpt.
Verifies that the target word functions correctly in context.

Key Concept

Contextual Word Meaning and Disambiguation of Commonly Confused Words
Estimated Time:1m 30s
Rate this question