1. It is a paradox of the Victorians that they were both _____ and, through their empire, cosmopolitan.
A. capricious
B. insular
C. mercenary
D. idealistic
E. intransigent
2. My grandma has as strong belief in all things _____: she insists, for example, that the house in which she lived as a child was haunted.
A. clamorous
B. invidious
C. numinous
D. empirical
E. sonorous
3. The (i)_____ of molecular oxygen on Earth-sized planets around other stars in the universe would not be (ii)_____ sign of life: molecular oxygen can be a signature of photosynthesis (a biotic process) or merely of the rapid escape of water from the upper reaches of a planetary atmosphere (an abiotic process).
A. dearth
D. a controversial
E. an unambiguous
F. a possible
4. Given the (i)_____ the committees and the (ii)_____ nature of its investigation, it would be unreasonable to gainsay the committee’s conclusions at first glance.
A. sterling reputation of
D. superficial
E. spontaneous
F. exhaustive
5. The skin of the poison dart frog contains deadly poisons called batrachotoxins. But the (i)_____ of the toxins has remained an enigma, as the frog does not (ii)_____ them. Now an analysis suggests that the melyrid beetle is the source. Collected beetle specimens all contained batrachotoxins, suggesting that these beetles are (iii)_____ by the frogs.
A. effect
D. pressure
E. produce
F. suffer from
G. eaten
H. neutralized
I. poisoned
6. Now that photographic prints have become a popular field for collecting, auctions are becoming more (i)_____. It is not just the entry of new collectors into the field that is causing this intensification. Established collectors’ interests are also becoming more (ii)_____. Those who once concentrated on the work of either the nineteenth-century pioneers or the twentieth-century modernists are now keen to have (iii)_____ collections.
A. competitive
D. fickle
G. comprehensive
H. legitimate
I. impressive
7. The beauty of the scientific approach is that even when individual researchers do _____ bias or partiality, others can correct them using a framework of evidence on which everyone broadly agrees.
A. overreact to
B. deviate from
C. succumb to
D. recoil from
E. yield to
F. shrink from
8. The reconstruct known work is beautiful and also probably _____: it is the only Hebrew verse written by a woman.
A. singular
B. unique
C. archaic
D. counterfeit
E. valuable
F. fake
9. In a book that inclines to _____, an epilogue arguing that ballet is dead arrives simply as one more overstatement.
A.pessimism
B.misinterpretation
C.imprecision
D.vagueness
E.exaggeration
F. hyperbole
10. The political upheaval caught most people by surprise: despite the _____ warningsof some commentators, it had never seemed that imminent.
A.stern
B.prescient
C.prophetic
D.indifferent
E.repeated
F. apathetic
