Sentence completion question

Test Preparation SAT Preparation
1

<p>Because all members of this organization are idealists, they _______ any assertion that political enterprises should be purely ________.</p>

<p>(A) ignore… universal
(B) criticize… visionary
(C) condemn… benevolent
(D) denounce… pragmatic
(E) condone… indulgent</p>

<p>I find it hard to understand this sentence. Could someone explain me in detail why D is right and why every other choice is wrong?</p>

2

<p>First off, Denounce means to simply go against or declare as wrong. Pragmatic means to use a practical approach to solve a problem. The sentence states that the members of the organization are “idealists” meaning someone guided more by ideals than by practical considerations. Therefore, they are against being pragmatic.</p>

3

<p>D. Idealists obviously believe in ideals, or perfection. Therefore, they wouldn’t be pragmatic, or practical because they seek perfect things while reality isn’t perfect. So it would make sense that they would denounce, or reject, political enterprises that are pragmatic.
A. Universal has nothing to do with being ideal. So it wouldn’t make sense for idealists to ignore such an assertion.
B. Visionary means planning for the future or imagining what’s it like. I don’t know if this is right, but that definition seems similar to ideals to me. So idealists shouldn’t criticize visionary pursuits.
E. indulgent is not relevant to the fact that they are idealists.</p>

<p>Hope this helps :)</p>

4

<p>Hi there,</p>

<p>So let’s examine the context clues: our key word here is idealist. We know this because the actions of this group are based on the fact that they are idealists. Idealists are people who believe that everything should be perfect, and they strive to achieve their idea of perfection, their ‘ideal,’ in all things. </p>

<p>Now that we know that let’s look at the clues.
A) makes no sense. Why would they ignore something universal? Who knows? Universal could be something ideal, but since we don’t know what their ideals are we can’t say.
B) doesn’t work either because visionary is a synonym for idealist- both of them are dreamers about the perfect way things could be. So an idealist would not criticize a visionary enterprise.
C) Condemn means to damn, or deem terrible, and idealism looks for the good in things so they wouldn’t condemn benevolence, which is a long way of saying goodness.
E) condone means to tolerate, or to allow to exist and not get involved. Indulgent means being very generous or lenient. Doesn’t really make sense, does it?</p>

<p>D) Denounce means to say you do not support and think is wrong. Pragmatic is the very opposite of idealist. Pragmatism is all about trying to do the best given the actual situation. Idealists are all about thinking how things would be in a perfect world. If you put these in a sentence, now it makes sense!</p>

<p>When you have sentence completion with two words to fill in, here are some good tricks to think about-

  • The SAT will put in a few words that could work with the first blank, but only one will have words that work with both blanks. Idealists could condemn something, but they wouldn’t condemn something benevolent. They would denounce something pragmatic though.
  • Make sure your words match. If idealists are agreeing with something, then make sure that second word is a word that an idealist would agree with. But if an idealist is denouncing something, the second word will be opposite of what an idealist would like. So say you had been given F) applaud… visionary. That would work, because they are supporting something they like. the SAT will never never give you two right answers, but which word you put in the first blank will affect what word goes in the second blank.</p>

<p>Hope that helps!</p>

5

<p>Thanks so much for your answers! I see now that my problem was that I was trying to match the choices with “political enterprises” and didn’t really know what it means to think in an idealistic way. Now the correct answer seems clear, thanks! I didn’t know that “visionary” and “idealist” are synonyms and I didn’t realize that an idealist is someone not pragmatic. Thanks for teaching me something new! </p>

<p>Fffew, I think this sentence was one of the hardest ones I have ever seen.</p>