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Getting’ Shmoopy with it… Which words could fill in the blanks so that
the sentence below makes sense?
Forced to blank her parents’ wishes, Cecily stayed home from the party and blank on the
nature of unfairness with a deep sense of melancholy.
And here are the potential answers...
First things first: we can eliminate (B) right away, because Cecily probably wouldn't have
been forced to ignore what her parents wanted.
That would be a pretty weird parenting dynamic. The rest of the first blank choices seem reasonably
plausible, so we’ll see how the second blank can help us.
The word that fits here should describe the way Cecily thought about unfairness.
"Eviscerate" doesn’t make any sense at all, because it means to gut or disembowel.
Wow, she would have to really hate her parents' wishes for that one to work.
“Degrade" means to treat with disrespect, which doesn’t fit, and "exalt" means to
praise, which doesn’t jibe with Cecily’s melancholy mood.
So both (C) and (E) are off the table. "Ruminate" means to think about something
deeply and “acquiesce” means to give in, so both blanks work.
The answer is (D). D for “Don’t even think about it, Cecily.”