A TC sentence carries an unambiguously critical tone, and two of the five choices share roughly the same dictionary meaning. The safer move is to
Akeep only the choice that is the longer of the two similar words.
Bdrop both choices on the grounds that the answer must be unique.
Ckeep only the choice whose connotation matches the critical tone.
Ddrop the more familiar of the two and keep the rarer Latinate word.
Answer & Solution
Correct answer: C. keep only the choice whose connotation matches the critical tone.
Tone traps survive the dictionary check because both options share denotation. The passage's mood discriminates between them; ETS's final step is to verify the completed sentence is logically and stylistically coherent. Length and familiarity are unreliable. The two are not necessarily duplicates; one of them is correct, the other is the trap.
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