Hidden Clues
If you're just starting off and you've gone through the other triple-blanks, that's, that's fine but don't necessarily watch this one. It's, it's using a technique basically that doesn't even come up in the easy, medium, some of the semi-hard text completion is triple-blank, double-blank. So, pull yourself away, go dive into the product, practice, get better, come back and then watch this video.
Okay, cool. If you are still with me, let's look here for the hidden clue. Yep, yeah this one's kind of monstrous. It's about seven or eight lines worth of verbage. But let's, let's sift through it and see if we can figure out which blank is the easiest one to work with and where the hidden clue is.
Keane argues that the political conditions during the early years of the US were, if anything, blank to the formation of a nation united by one document, the Constitution. Well, could be permissive, conducive, inimical, well it must be the opposite of those two, but really there's nothing that we base on the sense at least that happened to this point that we could say, oh, it's definitely a, b or c.
Now, don't think, oh, I've read a lot about the US's history and I know the Constitution. I think it's, you know, a, b or c. Read the entire text to completion. Had it not been for a few men, these guys, to blank the Constitution. What are they gonna do?
Are they gonna be in favor of, or they gonna challenge it, which one are we going with? Again don't, if you have some knowledge in the twilight part of your brain thinking wait a second, wasn't that guy for it? Don't let that intrude. So, to blank the Constitution despite the seemingly implacable opposition of those who favored state rights.
Aha, now we have a clue. And it's hidden because it's way down here at the very bottom, it's not hanging out around top here on the first and second blank, but we can see that these three guys, we'll call them the triumvirate. That's what he calls them.
They were in favor of a central government because they were being opposed by those who favored state rights. Therefore, they were in favor of the Constitution, which is the document that united the nation. So therefore, they were champions or supporters of the Constitution. And if we have implacable opposition going on here, now wait a second, if political conditions weren't right and friendly, for the Con, the Constitution or any document hoping to unite the entire nation.
And so, we wanna get rid of those positive words and go for the negative, which means hostile or antagonistic, inimical. And then, that allows us to go to the third blank. And we have here, the central government would have, would have had to blank matters of rule to the individual states. So, it wasn't for the triumvirate to support the constitution, well then, it would, the individual states would have the rights, they would have had to give rights.
So, that would kind of be my own simple word there. And then I match that with a blank. Deny's the opposite. Reintroduce, well, did they even have it in the first place? So, no. So, to cede is to give up, to surrender, and there's our answer.
So, the idea here is sometimes you have to read the entire thing. Don't just go for the first blank or even the second blank, if the third blank's the easiest. And once you find this clue that can be buried deep down here, it can help illuminate all the other blanks, but don't assume anything, especially in this case, if you think you know something about US history.
Read the entire text completion, the answers will always be based on the text here and of course on the clue.
Doesn't the word "despite" make a contrast between the "implacable opposition" and the government's choice? That would make the third blank "deny."
The problem here is whether the "despite" clause contrasts the clause before it ("Had it not been...") or the clause after ("the central government..."). Grammatically, it could be either. How do we choose?
We need to look twice at the "few men" and "the implacable opposition." These are in logical contrast. The opposition seems to be quite large, and there are a few men--special individuals--who are not part of that opposition. So we are saying that they _________ the Constitution despite being alone against a large opposition.
If we made the "despite" clause contrast with the last clause ("central government..."), then we would have those few men against the constitution, in line with the "opposition." We would lose the contrast between the few men and the opposition. And in doing so, we would create an awkward sentence--why single out those specific men? The opposition was very strong already.
In short, be sure that you're looking at the whole sentence. If the sentence started with "despite," then yes, the contrast would be there. But when we read it from "Had it not been...," then we find that the contrast is between the few men and the opposition, not the opposition and the government.
What does “if anything” mean? How is it different from “anything but”?
"If anything" is used to suggest tentatively that something may be the case (often the opposite of something that was previously implied).
- If anything, we have too much food rather than too little.
- The town, if anything, is a sad shadow of its past self.
- While our hope was that the situation would improve soon, it is, if anything, getting worse.
"If anything" does not have a negative connotation. And it does not mean "not."
You could think of expanding "if anything" to "if I can say anything with certainty about this..."
In this case (as is the case generally) the author is using the phrase to emphasize the statement he is making about the political conditions.
The meaning here is the same with as without the phrase "if anything." You can safely remove it and analyze the sentence without it to come up with the proper word for the blank.
In contrast, the phrase "anything but" is used to indicate the opposite of something. It means "everything except" or most simply “not at all.” For example, if someone is "anything but friendly," they are not at all friendly.
