SE 2

1. Mannering's personal diary, a record of ____ preoccupations and
domestic details, belies the depth of thought for which he was
renowned in the academic world.

A. philosophical
B. mundane
C. petty
D. weighty
E. erudite
F. untoward

2. Animal welfare charities have found that extensive advertising,
especially over the Christmas period, can actually drive down the
volume of donations as people who view images of maltreated pets more
than a few times rapidly become ____ .

A. inured
B. miserly
C. disgusted
D. hardened
E. bored
F. overwrought

3. The study's ____ conclusion is that during the first half of the
20th Century improved standards of personal hygiene reduced the risk
of an individual's contracting poliomyelitis, yet tended to make the
disease more lethal to communities.

A. exciting
B. paradoxical
C. unwarranted
D. long-awaited
E. anomalous
F. interim

4. The devotion to the syllabus and testing regime has become so
extreme that most school students close their minds to anything ____
to the needs of the examination.

A. related
B. catering
C. extraneous
D. similar
E. helpful
F. peripheral

5. The ____ tone of the biography is entirely unexpected since both
the biographer in her previous works and her subject in all that he
has written have valued levity over solemnity.

A. lugubrious
B. jaunty
C. jocose
D. frivolous
E. ironic
F. melancholy

6. After hours of acrimonious arguments the negotiations reached a(n)
_____ ; neither side was willing to compromise.

A. solution
B. impasse
C. conclusion
D. end
E. deadlock
F. resolution

7. This new staging of King Lear is not a production in which every
aspect falls neatly into place throughout; however, the drama does
____ at certain points to give the audience memorable and
thought-provoking moments.

A. coalesce
B. crystallize
C. triumph
D. flower
E. dissolve
F. transcend

8. The teacher's mercurial mood changes and ____ approach to grading
made the students uneasy; they never knew what would please him or
what would earn good marks.

A. tardy
B. authoritarian
C. strict
D. ambivalent
E. whimsical
F. hidebound

9. The book is an attempt on the part of the eminent scholar to
reconcile the ____ experience and theoretical underpinnings of certain
everyday phenomena.

A. philosophical
B. empirical
C. arcane
D. practical
E. superficial
F. obtuse

10. The last candidate interviewed conducted herself with commendable
____ even when badgered with questions that had drawn unseemly
outbursts from all the other interviewees.

A. pertinacity
B. adroitness
C. alacrity
D. decorum
E. propriety
F. presence of mind