The activists’ energetic work in the service of both woman suffrage and the temperance movement in the late nineteenth century (i)__________ the assertion that the two movements were (ii)__________.

Blank (i)	Blank (ii)
A. undermines	D. diffuse
B. supports	E. inimical
C. underscores	F. predominant

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Why can't the 'energetic work' of the activist support the assertion that the movements were predominant?
After all, a predominant movement ought to receive more attention and work.

Moreover, how does inimical relate to 'energetic work'? This question is ambivalent.

I agree with james21. Also, there is no clues to realize that there should be some similarity between the two movements (as amorphous mentioned there are no reasons to support the fact that the two movements are predominant)

I am really confused with some of the GRE questions

I completely disagree with this line of thought. ALWAYS the sentence has a clue even though our clue is feeble and super tiny

The activists’ energetic work in the service of both woman suffrage and the temperance movement in the late nineteenth century (i)__________ the assertion that the two movements were (ii)__________.

The words energetic work, which work as a specific indication how the work was AND provides a context of the quality of the support to the woman at the time, make our sentence or TOTALLY positive or TOTALLY negative.

I.E. the first and second blanks must go in the same direction. OR the two movements were akin OR were, in contrast, each other.

Now, in the FIRST blank clearly, C is out of scope. So everything boils down to A or B. However, we said that the two blanks must go in the same direction BUT B does not have a counterpart in the second blanks.

So the answer must be undermins and inimical.

ETS is very cunning and astute to craft similar question. If the students do not see it that does not mean the question is flawed.

Ask if somethinng is still unclear to you.

Regards
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I am happy for the help Sir.

Regards
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Let us look at all logical possibilities.

The assertion = the two movements were:

1. co-existing
2. against each other
3. unrelated

The activists’ energetic work in the service of both woman suffrage and the temperance movement:

1. supports the assertion
2. destroys the assertion
3. ignores the assertion


Given that the activists put energetic work in the service of both movements

it would support the assertion that the two movements were coexisting
OR
it would destroy the assertion that the two movements were against each other

There is no choice for the second blank to suggest that the two movements were coexisting. So the word choice for the first blank cannot be supports. Or underscores.

There is a word choice for the second blank - inimical - to mean that the two movements were against each other. And we do have a word choice for the first blank to convey the meaning of "destroy". And that is undermines.

The word choices predominant and diffuse do not fit it into the above logical possibilities. Neither are there any clear word choices for the first blank which would meaningfully complete the sentence using these two words for the second blank.

And no word choices exist to support the third logical possibility - that of ignoring the assertion that they are unrelated movements.
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I cannot understand why these 2 movements cannot coexist if it took place in reality in the history of many countries? Why we should count that these 2 events are against each other - prohibition era and female rights? Based on history, in reality, both movements were highly supported by activists, were coexisted and were predominant.
So why?

Diffuse means lacking concentration, so since they were supported energetically, it undermined the assertion that both events were diffuse. (Not concentrated or focused).
Can someone clarify?