The demands of brevity notwithstanding, a page or two in Dahl's recent book on democracy that considered what public-choice economics has to say about "democratic failure" —or at least a clear signpost to that literature—would have been very well spent.

Even though the author of the book had the needs of brevity, explaining an important concept, one or two pages MORE could be spent to shed light on an issue.

Now is more clear ??

Regards
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Notwithstanding means "in spite of." So you could say the sentence reads something like "Even though we normally want ______, it would have been nice if the author had talked more about this one topic I find important." Therefore, the blank must be something in opposition of "talking/writing more about a topic." While this doesn't ONLY indicate needing something in opposition to "making longer," it is a possible (and in this case the correct) way to look at it. Instead of being a clear cut 100% answer, we need to then go back and decide which of the answer groups make sense in the recreated sentence.

There are 3 different word sets here that all fit as pairs: clarity/cogent, brevity/economy, and comprehensive/thorough. Using simpler meaning for each we can fill in the blank in the recreated sentence with: "even though we normally want A CLEAR UNDERSTANDING..." "even though we normally want CONCISE WRITING..." and "even though we normally want A COMPLETELY DETAILED..." So now we ask which of those makes the most sense as an opposite of "talking more on a subject." Completely detailed is NOT an opposite, it is the same thing, so this is incorrect. CLEAR UNDERSTANDING is also not correct. The only one that fits is CONCISE WRITING. Since brevity/economy were the pair that meant "concise writing," they are the answer.

While the amount i just wrote explaining it might seem like a lot, the actual process of thinking this problem through should havve taken maybe 15-20 seconds at most as long as you know all the words.

Explanation

The request , indeed, is that the book should have by the author one or two pages to clarify the whole argument, in brief. It was advisable.

Brevity and economy in the sense of shortness are the answers.
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Why not B & C?
Brivity and comprehensive is better pair

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Damn, this one went a bouncer. If only the moderators be economical to edify the doubt..

This is a super tough question to grasp. Just only the very first part of the sentence, before the comma, put you out of balance And with a very good reason.

Actually, the meaning is this: even though the needs of the author of the book of being concise, the necessity of being short and get down to the business in his book, the author himself could spend some few page more on this important economic concept (whatever the concept is).

Aski for further assistance if you do need.

Regards
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Can you please help me understand it better? I tried several times, but with no luck. Can you please tell me the clue from which you got 'conciseness' for the blank?

Thanks for the explanations

Thank you for your explanation of this question

The trap is here to go for the meaning that as people are looking for thorough knowledge of a concept, an additional page or two would have been meaningful.
so in this case, we are likely to pick up comprehensiveness and thoroughness as words for thorough knowledge of a concept.

But here the meaning is that " although we are looking for short and compact books, a page or two on a topic, which otherwise does not find a mention,would be well spent." so now we are looking for words that can replace short and compact, thus brevity and economy are correct.


B and D
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chetan2u

is "although " a replacement of "notwithstanding" ?

Could be. They are synonyms.

However, the substitution of a word always depends on the context. So, you should be a little bit careful in doing so.

Regards
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This is my first time encountering a real hard question in GRE. At the moment, I have not known all the the words in the question. Nevertheless, I find some clues about the question.

1/ one page of two => summary => brevity
2/ elimination of other option choices => economy is left

B and D should be the answer even though I can only chose B

Ans (B, D)

We can rephrase the question as..

In spite of the demand of ______, one or two pages would have been well spent....

now think as, inspite the demand of what, additional pages would have been well spent,
1) thoroughness - ummm, i dont think so, if thoroughness would have been demanded, why would the author write well spent for extra pages, it would be obvious to add extra pages
2) clarity - if clarity is demanded, then also it would be obvious to add extra pages,
3) economy - hmm, now though economy is demanded, means the author must keep the book concise and small, extra pages to clarify something would have been spent well.

Hope it helps!!!

How does the phrase 'the demands of notwithstanding' connects to the rest of the sentence?

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The demands of ________ notwithstanding, a page or two in Dahl's recent book on democracy that considered what public-choice economics has to say about "democratic failure" —or at least a clear signpost to that literature—would have been very well spent.

Hope this helps.

Regards
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I'll make a small amendment that could make explaining clearer. I'll read the part before the comma as "Even though there's a demand to be brief". It is not clear on who wants brevity. In fact, I argue that by reading the sentence as Dahl himself wanting brevity, the contrast is clearer between Dahl wanting brevity and us wanting the 2 additional pages of detail