Directions: select the answer that best completes the sentence.
She found that fame was both ________ and ________; not only was it difficult to get her book published, but when she did, members of the media quickly lost interest in it.
(a) destructive...counterproductive
(b) evanescent...gratifying
(c) tedious...deleterious
(d) elusive...ephemeral
(e) fulfilling...subtle
Discussion: This question relies on the sentence's parallelism for figuring out the answer. The second half of the sentence after the semicolon defines the terms in the first half of the sentence. We need a pair of words that show publication was "difficult" and that the media attention was short-lived. Choice (d), "elusive" and "ephemeral," best captures the ideas in the second half.
Vocabulary:
- counterproductive - hindering rather than helping
- deleterious - harmful
- destructive - ruinous; adverse
- ephemeral - fleeting; short-lived
- evanescent - vanishing; fleeting
- fulfilling - satisfying
- gratifying - giving satisfaction
- elusive - evasive; hard to grasp; slippery
- subtle - difficult to detect; slight; crafty
- tedious - long and tiresome
