Directions: select the answer that best completes the sentence.
For decades many scientists ________ that global warming posed a grave risk to the planet, but in the twenty-first century nearly all of them ________ that the threat is real.
(a) agreed...insist
(b) denied...concur
(c) argued...accede
(d) contended...acknowledge
(e) disaffirmed...reject
Discussion: The conjunction "but" tells us that the missing word in the first half of the sentence must contrast with the missing word in the second half. The words "denied" and "concur" gives us the contrast we need. Choice (b).
Vocabulary:
- accede - agree
- acknowledge - admit something is true; recognize
- agree - to have the same views
- argue - dispute
- concur - agree
- contend - compete; argue; battle
- deny - to refuse to agree
- disaffirm - deny; contradict
- insist - urge; require
- reject - deny; renounce
