To begin with "thrive" means do well. So, which of these answer choices fits best with " . . . to survive and thrive"? The correct answer is "People need clean water . . . " All the other answer choices do not fit with the structure of the sentence and some of them would cause the sentence to feel incomplete.

The conjunction "whilst" means the same thing as "while," both words are used to describe something that is happening at the same time as something else is happening. For example, "I went to the store, while she cooked dinner." So, the correct answer of this sentence must reflect something that could be done whilst the children played in the park. The correct answer is therefore " . . . their mothers chatted." This problem could have been a little tricky because some of the answer choices seem correct until you notice that they are in the incorrect tense. The sentence is in the past tense, but some of the answer choices are in the present or future tense.

You likely will have noticed that all of these answer choices are quite similar. The key to solving this problem is simply to recognize which conjunction matches correctly with the context of the sentence. Also "unbearable" means impossible to endure, hard to cope with, hard to deal with. So, if the pain was "unbearable" it makes sense that the speaker would feel "hopeless" (without hope). The conjunctions "but" and "although" would only make sense if they related to the speaker actually feeling okay about their "unbearable" pain.

To solve this problem you need to be careful of conjunctions and pick the answer that best reflects what might happen to someone who did not practice for a music "recital" (performance, show). The correct answer is " . . . and performed poorly." The correct answer cannot contain the word "because." She did not practice as a result of playing poorly, it was the other way around. 

To solve this problem you need to determine which of these answer choices best represents a reason why someone might not be allowed to swim. You also have to pay attention to the conjunctions being used. The answer choices that contain the conjunctions "although" or "however" cannot be correct because these words cause the sentence to mean the opposite. The correct answer is " . . . because the waves are too big" because this contains the correct conjunction and explains why someone might not be allowed to swim. Additionally, "dreadful" means terrible, very bad; "competent" means capable, able, good enough.

The second part of the sentence indicates that the two friends knew that they couldn't pay too much attention to each other's faults. When we do not focus on something, we "overlook" it. This means that we ignore it, at least as much as we can.

The contrast in this sentence is between having little meaning and having a lot of meaning. When something is almost meaningless, it is superficial or "shallow." For example, think of when people talk only about the weather. This is often nearly meaningless. In contrast to this, something that is very meaningful is "profound."  Even the simplest thing can be profound if it contains a deep truth.

The end of the sentence helps you to realize that Sean really shouldn't be looking into his neighbors' affairs. If you are spying like this, you are invading their privacy. When we say, "That is none of your business," we are saying, "You have no right to know that!" This is true about Sean's case. His neighbors' lives were none of his business—though he pried his way into them by his spying!

The contrast in this sentence is between things that are boring and things that are not boring. In particular, it is between topics that are boring by nature but can be made "not boring" if they are explained by an excellent teacher. When something is "interesting," it captures our attention—it is not boring. Although rare and unusual things might be interesting, the words "rare" and "unusual" do not actually express the characteristic of being not boring. Only "interesting" does this, at least among the options given for this question.

Be very careful with questions like this one. The second sentence is what gives you the most important clue. Filbert is only looking at the cut. This means that he is not cleaning it in any way—or doing anything else physical to it! Therefore, the word "examined" is actually the best. It is closest to the clues given in the sentences.