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.

Notice that George is frightened by the risks posed by the situation. In contrast to this, most others seem not to think the situation to be very "risky." This means that they do not think that it is very "dangerous."

The key phrase in this sentence is "allowing everyone to take part." The people want to have a greater degree of democracy in their town's political process. This is in contrast to the current actions of the mayor who apparently is doing everything in a controlling manner. Democracy is rule by all of the people, and a "democratic process" is a process that enables this kind of rule.

The best choice for this sentence is "fruits" because it is talking about processed sugars being bad for us. Using context clues, we can figure out that because it says "less candy," we are looking for something that is still sweet. The other choices are not sweet and would not make as much sense to complete the sentence.

To complete this sentence correctly, we must use the context clues from the rest of the sentence. The sentence talks about Mendel being a scientist and working with plants, therefore, it would make the most sense to complete the sentence with "experimented with a variety of plant types" because this is most closely related to the beginning of the sentence.

The second part of this sentence tells us that the football team treats their opponents with respect, even after a tough loss. This immediately eliminates two choices: since the players are being nice, they clearly are not "reacting with anger at their loss," and they are shaking hands, not "ignoring the other players." Additionally, the statement that "they celebrate afterwards with a good meal" is certainly possible, but not confirmed by the rest of the sentence. The answer is that they "display good sportsmanship," which means they acted honorably (they weren't "sore losers") and played fairly.

The second half of this sentence is fairly strong; if taking on more work is the "last thing Jessica wanted to do," then we're looking for an answer that explains why she so strongly wants to avoid putting more on her plate. Immediately, we can eliminate the idea that she is friends with her daughter's teacher; that fact alone wouldn't deter Jessica from working more intensely. We can also assume that if she were "available nearly all of the time," "having an unusually slow week," or had "relaxed all weekend," she would have no reason to avoid extra work at all costs. The only answer left is "overwhelmed by multiple assignments," which would certainly explain why Jessica wouldn't want to add even more projects to her schedule.