The word "mediocre" is often misused as though it means of poor quality. It really means of middle quality, as in not too good. Even if something is not "too good," it is still good. The point is that it doesn't "stick out" as being very, very good. Therefore, if you wish to develop your skills beyond mediocrity, you wish to make them exceptional, very good, or perhaps even perfect. The word "perfect" can be used as a verb meaning to make perfect, fully accomplished, or of highest quality. The most tempting wrong answer is "improve." However, people can improve their skills from being bad to being mediocre. This sentence wants to talk about improving all the way to perfection.

Do not read into a sentence more than is provided by the given words. We are told nothing about how the child was warned about placing his or her hand on the stove. Perhaps the person is warning gently or, perhaps, very loudly and even nastily. What we do know, however, is that the child is placing his or her hand on the stove multiple times. This is hinted at by the words "once again." Therefore, it would seem that the warnings happened many times as well. Among our options this is the only real possibility. Therefore, the best answer is "repeated."

This sentence only discusses the fact of police gathering information in a general sense. It does not tell us whether they gathered it on paper, film, computer, or anything else. We can only tell that they came in order to gather such data. This means that they examined the data, perhaps gathering various kinds of details for their investigation—photographs, written testimony, audio testimony, etc. The most we can say is that they came to "look into" the details, that is, to "examine" them.

This sentence is a case of increasing intensity. The words "not merely . . . but instead" indicate that some people are not just unhappy. They are indeed very unhappy. To be "miserable" is to be extremely unhappy. This is the best choice for expressing a great degree of unhappiness.

The key word in this sentence is "holy." Because of this one adjective, it is not the best choice to say that the islanders believed that the cave was merely "reserved" to the gods. (Anyway, grammatically, it would be better to say that it was "reserved for", but "reserved to" does work.) When something is reserved because it is holy or is made holy by such reservation, it is "consecrated." The word is related to "sacred," which should help you to remember it.

The contrast in this sentence is between the rustic lifestyle of Peter's village and the new city to which he moved. The word "rustic" is a near synonym of "rural" or "in the countryside." While the city might be crowded or even more polluted than the countryside, the best contrast to "rural" / "rustic" is "urban," which means city-like or pertaining to the nature of a city. This provides the clearest contrast to "rustic."

This question is really a matter of choosing the "least bad" answer because it is not completely direct regarding the options. However, you can easily eliminate the wrong answers. The key will be not bringing in extra interpretations, even if they might be valid. We can only go by the sentence's content.

There is nothing to say that Maritain was "outdated"—at least in the sentence. Likewise, there is nothing about his fame (or infamy) in the sentence. Now, we might think he was "regular" since this basically affirms that he was a defender, but the better choice is "zealous." This is because of the little word "must." This implies that he had strong feelings about the matter. When someone does something with "zeal," that person does that thing with great energy. While we do not necessarily have discussion of energy in the sentence, it could be implied because of the force of "must." This is at least better than "regular," which is slightly weaker.

We can infer from the sentence's context that we need to pick out a word that means something like "a crowd of people," specifically one that might follow a movie star around. While "crowded" might look like an obvious answer, "crowded" is an adjective, not a noun, so it can't be the correct answer. "Pack" refers to a group, but specifically "a group of wild animals, especially wolves, living and hunting together," so "pack" can't be the correct answer either. "Line" refers to a group of people, but doesn't make much sense in the sentence's context (following a movie star around), so "line" isn't the correct answer either. The best answer choice is "entourage," a noun that means "a group of people attending or surrounding an important person."

We can infer that because Jim is "always tripping over uneven portions of the sidewalk," he probably drags his feet. So, we need to pick out an answer choice that means something like "walk while dragging one's feet." "Marching" may seem like a potentially correct answer, but "marching" means "walk in a military manner with a regular measured tread," and doesn't make sense in the blank as explaining why Jim trips over uneven portions of the sidewalk. "Shuffling," however, is a verb that can mean "slide one's feet along the ground or back and forth without lifting them completely," and because "shuffling" best fits the context of the sentence, "shuffling" is the correct answer.