Ameliorate means to improve or make more bearable. We can hope that the aim of the politicians is to do something positive, combating the negative financial situation. While the aid packages may in fact only complicate or augment (increase) the situation, that is not likely the goal of the politicians' debates.

Luxuriate means to indulge oneself. It is similar to luxury, and a long, hot bath is a luxury.

Since the aspiring politician wants to follow in the presidents' footsteps, the best choice is "emulate," as this means to match or surpass a person, typically by imitation.

Looking at the blank, we can tell that we need a word that means something like “overcome.” The best answer, therefore, is “surmount.” “Vanquish” is similar, but it is usually used in the sense of defeating an enemy rather than overcoming an obstacle.

Because two different professions are coming together to solve, the best choice is "collaborated," which means to work together. 

The wrong answers to this sentence fall into two classes. On the one hand, “enraged” and “incensed” imply extreme anger, which are not justified by the sentence, which describes the old man as relatively calm in normal conditions. These options are distant contenders at best. On the other hand, “submerged” and “inundated” imply that he was overwhelmed. While that might be the case, the sentence clearly has to deal with his emotional / mental state since it speaks of him remaining calm in most situations; therefore the best option is “perturbed” which means “anxious” or “upset,” a good description for being “not calm.”

We know that the moon was full a week ago, but is now a smaller crescent, so it has gotten smaller in the past week. We need a verb that means to appear to get smaller. While "belittled" sounds like a good option, "belittle" has nothing to do with physical size and means to make (someone or something) seem unimportant. Because "wane" means to have a progressively smaller amount of an object's surface illuminated so that it appears to decrease in size, it is the best answer choice.

We can tell by the context of the sentence that we're looking for a verb that means something like "make smaller," and more specifically, "wring out." While "whittling" sounds like it could be a potential answer because things that are whittled usually get smaller in the process, "whittling" actually means "carving wood into an object by repeatedly cutting small slices from it," so it's not the correct word for the sentence's context. Since "compress" means "flatten by pressure; squeeze; press," it is the best answer.

In this situation, Jessica is indebted to Sarah for editing her paper even though it was not required for Sarah to edit it.  Therefore, Jessica compensated her by bringing her out to ice cream as a thank you for doing her the favor of editing.

Tom's sister wants to erase the comments of the morning or revoke them. In other words, she wants to rescind her comments.