"Cacophony" means a tremendous, disharmonious noise, while "disgruntled" means upset or not content. Understandably, people who had come to hear music would be upset that a recital was interrupted by a disharmonious noise.

A "novice" is a beginner or someone without training or experience, while "ingenuous" means candid and innocent. Naturally, the master would only be touched by praise that was innocent and candid.

The options can be narrowed down significantly simply by looking at which one of the options for the first blank can be followed by the preposition "for." That brings us down to "proclivity," meaning tendency and "penchant," meaning liking. "Paramount" works better in the second blank, however, because it means of utmost importance. "Trivial" means the opposite, and we would hope that the police find it important to find a violent criminal.

From the structure of this sentence you know that the first blank is referring to some agreement between Native Americans and European settlers and that the second blank describes how fair that agreement was. Of the five possible answer choices the best answer is arrangement and devoid. Arrangement refers to an agreement and devoid describes something as lacking. As possible answer choices lacking, bereft and remiss would also be correct as these are all synonyms for devoid. However, lamentation means to express sadness and grief; indoctrination means to cause someone to believe something different to what they naturally would; nostalgia refers to a sentimental recollection of past events. None of these answer choices is quite right as a synonym for agreement.

The key thing to note is that Christopher only recently had a change in his interests. This gives us the best indication for the second word to be chosen, as “nascent” literally means “newly born.” It is related to other words like “nativity,” “natal,” and “renaissance" (meaning "re-birth").

"Antithesis" means the exact opposite, while "beholden" means owing something to another, such as allegiance.  A person who argues that power determines what is right and wrong would believe the exact opposite of his or her friend who believes in a higher law to which we must all be loyal.

We can infer that for the second blank, we need to pick out an answer choice that means something like "escape," because we know the thief "[ran] straight out the door" when she heard the burglar alarm go off. Either "getaway" (" an escape or quick departure, especially after committing a crime") or "egress" ("the action of going out of or leaving a place") could be potentially correct. For the first blank, we know that the thief made her exit "at a headlong dash," so she was moving very quickly and we should pick out an adjective to reflect her speed. Either "hasty" ("done or acting with excessive speed or urgency; hurried") or "quick" ("moving fast or doing something in a short time") could be potentially correct. Of the possible words that we've identified as potentially correct for each blank, only "hasty" and "egress" appear in the same answer choice, so the correct answer is "hasty . . . egress."

Since the assets were free from interference, they were isolated. The word “insulated” does not merely indicate the process of installing material to prevent energy from being transferred from one area to another. It also can indicate any such isolation of forces. The word is derived from the Latin word “insula,” which means “island.” The English word, “insular,” is similarly derived.

The word “parity”, indicating a state of equality, is derived from the Latin “pars,” meaning equal. The same root is reflected in English words like “disparity,” “pair,” and even “subpar.”

The key to getting this question correct is noting the options for the first blank. The sense here is not directly depression but instead is that of being of a bleak and sullen temperament. “Morose” best fits this usage.  Although “lamentation” can have the sense of weeping, it also can indicate the expression of sorrow in general, so the word still fits—at least better than the other options, which is all that is needed.

The only thing that is stated about Aaron in this sentence is that he delays his work. Therefore, the best description of him would be “a procrastinator.” The expression “textbook . . .” is a colloquial (i.e. spoken or informal) expression meaning “the standard version of . . .”. Someone who is “quintessential” is the perfect example of a given class of things. The word “procrastinator” comes from the Latin “cras”, meaning “tomorrow.”   The word “quintessential” comes from the old cosmology that spoke of four elements, followed by the fifth (“quint-”) element that made up the heavenly bodies—the most refined and perfect of all elements in that account.