Clearly, we want no negative connotations in our answer, so this helps to eliminate everything other than “interlocutors” and “preachers.” The latter is rather bland and does not fit anywhere nearly as well as “interlocutor,” which means “a person in a conversation.”

The prefix “inter-” indicates that the word involves “between” (such as intervarsity or interstitial)—NOT to be confused with “intra,” which means “within” (such as “intramural,” which literally means within the walls). The second half, “-locutors,” is derived from the Latin for to speak or talk, which has many derivatives in English not only including those with the “c” that we see in “interlocutors” (e.g. locution, allocution) but also the more common (and phonetically related) “q” (e.g. eloquence, loquacious, colloquium, colloquial).

The key is that the student’s theory reduces everything to one. Such a theory is “monistic,” a word derived from the Greek monos, meaning “single,” which we see in words like “monocle,” “monogamy,” and “monotonous.”

Since the sense of the clues is not negative in this sentence, it would not be appropriate to choose “demagogue,” for such a person would merely appeal to popular sentiment to make specious “arguments.” An “orator” would be a better case here, for such a person’s eloquence could fit the bill for inspiring the people. The word is derived from Latin roots that likewise give us the word “oratory” and “oration;” however, it is also related to the word for mouth, os, which often has forms with the base “or-;” therefore, other related words are orifice, oral, and osculum.

The word “similitude” means “being similar to something else.” This is better than several of the tempting options, such as “replication,” “redundancy,” and “clone,” all of which imply likeness too strongly. The sentence’s “barely” needs a weaker word, for being “barely” a replication really would mean that something is almost identical—which clearly does not seem to be the case, given that few would have recognized the man thus honored. The word “similitude” is related to English words like “similar” and “similarity.”

One who is “munificent” is extremely generous. The word is derived from the Latin “munus,” which means gift but also office. Hence, it has derived English words like “municipality” as well as “remuneration.” The ending “-ficent” comes from the same root as ending like “-fy” and “-ficate,” meaning to do or make and found in many English words.

This is a strange sentence, but it leads you directly to your word. The poor old ambassador above all has knee damage.

The “genu-“ of “genuflection” comes from the Latin word for knee, while the “-flection” means related to bending. There are many related English words like “flexible,” “reflect,” “inflect,” and so forth.

Here, the key is to note that the person in question used to be important. Such a person does not merely have a throng around him (though the group of assistants might improperly be called that).

The proper word is “retinue.”  To remember the word, think of other related words like “retain,” “sustain,” and “contain”—all words dealing with holding. (This is due to their common Latin root). A person's “retinue” are the people they hold on to for their own usage.

Here, the word “pleb,” though odd, captures the sense best of all. There are no negative or slavish implications in the description of Robert’s apparent humble beginnings.  The word is a shortened form of “plebeian,” which means a commoner. It is basically an import from the Latin “plebs” which means basically the same thing.

Although many of the other instruments listed here are tempting, we know that the most appropriate tool would be that which would most definitely be used for charting stars. Such a tool is an “astrolabe,” which was used in navigation based on the stars. It means literally to take the stars. You should know the “astro-” root word, which is found in words like “astronaut” and “astronomy.”

A “constitution” in general regards the makeup of something. (One can say that something is “constituted of” a number of parts). When applied to a person, it often carries with it the sense of signifying that person’s physical state and vigor. Since the sentence focus not on Donald’s immune system as much as his “little natural vigor,” it is better to choose “constitution” than some of the other potential options like “immunity” or perhaps (for the biologists) “leukocytes.”