Answer of Section 3, Question 7
As clucks of disapproval about Americans' political ______ have grown louder in recent years, many historians have looked for contrast to the decades before the Civil War as a time when Americans were enthusiastically engaged in politics.
| Blank |
|---|
| (A) zealotry |
| (B) apathy |
| (C) hypocrisy |
| (D) partisanship |
| (E) insincerity |
| (F) passivity |
官方解說：
The word "contrast" as it's used in the sentence suggests that the word that fills the blank must describe something that’s contrary to the idea of Americans being "enthusiastically engaged in politics." Of the answer choices, only "apathy" and "passivity" produce alike sentences that convey the idea of Americans not being enthusiastically engaged in politics. "Hypocrisy" and "insincerity" also create sentences that are alike in meaning, but they fail to provide the necessary contrast.
Thus the correct answer is apathy and passivity.
難易度：3