Step 1: Understanding the Concept:
This sentence completion question hinges on the definition of "interdisciplinary." We need to find a word that describes the key activity or outcome of a truly interdisciplinary endeavor.
Step 2: Detailed Explanation:
The sentence sets up a contrast with the phrase "Even though." The course was \textit{called} interdisciplinary, but it lacked a certain key quality. An interdisciplinary course is one that combines or integrates different academic disciplines or fields of study. The core of such a course is not just presenting different subjects side-by-side, but combining them into a coherent whole.
Let's look at the options:
(A) encapsulation: This means to enclose something as if in a capsule. It doesn't fit the context of combining subject matter.
(B) organization: Any course, interdisciplinary or not, should have some organization. Its absence would make it a bad course, not necessarily one that fails to be interdisciplinary.
(C) synthesis: This word means the combination of ideas to form a theory or system. In an academic context, it refers to integrating knowledge from different disciplines. A course that is called interdisciplinary but involves no real synthesis of subject matter is failing at its primary goal. This is a perfect fit.
(D) discussion: While discussion is part of many courses, its absence doesn't specifically contradict the "interdisciplinary" label.
(E) verification: This refers to confirming the truth of something, which is not the defining feature of an interdisciplinary course.
Step 3: Final Answer:
The word "synthesis" best captures the essence of combining different fields, which is what the supposedly interdisciplinary course failed to do.