Stories are a haunted genre; hardly BLANK kind of story, the ghost story is almost the paradigm of the form, and BLANK was undoubtedly one effect that Poe had in mind when he wrote about how stories work.
BLANK 1 Options: (A) a debased, (B) a normative, (C) a meticulous
BLANK 2 Options: (D) pessimism, (E) goose bumps, (F) curiosity
BLANK 1 Options: (A) a debased, (B) a normative, (C) a meticulous
BLANK 2 Options: (D) pessimism, (E) goose bumps, (F) curiosity
Show Hint
Solution and Explanation
Step 1: Understanding the Concept:
This sentence makes a claim about the status of the ghost story within the larger "haunted genre." It uses a specific sentence structure to contrast a potential misconception with the actual reality.
Step 2: Detailed Explanation:
Blank 1: The structure "hardly X, ... is almost the paradigm" means "It is not X; on the contrary, it is the prime example." A "paradigm" is the quintessential model or pattern. The sentence is arguing against the idea that the ghost story is an inferior or low-quality form. The word (A) a debased, meaning lowered in quality or value, fits this structure perfectly. The sentence argues that the ghost story is hardly a debased form; in fact, it is the central example of the genre.
Blank 2: The sentence shifts to discuss an intended effect of such stories, specifically in the context of Edgar Allan Poe, a master of the genre. The "haunted genre" aims to provoke feelings of fear, suspense, and horror. (E) goose bumps is a colloquial but very effective term for the physical sensation of fear or unease that these stories are designed to create. It is a more direct and visceral effect than "pessimism" or "curiosity."
Step 3: Final Answer:
The completed sentence argues that the ghost story is hardly a debased form but rather the paradigm of the genre, and that creating goose bumps was a key intended effect for a writer like Poe.
Top Questions on Fill in the Blanks
Fill in the blanks in the given sentences of List-I with the appropriate words given in List-II:
List-I (Sentences) and List-II (Words)
List-I (Sentences) List-II (Words) (A) I read the mystery novels (II) because they captivate my imagination. (B) This is the place (III) where he was born. (C) Many things have happened (IV) since we met last time. (D) (I) unless You tell me the truth, I will not allow you to go. Choose the correct answer from the options given below:
- CUET (UG) - 2025
- English
- Fill in the Blanks
Match the words in List-I with their definitions in List-II:-
List-I (Words) List-II (Definitions) (A) Abdicate (IV) To give up a throne or other office of dignity (B) Expurgate (I) To remove offensive portion of a book (C) Plagiarism (II) Literary theft (D) Besiege (III) To surround a place with the intention of capturing Choose the correct answer from the options given below:
- CUET (UG) - 2025
- English
- Fill in the Blanks
- Fill in the blank with the correct option:- The two friends appear to have fallen .......... a minor issue.
- CUET (UG) - 2025
- English
- Fill in the Blanks
- Fill in the blank with the correct word from the options given below to make a meaningful sentence:- Sara was so .......... that she did not take much time to make up her min(D)
- CUET (UG) - 2025
- English
- Fill in the Blanks
- Fill in the blank with the correct word from the options given below:- She is standing ............ her husband in this crisis.
- CUET (UG) - 2025
- English
- Fill in the Blanks
Questions Asked in GRE exam
In early-twentieth-century England, it was fashionable to claim that only a completely new style of writing could address a world undergoing unprecedented transformation — just as one literary critic recently claimed that only the new ”aesthetic of exploratory excess” can address a world undergoing . . . well, you know. Yet in early-twentieth-century England, T. S. Eliot, a man fascinated by the ”presence” of the past, wrote the most innovative poetry of his time. The lesson for today’s literary community seems obvious: a reorientation toward tradition would benefit writers no less than readers. But if our writers and critics indeed respect the novel’s rich tradition (as they claim to), then why do they disdain the urge to tell an exciting story?
- GRE - 2024
- Reading Comprehension
In the 1970’s, two debates engaged many scholars of early United States history. One focused on the status of women, primarily White women. Turning on the so-called golden age the ory, which posited that during the eighteenth-century colonial era, American women enjoyed a brief period of high status relative to their English contemporaries and to nineteenth-century American women, this debate pitted scholars who believed women’s lives deteriorated after 1800 against those who thought women’s lives had been no better before 1800. At issue were the causes of women’s subordination: were these causes already in place when the English first settled North America or did they emerge with the rise of nineteenth-century industrial capital ism? The second debate, the so-called origins debate, concerned the emergence of racial slavery in the southern colonies: was slavery the inevitable result of the deep-rooted racial prejudice of early British colonists or did racial prejudice arise only after these planters instituted slave labor?
Although these debates are parallel in some respects, key differences distinguished them. Whereas the debate over women’s status revolved around implicit comparisons of colonial women to their counterparts in the antebellum period (1800-1860), thus inviting comment from scholars of both historical periods, the origins debate was primarily confined to a discussion about slavery in colonial America. Second, in contrast to the newness of the debate over women’s status and its continued currency throughout the early 1980’s, the debate over race and slavery, begun in the 1950’s, had lost some of its urgency with the publication of Morgan’s American Slavery, American Freedom (1975), widely regarded as the last word on the subject. Each debate also assumed a different relationship to the groups whose histories it concerned. In its heyday, the origins debate focused mainly on White attitudes toward Africans rather than on Africans themselves. With few exceptions, such as Wood’s Black Majority (1974) and Mullin’s Flight and Rebellion (1972), which were centrally concerned with enslaved African men, most works pertaining to the origins debate focused on the White architects, mostly male, of racial slavery. In contrast, although women’s historians were interested in the institutions and ide ologies contributing to women’s subordination, they were equally concerned with documenting women’s experiences. As in the origins debate, however, early scholarship on colonial women defined its historical constituency narrowly, women’s historians focusing mainly on affluent White women.
Over time, however, some initial differences between the approaches taken by scholars in the two fields faded. In the 1980’s, historians of race and slavery in colonial America shifted their attention to enslaved people; interest in African American culture grew, thereby bringing en slaved women more prominently into view. Historians of early American women moved in similar directions during the decade and began to consider the effect of racial difference on women’s experience.- GRE - 2024
- Reading Comprehension
The most plausible justification for higher taxes on automobile fuel is that fuel consumption harms the environment and thus adds to the costs of traffic congestion. But the fact that burning fuel creates these ”negative externalities” does not imply that no tax on fuel could ever be too high. Economics is precise about the tax that should, in principle, be levied to deal with negative externalities: the tax on a liter of fuel should be equal to the harm caused by using a liter of fuel. If the tax is more than that, its costs (including the inconvenience to those who would rather have used their cars) will exceed its benefits (including any reduction in congestion and pollution).
- GRE - 2024
- Reading Comprehension
Objectively, of course, the various ecosystems that sustain life on the planet proceed independently of human agency, just as they operated before the hectic ascendancy of Homo sapiens. But it is also true that it is difficult to think of a single such system that has not, for better or worse, been substantially modified by human culture. Nor is this simply the work of the industrial centuries. It has been happening since the days of ancient Mesopotamia. It is coeval with the origins of writing, and has occurred throughout our social existence. And it is this irreversibly modified world, from the polar caps to the equatorial forests, that is all the nature we have.
- GRE - 2024
- Reading Comprehension
Music critics have consistently defined James P. Johnson as a great early jazz pianist, originator of the 1920’s Harlem ”stride” style, and an important blues and jazz composer. In addition, however, Johnson was an innovator in classical music, composing symphonic music that incor porated American, and especially African American, traditions.
Such a blend of musical elements was not entirely new: by 1924 both Milhaud and Gershwin had composed classical works that incorporated elements of jazz. Johnson, a serious musician more experienced than most classical composers with jazz, blues, spirituals, and popular music, was particularly suited to expand Milhaud’s and Gershwin’s experiments. In 1927 he completed his first large-scale work, the blues- and jazz-inspired Yamekraw, which included borrowings from spirituals and Johnson’s own popular songs. Yamekraw, premiered successfully in Carnegie Hall, was a major achievement for Johnson, becoming his most frequently performed extended work. It demonstrated vividly the possibility of assimilating contemporary popular music into the symphonic tradition.- GRE - 2024
- Reading Comprehension