Question 159·200 Super-Hard SAT Reading Questions·Craft and Structure
For centuries, astronomical predictions relied on Newtonian mechanics, and many practitioners were content with the minor discrepancies that occasionally surfaced. It took a decidedly more ______ generation of scientists to regard those anomalies not as acceptable tolerances but as invitations to fundamentally reinterpret celestial dynamics.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
For SAT Words in Context questions, first ignore the choices and paraphrase what the blank must mean using the surrounding sentences—paying special attention to contrasts (words like "but," "not," "rather"), cause-and-effect, and tone. Then, compare each answer choice to your paraphrase and eliminate any that don’t match the logical role in the sentence or don’t fit the context (for example, words about social behavior in a technical or scientific description). Finally, choose the option that best matches both the inferred meaning and the overall tone of the passage, even if it’s less familiar than other choices.
Hints
Use the contrast between the two sentences
Compare the older practitioners, who were "content with the minor discrepancies," with the later scientists. How did the new generation treat those same discrepancies?
Focus on the phrase after the blank
Look closely at "to regard those anomalies not as acceptable tolerances but as invitations to fundamentally reinterpret celestial dynamics." What kind of mindset toward small errors does that describe?
Check for tone and subject fit
The passage describes a serious scientific shift, not personal behavior or emotional attitude toward other people. Eliminate choices that mainly describe how someone treats authority figures or that sound unrelated to scientific thinking.
Narrow down by logic
Ask yourself: Would a person with this trait be likely to ignore small mismatches between theory and observation, or to be bothered by them and push for deeper explanations?
Step-by-step Explanation
Understand the situation and contrast
The first sentence says many practitioners were content with minor discrepancies in astronomical predictions. The second sentence contrasts this with a later generation that did not treat anomalies as acceptable, but instead saw them as reasons to rethink celestial dynamics. So the new generation is being contrasted with the earlier, more relaxed attitude.
Infer the kind of attitude needed
Because the new scientists refused to ignore even minor anomalies and treated them as invitations to fundamentally reinterpret the system, they must have been much less easygoing about small errors. The blank needs a word that suggests a strict, very careful, demanding approach to evidence rather than a tolerant or casual one.
Test each answer choice against that meaning and tone
Go through the options:
- doctrinaire usually describes someone who sticks rigidly to a doctrine or set of beliefs, even when evidence suggests otherwise. That would mean clinging to Newtonian mechanics, not reinterpreting it, so this clashes with the idea of rethinking celestial dynamics.
- obsequious means overly submissive or fawning toward someone in authority. That describes behavior toward people, not an attitude toward scientific anomalies.
- jejune means naive, simplistic, or dull; that does not match scientists who take subtle discrepancies seriously and drive conceptual revolutions.
- The remaining option describes people who are extremely careful and demanding about details and accuracy, which matches scientists who treat minor anomalies as important clues.
Confirm the best match
The only word that means extremely attentive to and demanding about small details and precision is “fastidious,” so the correct answer is B) fastidious.