ShmoopTube

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When you Shmoop upon a star...

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Which words could fill in the blanks so that the sentence below makes sense?

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The circus strongman consistently blank respect from the audience with astonishing displays

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of his strength and blank.

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And here are the potential answers...

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Since this question is a two-parter, we can start by lifting one side of the barbell before

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we start worrying about the other.

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In the first blank, we're looking for a word that helps us communicate the idea that

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the strongman earns mad respect for his awesome feats of strength.

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Knowing this, we can cross off (A), because there's usually not much risk involved in

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getting respect. Unless you demand it.

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(C) can go as well. "Ignores" respect just doesn't make any sense.

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People don't necessarily "accept" respect from others, so cross (B) out as well.

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All right, we've given all we can to blank number one.

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Now it's time to finish the heavy lifting with blank number two.

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(D) doesn't work at all. Having "humanity" or being a kind and understanding person might

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be respectable, but it doesn't have much to do with lifting big, heavy things.

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Looks like it's time to take a closer look at (E).

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Yeah, seems the heavy lifting is done.

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"Derive" is a synonym for "gain" and "prowess" describes skill, so (E) is our best choice.

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(E) for "Everything is relative."

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