2014-08-20 09:00:30

The other executive warned the CFO that the model of her personal airplane on her desk seemed ______ and asked her to remove it so as not to make other employees ______.

(A) invigorating .. complacent
(B) invidious .. resentful
(C) indeterminate .. deleterious
(D) invertible .. jealous
(E) indubitable .. odious

The correct answer is B
Explanation: To find the missing words, try to predict their meaning by using clues in the sentence. Here, the main clue is the phrase "and asked her to remove it so as not to make," a phrase that implies that the model was likely to cause employees to feel something. Here, it is impossible to predict the exact words, but it is clear that the two words must have similar meaning. That is, the model seemed capable of causing the emotion described by the second word, meaning the first word and second word must have a causal relationship. Choice B is correct, because it is the only choice that provides such a relationship: "invidious" means "likely to or calculated to cause anger, jealousy, or resentment," and "resentful" means "full of jealousy, indignation, anger, or a feeling of injustice."

None of the other choices work, either:

invigorating: making one feel strength or energy
complacent: showing smug satisfaction with oneself (these words have no clear relationship)

indeterminate: not exactly know or defined
deleterious: harmful (these words have no clear relationship)

invertible: able to be placed upside down or opposite in arrangement
jealous: feeling or showing envy (these words have no clear relationship)

indubitable: impossible to be questioned or doubted
odious: extremely unpleasant (these words have no clear relationship)