2014-09-17 09:00:14

Judges often consider how repentant a criminal is in making a sentence: if the defendant seems ______, the judge will make a more lenient sentence than would be given for a a criminal who shows little remorse.

(A) contrite
(B) concrete
(C) convalescent
(D) condescending
(E) conspicuous

The correct answer is A
Explanation: To find the missing word, use clues in the sentence to predict its meaning. Here, the main clue is the colon, which is used to separate explanatory information from the rest of a sentence. Thus, the fact that judges consider "how repentant a criminal is" during sentencing is explained by what follows the colon. Since the judge is less "lenient" when a person "shows little remorse," it follows that he or she would be "more lenient" when the criminal shows remorse or is more "repentant," implying that the missing word must mean "repentant." Choice A is correct, then, as "contrite" means "feeling or showing remorse or penitence."

None of the other choices work, either:

concrete: real or solid
convalescent: recovering from an illness
condescending: having or showing a feeling of patronizing superiority
conspicuous: out in the open or obvious