khpark85 Posted July 9, 2014 Share Posted July 9, 2014 hi guys, need some help People should not be praised for their virtue if they lack the energy to be ______ ; in such cases, goodness is merely the effect of (indolence). a) unjust b) iniquitous c) cruel d) depraved e) wicked Answer is e) wicked. This was originally a 2 blank problem with another blank on (indolence), and the answer pair was "e) wicked....indolence". If the second blank was filled with (indolence), is there any reason i should pick e) wicked over the other 4? thanks for the help Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DavidGREENLIGHT Posted August 7, 2014 Share Posted August 7, 2014 (edited) Hi khpark85, You're right about the answer being e) wicked All four of the remaining answers are "sort of" correct, in that they are all bad things, i.e. none of them are virtuous. The correct answer is the opposite of virtue, which means having high moral standards. All four of the remaining answers can be thought of a sub-sets of the opposite of virtue, but not the opposite itself, which needs to be a word for morally wrong. Let's take a closer look at the remaining four answers. To be "cruel" is to be a kind of wicked (i.e. evil, the opposite of virtue), but to be wicked you are not limited to being just cruel (cruel is a sub-set of wicked, but wicked is not a sub-set of cruel). This same logic can be applied to unjust (which means unfair or prejudiced) and depraved (which means perverted or deviant). Answer b) iniquitous, is a little more tricky. Iniquitous means grossly unfair or morally wrong, and that is a good synonym for wicked. BUT in this sentence, we need a noun, not an adjective (because virtue is a noun, and we are looking for an opposite noun). Iniquitous is an adjective that describes a noun, for example, "an iniquitous act" where the adjective iniquitous describes the noun, act. Wicked can be an adjective ("She is a wicked woman.") or a noun ("The woman is wicked.") In this sentence wicked is the noun we are looking for! I hope this helps. Good luck! David Edited August 7, 2014 by wasleys Removed spammy bit Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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