Critical Reading > Sentence Completions
Choose the word or set of words that, when inserted in the sentence, best fits the meaning of the sentence as a whole.
He maintains that ethnic and cultural ------- are generalizations no more related to what an individual is actually like than are the ------- representations of constellations to the actual nature of a star.
(A) traditions . . chemical
(B) stereotypes . . pictorial
(C) details . . figurative
(D) heritages . . prophetic
(E) specimens . . graphic
The correct answer is B
Explanation
The terms in choice (B) logically complete the sentence’s comparison between ethnic and cultural “generalizations” and certain “representations of constellations.” “Stereotypes” are oversimplified generalizations that do not necessarily describe what a particular person is actually like—just as “pictorial,” or picture-based, representations of constellations cannot accurately describe a star’s “actual nature.”