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Text Solution:

Seeing the colon, we know that the statement preceding the colon and the statement following the colon will agree with each other. Specifically, we can see that the statement following the colon, “war is not primal and beast-like but uniquely human,” is essentially a description of the “harsh reality” mentioned just before the colon. This is a key piece of known information.

There is one another key piece of known information, that “we hesitate to compare ourselves to the peaceable bonobos.” We know that this piece of known information, which appears before the colon, is in keeping with the known information after the colon, that “war is not primal and beast-like but uniquely human.”

Logically then, since “we hesitate to compare ourselves” to peaceful creature (bonobos), and the “harsh reality” is that we humans, not the “beasts,” are the warring species, it must be that “we are loath (not willing or inclined)” to admit or confirm that “harsh reality.” Otherwise, why else would we “we hesitate to compare ourselves”?

So, the logical meaning is, basically, that we don’t want to compare ourselves to the bonobos because we don’t want to face the fact that humans are warring and the so-called beasts are “peaceable.”

With that meaning in mind, refute/repudiate (prove wrong, deny or reject) are the opposite of what makes sense in context. If we don’t want to admit that we’re the warring ones, then we would want to refute/repudiate the “harsh reality.” So, saying that “we are loath to refute/repudiate a harsh reality” is illogical. Eliminate (A) and (D).

“Analyze” could make sense in this context because ““we are loath to analyze a harsh reality” is in keeping with hesitating to compare ourselves to the bonobos. However, this choice does not pair with any other answer, and thus cannot possibly be correct. Eliminate (B).

Concede/acknowledge both essentially mean “admit,” and thus create logical and equivalent sentence meanings:

One anthropologist suggests that the reason we hesitate to compare ourselves to the peaceable bonobos is that we are loath to concede/acknowledge a harsh reality: war is not primal and beast-like but uniquely human.

Notice that concede/acknowledge are essentially antonyms of refute/repudiate, which we already determined are the opposite of what is logical in context.

Since we’ve already paired or eliminated every other answer choice, we know that choice (F), transcend (go beyond, rise above), cannot possibly be correct. Notice also that “we are loath to transcend a harsh reality” goes in the opposite direction of what makes sense in context.

Thus, choices (C) and (E), concede/acknowledge, are the only synonym pair that logically complete the sentence.

LEARNING JOURNAL

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Was there a particular sticking point, breakdown in your logic or conceptual knowledge, bad habit, or careless mistake that led you to the wrong answer? At what point in your process did that error occur?

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