we are amazed

[komati_anusha]

We were amazed that a man who had been heretofore the most _______ of public speakers could, in a single speech, electrify an audience and bring them cheering to their feet.
A. Prosaic
B. Enthralling
C. Accomplished
D. Pedestrian
E. Auspicious
F. Iconoclastic

Corrected☺

[komati_anusha]

Meaning : the man who had been active can perform better and cheer on audience.
Is this correct??
My options were EF
But OA AD
Explain pls.

[tommywallach]

Hey Komati,

Happy to! One quick thing though: when posting verbal questions, please check them over for grammar and spelling errors. You have a spelling error in your answer choices, and strange spaces in the question stem itself. These things matter for others looking on, who might be confused. Thanks!

In this case, you have to focus on the meaning of the first half of the sentence. The speaker is AMAZED. Why would you be amazed? Because someone was surprising you. We see that he was "heretofore" (which means "up until now") a certain type of speaker, but now he makes his audiences super-excited. This means that he must have been a BORING speaker before, and now he's suddenly electrifying. We need a word like "boring."

Prosaic and Pedestrian both fit the bill.

Enthralling/Accomplished are the trap answers here; they're the opposite of what we want.

Neither Auspicious nor Iconoclastic make any sense in this sentence, because they aren't a way you would describe someone's style of speech. A person can be iconoclastic, but their speech wouldn't be. And a particular occurrence can be auspicious, but again, not the style of someone's speech.

Hope that helps!

-t