There is a sentence that is missing in the paragraph below. Look at the paragraph and decide where (option 1, 2, 3, or 4) the following sentence would best fit.
Sentence: Comprehending a wide range of emotions, Renaissance music nevertheless portrayed all emotions in a balanced and moderate fashion.
Paragraph: A volume of translated Italian madrigals were published in London during the year of 1588. This sudden public interest facilitated a surge of English Madrigal writing as well as a spurt of other secular music writing and publication. ___(1)___. This music boom lasted for thirty years and was as much a golden age of music as British literature was with Shakespeare and Queen Elizabeth I. ___(2)___. The rebirth in both literature and music originated in Italy and migrated to England; the English madrigal became more humorous and lighter in England as compared to Italy. Renaissance music was mostly polyphonic in texture. ___(3)___. Extreme use of and contrasts in dynamics, rhythm, and tone colour do not occur. ___(4)___. The rhythms in Renaissance music tend to have a smooth, soft flow instead of a sharp, well-defined pulse of accents.
Answer: D
What the sentence needs: it is a statement about the character of Renaissance music (wide emotional range, but expressed in a balanced and moderate way). So it belongs in the part of the paragraph that describes musical features, not in the historical part about madrigals arriving in London.
Reading the paragraph: the first half is history (1588 translations, a thirty-year boom, the Italy-to-England migration). The second half shifts to style: "mostly polyphonic in texture", then "Extreme use of and contrasts in dynamics, rhythm, and tone colour do not occur", then rhythms with a "smooth, soft flow".
The fit: blank (3) sits between "polyphonic in texture" and "Extreme ... contrasts ... do not occur". Our sentence introduces the idea of moderation, and the next sentence gives the concrete proof of that moderation: no extremes in dynamics, rhythm or tone colour. "Balanced and moderate" sets up "extreme ... do not occur" perfectly.
- Blanks (1) and (2) are inside the historical narrative; a remark on emotional expression would break it.
- Blank (4) comes after the point about extremes is already made; the sentence would arrive too late and interrupt the move to rhythm.
Blank (3) is labelled Option 3, which is the 4th choice in the list, so the answer is 4.
Tip: in placement questions, read the choices carefully when the labels are shuffled; match the blank number, not the position.