From the choices provided, select the pair of words that best fills the blanks to complete the sentence meaningfully.

Several of the astronomy students found the ____________________ hypothesis difficult to _____________________.

Correct Answer: abstruse, comprehend

To complete the sentence meaningfully, we must examine how the two missing words logically fit within the context of students studying a subject like astronomy.

Let's analyze the sentence context:
"Several of the astronomy students found the ____________________ hypothesis difficult to _____________________."

1. The first blank describes the nature of the "hypothesis."
2. The second blank describes an action performed on that hypothesis by the students.

Now let's evaluate the meaning of the word pair "abstruse, comprehend":
• Abstruse means difficult to understand, obscure, or esoteric. In the context of advanced sciences such as astronomy, a complex hypothesis can naturally be described as abstruse.
• Comprehend means to grasp mentally or understand fully. Saying that a hypothesis is "difficult to comprehend" forms a clear, logical, and grammatically complete thought.

When inserted into the sentence:
"Several of the astronomy students found the abstruse hypothesis difficult to comprehend."

This creates a cohesive sentence where the adjective explaining why the hypothesis is hard directly matches the verb indicating the difficulty in understanding it.