1 Although the politician was basically conservative in her views, she was not ___: her positions on certain issues could even be called ___.

A. radical… extremist

B. dogmatic… hidebound

C. reactionary… progressive

D. moderate… cautious

E. overzealous… inflexible

2 Cultural change is seldom truly ___: successive periods overlap, progress is ___, and within a prevailing climate of opinion there can be innumerable variations

A. straight forward… ragged

B. benign… uneven

C. complex… volatile

D. visible… manifest

E. significant… dramatic

3 The science of astronomy was begun by amateurs and today remains dependent on their contributions, which are incisive by virtue of being ___ by the a prior assumption that often vitiate the work of professional research scientists

A. characterized　B. unencumbered

C. supported D. contradicted

E. inspired

解析：

1尽管这个政客的观点相当地保守，但是她并不反动：她对于某些问题的立场甚至可以称作是进步的。

解析：此题太简单了。Although是转折，第一空前有not则由取非变成了取同，BC合适。冒号后面显然要表达not 第一空。则C非常合适。

2文化的转变很少是真正直线性的：连续的时期们交迭在一起，进步是参差不齐的，并且在一个观点盛行的氛围里也会有数不清的变化。

解析：先做第2空，由并列关系可知应该表达出overlap和be innumerable variations这样的意思，ABCE候选。再看第一空，句子里没有涉及到complex和significant的信息，所以排除。AB哪个更好?我们注意到第一空前有一个否定词seldom，很少直线不就是参差不齐么?非常工整，而B代进去就表示很少温和的意思，可是后面也没有信息表示猛烈，答案选A。

3天文学始于天文爱好者并且至今仍然要依赖他们的贡献，这一切由于和以前的一个假设形成对比显而易见，这个假设认为爱好者经常破坏天文学家的工作。

解析：前面对爱好者是正评价，空格让填一个与假设之间的关系词，由于假设的修饰成分是负评价的，所以空格处一定要填一个负评价词进行修正。D是唯一的负评价词。