Among these options, “heal” and “recover” are attempting to get you to confuse this word with “convalesce,” which means to recover or to regain strength. The word “coalesce” comes from the prefix “co-,” meaning together or with, and “-alesce,” which is derived from the Latin for to nourish or to grow up. When things “coalesce,” they come together, forming a larger whole. For instance, one could say, “All of the ingredients cooked down and coalesced into a single, homogeneous stew.” The word “adolescence” means a stage of growing to maturity, and is related to the word “coalesce.”

The word “exhume” literally means to take out of the earth. The “-hume” portion of the word is the same as that which is found in “humility.” It comes from the Latin for ground or dirt. “Humility” is a disposition that makes one feel “lowly.” When combined with the prefix “ex-”, this root word makes the expression out of the earth.

The word “inundate” actually comes from the Latin for a wave. The word “undulate” means to have a wave-like motion. For this reason, the word “inundate” can have the specific meaning of to flood. Most normally, however, it is used to mean to overwhelm, as though to imply that someone is “flooded” by some concern or care. For example, one could say, “With all of the applications for the position, the secretary was inundated with paperwork for months, trying to give fair review to each resume.”

The word “proscribe” is frequently confused with “prescribe,” which means to recommend or authorize (something); however, while the word “prescribe” literally means to to write ahead of time, the word “proscribe” literally means to write in front of. The sense is that one writes something as a law that thus acts to forbid certain actions. This is the best meaning for the term.

The word “regress” is related to words like “digress” and “progress.” It is comprised of two roots, both of which are likely familiar. The prefix “re-” here means backward, back, or (in a sense) behind. Think of words like “return” or “reply.” The “-gress” comes from the Latin word for to step. The words “grade” and “gradual” both come from this same base, as do the aforementioned words. For example, “progression” is the process of going forward (pro-). The word “regress” means returning (going back) to former stage of development. One can speak of emotional regression, as in, “At age fifty, he seemed to regress to a teenage mentality, buying a number of frivolous things like cars and baseball trophies.” Likewise, one can use the term to talk about cultural regression, as in, “The state of society has been regressing for a generation; not only is the intellectual culture far less developed, but likewise manners have all but died, being replaced with barbaric rudeness.”

"Unequivocal" is an adjective that means unambiguous. So, we need to pick out an answer choice that means something like "unambiguous." While "unclear" may look like a potentially correct answer choice because both "unequivocal" and "unclear" begin with the negative prefix "un-," "unclear" means ambiguous, making it an antonym of "unequivocal," not a synonym. "Explicit," however, is an adjective that means expressed clearly and without ambiguity, and because "explicit" is the answer choice closest in meaning to "unequivocal," "explicit" is the correct answer.

Do not confuse the word “immanent” with “imminent.” The latter means “soon to occur,” such as “imminent danger.”   The word “immanent” comes from the prefix “in-” (here becoming “im-”) affixed to a base that means “to remain.” The words “remain,” “mansion,” and “permanent” all have this same latter base, which is derived from the Latin “manere,” meaning “to stay or remain.” Something immanent “remains within” another thing. For instance, one can say that a thought is an “immanent action” in that it remains “within the one knowing.” Sometimes, the word “immanent” is used in contrast to “transcendent,” the latter meaning “standing over and above something else.” For instance, one might speak of a “transcendent God,” that is, a deity that is neither the same as the world nor contained therein.

"Maladroit" means clumsy or awkward. "Morbid" means gloomy or sickly. "Opulent" means rich or luxurious. "Sedulous" means determined or hard-working. "Tawdry" means cheap or tasteless.

Although the word “pretentious” is related to the word “pretend,” do not be fooled. “Pretend” literally means to stretch forward in the sense of taking or claiming something. The “-tend” means stretch, as is found in “extend.” The “pre-” does not mean before in a temporal sense but instead in the physical sense—e.g. “he stood before the magistrate.” When someone is pretentious, he or she claims to be something that he or she is not, often doing so with much fanfare to draw attention. The word “ostentatious” means much the same, itself being derived from Latin roots meaning to stretch out to show.

The word “concurrent” is comprised of two root words that you should know. The prefix “con-” means with, as is used in words like “concord” and found in similar forms in the “com-” in “community” and the “cum-” in “cumulative.” The “-current” portion of the word comes from the Latin for to run. When we speak of a river’s “current,” we mean to indicate its flow (running) of water. When multiple things are “concurrent,” they "run together” in the sense of occurring at the same time, as though they were parallel. For example, at a meeting, there may be several “concurrent sessions,” meaning that several smaller meetings occur at the same time, perhaps with each being devoted to a separate topic. The word “simultaneous” means at the same time, as is indicated by the “simul” in the word.