Cellophane—the transparent, plasticky film used everywhere to wrap food—is actually a paper product. Implausibly, this (i) ............. material is made from the same components as the opaque brown paper bag. Its inventor, Jacques E. Brandenberger, originally conceived of cellophane as a means to prevent stains, but after the wider utility of the product became (ii) .............. to him, he patented cellophane and it became (iii) ........... .
This is a long set of sentences, so you should paraphrase them to make the topic easier to get a handle on: “Although people don’t think of cellophane as paper, this material is made from the same stuff as paper bags. It was invented to prevent stains, but its usefulness became and resulted in a product.” For the first blank, you’re looking for a term that describes cellophane. Even if you don’t know what cellophane is, the key words “transparent, plasticky film” provide a great prediction for the blank. The correct answer is (A) diaphanous, which means “see-through.” Choice (B) standardized has nothing to do with transparency. Choice (C) opaque means the opposite of what you need. After Jacques saw how useful cellophane was, he decided to patent it. For the second blank, therefore, predict a word like “visible” or “evident.” Choice (E) apparent is a great match. Choices (D) marketable and (F) fashionable may be true of cellophane, but the second blank describes the utility of cellophane, not cellophane itself. It wouldn’t make sense to say that cellophane’s utility became “marketable to” or “fashionable to” the very person who invented it. Having filled in the first and second blanks, you quickly test the third. Nothing in the sentences describes cellophane as (G) amorphous, “shapeless,” so eliminate it. Choice (H) is a trap—don’t confuse ingenuous, or “innocent,” with “ingenious,” or “brilliant.” You would expect a product with “overwhelming usefulness” to be (I) ubiquitous, “available everywhere,” and that’s the correct answer.