Right, I thought allotted sounded weird too. But to me, the word "despite" indicated an inverse relationship. Meaning, the two words should mean opposite things. I'm worried about having to leave my politics at the door on the day of the test...cause I don't even realize when they're creeping in.
Well, at least the 2008 Kaplan test prep book does. Look at this verbal practice question:
“Despite the increased attention ________________ juvenile delinquency, there has been a ________________ in crimes committed by juveniles.”
Here are the choices:
a) allotted to…dip
b) offered to…development
c) given to…rise
d) spent on…decrease
e) withdrawn from…growth
I picked a) allotted to…dip. Now I knew this was a rather awkward fit in terms of syntax, but it seemed slightly less awkward than d), and still fit with the inverse relationship of media attention paid to juvenile crime versus the reality of decreasing juvenile crime rates.
Apparently, I was wrong.
According to the book, the correct answer was c) given to…rise. The explanation is, “You would expect that with increased attention, there would be fewer crimes committed by this group. However, the word despite indicates that what you might expect does not prove to be true.”
What?? First of all, how does media coverage lend itself to lower crime rates? And isn’t it pretty much a well-known fact these days that the media latches on to sensationalistic pieces of information, fabricating trends and fanning hysteria when facts and statistics prove the opposite?
Or am I just too intimately caught-up in defending our Black and brown youths against the onslaught of the school-to-prison pipeline?
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