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Not sure what this means in a certain context

Pandapani12
Hi everyone, I have another vocabulary question. Astronautics owes much to the \_\_\_ contributions of Charles E. Whitsett. His ground-brekaing development of the manned maneuvering unit enabled the first spacewalks in which astronauts were not tethered to a spacecraft. A. Dubious B. futile c. galvanizing d. avant-garde How is the answer avant-garde? I got the answer through process of elimination, but is there a better way to get it? Thank you so much!

9 comments

1acre64•
Avant-garde can’t be right. There’s no relation between that phrase and science/engineering. One would use “innovative” or “newfangled” or even “unorthodox”. Galvanizing makes far more sense in that sentence.
Rogfy•
Avant-garde refers to being innovative, experimental, and ahead of its time. So, the use of the adjective "groundbreaking" in the next sentence hints at the answer
blargh4•
This seems like a case of study/test material written by people with questionable English proficiency themselves (at least American/British English, I'm not familiar enough with other dialects). Avant-garde would not be used in this context.
FloridaFlamingoGirl•
Charles tried something experimental and out of the ordinary.  I usually hear avant-garde used to refer to art more than science, so this is a more unusual use of the word. 
wbenjamin13•
I thought the Escher one you posted before was weird but still solvable, this one is totally bizarre, I think all of these are bad choices. I question the quality of whatever study materials these are coming from. There’s an argument for both galvanizing and avant-garde as they at least fit the point being made but neither are really good answers in my view.
webbitor•
For science and technology, "pioneering" would be far more common to hear than "avant-garde".
Important-Jackfruit9•
All of these are terrible answers, but I honestly think galvanizing is the best choice It means to stimulate or excite, and you could make an argument that his contributions stimulated further innovation.
SnooDonuts6494•
It's a positive description, right? So, which one is good? Refer to a dictionary if you need to. [Also, yes, it's a shit question.]
ThirdSunRising•
Avant-garde doesn't quite mean that. I would've chosen Galvanizing, tbh, though it was the best of a bad lot. Galvanizing has more to do with emotions. Avant-garde is generally used for innovations in art, not science. A and B can be immediately eliminated because they're both negative.