Directions: For the given question, select one entry for the blank to best complete the text.

He was _______ with the unenviable task of putting up a defense for ‘Jeans’, the country’s official submission for the Best Foreign Film Oscar.

Option (1): He is saddled with an unenviable or a burdensome task. Option (2): ‘Burdened’ seems to make sense in context. But ‘saddled with’ the preferred idiomatic usage.  Option (3): ‘Tasked’ with a task seems repetitive. Option (4): The task does not bound him but saddles him. Option (5): The filler ‘forced’ denotes coercion that cannot be derived from the text.