Directions: Choose the best option to fill in the blanks.

The impact of the recently published collection of essays, written during and about the last presidential campaign, is lessened by its timing; it comes too late to affect us with its ________ and too soon for us to read it out of historical ________.

The impact of the publication of the essays about the presidential campaigns is less than what it might have been, had it been published either earlier or much later than at present. If it had been published earlier, it would have had the merit of topicality. If it had been published much later, it would have had historical value. The pair of words which gives this meaningful sense to the sentence is ‘immediacy’ and ‘curiosity’.