The Correct Answer and Explanation is:
The correct answer is with great attention and care.
The word “assiduously” describes the manner in which an action is performed, specifically highlighting diligence, perseverance, and meticulous attention to detail. To determine its meaning within the provided sentence, one must look at the context clues that follow it. The sentence states, “I gathered data assiduously, checking and rechecking each piece of information to make sure that I made no mistakes when doing my calculations.” The phrases “checking and rechecking each piece of information” and the stated goal “to make sure that I made no mistakes” are direct examples of what it means to work with great attention and care. This careful, repetitive process is the essence of acting assiduously.
The other options can be eliminated based on these same context clues. The action of carefully checking and rechecking is the opposite of working at “a nervous and frantic pace,” which would likely lead to errors. While the data gathering might have involved “creative strategies,” the word assiduously focuses on the quality of the effort, its thoroughness, not its novelty. The sentence provides no information about the tools used, so “with assistance from technology” is an unsupported assumption. The adverb assiduously strictly modifies the action of gathering, describing the focused and careful human effort involved. Therefore, the phrase “with great attention and care” is the most accurate and contextually supported definition. It perfectly captures the careful, diligent, and painstaking effort described in the rest of the sentence, which aims for complete accuracy and the elimination of errors.
