Distinguish the forms of boldness
Read for meaning first. Select a highlighted word if you want a closer look.
The audacity of opening a talent show with a poem composed from the audience's suggestions delighted a producer who usually insisted on a fixed script. An uninvited visitor then had the temerity to demand control of the running order merely because he preferred a different sequence. The visitor's effrontery became unmistakable when he demanded compensation for the free seat he considered insufficiently prestigious. The producer refused the demands and returned to helping the scheduled performers prepare for an opening that still involved a creative risk.
The performer's audacity remained part of the show's appeal, since the improvised opening could have failed in front of a full room. The visitor's temerity had a different character: his demand assumed authority he had never been given. His effrontery also drew objections from volunteers who had offered him admission without charge and were now being asked to pay him. The producer kept those judgments separate, praising the creative risk without treating every bold demand as similarly welcome or justified.
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Look away from the passage. Can you explain each focus word in your own words?
Original fictional passages for vocabulary practice.