Sentence:  Had More 's writings been wholly limited to such <WSD>exercises</WSD> , they would be almost as dimly remembered as those of a dozen or so other authors living in his time , whose works tenuously survive in the minds of the few hundred scholars who each decade in pursuit of their very specialized occasions read those works . 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  a task performed or problem solved in order to develop skill or understanding