Sentence completion/ maturity

Question

It is his dubious distinction to have proved what nobody would think of denying, that Romero at the age of sixty-four writes with all the characteristics of----.
A. maturity
B. fiction
C. inventiveness
D. art
E. brilliance

Any clue to the question? Sixty-four? I doubt, 'cause there's no answer that matches it.

Thanks for your help.

Pieanne · Accepted Answer

Maturity? It's the only one that can be related to age.

Jeff_999 · Answer

It is the answer.

But "age" can bring you the works of better quality too. Why do we not choose "brilliance"?

And we cannot rule out "inventiveness" either, because it is entirely possible that a veteran artist is more likely to bring innovation to his/her works.

Pieanne · Answer

The only thing that's said about the author is that he's 64. Thus the only thing that can't be denied is his maturity. One can be brilliant/innovative etc...  at 20.

Jeff_999 · Answer

Yeah, "nobody would think of denying" would determine the answer.

Thank you. I got it.

MrPedantic · Answer

It is his dubious distinction to have proved what nobody would think of denying, that Romero at the age of sixty-four writes with all the characteristics of----.

Presumably 'his' refers back to 'someone, not Romero'. (It would not make sense to say that Romero had gained any kind of distinction by proving something about himself.)

Call that someone MrQ.

Then, too, 'what nobody would think of denying' = 'the obvious'.

Which gives us:

"It is MrQ's dubious distinction to have proved the obvious: that Romero at the age of sixty-four writes with all the characteristics of --- "

At this point, we might insert 'youth', 'a Spanish anarchist', 'someone who has spent twenty years in the outback seducing kangaroos' – pretty much anything. All that matters is that the noun phrase relates to an obvious aspect of Romero's writing. So I think the key is 'all the characteristics of', which we might follow with:

A. maturity - possibly.
B. fiction - possibly; he may be a historian, who writes 'with all the characteristics of fiction'. But in that case 'with all the characteristics of a writer of fiction' would be better.
C. inventiveness - it is itself a characteristic.
D. art - a little too strange; how would one write with the characteristics of art?
E. brilliance - again, it is itself a characteristic.

So I agree that it's A, but for different reasons!

MrP

Sentence completion/ maturity

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