This page is part of my unofficial solutions manual to the GRE Paper Practice Book (2e), a free resource available on the ETS website. They publish the questions; I explain the answers. If you haven’t worked through the Practice Book, give Section 3 a shot before reading this!

3.3: “The author presents…”

The author’s attitude (“not even convinced that Grey was a good writer”) sounds like indifference or perhaps disinterest. Right away, we can eliminate zeal (A) as the opposite of what we want. Three of the remaining choices – deftness (B), eloquence (D), and imaginativeness (E) – describe the author’s skill but don’t say anything about his attitude. A deft person is skillful and clever; an eloquent person uses language in an expressive way. (Remember the compatibility test from question 3.1: the writer could be eloquent or deft and still care about his subject.) That leaves us with detachment (C), which nicely captures the neutrality of the author’s stance toward Grey.

Vocab Notes

Zeal means “great enthusiasm or dedication to a cause.” By itself, it is a neutral word. The noun form, zealot, typically carries a negative connotation, the implication being that a person has too much enthusiasm or dedication, perhaps to the point of obsession.