Official Guide Text Completion

[fbmagnumopus]

In the midst of so many evasive comments, this forthright statement, whatever its intrinsic merit, plainly stands out as_____.
a paradigm
a misnomer
a profundity
an inaccuracy
an anomaly

In this question, the answer is anomaly but initially I was distracted by the seemingly positive subtext behind ' whatever its intrinsic merit' and ended up selecting paradigm. Is that a trap and if yes, how come?

Also, how do I make sure to avoid veering off track from the right clues by getting distracted by such little hints in the sentence or passage?

[tommywallach]

Hey FB,

Two things:

1) Paradigm isn't inherently a good thing. For example, there could be a paradigmatic "terrible scandal," so it still wouldn't fit.

2) The pivot "whatever" creates a conflict. If I were to say, "Whatever the critics say..." the next part of the sentence would be POSITIVE (to conflict with critics).

Make sense?

-t

[fbmagnumopus]

Gotcha, I think my main issue was not recognizing the role of 'whatever its ...' as a pivot. I thought it just was some random verbiage I could ignore.

thanks for the clarification : )

[tommywallach]

Glad to help. "Whatever" is indeed a weird pivot!

-t