Answers should be close in meaning with the key word as innovative. Thus, only valid options are revitalization and renaissance.

an era of innovation and rejuvenation.

C, E

The sentence here says that in the 1990's something happened to Shanghai's architecture that resulted in an increase in artistic and innovative buildings.
Now we need to find words that are similar to artistic and innovative:

intransigence - Intransigence means to refuse to change your views and opinions about something
plenitude - an abundance of something
revitalization - to make something grow and achieve vitality again
stagnation - A state characterized by a dearth of growth or development
renaissance - revival of art and literature in Europe from the 14th to 17th century. (this can also be used as a general term that means revival)
abundance - A large quantity of anything

On first glance, plenitude and abundance might be appealing choices but they're the trap answers that you need to watch out for! The key point to note here is artistic and innovative buildings increased. An abundance or plenitude of something does not guarantee innovation. Intransigence and Stagnation don't fit the blank at all. Stagnation is the opposite of the words you need. Therefore the right answers are Revitalization and Renaissance

Hi

Can anyone explain why renaissance / revitalization welcome innovations ?
I picked B/E as by increasing amount of architectural choices or options, suppliers will need to be innovative to increase bargaining power as a seller/supplier.

Thank you in advance.

Best,
Gocha

A first reading of the sentence will indicate that there is no contrast between its two parts (the part before the comma and the part after it). Now, the first part does not provide any clue as to what the correct answer choices might be. All the action is in the second part and which contains the two key words of 'innovative' and 'artistic'. So, going to the answer choices, we would need to select answers that embody innovation and/or creativity so long as they are accompanying synonyms. Intransigence is a wrong choice because it is clearly negative; plenitude means in abundance, but buildings that are built without innovation and that are lacking in creativity can be in abundance; stagnation is clearly a wrong choice even as abundance is also wrong for the reason that plenitude is wrong. These leave revitalization and renaissance as the correct choices.

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