OE


Virtuoso, inept. Since Joseph is a perfectionist, he probably expected to become “perfect,” or at least “good,” and was disappointed when he remained something like “unskilled” or “bad.” Virtuoso (highly skilled, especially in music or art) and inept match the fill-ins well. Beware of choosing answers by comparing the options for each blank. Someone who is inept, particularly a writer who is inept, could be called a hack (a dull, unoriginal writer), but this is the opposite of what is called for in the first blank. In turn, hack might present a theme trap to someone mistakenly thinking of the noun definition of novel (book) in the second blank. For the second blank, all the options are adjectives, and novel (new) and inane (silly) don't work as contrasts to “perfectionist.”