OE


prowess and maladroit
The first blank has a strong clue, so begin there. The blank is
describing the professor…as a teacher and gives further
insight that she shows more…teaching skills than her
colleagues. The transition word and indicates that there is
consistency between her description as a noteworthy
intellect and her skills as a teacher. Therefore, a good word
for the first blank is “skills.” Choice (A), prowess, is a good
match for “skills” so keep (A). Choice (B), profligacy, means
reckless extravagance and (C), orthodoxies, means beliefs.
Eliminate (B) and (C). The second blank is describing the
professor’s colleagues…teaching skills. The sentence gives
further insight by stating that the professor shows more skills
than her colleagues. Therefore, a good word for the blank is
“unskilled” or “not good.” Choice (D), spurious, means fake
which is not a match for “unskilled” so eliminate (D). Choice
(E), maladroit, is a good match for the blank, so keep (E).
Choice (F), eclectic, means from different sources, so
eliminate (F). The correct answer is (A) and (E).

(A)Prowess
As you can see in the first part of the sentence which says "The professor is a noteworthy intellect", which means its a positive sentence suggesting that the professor is intelligent. Then further in the first half we can see we have conjunction "and" which means that that this part should also mean something positive. So if we look at option (C)Orthodoxies which means a "generally accepted theory or a practise", makes no sense here as we are comparing the teacher with other colleagues, that means something the teacher is better than other colleagues. Option(B) profligacy means "wastefully spending the money", which is a negative word, and we are looking for something thats positive so we look at option(A)Prowess which means "having great skill", perfectly fits in the sentence.

(E) Maladroit
In the second half of the sentecne, "whose" is referred to the colleagues who lack teaching skills. We can know that the word "whose" is referred to colleagues because in the first half we have already mentioned about the skills of the professor and how she is better. Hence the second half should be something negative. By this, we can eliminate Option(F) Eclectic which means "deriving ideas from diverse range of sources". The negative options are (D) and (E) which mean "Fake, seeming to be genuine" and "Clumsy" respectively. Though both are negative words, Fake makes no sense here because we are talking about procedure of teaching, and hence Option(E)Maladroit is a perfect macth for this