OE


The sentence says that "little care was given to the concealment of dislike ... or scorn." "Scathing" is a good description of such a response. "Polemical" also fits the blank, as a polemic is a scathing text or speech. An iconoclast is someone who attacks beliefs or institutions that are widely accepted, so a predictable response to a "provocative proposal" would not be described as "iconoclastic." "Inscrutable" and "impenetrable" both mean impossible to understand, but, since the criticism here was unconcealed, these don't work. "Fictitious" cannot be correct, because there is nothing to suggest that the response was imaginary, although the authors might have wished that it were.