As per the meaning of the sentence

Pearson’s prose has become increasingly ______ ; even those who once extolled his intricate metaphors now believe that the excessive use of such language only serves to undermine any semblance of narrative.

The two red parts tell us that his prose became more complicated

A. unguarded

B. ornate

C. embellished

D. vague

E. lucid

F. truculent

Notice how the sentence, also, has only two pair-words which indicates us it is far from the standard of the ETS questions.
They have at least two pair-words of which one is quite tricky, at least in the hard questions

More questions to practice from the official resources https://gre.myprepclub.com/forum/search.ph ... mit=Search

Also similar questions https://gre.myprepclub.com/forum/search.ph ... o_id=11795

Regards

I wish GRE had such questions! We wouldn't even need to read the sentence. Simply look at the options and find a pair!

The problem is that this is NOT an official question. It is all about the difference

Pearson’s prose has become increasingly ______ ; even those who once extolled his intricate metaphors now believe that the excessive use of such language only serves to undermine any semblance of narrative.

We know that even those who once extolled his intricate prose feel that he has gone a bit too far and are critical about. They specifically state that the excessive use of such language (intricate metaphors) undermines any semblance of narrative. So we can deduce that his prose has become increasingly ornate and embellished, and this is borne by the opinion of his admirers which comes after the colon.

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