I do not believe that this is a question you usually will see on the real GRE but it is damn good to stretch you reasoning skills.
To reply to all the previous students' statements: how and WHY lofty should be implied, the perfect counter fit , synonym word to gracious is still unclear to me ? it stroke me as a lightning
Even though I do not know the meaning of lofty and assuming could be the best answer then my mind tries to wrap up this word kinds: lofty reminds me of a loft apartment which, turns out, is a living open space without walls but a separate bathroom. It is the kind of giant room where you park your motorcycle side by side with your bed.
That said: how are we able to relate a loft (lofty) with gracious and kind and gentle ? In a word: NO relationship.
All this to say what? even if you overlook the word lofty and take a look to the entire sentence, I see that the author simply stated a sybilline or ambiguous statement:
My novels are too sophisticated for the American public.This is a statement that is NOT totally clear as a message: why he said that? what does that mean? The general public is illiterate? not so smart to grasp the meaning of his novels? we do not know
And because we do not know, and the statement is blurry, then
B must be the answer
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