There were streaks of both arrogance and (i) ___________ in the artist's approach. Not only did she believe that she was by far the best contemporary painter, but she also constantly decried all conventional approaches to the medium.

Blank (i)
insolence
esurient
meekness
egotism
peremptoriness

i thought egotism since she decried all other and she also considered here by far the best.

why not egotism?

The artist in question exhibits both arrogance and some other quality, and each quality is described in the subsequent clauses.

Choice (D), egotism, is misleading because it is similar to arrogance, and we do have already as her first (bad) quality. The final clause, however, does not call for a synonym of arrogance in the blank.

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I understand your explanation but as each quality is described later in the sentence, I do not understand how Insolence = Rejecting others way of work ?

Insolence means Rude and How can rude mean to reject other traditional works?

Because she decried the conventional ways, does not mean she was self centered or full of ego. Hence insolence fits here, she was disrespectful towards conventional ways. We should not make assumptions about what ways she supports.

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