The archivist's approach to cataloging—she insisted on cross-referencing every document three separate times—ultimately slowed the project considerably.
- fastidious (correct answer)
- rigorous
- cursory
- scrupulous (correct answer)
- perfunctory
- innovative
Explanation: Prephrase: insisting on cross-referencing every document three times signals painstaking, exacting care—'meticulous to a fault.' FASTIDIOUS and SCRUPULOUS both denote scrupulous attention to detail and are synonymous—correct pair. Trap pair: CURSORY and PERFUNCTORY are synonyms meaning hasty/superficial, the opposite of triple-checking, and would not slow a project. RIGOROUS is a singleton and a fine-line near-miss: it means strict/disciplined and could plausibly describe the approach, but it stresses toughness of standards rather than the fussy, detail-obsessed thoroughness of fastidious/scrupulous, and it has no synonym partner among the choices. INNOVATIVE is off-topic—novelty of method does not explain slowdown through repetitive checking. Lesson: on GRE, when one plausible fitting word (rigorous) has no synonym partner and two others (fastidious/scrupulous) pair cleanly, the pair wins; match on the precise shade of detail-obsession.