The rhetoric of “bad teachers” and “good teachers” reinforces the precept(A)/perception(B) that teaching ability is a gift someone either has or does not have.

This subtly underpins(A)/undermines(B) the status of teaching, by obscuring the extraordinary skill required to perform the job to a high level and by implying that great teaching cannot be taught.

Indeed, the set-up of most schools is inimical(A)/inimitable(B) to collaboration.

Subsequently(A)/Consequently(B), teachers have never developed a shared vocabulary for discussing their work in detail and improving their teaching techniques.

Pretentiousness is never a felony in the first (A) / sensible (B) person.

You might grant the odd personality flaw; the occasional pirouette of hyperbole (A) / self-deprecation (B) is nothing if not good manners.

Most likely it is one of those foible (A) / imperfections (B) nobody minds owning up to, something that looks charming in the right circumstances.

But (A) / Nevertheless (B) being pretentious is something that happens "over there".

The notion that consumers are logical decision-makers with complete insight into the factors determining the choices they make is simplistic (A)/ vapid (B).

A shopper’s mind is not a clean slate. Information and experience are refracted (A)/ retracted (B) through the lens of belief.

Information that’s contrary (A)/ inconsistent (B) with those beliefs is likely to be rejected.

Even experience is malleable (A)/ intractable (B). For many, the same glass of wine tastes better when poured from a $100 bottle than from a $10 bottle.

Open-water swimming tends to evoke (A) / conjure (B) up images of impassioned loners silently stroking across the sea, in search of glory or transcendence.

But marathon swimming is not so much meditative as (A) / but (B) combative.

Open water swimmers contend (A) / strive (B) physically and psychologically not only with the elements but also with one another, ceaselessly, right up to the last hundredth of a second.

Though the race looks serene (A)/chaotic (B) from above, at the surface it is a scrum of windmilling arms and mind games.

Labor is restive (A)/ tractable (B) today.

It is apprehensive about what the future augers (A)/ bodes (B) for itself.

But it’s not as if labor militancy (A)/ supremacy (B) has gone up in recent years.

To (A) / On (B) the contrary, man-days lost due to strikes and lock-outs came down from 23.7 million in 2001 to 13 million in 2012 before rising to 19 million in 2013.