Explanation

The sentence characterizes certain physical features of the park and contrasts them with the park’s location within a major city. The blank must describe those features so as to provide that contrast, which “urban” and “spurious” do not. While “remarkable” and “noteworthy” produce sentences with the same meaning, they also do not provide the required contrast between the park’s features and its location. Thus the correct answer is bucolic (Choice A) and pastoral (Choice E).

On interesting thing about this question is that even if we don't know the meaning of either of the correct answers, it's not too hard to get it correct.

Since "however" indicates that what fills the blank must contrast with the fact that, "upon closer inspection one is quickly reminded that the park is in the middle of a major city," we can easily eliminate "urban" (characteristic of a town or city), since "urban" agrees with the fact that, "upon closer inspection one is quickly reminded that the park is in the middle of a major city."

Also, both of the other "easy" words, "remarkable" and "noteworthy," don't contrast with "upon closer inspection one is quickly reminded that the park is in the middle of a major city."

So, by eliminating three "easy" words, we can whittle the possible correct answers down to "bucolic," "pastoral," and "spurious."

At that point, if we know that "spurious" means "false or fake," we can see that it has nothing to do with the scenario.

So, we can arrive at the correct answers, "bucolic" and "pastoral," by knowing just one somewhat hard word, "spurious."
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