Q:

Why is "'deep' rural poverty" correct here? in one of the sample questions of GRE exam

When Americans imagine communities with dilapidated homes, barefoot children, and starving adults, they might picture Third World countries. But over 23 million U.S. residents live in __________ rural poverty.
  A. pitiable
   B. utter
   C. deep    

I think that all items are correct, mostly A. But I found that the correct answer is C. It seems that all synonyms of "utter" should also be correct, like "abject", etc.

A:

Most probably it is because "C. deep" is the only answer that does not have an emotionally colored adjective. Since the sentence in the task looks like belonging to the informational/scientific style ("over 23 million" is a pretty exact number, not just "over 20 million"), emotionally colored words are to be avoided in texts of that style.

