( ) distinguish

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Anonymous

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He has the ( ) distinction of being the only one in the class to fail the examination.
1. outstanding 2. dubious 3. impressive 4. remarkable 5. extrinsic

I'm not sure which one to choose. I personally think "remarkable distinguish" is better than "outstanding distinguish" because the sentence has the negative phrase "fail the exam". But I'm not sure.
 
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dduck

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reo said:
He has the ( ) distinction of being the only one in the class to fail the examination.
1. outstanding 2. dubious 3. impressive 4. remarkable 5. extrinsic

I'm not sure which one to choose. I personally think "remarkable distinguish" is better than "outstanding distinguish" because the sentence has the negative phrase "fail the exam". But I'm not sure.
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The answer here is 2. All the other possibilities have a positive sense, which doesn't reflect the sense of the negative sense of the sentence: he failed the exam. It was a distintion because he was alone, but it was a negative distinction, or a dubious distintion (somewhat ironic).

Iain
 
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RonBee

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dubious

Yes, it's dubious distinction.

In fact, dubious distinction is a fairly common collocation.


Meaning doubful or questionable, the word dubious invariably has negative connotations (and implications).
 
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RonBee

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Example:

  • He had the dubious distinction of being the last in his class.

A dubious distinction is the kind a person would not want to have.
 
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