Answers are C, F. Why not A?
Also, according to Google dictionary, miserly, stingy, and thrift are synonyms. Should the blank not be a complete synonym for miserliness?
[A], stinginess, is a synonym for miserliness. The sentence is trying to make a distinction between types of people who like to save their money. One type is someone who saves money in a way that is gratuitously cheap or excessively scant, e.g., someone who is a CEO at a Fortune 500 company, who gets lunch with friends, but insists that they itemize the bill. The other type is someone who saves money because it’s practical to do so, or they are showing economy with their money, e.g., someone who politely declines to go out for lunch because they are saving up for a new iPhone.
While miserly, stingy, and thrift all mean being economic in some form towards money. Only thift carries the slight color that you are being “smart” with your money in a way that isn’t cheap. Does that make sense?
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Just to say the same as the previous writer, but maybe with easier language: Thrift and frugality have a positive connotation, whereas stinginess and illiberality have a negative connotation (think of, for example, “courage” with a good undertone and “reckless” or “impetuous” with a negative one). In the blank you want the positive ones since they should contrast with “miserliness” (which has, indeed, a negative taste to it).
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