PT128 · S3 · Q21 Musicologist: Ludwig van Beethoven began

Nothing in the paragraph talks about how difficult it was / wasn't for Beethoven to compose. The only way in which we can compare his later works to his earlier ones is that the former have more of a wonderful introspective quality than the latter do.

We know one way in which the later music was better due to hearing loss: it had a wonderful introspective quality it didn't have before. But the passage doesn't indicate that the later music is, on the whole, better quality. Although it might be better when it comes to introspective quality, it might be worse on many other levels. This answer would be totally fine if it said, "Had he not lost his hearing, B's later music would have had less of an introspective quality than it has." It's also worth noting that if (B) were true, then (E) would also be true (if it's of poorer quality, then it's clearly different, so that disqualifies (B) from being correct. there can't be two correct answers)

Whoa, this is very close to what we just said for (B). This answer would be totally fine if it said, "Had he not lost his hearing, Beethoven's later music would have been less introspective than it was". But this says that Beethoven would have been less introspective. That's different.

We know Beethoven gradually lost hearing. It wasn't until late in life that he completely lost hearing. And we know that "in Beethoven's case, complete hearing loss gave his later music a wonderfully introspective quality". So we know that late in life, once complete hearing loss was "turned on", then wonderful introspective quality was "turned on". This is absolute yes/no language. We can't morph that into a Volume Dial claim like, "the more he lost his hearing, the more introspective his music became".