Answer: D) This man, who was smart in school, has grown up to be unintelligent.
Step-by-step explanation: paraphrasing is to express the meaning of something written or spoken using different words, especially to achieve greater clarity. From the given options, the statement that phraphrases the given excerpt the best, is the corresponding to option D, because it changes the words (mettle=smart, and blunt=unintelligent) but it mantains the meaning of the original phrase.