This is the best answer. There’s evidence Passage A is written for a general audience from the fact that it describes Whorf’s hypothesis. A more academic, specialized audience wouldn’t need a description of Whorf’s hypothesis. Also, notice the informal language Passage A uses — “seduced a whole generation.” This is more fit for a general audience rather than academics.

There’s evidence Passage B is for an academic audience at the very end. It describes the implications of research in terms of the Whorfian hypothesis without explaining that hypothesis.

We have no basis to believe Passage A is probably an anthropologist. Nothing about the writing indicates a background in anthropology.

Passage A isn’t neutral; it calls the Whorfian hypothesis wrong. In addition, Passage B doesn’t advocate a view. It describes research and indicate that the research could support Whorf strongly, weakly, or not at all.

There’s no indication Passage A is interested in the historical development of Whorf’s hypothesis. Rather, Passage is interested more in showing that Whorf’s hypothesis is wrong and discussing the actual relationship between language and thought.

Although Passage A disagrees with Whorf’s hypothesis, it’s not clear that the author is “dismissive” of Whorf’s hypothesis. “Dismissive” means that something is unworthy of consideration. The author doesn’t suggest that the hypothesis is so implausible as to be unworthy of taking seriously. Although the author does call Whorf’s claims “fantastic,” this is just a comment on the extreme nature of Whorf’s claim. But notice that the author still discusses evidence — she rejects Whorf’s hypothesis because of lack of evidence. She doesn’t reject Whorf’s hypothesis because it’s not even worth considering. Moreover, even if you think Passage A is dismissive of Whorf’s hypothesis (which many people do), it’s not dismissive of the idea that language can oblige us to think about certain things or create subjective associations. So (E) would still be wrong, because Passage A isn’t dismissive of the “ideas” it discusses. At least some of the ideas are taken seriously and endorsed by the author of Passage A.