Sentence improvement — Choose the most natural and idiomatic adjective to replace ‘‘hot’’ in ‘‘To get one's name in the Rowland Ward's book of hunting records was the hot ambition of every serious hunter.’’ Ensure the collocation with ‘‘ambition’’ reads standard and formal while preserving meaning.

Given data
To get one's name in the Rowland Ward's book of hunting records was the hot ambition of every serious hunter.

Concept/Approach
We are testing adjective–noun collocation. With the noun ‘‘ambition’’, standard formal combinations are ‘‘high ambition’’ and ‘‘burning ambition’’. ‘‘Hot ambition’’ sounds colloquial and is not an established collocation in educated English prose.

Step-by-step option check
extreme — Yields ‘‘extreme ambition’’ which can work, but it slightly over-intensifies and is less idiomatic than the conventional pairings.burning — ‘‘burning ambition’’ is idiomatic, but it stresses intensity of desire rather than loftiness common to all hunters; it subtly shifts nuance.high — Best fit; ‘‘high ambition’’ collocates naturally to mean a lofty aim shared widely.No improvement — Retains the nonstandard ‘‘hot ambition’’.

Verification/Alternative
Replacing only the adjective keeps the sentence's scope and register intact: ‘‘...was the high ambition of every serious hunter.’’

Common pitfalls
Assuming that synonyms of ‘‘intense’’ are interchangeable with set collocations; in exams, collocation naturalness is decisive.

Final Answer
high