Find the part of the sentence that contains an error:

The higher the office was (1)/ the more pressing became the need (2)/ for prudence, propriety, and (3)/ avoiding of early disclosure. (4)

The correct option is (4).

Explanation:

The given sentence presents a parallel structure listing three nouns/noun phrases that are objects of the preposition "for":

1. prudence (noun)
2. propriety (noun)
3. avoiding of early disclosure (gerund/verb-derived phrase with awkward phrasing)

To maintain parallelism and correct grammatical style alongside "prudence" and "propriety", a corresponding noun form such as "avoidance of early disclosure" or simply "avoiding early disclosure" should be used instead of "avoiding of early disclosure". The construction "avoiding of" is grammatically incorrect here because a gerund ("avoiding") takes a direct object without the preposition "of" (e.g., "avoiding early disclosure"), whereas a verbal noun ("avoidance") takes "of" (e.g., "avoidance of early disclosure").

Therefore, part (4) contains the error.