Synonyms Questions and Answers

Answer: D

The synonym of ill is sick.

Someone who is ill is unwell, in poor health, and sick is the common word for the same condition: an ill child, a sick child.

Shy describes timidity, mad describes insanity or anger, and patient means calm and tolerant or a person under medical care, so none is a match.

Answer: D

The synonym of confuse is puzzle.

To confuse someone is to leave them unable to think clearly or understand, and to puzzle them is to leave them baffled. Both are verbs of the same meaning.

Diffuse means to spread out, profuse means abundant, and easy means not difficult. The first two look like confuse but mean something else.

Answer: B

The nearest meaning of 'fabulous' is incredible.

The throne's 'fabulous jewellery' is jewellery so rich that it is hard to believe, and 'incredible' carries that sense.

'Actual' and 'real' mean the opposite of the fanciful sense of 'fabulous', and 'solid' describes a material, not the wonder of the jewellery.

Answer: C

'Salvaged' means saved.

The passage says only about 2,000 volumes could be salvaged from the library when it was burnt: they were rescued from destruction and then taken to Fort William.

'Ruined', 'demolished' and 'destroyed' all mean the opposite, being what happened to the rest of the books.

Answer: C

The nearest meaning of 'yield' as used here is give.

The rivers 'yield' fish in the sense that they supply or produce them, which is what 'give' expresses.

'Withhold' and 'retain' mean the opposite, keeping something back, and 'stiffen' means to become rigid, which has no link to producing fish.

Answer: A

'Their forays' means expedition.

A foray is a venturing out, usually into unfamiliar or hostile ground. The passage says the forays 'take them into the heart of the tiger reserve', which describes a trip or expedition.

'Celebration' and 'exercise' do not fit a risky trip into a forest, and 'struggles' describes a fight or hardship, not the journey itself.

Answer: C

Delightful is the synonym of PLEASING.

A pleasing personality is one that gives pleasure and is agreeable to others. Delightful means highly pleasing or charming, so it carries the same sense in this sentence.

The other three words mean nearly the opposite. Tedious means tiresome and boring, irritating means causing annoyance, and annoying means troublesome or vexing. None of them could describe a pleasing personality.

Answer: C

Compassion is the synonym of PITY.

To have pity on someone is to feel sorrow for their suffering and want to help, which is exactly what compassion means: sympathetic concern for the suffering of others.

Cruelty, brutality and unkindness all describe a willingness to cause suffering or a lack of feeling for it, so they are antonyms of pity rather than synonyms. Note that the direction asks for the meaning in context: having pity on a beggar is an act of compassion.

Answer: C

Lazy is the synonym of IDLE in this sentence.

To sit idle is to sit doing nothing, avoiding work or activity. Of the four choices, lazy, meaning unwilling to work or be active, is the closest in sense.

The other three are opposites. Active means busy doing things, functional means working or in operation (a functional machine is the opposite of an idle one), and busy means fully occupied. The advice not to sit idle is advice not to be lazy.

Answer: C

Ignorant is the synonym of ILLITERATE among the choices given.

An illiterate person cannot read or write, and the word is also used more loosely for someone without education. Ignorant means lacking knowledge or education, which is the closest of the four options to that sense.

Literate (able to read and write), educated and wise are all opposite in meaning. The sentence refers to Kerala's well-known high literacy rate: there are hardly any people there who cannot read.