He was, in the early part of the twentieth century, a staunch nationalist of the liberal fold.

Correct — D, (d) tolerant.

The underlined word is ‘liberal’ — the transcription records that the underlining covers ‘liberal’ only and not ‘fold’ — and the Directions over Q11 ask for the word nearest in meaning to it. ‘Liberal’ has three settled senses in English, and the sentence chooses one of them. It can mean generous and free in giving, as in a liberal donation. It can mean broad-minded, open to other opinions, free from prejudice and willing to let others hold their own views. And it can name a political position that favours individual freedom, moderate reform and constitutional methods.

The sentence is describing a man’s political temper: ‘a staunch nationalist of the liberal fold’ in the early twentieth century. The second and third senses run together there, and both are answered by ‘tolerant’ — willing to allow opinions and behaviour one does not share. Substitute it and the phrase reads ‘a staunch nationalist of the tolerant fold’, which says what the original said: a nationalist, but of the broad-minded and accommodating wing rather than the uncompromising one.

The word ‘fold’ is the clue that fixes it. A fold is a flock or a body of people held together by a common view, so the phrase is placing the man within a school of opinion, and schools of opinion are described by their temper — moderate, extreme, orthodox, tolerant — not by how freely their members give money away. Two of the four options answer the ‘generous’ sense of liberal instead, and one answers its opposite.

Why the others are wrong

• (a)profuse — ‘Profuse’ means produced or given in great quantity, poured out abundantly — profuse apologies, profuse thanks, profuse bleeding, profuse growth. It does answer one sense of ‘liberal’, the sense of giving freely, and that is exactly why it is offered. But it answers the wrong sense for this sentence, because a man is not described as being of the profuse fold; the phrase is about the school of political opinion he belonged to. Note also the difference of register between the two words: ‘liberal’ in the giving sense praises the giver, while ‘profuse’ describes the sheer quantity and is often used of things nobody wanted, such as apologies or bleeding.
• (b)dogmatic — ‘Dogmatic’ means asserting opinions as though they were beyond question, laying down doctrine and refusing argument. That is very nearly the OPPOSITE of the sense the sentence gives to ‘liberal’, which is why the option is worth pausing over: it is the trap laid for a candidate who has carried forward the instruction from the antonym block on the earlier page, where the ask was for the opposite. The two blocks are printed in an identical shape and the instruction appears once at the head of each. Anybody who has slipped between them will find this option waiting, and it will look convincing, because it genuinely is the contrary of the word underlined.
• (c)plentiful — ‘Plentiful’ means existing or available in large quantities — a plentiful harvest, plentiful rainfall, plentiful supplies. Like ‘profuse’ it belongs to the abundance sense of ‘liberal’, but it is further away still, because it describes things in supply rather than a person’s disposition. English does not describe a man as plentiful. The option is a reminder that when a word has several senses, a set of four will often contain two options answering a sense the sentence has not put in play, and that the noun the underlined word qualifies — here ‘fold’, a body of opinion — is what decides which sense is meant.

The item tests a word with several distinct senses, and the skill of letting the sentence choose between them before any option is considered.

‘Liberal’ carries at least four uses worth holding apart. Generous in giving: a liberal contribution, liberal helpings. Broad-minded and free from prejudice: a liberal outlook, liberal in his views of other faiths. Political: favouring individual liberty, representative government and gradual reform through constitutional means. And in ‘liberal education’ or ‘the liberal arts’, an education in general knowledge and the humanities rather than in a narrow technical skill — a use that goes back to the studies thought fitting for a free man.

The political sense is the one the sentence leans on, and it has a specific Indian resonance in the period the sentence names. In the nationalist politics of the early twentieth century, ‘Moderate’ and ‘Liberal’ described those who worked for reform through petition, constitutional argument and cooperation with the administration, against those who pressed for more direct methods. Gopal Krishna Gokhale is the figure usually named for that wing. The temper of that school — willing to argue, willing to wait, willing to grant that opponents might be honest — is what ‘tolerant’ captures.

The general rule to carry away: a word of several senses is settled by the noun it qualifies and the sentence it sits in. Read those first, decide which sense is in play, and only then look for the option that matches it.

Key facts

• ‘Liberal’ means generous in giving; broad-minded and free from prejudice; favouring individual liberty and gradual constitutional reform; and, in ‘liberal education’, general rather than narrowly technical.
• ‘Tolerant’ means willing to allow opinions or behaviour one does not oneself share, which answers the broad-minded and political senses the sentence puts in play.
• ‘Fold’ means a flock, and by extension a body of people held together by a common belief or allegiance — so ‘of the liberal fold’ places the man within a school of opinion.
• In early-twentieth-century Indian nationalism the Moderate or Liberal wing worked through petition, constitutional argument and cooperation with the administration; Gopal Krishna Gokhale is the figure usually named for it.
• ‘Profuse’ means poured out in great quantity — profuse apologies, profuse bleeding — and answers only the abundance sense of liberal.
• ‘Dogmatic’ means asserting opinions as beyond question, and is close to the contrary of the sense the sentence gives to ‘liberal’.

Common traps

• Slipping back into the previous block’s instruction. This block asks for the nearest meaning, and one option here is a fair opposite of the underlined word.
• Answering the commonest sense of a multi-sense word instead of the sense the sentence uses. Two of these options answer the abundance sense of ‘liberal’.
• Ignoring the noun. ‘Fold’ means a body of opinion, and a body of opinion is described by its temper rather than by its generosity.
• Choosing a word that cannot be applied to a person. ‘Plentiful’ describes supplies, not men.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Select the option that is nearest in meaning to the underlined word : The trustees took a liberal view of the rule and admitted applications received a day late.

  • (a)generous
  • (b)broad
  • (c)strict
  • (d)written

  Answer(b) broad — applied to the reading of a rule, ‘liberal’ means broad rather than narrow, allowing more within the rule’s scope than a literal reading would. ‘Generous’ answers the giving sense of the word and cannot describe a view of a rule, ‘strict’ is its contrary, and ‘written’ describes the form of the rule rather than the reading given to it.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Select the option that is nearest in meaning to the underlined word : He was too dogmatic in committee to be of much use in framing a compromise.

  • (a)opinionated
  • (b)silent
  • (c)cheerful
  • (d)cautious

  Answer(a) opinionated — ‘dogmatic’ describes somebody who asserts his views as beyond question and will not entertain others, and ‘opinionated’ names the same disposition. ‘Silent’ describes saying nothing rather than insisting, ‘cheerful’ names a mood, and ‘cautious’ describes care in acting rather than rigidity in believing.