NDA (II) 2016 General Ability Test · Question 16 of 150

Correct — A, 'acquitted'. To be sentenced is to be found guilty and given a punishment by the court; to be acquitted is to be cleared of the charge and set free by that same court. They are the two opposite outcomes of one trial, which is exactly the reversal an antonym item wants.

• (b)punished — Repeats the sense of the underlined word instead of reversing it — a sentence is a punishment.
• (c)relieved — Means freed from a burden or removed from a duty, which is not a verdict a court delivers.
• (d)pardoned — The strong rival, but a pardon comes after conviction — it is granted by the executive and acts on the punishment, whereas an acquittal is the court's own finding that guilt was never established.

A criminal trial has two opposite endings — conviction, followed by a sentence, and acquittal.

This item is decided by knowing what the words do in a courtroom rather than by feel. Acquittal reverses the whole proceeding: no guilt is established and the accused walks out clear. A pardon comes later and from a different authority, so it is not the reverse of a sentence but a remission of it. In an antonym block the near-miss is usually a word that undoes a later stage of the same process, and that is precisely what 'pardoned' is doing here. The sentence frame is loose, since 'culprit' already presumes guilt, but the pair being tested is 'sentenced' against 'acquitted'.

• 'Acquit' means to declare not guilty and to free from a charge.
• A sentence is the punishment a court awards after a finding of guilt.
• A pardon is granted after conviction by the executive; in India the President and the Governors hold that power under the Constitution.

• Choosing 'punished', which repeats the sense instead of reversing it.
• Treating a pardon as the same thing as an acquittal.

Asked as an antonym item — pick the word most nearly opposite in meaning to the underlined word.

No directly related past PYQ was found.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which word is most nearly opposite in meaning to 'convict'?

  • (a)sentence
  • (b)acquit
  • (c)accuse
  • (d)arrest

  Answer(b) acquit — to convict is to find guilty, to acquit is to clear.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  A person whom the court has cleared of the charge against him has been

  • (a)pardoned
  • (b)acquitted
  • (c)paroled
  • (d)bailed

  Answer(b) acquitted — the court found the charge not established.