NDA (II) 2017 General Ability Test · Question 2 of 150

Correct — C, 'aware of'. To be alive to something is to be fully conscious of it, to have it clearly in mind. The sentence says he had grasped that adjustments were needed, which is knowledge rather than feeling, and 'aware of' is the plain word for that.

• (a)concerned about — Being concerned adds anxiety or a sense of responsibility, while 'alive to' reports only that he had taken the point in.
• (b)worried about — Worry is a negative emotion, and nothing in the sentence says the need for adjustments troubled him.
• (d)indifferent about — Indifference is the absence of interest, which reverses the sense of 'fully alive to' instead of matching it.

'Alive to' is an idiomatic use of a common adjective, meaning keenly conscious of something — usually a danger, a difficulty or an opportunity.

The adverb 'fully' is the giveaway. It scales awareness naturally, so 'fully aware of' is idiomatic while 'fully worried about' is not. When a familiar word appears in an unfamiliar frame, testing which option keeps the sentence idiomatic is quicker than reasoning about the word alone.

• 'Alive to the dangers' and 'alive to the possibilities' are the usual collocations of this idiom.
• 'Alive with' is a different idiom altogether, meaning swarming or full of, as in a street alive with people.
• 'Aware' takes 'of' before a noun and 'that' before a clause.

• Picking 'concerned about', which fits the theme of the sentence but adds an emotion the idiom does not carry.
• Reading 'alive' literally and hunting for a word about life or energy.

Asked as a synonym item — choose the word or group of words most similar in meaning to the underlined word.

No directly related past PYQ was found.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Choose the group of words nearest in meaning to 'alive to' in 'The captain was alive to the risks of the crossing.'

  • (a)afraid of
  • (b)conscious of
  • (c)annoyed by
  • (d)trained for

  Answer(b) conscious of — 'alive to' means fully conscious of something.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Choose the group of words nearest in meaning to 'blind to' in 'He was blind to her faults.'

  • (a)unable to notice
  • (b)angry about
  • (c)forgiving of
  • (d)responsible for

  Answer(a) unable to notice — 'blind to' is the reverse of 'alive to'.