NDA (II) 2017 GAT Q8: This is his maiden appearance on the screen. (Select the

Q: What is the answer to NDA (II) 2017 GAT Q8?

A. Correct — A, 'first'. Used before a noun, 'maiden' means first of its kind — a maiden speech, a maiden voyage, a maiden appearance. The sentence is placing this screen appearance at the start of the person's film career, and 'first' carries exactly that.

NDA (II) 2017 General Ability Test · Question 8 of 150

Question text verified against the official NDA question paper.

This is his <u>maiden</u> appearance on the screen. (Select the word or group of words that is most similar in meaning to the underlined word.)

(a)first
(b)last
(c)girlish
(d)shy

Answer

Why

Correct — A, 'first'. Used before a noun, 'maiden' means first of its kind — a maiden speech, a maiden voyage, a maiden appearance. The sentence is placing this screen appearance at the start of the person's film career, and 'first' carries exactly that.

Why the others are wrong

(b)last — This reverses the sense; a maiden appearance opens a career rather than closing it.
(c)girlish — This is the trap set by the noun 'maiden', meaning a young unmarried woman; the adjective before a noun has moved away from that sense, and the sentence is about a man.
(d)shy — Shyness is a manner, and the word says nothing about how the appearance was carried off.

Concept

As an adjective, 'maiden' marks the first occasion of something — the first speech a member makes in a legislature, the first voyage of a ship, the first flight of an aircraft.

The item works by offering the noun's meaning as a decoy. A candidate who knows only 'maiden' the noun reaches for 'girlish', and the sentence quietly blocks that with 'his'. Reading the word in its slot, immediately before a noun it modifies, is what fixes the sense.

Key facts

A maiden speech is a member's first speech in a legislature.
A maiden voyage is a ship's first journey after being commissioned.
'Maiden name' is the surname a woman used before marriage, which preserves the older noun sense.

Study next

Nouns used as adjectives and the shift in sense that followsFixed phrases with 'maiden' — speech, voyage, flight, overUsing grammatical position to choose between sensesVocabulary drawn from parliamentary and sporting usage

Common traps

Picking 'girlish' from the noun sense of 'maiden'.
Missing 'his', which rules out any reading tied to a young woman.

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

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.

Practice

practice — not a real PYQ
Choose the word nearest in meaning to 'maiden' in 'The ship completed its maiden voyage.'
- (a)final
- (b)first
- (c)longest
- (d)safest
Answer(b) first — a maiden voyage is a ship's first journey.
practice — not a real PYQ
Choose the word nearest in meaning to 'inaugural' in 'She gave the inaugural lecture of the series.'
- (a)closing
- (b)opening
- (c)annual
- (d)informal
Answer(b) opening — an inaugural lecture is the first in a series.