The British _____ all over Africa and Asia collapsed in the first half of the twentieth century.
- (a)hegemony
- (b)domicile
- (c)residence
- (d)inheritance
Correct — A, hegemony. 'Hegemony' means the dominance one state or group holds over others, so 'the British hegemony all over Africa and Asia' names the imperial control that came apart as colony after colony won independence. It is the only word among the four that describes power stretched across two continents and capable of collapsing.
- (b)domicile — A domicile is the place a person is legally treated as permanently belonging to. It is a personal legal status, not something that can be spread over continents.
- (c)residence — A residence is a house, or the act of living somewhere, so this would describe British accommodation in Africa and Asia rather than British rule over them.
- (d)inheritance — An inheritance is property or a legacy passed on from someone, and it is received rather than exercised over other territories.
A vocabulary item on 'hegemony', the word for the dominance of one power over others.
The verb 'collapsed' is the give-away, because it needs a subject that is a structure of power. Domicile, residence and inheritance are legal or domestic nouns that nothing describes as collapsing across two continents. The sentence's dating is loose, and it is worth noticing honestly — India and Pakistan became independent in 1947, but most of Britain's African colonies followed later, Ghana in 1957, Nigeria in 1960 and Kenya in 1963, so the collapse ran well past the middle of the century. The item is testing the word, not the timeline.
- 'Hegemony' comes from a Greek word for leadership and is used of dominance by one state, class or group over others.
- The adjective is 'hegemonic', as in 'a hegemonic power'.
- 'Domicile' is a legal term for the country a person is treated as permanently belonging to, which need not be the country they currently live in.
- Choosing a formal-sounding word without checking that it can be the subject of the verb that follows.
Asked as a fill-in-the-blank item in which a formal noun must be matched to the verb that governs it.
No directly related past PYQ was found.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Choose the word that fits — American _____ over the western hemisphere was rarely challenged in the nineteenth century.
- (a)domicile
- (b)hegemony
- (c)inheritance
- (d)tenancy
Answer(b) hegemony — dominance exercised by one power over others.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Choose the word that fits — For legal purposes he retained his _____ in India even while working abroad for a decade.
- (a)hegemony
- (b)residence
- (c)domicile
- (d)inheritance
Answer(c) domicile — the country a person is legally treated as permanently belonging to.