NDA (II) 2018 General Ability Test · Question 35 of 146

Correct — A, apprehension. Apprehension is uneasy fear about something that is about to happen, and the sentence has stacked the clues for it — soldiers, waiting, battle, and above all 'for the first time', which marks them as untested and therefore anxious.

• (b)consideration — Consideration means careful thought, or thoughtfulness towards others, and neither is the feeling that fills soldiers on the eve of their first battle.
• (c)anticipation — Anticipation only means expecting something to come, and it normally carries a pleasurable edge, as in 'eager anticipation'. It misses the dread that 'for the first time' before a battle is there to signal.
• (d)frivolity — Frivolity is light-hearted silliness, which is tonally at odds with the whole sentence.

A vocabulary item separating fearful expectation from neutral or eager expectation.

Anticipation is the deliberate near-miss, because both words describe a feeling about something still to come. What separates them is colouring, since apprehension is always uneasy while anticipation is neutral to positive. The phrase 'for the first time' is the examiner's signal that inexperience, and therefore nerves, is the point.

• 'Apprehension' carries an unrelated legal sense as well, that of the arrest or seizure of a suspect.
• The adjective 'apprehensive' is used with 'about' or 'of', as in 'apprehensive about the result'.

• Choosing a word that matches the timing of the feeling but not its emotional colouring.

Asked as a fill-in-the-blank item in which two words share a core meaning and differ only in tone.

No directly related past PYQ was found.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Choose the word that fits — The children waited in eager _____ for the results of the quiz.

  • (a)apprehension
  • (b)anticipation
  • (c)frivolity
  • (d)trepidation

  Answer(b) anticipation — 'eager' calls for the positive word.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Choose the word that fits — She viewed the coming interview with some _____, since she had never faced a panel before.

  • (a)frivolity
  • (b)anticipation
  • (c)apprehension
  • (d)consideration

  Answer(c) apprehension — inexperience makes the expectation an uneasy one.