NDA (II) 2023 General Ability Test · Question 41 of 146

Correct — A, ‘hard’. Malleable, the word underlined in the booklet, describes a material that yields under a hammer and can be beaten out into sheets. Its opposite is a material that resists being shaped, and hard is the plain English word for that. Gold and copper are the textbook malleable metals precisely because they spread rather than crack.

• (b)strong — Strength measures resistance to breaking under load, not resistance to being shaped — steel is strong and still workable.
• (c)tender — Tender means soft and easily yielding, which sits on the same side of the scale as malleable rather than against it.
• (d)weak — Weak is the opposite of strong. A weak material can still be brittle and refuse to be beaten into shape.

Each antonym item in this paper prints a full sentence with one word underlined and asks for the word opposite in meaning. Malleable comes from Latin malleus, a hammer, and means capable of being hammered into shape.

Two of the four options, strong and weak, are opposites of each other, which is a signal that neither is the axis being tested. That leaves hard against tender, and since tender leans the same way as malleable, hard is what remains. The printed sentence reads ‘malleable in nature and property’, loose phrasing that the booklet carries as it stands and that does not change what the underlined word means.

• Malleability is the property of being beaten into thin sheets; ductility is the related property of being drawn into wire.
• Gold is the most malleable metal known, which is why gold leaf can be hammered to a few hundred atoms in thickness.
• Used of a person, malleable means easily influenced, and there the opposite is inflexible or stubborn.

• Choosing weak because malleable sounds like a lack of strength.
• Choosing tender, which is a near-synonym dressed up as an opposite.

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

No directly related past PYQ was found.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Choose the word most nearly opposite in meaning to the underlined word. Copper is a ductile metal.

  • (a)brittle
  • (b)shiny
  • (c)heavy
  • (d)pliable

  Answer(a) brittle — a ductile metal draws into wire, a brittle one snaps.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Choose the word most nearly opposite in meaning to the underlined word. The clay was pliable in his hands.

  • (a)soft
  • (b)rigid
  • (c)moist
  • (d)smooth

  Answer(b) rigid — pliable bends easily, rigid refuses to.