Adolescence is the __________ wherein a child enters adulthood.
- (a)threshold
- (b)position
- (c)condition
- (d)period
Correct — A, 'threshold'. A threshold is the point of entry to something, and the sentence has the child 'enters' adulthood, so the doorway image carried by the verb is completed by the doorway image in the noun. Adolescence sits on the edge between childhood and adulthood, and that edge is what a threshold names.
- (b)position — A position is a place or a rank that is held, and adolescence is not a place a child occupies.
- (c)condition — A condition is a state or a requirement, and calling a stage of life a condition misdescribes it.
- (d)period — A period is a stretch of time. The sentence turns on the act of entering rather than on a span of years, and the official key marks A.
'Threshold' names the entry point to something — the sill of a doorway, and by extension the moment of crossing into a new stage.
This is the one item in the block where a second option reads naturally. 'The period wherein a child enters adulthood' is ordinary English, and many candidates picked D. The official key marks A, and the case for it rests on the verb 'enters', which makes the sentence about crossing into adulthood rather than about a length of time. Follow the key here, and remember which word in the sentence decides it.
- A threshold is literally the strip of floor at a doorway and figuratively the point at which something begins.
- Settling on 'period' because a stage of life is usually called a period.
- Skipping over 'enters', the word that decides between the two readings.
Asked as a fill-in-the-blank item — choose the word that completes the sentence.
No directly related past PYQ was found.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Choose the word that best completes the sentence. The country stood at the __________ of a new industrial age.
- (a)position
- (b)threshold
- (c)condition
- (d)distance
Answer(b) threshold — a threshold is the point of entry into something new.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Choose the word nearest in meaning to 'threshold' in 'on the threshold of change'.
- (a)end
- (b)middle
- (c)brink
- (d)centre
Answer(c) brink — both words name the edge just before something begins.