Select the most appropriate synonym of the underlined word. He was trembling with fear.

Correct — D. The underlined word is trembling — shaking in small movements you cannot control.

Shivering names that same involuntary shaking. Cold is its commonest cause, but English uses it for fear as readily: shivering with fright is ordinary usage.

Substitute and check: 'He was shivering with fear' keeps both the movement and its cause intact, and it matches the -ing form of the original, so the substitution is literal. Option (d).

Why the others are wrong

• (a)
  Intrepid — Intrepid means fearless. It reverses the sentence — a man trembling with fear is the opposite of intrepid, so it cannot be a synonym for trembling.
• (b)
  Weeping — Weeping is crying. It is another possible reaction to fear, not a synonym for the shaking that trembling describes.
• (c)
  Running — Running is deliberate movement away from something. Trembling is involuntary and happens where the person stands.

Synonym items are settled by putting the option back into the sentence. Two things must survive: the meaning and the word class.

English has a close family of verbs for involuntary shaking — tremble, shiver, quiver, shudder, quake. They differ mainly in what causes the shaking and how large it is.

Notice how this set is built. One choice is a near-synonym, two name different reactions to fear, and one is an antonym planted for a candidate reading the sentence too quickly.

Key facts

• Tremble means to shake involuntarily, typically from fear, cold or weakness.
• Shiver means to shake slightly, most often from cold and also from fear.
• Intrepid means fearless or adventurous, the opposite of the state in the sentence.

Common traps

• Picking Intrepid because the sentence contains the word fear, without checking direction
• Choosing a word that names a reaction to fear instead of a synonym of the underlined word

No directly related past PYQ was found.