Select the most appropriate ANTONYM of the word in the brackets to fill in the blank. The ______ to the venue was decorated with beautiful lights. [exit]

Correct — B. The bracketed word is exit, so the blank needs its opposite and the sentence must still read normally.

An exit is the way out. The way in, among these options, is entry.

The slot sits after The and before to the venue, so it needs a noun that takes to — the entry to the venue, answering the exit from the venue.

Meaning and grammar point the same way, to option (b).

Why the others are wrong

• (a)
  house — house names a building, not the reverse of a way out. It also clashes with venue, since the sentence would then name two places in the same phrase.
• (c)
  road — A road leads to a venue but is not the opposite of an exit. Road and exit are not an opposed pair in any sense of either word.
• (d)
  ceremony — ceremony is an event and has nothing to do with movement in or out. The item asks for an antonym, not for a word that suits a decorated venue.

When the antonym has to fill a blank, two filters run at once.

The meaning filter asks for the reverse of the bracketed word. The grammar filter asks what the slot allows — here a noun after The that can be followed by to.

Exit and entry are a matched pair of nouns for the two directions of a doorway. Entrance is the commoner word in speech, and entry is its equally correct alternative.

Key facts

• Exit means the way out of a place, from Latin exire, to go out.
• Entry and entrance both name the way in, and both take the preposition to.
• The bracketed word supplies the meaning to be reversed and never goes into the blank itself.

Common traps

• Filling the blank with a word that suits the scene, such as ceremony, instead of the opposite of exit.
• Reading the bracketed word as the word to be copied into the blank.

No directly related past PYQ was found.