Select the most appropriate option that can substitute the underlined word in the given sentence. An intense wish to learn something keeps the nerves active.
- (a)lazy
- (b)half-hearted
- (c)fixed
- (d)powerful
Answer
Why
Correct — D. The underlined word is intense, an adjective sitting before wish and stating how strong that wish is.
A substitute has to keep both the part of speech and the direction: an adjective, and one that raises the strength of the wish. Powerful does both, since a powerful wish is an intense wish.
Put it back in the sentence — "A powerful wish to learn something keeps the nerves active" — and nothing has moved except the word itself. That is what option (d) offers.
Why the others are wrong
- (a)lazy — Lazy describes a person who avoids effort. It cannot sensibly describe a wish, and it points away from strength rather than matching it.
- (b)half-hearted — Half-hearted is the direct reverse of intense, meaning done with little enthusiasm. Substituting it turns the sentence's claim inside out.
- (c)fixed — Fixed would say the wish does not change, which is constancy rather than strength. A wish can be fixed and still be feeble, so it does not match intense.
Concept
A substitution item asks for a word that can stand in the same slot without moving the meaning, and two tests settle it.
Grammar: intense is an adjective before a noun, so the replacement must be an adjective that can sit before wish.
Direction and degree: intense scales the noun upward. Only a word on the same scale, pointing the same way, can replace it. Fixed is on a different scale, half-hearted points the other way, and lazy does not attach to a wish at all.
The sentence as printed is awkward — keeps the nerves active is not natural English — and that awkwardness can pull your attention to the wrong place.
The oddity is in the frame, not in the underlined word. The substitution test runs on the phrase an intense wish and works normally.
Key facts
- Intense means extreme in strength or degree, and is used of feelings, heat, light and effort.
- Half-hearted means showing little enthusiasm or effort.
- Powerful and intense both scale a noun upward, which is why one can stand in for the other here.
Study next
Common traps
- Answering the sentence rather than the underlined word, so that the odd phrase keeps the nerves active feels like the thing to repair.
- Choosing fixed because a strong wish is often a settled one, when constancy is a different property from strength.
SSC uses the same instruction at 26 Sep 2024, 12:30, English Q.8, where the underlined word is Verity, and at 18 Sep 2024, 12:30, English Q.14, where it is the phrase incapable to pay their debts.
Related PYQs
No directly related past PYQ was found.