Select the term which means the same as the given group of words. A continuing unpleasant situation, created when one problem causes another problem that then makes the first problem worse

Correct — C. A vicious cycle, also written vicious circle, is the fixed English term for exactly what the definition describes: a self-feeding loop in which one problem worsens a second, and the second feeds back to make the first worse still.

The definition insists on two things — that the situation is unpleasant and that it gets worse. Only vicious carries both, so option (c) is the term.

Vicious here keeps its older sense of faulty or defective, from Latin vitium, a fault. The loop is vicious because it is broken and compounding, not because it is cruel.

Why the others are wrong

• (a)
  Round cycle — Round cycle is a tautology — every cycle is round. The phrase adds nothing about harm or about the situation worsening, and it is not an English idiom.
• (b)
  Repetitive cycle — Repetitive cycle says only that something repeats. Repetition on its own can be neutral or even useful, while the definition demands a situation that deteriorates.
• (d)
  Enclosed cycle — Enclosed cycle is not a phrase English uses. Enclosed speaks of being shut in, and says nothing about one problem aggravating another.

A vicious cycle is a loop of cause and effect in which each turn leaves the situation worse than the last.

Poverty and poor health are the standard illustration: illness costs earnings, lost earnings buy less food and care, and the poorer health that follows costs more earnings again.

The phrase has a mirror image. A virtuous cycle is the same self-feeding loop with a favourable outcome, where each good turn makes the next more likely.

The expression began in logic, where a vicious circle is an argument that quietly assumes the very thing it sets out to prove. Everyday English then widened it to any self-worsening situation.

Key facts

• A vicious cycle, or vicious circle, is a chain of events in which each problem worsens the next and the loop feeds back on itself.
• Its opposite is a virtuous cycle, in which each favourable event makes the next more likely.
• In logic, a vicious circle is an argument that assumes the very thing it sets out to prove.
• Vicious in this phrase derives from Latin vitium, a fault or defect, rather than from any sense of cruelty.

Common traps

• Assembling the answer out of the words of the definition, which suggest repetition, and settling on Repetitive cycle
• Rejecting vicious because it is read as cruel rather than as faulty

No directly related past PYQ was found.