Select the most appropriate ANTONYM of the given word. Lethargic

Correct — A. Lethargic means sluggish and drained of energy, so the axis being reversed is energy.

The word that sits at the other end of that axis is active — option (a), describing someone doing things briskly rather than lying still.

The planted trap is languid, which means slow, listless and unhurried. That is a synonym of lethargic, not its opposite, and it is placed there for a candidate who reads the instruction as synonym.

Why the others are wrong

• (b)
  Angry — Angry sits on the axis of temper, whose opposite is calm. Nothing in lethargic is about mood.
• (c)
  Languid — Languid means listless and slow-moving, so it is a synonym of lethargic. An antonym item that offers a synonym is testing whether you read the instruction.
• (d)
  Moderate — Moderate grades a quantity or a degree, and pairs with extreme or excessive. It says nothing about energy.

Bare-word antonym items give you no sentence to lean on, so the first move is to name the axis the key word sits on.

Lethargic is about energy, not mood, degree or manner. Once that is fixed, angry and moderate fall away without further thought, and the choice narrows to active against languid.

Languid then loses because it points the same way as lethargic. A synonym among the options is a warning, not a temptation: English Q.12 of this paper does the same thing, offering Mockery against jibes.

Key facts

• Lethargic means sluggish and lacking energy.
• Languid means slow, relaxed and listless, which makes it a synonym of lethargic.
• Active is the standard opposite on the energy axis, alongside energetic and vigorous.

Common traps

• Reading the instruction as synonym and picking languid
• Treating lethargic as a mood word and reaching for angry
• Assuming the rarest-looking word must be the key

No directly related past PYQ was found.