Select the most appropriate synonym of the word in brackets to fill in the blanks. The soldiers spent long period ________ (convalescing).

Correct — D. Convalescing means regaining health gradually after an illness or an injury, so the blank needs a word for getting better, not for being unwell.

Drop the key into the sentence and it reads: the soldiers spent long period recovering — option (d). That is convalescence stated in plain English.

The stem prints 'long period' with no article. The missing 'a' is the paper's, and it changes nothing about which synonym fits.

Why the others are wrong

• (a)
  travelling — Travelling says where the soldiers were, not what was happening to their health. Convalescing is about a body mending, and a journey is no part of that meaning.
• (b)
  attacking — Attacking is the opposite pole of the sentence — fighting rather than healing. It is placed to catch a reader who sees 'soldiers' and picks the most soldier-like verb in the set.
• (c)
  ailing — Ailing means still unwell, which is the state a patient convalesces out of. It is the nearest word to illness here, and that closeness is the trap: convalescence names the mending, not the sickness.

Convalesce comes from Latin convalescere, to grow strong again — con- (thoroughly) plus valescere, from valere, to be strong. The same root sits under valid, value and prevail.

The word names a phase, not an event: the stretch between the end of the illness and the return of full health.

English keeps that phase in the noun convalescence and the adjective convalescent, which is why a convalescent home houses people who are no longer acutely ill but not yet well.

Key facts

• Convalesce means to recover health gradually after illness or injury.
• The Latin root is valere, to be strong, which also gives valid and value.
• Convalescent describes the person, the period or the place between illness and full health.

Common traps

• Choosing ailing because it sits closest to illness, when convalescing names the mending that follows.
• Taking a cue from 'soldiers' and answering from the setting rather than from the bracketed word.
• Skimming past the brackets and treating the item as an ordinary fill-in-the-blank.

No directly related past PYQ was found.