Select the most appropriate ANTONYM of the word in the brackets to fill in the blank. The pool was too ______ at this end for kids to play. [SHALLOW]

Correct — D. The instruction says ANTONYM, and the bracket prints the word to be reversed: [SHALLOW]. Shallow means having little depth, so the blank takes its opposite, deep.

The sentence frame confirms it. too ___ at this end for kids to play states an excess that prevents something, and water that is too deep is what stops children playing at that end → option (d).

Why the others are wrong

• (a)
  green — Green describes the colour of algae-clouded water. It suits a pool but reverses nothing, and the instruction asks for the opposite of shallow.
• (b)
  cold — Cold is the opposite of warm, not of shallow. It fits the 'too ... for' frame perfectly well, which is why it tempts — but the bracket fixes which word you must reverse.
• (c)
  blue — Blue is the colour most people picture in a pool. Depth is the dimension the bracketed word names, and blue says nothing about depth.

An antonym-in-brackets item hides a second instruction inside an ordinary-looking gap fill. The bracketed word is neither the answer nor a synonym cue — it is the word whose opposite you must supply.

The sentence still has to work afterwards, so read the frame: 'too ___ at this end for kids to play' names a quality present in excess.

Three of the four options describe a pool truthfully. Only deep reverses shallow.

Key facts

• Shallow means having little depth, and deep is its direct opposite.
• In an antonym-in-brackets item the bracketed word is the target to be reversed, never the word to be inserted.
• The frame too + adjective + for + someone + to-infinitive states an amount that prevents the action.

Common traps

• Filling the blank with a word that merely suits a swimming pool, such as a colour.
• Reversing the wrong word, as cold reverses warm rather than shallow.
• Treating the square brackets as a hint to be inserted rather than reversed.

No directly related past PYQ was found.