25 February 2025 · Shift 3

Spelling error The question asks for the word that is spelt wrongly, so each option has to be checked against its standard dictionary form. Option (b) is printed as 'Calender'. The word meaning a chart of the days, weeks and months of a year is spelt 'Calendar', ending in '-dar'. The other three are spelt correctly: 'Ensure', 'Apology' and 'Certificate'. Hence the incorrectly spelt word is 'Calender' and the answer is (b).

Antonym 'Coherent' means logically ordered and easy to follow, so its antonym must mean confusing or impossible to follow. 'Incomprehensible' means not able to be understood, which is exactly the opposite of thoughts that are clear and well connected. 'Logical' and 'Systematic' are synonyms of 'coherent', not antonyms, and 'Lacklustre' means dull or lacking energy, which is about liveliness rather than clarity. Hence the answer is (b).

Antonym in context The underlined word is 'degradation', the process by which the environment is damaged and made steadily worse. Its opposite is a process of improvement and growth, which is precisely what 'Development' names. 'Demand', 'Distribution' and 'Disaster' have no opposing relation to the idea of worsening; 'Disaster' is in fact close in sense to degradation, not opposite to it. Hence the answer is (b).

Idiom substitution The underlined word 'elated' means extremely happy, so the idiom that replaces it must carry the same feeling of delight. 'Walking on air' means feeling elated or overjoyed, which fits a speaker whose idea has just been accepted by the team. 'Walking on thin ice' means being in a risky position, 'walking on eggshells' means acting very cautiously to avoid upsetting someone, and 'walking on a dream' is not a standard English idiom at all. Hence the answer is (d).

Synonym A 'companion' is a person who spends time with another or accompanies him - a friend or associate. 'Mate' carries exactly this sense of a friend or partner whose company one keeps, so it is the closest synonym. 'Enemy' is an antonym; 'Sister' names a family relation and 'Neighbour' someone who merely lives nearby, and neither of them need keep you company. Hence the answer is (c).

Verb-noun collocation The blank needs a verb that pairs naturally with the noun 'flight'. This is a collocation question, so the test is accepted usage, not meaning alone. The fixed collocation is 'take flight', meaning to leave the ground and fly away; in the past tense it becomes 'took flight'. The sentence is already in the past ('caught a glimpse ... before it ___'), so 'took' also agrees in tense. 'Got flight', 'had flight' and 'laid flight' are not accepted English combinations. Hence the answer is (c).

Borrowed phrase usage The blank describes the manner in which the workers walked out, and the credo 'Together we stand, divided we fall' shows they left as one united body. 'En-masse' is a French-derived phrase meaning all together, in a body, which matches a collective walkout exactly. 'En-route' means on the way, 'impasse' means a deadlock and is a noun rather than an adverbial phrase, and 'ex-facto' is not a standard English expression. Hence the answer is (c).

Adjective vs adverb Read each segment and test the word class of every modifier in it. Segment (A) reads 'The friends excited planned their upcoming vacation'. The modifier here qualifies the verb 'planned', so it must be an adverb, but 'excited' is an adjective. Correcting it to 'The friends excitedly planned their upcoming vacation' makes the segment grammatical. Segments (B), (C) and (D) are sound participial and prepositional phrases with no error. The faulty segment is therefore A, which is offered as option (d).

Adverb placement All four sentences use an adverbial of time, so what is really being tested is where such an adverbial may stand. An adverb or adverbial phrase of time normally goes at the end of the clause, after the object, or at the very beginning for emphasis, but never between a verb and its object. Option (b) puts 'next week' straight after 'submit' and before the object 'the assignment', splitting the verb from its object: 'I'll submit next week the assignment to you.' The correct order is 'I'll submit the assignment to you next week.' In (a), (c) and (d) the time adverbials 'last night', 'tomorrow' and 'yesterday' all sit at the end of the sentence, which is correct. Hence the sentence with the incorrect adverb usage is (b).

Contextual word choice The clause 'revealed crucial evidence that others had missed' tells us the examination was unusually careful and complete. 'Thorough' means done completely, with attention to every detail, and that is what produces evidence others overlooked. 'Superficial', 'hasty' and 'cursory' all mean quick and shallow; such an examination would have missed the evidence rather than found it. Hence the answer is (d).

Synonym in a blank The blank must hold a synonym of the bracketed word 'benevolence', which is the disposition to do good and to be kind to others. 'Kindness' expresses exactly that quality and also sits naturally beside 'generosity' in the sentence. 'Intention' is merely a plan, 'liberty' is freedom and 'suspicion' is mistrust, so none of them names goodwill. Hence the answer is (c).

Idiom completion The sentence is built on a fixed idiom, so the blank can take only the word the idiom itself uses. 'A fish out of water' means a person who feels awkward and out of place in unfamiliar surroundings, which is exactly how Sarah feels when locked out without her keys. An idiom cannot be altered word by word: 'out of river', 'out of pond' or 'out of sea' destroy the expression. Hence the answer is (a).

Correct spelling The sentence prints 'niggardlly' with a doubled 'l', so we must supply the standard spelling of the word meaning stingy or meanly small. The correct spelling is 'Niggardly' - double 'g', single 'd', single 'l' before the '-ly' ending: nig-gard-ly. 'Niggarddly' doubles the 'd', 'Niiggardly' doubles the 'i' and 'Nigardly' drops one 'g', so all three are wrong. Hence the answer is (b).

Reflexive pronoun The blank follows 'by' in the phrase 'all by ___', which calls for a reflexive pronoun meaning without anyone else's help. A reflexive pronoun must agree with the subject of its own clause, and the subject here is 'He', so the form is 'himself'. 'Herself', 'myself' and 'yourself' would point back to 'she', 'I' and 'you', none of which is the subject of this sentence. Hence the answer is (c).

Synonym 'Fragile' describes something that breaks or is damaged very easily. 'Delicate' carries the same sense of being easily broken and needing careful handling, so it is the closest synonym. 'Strong' and 'Heavy' point the other way, and 'Shiny' describes a glossy surface, which has nothing to do with breaking easily. Hence the answer is (b).

Cloze: verb choice The blank completes 'the wetter periods in North Africa have ___ every 21,000 years or so', so it needs a verb of regular repetition. 'Recurred' means happened again and again at intervals, which is exactly what a 21,000-year cycle describes. 'Seized' means grabbed, 'abated' means grew less intense and 'terminated' means came to an end; something that ended could not keep returning every 21,000 years. Hence the answer is (b).

Cloze: verb choice The clue is the whole phrase 'a big clue about what ___ them: variations in Earth's orbit', where the colon introduces the reason behind the wetter periods. 'Causes' means to bring something about, so the orbital variations are what cause those periods. 'Delegates' means to hand over a task, 'debates' means to argue about, and 'bids' means to offer or command; none of them expresses a cause. The singular form 'causes' also agrees with the singular question word 'what'. Hence the answer is (d).

Cloze: preposition The blank joins 'the orbit of the Earth' to 'the sun', so it must be a preposition, not a describing word. The Earth travels in a closed path encircling the sun, and the preposition for such a path is 'around'. 'Direct', 'straight' and 'precise' are adjectives; an adjective cannot link two noun phrases, and none of them suits a closed orbit either. Hence the answer is (c).

Cloze: noun choice The blank is a plural noun after the adjective 'cyclic': 'It has cyclic ___ on multi-thousand year timescales.' The previous sentence has just said the orbit 'is not constant', so the noun must denote change, and 'variations' means departures from a fixed value. 'Monotonies', 'consistencies' and 'regularities' all suggest sameness, which flatly contradicts 'is not constant'. Hence the answer is (b).

Cloze: verb choice The blank is the verb of 'These orbital cycles ___ the amount of energy the Earth receives from the sun.' The whole paragraph argues that the shape of the orbit governs the climate, so the verb must express an effect on that amount, and 'influence' means to have an effect on something. 'Believe' needs a thinking subject, while 'stretch' and 'return' do not go with 'the amount of energy'. The plural subject 'cycles' also takes the plain plural form 'influence', not 'influences'. Hence the answer is (d).