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Playbook

Vocabulary — Antonyms

135 stems. Closer to 'pick the most opposite' than 'pick the most-different' — the bank's most common Antonyms trap is the same-direction near-synonym wrong option.

questions in the bank
135
tagged HARD
2%
subtopic(s) covered
1
worked examples
2

When you’ll see it

An underlined word inside a sentence; pick the option closest in opposite meaning.

How this question type works

135 q in 10 years. The mistake students make: treating Antonyms like 'Synonyms with a minus sign in front'. NDA designs Antonyms questions so that the closest-meaning synonym is *always* one of the 4 wrong options — picking it costs −1.33 marks.

The right answer is the *most-opposite-in-direction* option. 'GENEROUS' has options like (a) miserly (b) thrifty (c) cheap (d) economical. Three of those (thrifty, cheap, economical) are also 'not generous' but in a milder or different-direction sense. Only 'miserly' is the polar opposite. That's the lever.

270 different words have been tested across Synonyms + Antonyms in 10 years (only 5 repeated). So your prep target isn't 'memorise these 270 words' — it's 'recognise the 13 families they cluster into' so a new tested word's family triggers a fast 'opposite-direction' lookup.

The sub-skills

The rules and habits that decide whether you get this question right.

  • Direction matters — find the polar opposite

    Sort the 4 options by 'how opposite is this?'. The polar option (most-distant on the same axis) is the answer. A milder-opposite or different-axis option is the trap.

  • Recognise prefixes

    un-, in-, dis-, mis-, anti-, counter- often signal the antonym. If 3 options have these prefixes and 1 doesn't, the prefix-less one is often a same-direction near-synonym trap.

  • Stay in register

    'Wealthy' and 'destitute' are opposites, but 'rich' and 'destitute' is a register mismatch. Keep the formality consistent.

2 worked examples from the bank

Real past-year questions tagged to this playbook. Click to reveal options + solution.

Example 1VocabularyEASY
Directions (Q. Nos. 11 to 20): Each item in this section consists of a sentence with an underlined word followed by four words. Select the word that is opposite in meaning to the underlined word and mark your response on the Answer Sheet accordingly.
He used to be known among his colleagues for his righteousness‾\underline{\text{righteousness}}.

[Q12 · Apr · 2026]

Example 2VocabularyHARD
Directions : Each item in this section consists of a sentence with an underlined word followed by four words (a), (b), (c) and (d). Select the option that is opposite in meaning to the underlined word and mark your response in your Answer Sheet accordingly.
His perspicacity‾\underline{\text{perspicacity}} was remarkable.

[Q39 · Apr · 2022]

Traps to expect

Distractor shapes specific to this playbook. The page-wide Traps section covers the bank-level patterns.

  • Same-direction near-synonym

    The wrong option is in the same direction as the underlined word but less intense. Picking it = picking 'less of the same thing' instead of 'the opposite'.

  • Different-axis opposite

    BIG → SMALL is one axis; BIG → SHORT is another (size vs height). The wrong option opposes on a different axis than the sentence frames.

Drill every vocabulary — antonyms question

135 questions from the bank, scoped to the named subtopic.

Drill the 135 questions

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