CDS English · Reading Comprehension
Find the Word, Its Opposite and Its Form
Some word questions turn the task around: they give a meaning and ask which passage word carries it, or ask for a word's opposite or another form of it. Test each option in its own sentence before you choose.
Why this matters
Word hunts look easy, but all four options are real passage words, so 'it is in the passage' proves nothing. The marks go to the student who checks each option's meaning in its own sentence. Antonym and word-form items add one more step: fix the meaning first, then reverse it or change its class.
Concept 1 of 3: Find the passage word: test each option in its own sentence
In a word hunt every option comes from the passage. So read each option in its own sentence and ask one question: could the stem's word stand in its place without changing the meaning?
Definition
The terms:
- Word hunt: 'Which word in the passage means X?' The answer is the passage word that means X.
- Reverse forms: the stem gives a description and asks for the term ('This effect is called ...'), or gives a blank to fill with a passage word.
The method:
- Say the stem word's meaning in plain words: 'tendency' = the way things usually go.
- Find each option in the passage and read its sentence.
- Ask: in that sentence, could I put the stem word in its place? Keep the option where it fits.
- Two options may belong to the same family of ideas and both sound close. Only one means the stem word exactly; a related word is not a synonym.
- Check the part of speech: if the stem word is a noun, the answer is usually a noun; an adverb rarely answers for a noun.
Worked example
The general was a modest man. He rarely spoke of his victories and gave the credit to his soldiers. Yet in battle he was resolute: once he had decided on a plan, nothing could shake him. Which word in the passage means 'firm and determined'? (a) modest (b) rarely (c) resolute (d) credit
Practice this conceptself-check · 4 quick reps
The same idea in a real exam question:
CDS · 2020 · CDS (I) 2020 — English · Q10Easy
Example 1 · Reading Comprehension · Word Hunts, Antonyms and Word Forms
Directions: In this section you have a few short passages. After each passage, you will find some items based on the passage. First, read a passage and answer the items based on it. You are required to select your answers based on the contents of the passage and opinion of the author only.
Passage – I
Not all agricultural societies become civilizations, but no civilization can become one without passing through the stage of agriculture. This is because at some stage in the development of agriculture, as productivity improves, not all people would need to be engaged in producing or procuring food. A significant number of people could be freed up to pursue other activities such as building walls or monuments for new cities; making new tools, weapons and jewellery; organizing long-distance trade; creating new artistic masterpieces; coming up with new inventions; keeping accounts; and perhaps constructing new public infrastructure such as irrigation canals that further improve the productivity of agriculture, thus realizing even more people to do new things.
This can happen, of course, only if a society that has transitioned to high-productivity agriculture has also, at some stage in its evolution, found a way to channel the bonanza of free time into other work fruitfully. In the ancient world, this often involved creating new ideologies and new hierarchies or power structures to coerce or otherwise convince large groups of people to devote their time to the new tasks for very little reward.
Passage – II
When we pick up a newspaper, a book, or an article, we come to our task with certain preconceptions and predispositions. We expect to find a specific piece of information or be presented with an argument or an analysis of something, say, the likelihood of recession in the next six months or the reasons why children can’t read. We probably know a little about the book or article we are reading even before we start. There was, after all, some reason why we chose to read one piece of writing rather than another.
Our expectations and predispositions may, however, blind us to what the article and its author is actually saying. If, for example, we are used to disagreeing with the author, we may see only what we expect to see and not what is actually there. Day after day in our routine pattern of life we expose ourselves to the same newspaper, the same magazine, even books by authors with the same perspectives. In order to reflect on our reading habits and improve our skills we need to break out of this routine, step back and look at what we are doing when we read.
Which word in the passage means 'viewpoints'?
A related word, not a synonym
Asked which pair of passage words describes enemies of the caterpillar, a student may pick 'predator and host'. The host is the plant the leaf miner lives inside, related to the caterpillar but not an enemy. Predator and marauding both describe attackers.
The wrong part of speech
Which passage word means 'bias'? 'Uncomprehendingly' is an adverb and 'contrary' an adjective. 'Bias' is a noun, and the passage's noun is prejudice: 'without the prejudice of the right or of the left'.
The general word for the exact one
Whole areas of forests are 'cleared to gain new land'. The effect is called deforestation. 'Devastation' is wide destruction of any kind; it does not name what happens to forests.
Concept 2 of 3: Antonyms in context: fix the meaning first, then reverse it
An antonym question in a passage has two steps: fix what the word means in its sentence, then find the option that means the reverse. The usual trap is a synonym among the options. It is close to the word, so it feels right.
Definition
The method:
- Find the word in its sentence and say its meaning in plain words.
- Say the opposite in plain words before you look at the options.
- Strike any option that means the same as the word: it is a synonym, not an antonym.
- Strike options that only rhyme with the word or look like it.
- For 'which two words mean the opposite of X', both words must carry the opposite meaning: 'parts' against 'whole'.
- For an idea word, think of the idea: contrast shows difference, so its opposite shows likeness.
Worked example
Line: 'The old map was so obscure that even the guide could not read the route.' The antonym of 'obscure' is (a) unclear (b) clear (c) old (d) hidden
Practice this conceptself-check · 4 quick reps
The same idea in a real exam question:
CDS · 2021 · CDS (II) 2021 — English · Q14Moderate
Example 2 · Reading Comprehension · Word Hunts, Antonyms and Word Forms
Directions: answer the items based on the passage
Passage – I
As to happiness, I am not so sure. Birds, it is true, die of hunger in large numbers during the winter, if they are not birds of passage. But during the summer they do not foresee this catastrophe, or remember how nearly it befell them in the previous winter. With human beings the matter is otherwise. I doubt whether the percentage of birds that will have died of hunger during the present winter (1946-47) is as great as the percentage of human beings that will have died from this cause in India and central Europe during the same period. But every human death by starvation is preceded by a long period of anxiety, and surrounded by the corresponding anxiety of neighbours. We suffer not only the evils that actually befall us, but all those that our intelligence tells us we have reason to fear. The curbing of impulses to which we are led by forethought averts physical disaster at the cost of worry, and general lack of joy. I do not think that the learned men of my acquaintance, even when they enjoy a secure income, are as happy as the mice that eat the crumbs from their tables while the erudite gentlemen snooze. In this respect, therefore, I am not convinced that there has been any progress at all.
Which one of the following is the antonym of the word 'erudite' in the passage?
The synonym among the options
Scholars say the groups did not form a 'resistant' style. The antonym is pliant (yielding). 'Defiant' is a synonym of resistant, and 'hesitant' and 'persistent' only rhyme with it.
A near-synonym that sounds negative
Over-population 'has largely diluted the fruits of the remarkable economic progress'. Diluted means weakened, so the antonym is consolidated. 'Cheapened' sounds like the right kind of word, but it is close to diluted, not its reverse.
Missing the opposite of an idea
The opposite of 'contrast' is not a negative word like 'discredited'. Contrast shows difference, so its opposite is the passage's 'analogy', which shows likeness.
Half a pair
For the opposite of 'whole', both words must mean parts: components and dimensions. 'Phenomena and programmes' are passage words, but neither means a part.
Concept 3 of 3: Word forms: noun, verb, adjective from one root
Many English words grow from one root: settle, settler, settlement, settled. A word-form question asks which class a form belongs to, or which form fits a slot. Look at the word's ending and at its job in its sentence.
Definition
The terms:
- Root: the base word: comprehend, subvert, settle.
- Suffix: an ending that changes the class. -ment, -ion, -ness, -er make nouns; -ive, -ful, -ous make adjectives; -ly makes adverbs.
- Prefix: a beginning that changes the meaning: un- means not.
The method:
- Find the word's job in its sentence: does it name (noun), describe a noun (adjective), act (verb) or describe an action (adverb)?
- A word ending in -ed placed before a noun ('a painted wall') is working as an adjective.
- To find a noun form, try the endings -ion, -ment, -ness, -ity, and check that the word exists.
- To read a long word, split it: un + comprehend + ing + ly = in a way that does not understand.
- Watch for a look-alike that is a different word: subvention is not the noun of subversive.
Worked example
Which is the noun form of 'decisive'? (a) decide (b) deciding (c) decision (d) decided
Practice this conceptself-check · 4 quick reps
The same idea in a real exam question:
CDS · 2026 · CDS (II) 2026 — English · Q120Moderate
Example 3 · Reading Comprehension · Word Hunts, Antonyms and Word Forms
Directions: PASSAGE II. Direction: Read the passage carefully and answer the questions given below:
Passage
Christopher Columbus of Spain set foot in the New World in 1492. Six years later, Vasco da Gama of Portugal reached India. During the next two centuries the Spaniards and the Portuguese actively transferred, not only to Europe but to many parts of Asia as well, a number of plant species which they encountered in South and central America, in expectation of their potential either as food or as medicine. These plants had been developed to a high degree by the Maya and Inca civilizations of these regions. Of these, the potato (Solanum tuberosum) is believed to have been domesticated in terraced slopes on the high plateau of Bolivia-Peru in South America, sometime between 5000 and 2000 BC. Europeans first saw potatoes in South America in 1537, and around 1570 a Spanish ship brought the first potatoes to Europe. Though termed papa in South America, they were incorrectly called batata (the name for the sweet potato) when John Gerard first described them in English in 1597, and this name stuck. An 1860 report states that by 1780, potatoes, peas and beans were in high repute as foods in Calcutta, and that the Dutch are said to have been the first to introduce the culture of potatoes, which was received from their settlement of the Cape of Good Hope. From there the British received annually the seeds of every kind of vegetable useful at the table, as well as several plants of which there appears to be much need, especially various kinds of pot herbs.
The word "terraced" has been formed by changing
A look-alike that is another word
The noun form of 'subversive' is subversion. 'Subvention' looks like it but is a different word: a grant of money.
Taking the -ing form as the noun
'Subverting' is an -ing form of the verb subvert. When a question asks for the noun form, look for the established noun ending: -ion, -ment, -ness.
Dropping the un-
'When we yield uncomprehendingly to environment ...' means without understanding. 'With complete knowledge' is the trap for a reader who drops the un-.
Summary — formulas & gotchas at a glance
A revision cheat-sheet for the formulas and gotchas above. Click any concept name to jump back to its full explanation.
Watch out for (10)
- A related word, not a synonym→ Find the passage word: test each option in its own sentence
- The wrong part of speech→ Find the passage word: test each option in its own sentence
- The general word for the exact one→ Find the passage word: test each option in its own sentence
- The synonym among the options→ Antonyms in context: fix the meaning first, then reverse it
- A near-synonym that sounds negative→ Antonyms in context: fix the meaning first, then reverse it
- Missing the opposite of an idea→ Antonyms in context: fix the meaning first, then reverse it
- Half a pair→ Antonyms in context: fix the meaning first, then reverse it
- A look-alike that is another word→ Word forms: noun, verb, adjective from one root
- Taking the -ing form as the noun→ Word forms: noun, verb, adjective from one root
- Dropping the un-→ Word forms: noun, verb, adjective from one root
Test yourself on Reading Comprehension
25 past CDS questions from this chapter, timed at 25 minutes and marked the way the exam marks it. You see your score and every answer the moment you finish. Free to start.