Antonym Questions
Antonym questions test knowledge of vocabulary more directly than do any of the other verbal question types, measuring the strength of your vocabulary and your ability to reason from a given concept to its opposite. Antonyms may require only general knowledge of a word, or they may require that you make fine distinctions among answer choices. Antonyms are generally confined to nouns, verbs, and adjectives; answer choices may be single words or phrases.
Here are some approaches that may be helpful in answering antonym questions:
- Remember that you are looking for the word that is the most nearly opposite to the given word; you are not looking for a synonym. Many words do not have a precise opposite, so you must look for the answer choice that expresses a concept most nearly opposite to that of the given word.
- In some cases, more than one of the answer choices may appear at first to be opposite to the given word. When this happens, try to define more precisely or in greater detail the meaning of the given word.
- In weighing answer choices, it is often useful to make up a sentence using the given word or words. Substitute the answer choices in the phrase or sentence and see which best fits. The best answer will be the one that reverses the meaning or tone of the sentence or phrase.
- Remember that a particular word may have more than one meaning.
- Use your knowledge of root, prefix, and suffix meanings to help you determine the meanings of unfamiliar words.
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