Fill in the blank(s) with the correct word(s). His father's untimely death…

In a vocabulary fill-in-the-blank question, several offered words often belong to the same broad emotional family (surprise, sadness) but differ sharply in intensity and connotation. The word that correctly completes the sentence is the one whose specific degree of feeling matches the situation the sentence describes, not merely any word from that general family.

Here, the sentence describes a father's untimely (unexpected, before its natural time) death, an event that causes deep, lasting grief, not a passing moment of surprise. The blank therefore needs a word that conveys overwhelming sorrow and emotional ruin following a serious personal loss. 'Devastated' (from the verb 'devastate') expresses exactly this: being overwhelmed with severe shock and grief.

Why the other options fall short:

• Stunned describes only a temporary inability to react to any startling event; it does not carry the lasting grief of a bereavement.

• Shocked conveys the suddenness of receiving distressing news, but on its own is too mild to capture the depth of sorrow that follows a loss.

• Unhappy simply denotes an absence of happiness and is far too weak for the intensity of grief implied here.

Checking the fit: only 'devastated' matches both the cause (a sudden, serious loss) and the required intensity (overwhelming grief) signalled by 'untimely death', and the sentence reads coherently with this word. Hence, 'devastated' is the correct answer.