Read the passage carefully. Select your answer from the four alternatives…
2022
Read the passage carefully. Select your answer from the four alternatives given below against each question.
Bacteria vary tremendously and have a great ability to adapt themselves to circumstances. It is this quality which enables them to develop resistance to some antibiotics, like penicillins, and so defeat our attempts to overcome them. Fortunately, our own system is also able to adopt whatever drugs are given, and it is always the body's own resources that beat the enemy in the end. Man's skill in evading infection is very often not to his credit at all, for many bacteria much prefer to keep well out of harm's way and remain free living in the open air. Others live in complete harmony inside the body tissues, taking care not to disturb their protector, so that the body which shelters them is never provoked sufficiently to retaliate and expel them.
Ques: Our body's own capacity ____ the enemy in the end.
- A.
defeats
- B.
wins
- C.
destroys
- D.
develops
Attempted by 4 students.
Show answer & explanation
Correct answer: A
In a passage-based sentence-completion question, the blank must be filled with the word that most precisely restates an idea already stated explicitly in the passage — matching both its meaning and its grammatical fit (subject-verb agreement, correct sense) — not merely a word that is loosely related to the topic.
The passage states: “it is always the body's own resources that beat the enemy in the end.” The question restates “the body's own resources” as “our body's own capacity”, so the blank must carry the same sense as “beat” — to overcome an opponent. Among the given words, “defeats” matches this sense exactly, and its singular form agrees with the singular subject “capacity”.
Checking the remaining options against the passage confirms this:
“wins” — victory verbs like “win” pair with a contest (“win a war/game”), not with an opposing party as a direct object; “wins the enemy” is not idiomatic English regardless of the passage's meaning.
“destroys” — the passage describes an ordinary, recurring bodily defence against fresh infection, not a single act of total annihilation, so this word overstates the process.
“develops” — this would mean the body's capacity strengthens the bacteria, the opposite of overcoming them, and contradicts the passage entirely.
So the sentence is correctly completed as: “Our body's own capacity defeats the enemy in the end.”