Read the given passage and answer the following questions based on it.…
2023
Read the given passage and answer the following questions based on it.
Emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases plunged 4.6 percent in 2020, as lockdowns in the first half of the year restricted global mobility and hampered economic activity. Many hoped that this would mark the beginning of a more permanent shift downwards in emissions. Emissions from the manufacturing and the energy sectors contributed the most to recent global increases based on updated information from the IMF’s Climate Change Indicators Dashboard—a joint effort among national and international statistical organizations to provide timely data to help monitor the transition to lower carbon use. As greenhouse gas emissions from human activities increase, they build up in the atmosphere and warm the climate, leading to many other changes around the world—in the atmosphere, on land, and in the oceans. While total emissions have climbed significantly above prepandemic levels, increases from transportation and households were more muted last year as the pandemic weighed on global mobility. This was particularly evident with the emergence of the omicron variant in the fourth quarter of last year. The public health policy measures in many countries drove down the emissions of households and of the electricity sector.
It will be important to monitor the emissions of both of these sectors as economies fully reopen in the context of historically high fossil fuel-based energy prices. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has said that, in the scenarios they assessed, limiting atmospheric warming to the key level of around 1.5 degrees Celsius requires global greenhouse gas emissions to peak by 2025 at the latest, emphasizing that achieving this milestone is a crucial step towards controlling the severity of climate change. The new data from the climate dashboard underscore what some scientists have warned: time is running out, and we must urgently bend the emissions curve to achieve the necessary reductions to limit atmospheric warming.
Which of the following words is the antonym of “build” as highlighted in the given passage?
- A.
demolish
- B.
rejig
- C.
extraction
- D.
malign
- E.
squeeze
Attempted by 6 students.
Show answer & explanation
Correct answer: A
Concept
An antonym is a word whose meaning is directly opposite to another word. To choose an antonym from a list, identify the core meaning of the target word and then pick the offered word that reverses it. The word 'build' centres on the idea of forming, raising, or adding up so that something grows in structure or amount.
Application
In the passage, 'build' appears in 'they build up in the atmosphere', where it carries the sense of forming and accumulating until something grows. The opposite idea is to bring down, remove, or undo what has grown. Among the five offered words, only 'demolish' carries this reversing sense: it means to pull down or destroy what was raised up. So 'demolish' is the offered word that most directly opposes 'build'.
Contrast
rejig: to rearrange or reorganise something that already exists; this is a change in arrangement, not the reverse of building up.
extraction: the act of removing or drawing something out; it names a process of taking out, not the opposite of forming or raising.
malign: to speak harmful, false things about someone; it concerns reputation and has no link to building.
squeeze: to press or compress into a smaller space; it changes shape or volume, not the opposite of building up.
Since none of the other four offered words reverses the sense of 'build', the antonym of 'build' here is 'demolish'.