Question

Find the synonym of the underlined word.
The basketball game started at 4:00 pm.
A) Transpired
B) commenced
C) Ended
D) Continued
E) postponed

Answer 1

Hint: In the given question we have to find the synonym (word having a similar meaning) of the underlined word ‘started’ from the given options. The word started means ‘to have begun something’ .

Complete answer:
Let us first understand the meaning of the given options:
A) Transpired - In general it means to become known to something that was hidden or secret previously and in science it implies the process when water vapour is released through the stomata of the leaves.
B) Commenced - It is past tense of ‘commence’ which means to begin or to start off some work.
C) Ended - It is past tense of ‘end’ which means to finish or get done with something.
D) Continued - It is the past tense of ‘continue’ which means to carry on something.
E) Postponed - It is the past tense of ‘postpone’ which means to delay some work to a later date.

The correct answer is Commenced. Both commenced and started mean the same thing that is ‘to begin’ Therefore, we can also rewrite the sentence as ‘The basketball game commenced at 4:00 pm.’

Thus the correct answer is option (B).

Note: Both the words commenced and started are past forms of the verbs. The action words are known as verbs. In past forms most of the words use the ‘+ed’ suffix.