first of all I object to the "the synonym/antonym is..." format of the questions. most of the given words have so, so many synonyms and antonyms.

There were admittedly a few I only got right because the other options provided were obviously wrong; I've come across most of the words plenty of times in context but who uses "avulse" in a sentence outside a medical setting?

But srsly: why is "underpay" the opposite of "compensate" instead of "extort". "compensate" doesn't inherently mean adequate compensation, it just means some compensation is being rendered, and "underpay" doesn't mean no compensation is being rendered it just means not enough.

"underpay" is the opposite of "overpay", while "extort" is extracting something you're not entitled to rather than providing what someone else is entitled to.

I'm not sure I'd call "prevention" the antonym of "catalyst" either. "Prevent" is an antonym of "catalyze", that's fair, but a much better antonym is "inhibitor."

...ha, that's why it feels weird to me, it should have been "preventer", not "prevention"

"catalysis" would have been better as the opposite of "prevention", but it's still doesn't feel right; the words feel like they're in different difficulty brackets

(if they're going for "fair" as the opposite of "foul", the opposite of prevention should have been "cure")

(but it really should have been "promotion")

anyway I'm still going to be at least a little smug that my primary and most-practiced skill is still there despite everything, but words are so much more malleable than a quiz like this suggests.

It took me a minute to figure it out, But you are also pretty heckin' smart

They argued that the opposite of "altruism" was "egoism" and I chose it because the other answers were like "brick" and "waffle"

B U T

the opposite of altruism is greed or, like, miserliness

(I was upset. Perturbed, even)

pride is not the opposite of charity any more than lust is the opposite of sloth.

jdfksbrgs YOU ARE MOST WISE

yeah, a lot of the choices weren't actually synonyms or antonyms

I got punish as antonym of compensate, I think I got a less questionable option...

Angelcide aaaaa thank you ;;<3

Miz_Bluebird you are VERY CORRECT I would even say "selfishness"

Fuzzytale yeah, it was... weird

kikibug13 wait do the options change each time you take the test? should I take it again and see what shenanigans ensue? XDDD on the other hand that probably means the test questions are pulling from a synonym pool, which could explain why they feel a bit off; a lot of things you see on a synonym/antonym list aren't direct ones but similar ones

I'd have trouble choosing "punish" as the antonym of "compensate" unless the other options were very obviously wrong

yeah, one of the problems with that kind of vocab testing is that when there even are clear antonyms, they choices by the test writers aren't always great

yeah, and that's always a nightmare for us overthinkers

Taking it again and now the antonym for "compensate" can be EITHER "penalize" or "reimburse"?? none of them had two correct answers last time

most of the early questions were the same though

like, antonym in what sense

across what axis of meaning are we inverting

exactly

tho usually with these things the safe way to go is to pick the most opposite choice as the one the test writer had in mind, but

yeah