IPMAT Indore 2022 · Verbal Ability · Question 11

The error: a collocation failure. Pick up has several legitimate senses — to lift, to acquire a skill, to collect someone, to improve — but it does not take interest as an object in the sense required here. The idiomatic verbs for interest are arouse, spark, pique, stir or kindle.

Why aroused is right. To arouse interest is the standard collocation, meaning to awaken or stimulate it. “His talk… has aroused my interest” is natural and precise.

Why the others fail:

(b) adopted — to take up and make one’s own (adopt a policy, adopt a child). You cannot adopt someone else’s interest in this construction.

(c) caught — “caught my interest” is possible in casual usage, but the standard pairing is caught my attention. Attention is momentary and can be caught; interest is sustained and is aroused.

(d) brightened — means to make lighter or more cheerful. It collocates with day, room, mood — not with interest.

Answer: Option 1

Shortcut. Build the collocation pairs; they are what this question tests, not grammar.

Option (c) is the near-miss precisely because it belongs to the attention row. Ask which noun each verb normally partners, and the answer separates out immediately.