IPMAT Indore 2022 · Verbal Ability · Question 25

The word being tested: cross, across its senses.

(a) “cross the river” ✔ — the verb, to go across.

(b) “made her cross and cranky” ✔ — the adjective meaning annoyed or irritable, pairing naturally with cranky.

(c) “the cross that he has to bear” ✔ — the idiom for a burden one must endure.

(d) “his jokes are vulgar, cross, and crude” ✘

Why (d) fails. The list describes jokes, and the other two adjectives — vulgar and crude — both mean coarse or offensive. Cross means irritable, which describes a person’s mood, not the character of a joke. A joke cannot be bad-tempered.

The intended word is something like coarse, crass or off-colour. Note too that crass is one letter from cross, which is likely the source of the error.

Answer: Option 4

Shortcut. When a word sits in a list, it must match the other items in kind. Here vulgar and crude both describe the content of jokes, while cross describes a temperament. The mismatch is visible without defining anything.

That list test is the fastest route — faster than working through the four senses of cross.

Option (c) is worth flagging for students: “the cross he has to bear” is a genuine idiom (from carrying a cross), meaning a lasting burden. It often reads as wrong to those who have not met it. Unfamiliar is not incorrect.