GATE DA Verbal Aptitude Previous Year Questions

GATE DA 2025 | Question 1

MCQ · 1 mark · −0.33

Courage : Bravery :: Yearning : __________

Select the most appropriate option to complete the analogy.

Longing Yelling Yawning Glaring

Explanation

Answer: (A)

Courage and bravery are synonyms: both name the strength to face danger or fear without giving in. The second pair must therefore match yearning with a word of the same meaning. Yearning is a deep, often wistful desire for something, which is exactly what longing means.

Yelling (shouting), yawning (opening the mouth wide from tiredness) and glaring (staring angrily) only resemble yearning in sound or spelling, not in meaning.

Answer: A

GATE DA 2025 | Question 2

MCQ · 1 mark · −0.33

We __________ tennis in the lawn when it suddenly started to rain.

Select the most appropriate option to complete the above sentence.

have been playing had been playing would have been playing could be playing

Explanation

Answer: (B)

The playing was already in progress when another past event, the rain, interrupted it. An action that continued up to a moment in the past takes the past perfect continuous, had been + verb-ing: “We had been playing tennis in the lawn when it suddenly started to rain.”

Have been playing is present perfect continuous; it ties the action to the present and clashes with the past tense “started”.
Would have been playing and could be playing express a guess or a possibility, not an action that actually took place.

Answer: B

GATE DA 2025 | Question 6

MCQ · 2 marks · −0.66

Column-I has statements made by Shanthala; and, Column-II has responses given by Kanishk.

Column-I	Column-II
P. This house is in a mess.	1. Alright, I won’t bring it up during our conversations.
Q. I am not happy with the marks given to me.	2. Well, you can easily look it up.
R. Politics is a subject I avoid talking about.	3. No problem, let me clear it up for you.
S. I don’t know what this word means.	4. Don’t worry, I will take it up with your teacher.

Identify the option that has the correct match between Column-I and Column-II.

P – 2; Q – 3; R – 1; S – 4 P – 3; Q – 4; R – 1; S – 2 P – 4; Q – 1; R – 2; S – 3 P – 1; Q – 2; R – 4; S – 3

Explanation

Answer: (B)

Each response uses a phrasal verb with “up”, and each verb suits exactly one statement:

P – 3: a house in a mess needs to be cleared up, that is, tidied.
Q – 4: a complaint about marks is taken up (raised) with the teacher.
R – 1: to someone who avoids politics, Kanishk promises not to bring it up (mention it).
S – 2: an unknown word can be looked up in a dictionary.

This matching is P – 3; Q – 4; R – 1; S – 2.

Answer: B

GATE DA 2024 | Question 1

MCQ · 1 mark · −0.33

If ‘→’ denotes increasing order of intensity, then the meaning of the words

[sick → infirm → moribund] is analogous to [silly → _______ → daft].

Which one of the given options is appropriate to fill the blank?

frown fawn vein vain

Explanation

Answer: (D)

The first triple names one idea in rising strength: sick (unwell), infirm (weak from age or long illness) and moribund (close to death). The second triple must do the same for foolishness, ending at daft (senseless, crazy).

Of the options, only vain is an adjective that can describe a lack of sense: besides “conceited”, it means empty, idle or foolish, as in “vain talk”. The others do not fit: frown is a facial expression, fawn is a young deer or a verb meaning to flatter, and vein, which only sounds like vain, is a blood vessel.

Answer: D

GATE DA 2024 | Question 6

MCQ · 2 marks · −0.66

Thousands of years ago, some people began dairy farming. This coincided with a number of mutations in a particular gene that resulted in these people developing the ability to digest dairy milk.

Based on the given passage, which of the following can be inferred?

All human beings can digest dairy milk. No human being can digest dairy milk. Digestion of dairy milk is essential for human beings. In human beings, digestion of dairy milk resulted from a mutated gene.

Explanation

Answer: (D)

The passage says that mutations in one gene gave the early dairy farmers the ability to digest dairy milk. So, in human beings, the ability to digest dairy milk came from a mutated gene, which is option (D).

(A) fails because the passage speaks only of some people. (B) contradicts the passage, since these people did gain the ability. (C) goes beyond the passage, which never says that digesting milk is essential for humans.

Answer: D