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The following text has been taken from the Chinese college entrance exam:

Two weeks earlier, my son, Ben, had got in touch. He'd moved to England with his mum when he was three and it had been 13 years since I'd last seen him. So imagine my [blank] when he emailed me saying he wanted to come visit me. I was [blank]!

The options for the first blank were:

A) Delight

B) Relief

C) Anger

D) Worry

The options for the second blank were:

A) Scared

B) Shocked

C) Thrilled

D) Ashamed

The correct answer for the first blank is A) Delight and the second blank is C) Thrilled.

I also agree with both, but on the first blank I believe that B) Relief should also be possible, if the second blank was C) thrilled, because (I assume) a father will probably worry, feel some pain, feel a bit distressed or of course miss his son, if he hasn't seen him in 13 years.

I mean, you could also choose D) Worry and A) Scared, since that also pairs with each other, correct? (Just like how you pair A) Delight and C) Thrilled with each other)

Laurel
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Jacob de Neur
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  • You only feel relief because the thing that you are consciously aware/scared/afraid of, disappears/fades/ceases. With delight typically comes surprise; he wasn't expecting to receive a message from his son saying that he is coming back (He could of during the 13 years but there was no guarantee) and so when his son finally emailed him it was with surprise and delight. They typically go together e.g. what a delightful surprise. – aesking Jun 09 '18 at 20:16
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    I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because the way a candidate is expected to rule out the incorrect answers is partly opinion based. Many good questions generate some degree of opinion based on expert experience, but answers to this question will be based on the opinions of the people setting the exam rather than general language requirements. / Though (A) is undoubtedly the answer they want, (B) is not unreasonable given extra context (which 'Two weeks earlier' demands there is). – Edwin Ashworth Jun 09 '18 at 21:17
  • @Edwin if only I could say that to the exam board / moderators who marks my English essays/work: "answers to this question will be based on the opinions of the people setting the exam rather than general language requirements". I couldn't, no matter how right you are :P – aesking Jun 09 '18 at 21:35
  • I'm surprised to see the 'comprehension' tag here; I assume it's pretty new. Questions on comprehension are usually too broadly scoped for ELU (which tends to look at meanings at clause level or below, not interpretations of longer structures) and answers often necessarily opinion-based, interpreting (or guessing) meanings made less than obvious by an author's personal writing style. // ELU can only (attempt to) address the underlying rules, not an arbitrary subset (or even wrong assumptions) made by say an examiner. 'The following text has been taken from the Chinese college entrance ... – Edwin Ashworth Jun 09 '18 at 22:07
  • exam' should really be written 'Faced with the question ... and offered the options ...'; naming potential malefactors / hyperprescriptivists // suggesting inadequacies comes across as a peeve. ///// 'Imagine my worry' doesn't sound idiomatic. – Edwin Ashworth Jun 09 '18 at 22:17
  • I would say that a good question, especially in such an exam which basically determines their future, should not be able to be interpreted in different ways and should have a clear answer (it could be difficult to find, but it should be clear with complete understanding of the English language). Questions that can raise confusion, especially if more answers are reasonable should be removed or given free points for. – Jacob de Neur Jun 09 '18 at 22:19
  • Yeah, I was looking for underlying rules that could rule out the additional option I provided. I was also looking for rules that might even confirm the additional option as a reasonable answer. – Jacob de Neur Jun 09 '18 at 22:21
  • @Jacob de Neur Being raised in England, I applaud how the exam question attempts to be accurate, it uses the British english form of mum, so while one can perceive thrilled to be duplicitous; one has to know that It is common in England to say "thrilled" to refer to things that we are excited about e.g. "I'm thrilled for that party next week" rather than to refer to its negative sense. So I think it was a trick question to try and trick you out. if delight was the correct answer, then as for the first part. I was ______ ! this can't scared, shocked or ashamed ... – aesking Jun 09 '18 at 22:40
  • (cont.) But giving off the context of the scenario, if I were given both blanks, I would naturally and personally chose thrilled and delight. – aesking Jun 09 '18 at 22:41
  • I didn't know that thrilled had a negative meaning. I believe the meaning implied here is the 'being enormously excited'. I couldn't find the negative meaning in the dictionaries online, mind to send me a link? Also, in the Netherlands (the country I live in), we always have question that have a clear answer, based on rules of the English language and not based on opinion. If more answers could be possible because it could be interpreted in a different way, the additional answers would be added to the answer model, or the question would be dismissed and everybody would get free points for it. – Jacob de Neur Jun 09 '18 at 22:43
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    I would definitely also go for delight and thrilled, but I just looked at the questions more critically and saw that it might be interpreted in a different way which would leave room for different answers, which, as a result, might cause confusion. Additionally, students who interpreted it in the way the exam makers had not intended it to be might be disadvantaged because of it. – Jacob de Neur Jun 09 '18 at 22:46
  • @Jacob de Neur. You can find it on OED under 2.1 (archaic) as a throb or pulsation. – aesking Jun 09 '18 at 22:58
  • "In the 1300s a person who was thrilled might not live long enough to tell about it, because the Middle English verb thrillen—the ancestor of our word thrill—meant literally “to pierce” or “stab,” as with a sword or spear." (Merriam Webster). Even google has it under the definition of verb (2) – aesking Jun 09 '18 at 23:05
  • and no, since it's an archaic word, its verb form would be thrillen as Merriam Webster states – aesking Jun 09 '18 at 23:07
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    Oh I see, thanks for pointing that out, get to learn something new everyday. – Jacob de Neur Jun 09 '18 at 23:07
  • The first draft of the question had the sentence I hadn't sent them a single yuan in all that time. – TimR Sep 05 '23 at 12:43
  • @aesking The late American poet and Shakespeare scholar John Berryman has a line in one of his Dream Songs: "the poison suck of a thrilled tooth" And FWIW, it's the same meaning in the word nostril. Nose-hole. Metathesis there. – TimR Sep 05 '23 at 12:46

1 Answers1

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In English exams, you must take everything in the text literally. If it is not explicitly mentioned in the text, the answer is usually wrong.

The word "thrilled" means that the narrator is happy, eliminating options C) Anger and D) Worry. The reason why option B) Relief is wrong is because nowhere in the text is it mentioned that the father is worried. An explanation for answer A) Delight is directly in the text: "I was thrilled!"

Whilst you can be correct that the father is worried, because there is no textual evidence to back up that claim, the answer has to be wrong.


EDIT: Thanks to aesking for pointing this out, "thrilled" has both a positive and a negative connotation. The positive connotation was the one I was familiar with, and the one I believe the question meant.

Klyzx
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  • Gave it a +1. But, actually thrilled is a double-edged sword. It can also mean (of an emotion or sensation) pass with a nervous tremor. E.g. the shock of alarm thrilled through her". I think this was the original meaning until it started to become idiomatic to use it to refer to happiness; so there is nothing explicit imo. – aesking Jun 09 '18 at 20:46
  • It's called amelioration (similar: https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/38606/what-gave-terrific-a-positive-connotation) – aesking Jun 09 '18 at 20:49
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    Ah, I've never heard of the word being used in such a sense before, and only knew of the positive connotation. – Klyzx Jun 09 '18 at 21:21
  • May I add that the word 'thrilled' was originally a blank, with the options 'Scared', 'Shocked', 'Thrilled' and 'Ashamed'. I added thrilled there because it's obviously the one pairing with A) Delight. This means that there's no direct explanation for answer A) Delight, unless you also choose 'Thrilled' to be in that gap. I mean, you could also choose D) Worry and 'Scared', since that also pairs with each other, correct? (I will add this info to the original question). – Jacob de Neur Jun 09 '18 at 22:15
  • @JacobdeNeur Ah, that certainly makes the case more difficult, and that means it would be possible to argue for multiple combinations of words to be correct. – Klyzx Jun 09 '18 at 22:20
  • @Jacob so what was the correct answer for I was ___ then?. a) scared b) shocked c) thrilled or d) ashamed? If it was c) it doesn't really change anything but if it wasn't, Klyzx is correct. – aesking Jun 09 '18 at 22:31
  • @aesking The correct answers were A) Delight and C) Thrilled, but you got to understand that when taking this exam, you obviously don't know the answers, and if more combinations are possible, that would certainly raise confusion among students, which such a exam should steer clear of. – Jacob de Neur Jun 09 '18 at 22:33
  • @aesking You could argue for A and C that of course, the father hasn't seen his mother in a long time and that [a father wants to see his son]. However, you could also argue D and A, because the father hasn't seen his son in a long time and has been separated from him for 13 years. [Why would he reach out after all those years, did something bad happen that made him decide to reach out?] The text between brackets is not in the text and is merely a thought process that can be made by the student during the text. – Jacob de Neur Jun 09 '18 at 22:39
  • The negative sense of "thrill" is defined as "mainly literary" by Merriam-Webster, with a quote from Shakespeare, and it's not in Cambridge Advanced Learner's. So I think it's unlikely; you're expected to use the meaning that is in everyday use, not an obscure, archaic, or little-known meaning. – Stuart F Sep 05 '23 at 13:38
  • You could also argue for anger and shocked. I think the exam question is asking about more than just English: it's asking you to consider emotions as well, which are notoriously subjective. – Andrew Leach Sep 05 '23 at 13:43