L: THE GUILTY

Today let’s begin with one of the ANTONYM questions: EXCULPATE A. attribute guilt B. avoid responsibility C. establish facts D. control hostilities E. show anxiety “EXCULPATE” is from ‘CULPA’, which means blame or guilt. From ‘CULPA’ we get ‘CULPRIT’. A culprit one who is guilty. So, when we EXCULPATE someone we set him free from his/her guilt or charge of crime. In other words we ACQUIT that person. The following are all the SYNONYMS of EXCULPATE: ACQUIT ABSOLVE EXONERATE SET FREE FROM GUILT The corresponding noun forms are: EXCULPATION ACQUITTAL ABSOLUTION EXONERATION When we EXONERATE people, we take the burden (ONUS) of guilt off them. Exonerate, as we can see, is from ONUS. An ONUS is a BURDEN. From ONUS we have ONEROUS, which means DIFFICULT. Here are a few SYNONYMS of ONEROUS (difficult): BURDENSOME LABORIOUS ARDUOUS STRENUOUS EFFORTFUL Now look at two antonym pairs we got in GRE: ONEROUS x REQUIRING LITTLE EFFORT LABORIOUS x FLUENT (WHEN we speak with difficulty, our speech is LABORIOUS; when we speak easily, without halting, our speech is FLUENT.) When a task or test becomes very difficult we call it an ARDUOUS or ONEROUS task. An onerous task is generally called an ORDEAL. Thus, an ORDEAL is a very difficult test or task. Just as an ORNAMENT is a DECORATIVE thing, an ORDEAL is a ARDUOUS thing. Hence, ORNAMENT: DECORATIVE ORDEAL: ARDUOUS Going back to EXCULPATE or ACQUIT, we can see that the opposite must be CONVICT, i.e, finding guilty. Hence the answer for the question at the beginning of this post is choice A. EXCULPATE x ATTRIBUTE GUILT (convict)