Question

passage 1
dragons do not exist. however, a brief look at any western nation’s myths might suggest otherwise. virtually all civilizations have stories of some type of dragon. and in western nations, the stories typically tell of a hero arising to challenge and defeat the dragon, and in doing so, making the place safe for civilization. in england, there is the story of st. george and the dragon. in scandinavian countries, a dragon called the lindworm terrorized people. provincial france has the story of the tarasque, a dragon that was tamed by christianity. greeks told the story of cadmus fighting the ismenian dragon. the list goes on.
some have pointed to the abundance of dragon tales and said, “aha, then it must be true that dragons existed at one point. please! that’s preposterous. there is no fossil evidence to support belief in actual dragons. rather, it seems more likely that the belief in a monster that resembles a dragon is founded in a couple shared sources. for one, man has long been afraid of creatures that are dragon - like. snakes, lizards, and other serpents seem hostile and foreign to us mammals. second, the basic story of civilization is that man arrived from a dangerous natural world, conquered it, and helped to create a civilized world. slaying a dragon is a fitting metaphor for this idea of the world. if it weren’t a dragon, it would be something else scary. thus, the need for something to represent fear and the fact that man fears serpents may have combined to create dragon myths.
based on its use in paragraph 2 of passage 1, the word abundance has the nearest antonym in
a scarcity
b ancientness
c modernity
d plenitude

Explanation:

To find the antonym of "abundance", we first understand the meaning of "abundance" which is a large quantity or plenty. Now we analyze each option:

• Option A: "scarcity" means a lack or shortage, which is the opposite of abundance.
• Option B: "ancientness" refers to the quality of being old, not related to quantity.
• Option C: "modernity" refers to the quality of being modern, not related to quantity.
• Option D: "plenitude" is a synonym of abundance, meaning a full or complete quantity.

So the antonym of "abundance" is "scarcity".

Answer:

A. scarcity