Synonyms: Adjectives Describing Appearance, Materiality, and Sensory Imagery - HSPT Verbal Skills

"Impervious" means not letting things pass through, or unaffected by something. One might write, "While everyone else got sick, Michael seemed impervious to germs."

"Sinewy" means tough, stringy, or strong.

“Macabre” means gruesome, horrifying, or pertaining to death, so "gruesome" is the correct answer. None of the other answers are close in meaning to “macabre”. “Understated” means modest or simple. “Protective” means defensive or shielding. “Panicked” means frightened. “Methodical” means systematic.

"Garish" means too bright and showy, and the correct answer "lurid" means having a color so bright that it is unpleasant. The other choices do not have similar definitions: "delightful" means fun and joyful, "proper" means appropriate, "severe" means harsh, and "frightening" means scary.

In its physical sense, the word "elastic" means bendable or flexible. Hence, we use it to describe things like "elastic bands" that are used for gathering together items. When something is "inelastic" it is not flexible in that way. The "in-" prefix is a privative prefix, meaning that it means not. (This is much like the prefix "un-.") Therefore, something that is "inelastic" could be said to be rigid.

A "chimera" is a kind of mythological creature, but generally the word has come to signify something that cannot possibly occur or exist in reality. Therefore, when something is described as being "chimerical," it is an illusion—something "illusory."

The word "scintillating" comes from the Latin word for "spark" (as in a spark of fire or light). Something that is scintillating has the kind of spark or glow of such a fire. Therefore, it means bright. Something that is "luminous" is very bright or enlightened.