Doubt from today's vocab quiz

GRE Verbal Problem Solving
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doubt_1_verbal

I had a doubt from today’s vocab questions of the day (11/6), particularly about the words ‘sporadic’ and ‘periodic’.

Both Greg and Google paired sporadic with periodic.
I’m not questioning either of them; I would just like to know a little more about the usage of these two words from native speakers.

My understanding of the words sporadic was that it is used to describe events that happen irregularly or randomly; therefore, I paired it with capricious (unpredictable/ random mood) and thought that sporadic would be the antonym of periodic (regular).

This is why I don’t understand why Greg paired the two (sporadic and periodic).

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Periodic and Sporadic are related in the sense that they both can be used to describe things that happens occasionally or from time to time .
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Source:https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/sporadic

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Both the worlds has different meanings

If we say we have break after every 3 hrs

In this case periodic thing always happens.

But for sporadic we can guarantee.

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I’m a native english speaker and I would have made the same logical leap you did. How I use the word periodic is antithetical to sporadic. I see them as antonyms.
However, these two words are the only ones related to units of reaccurance used in a science paper. Unless we’re using poetic language, I wouldn’t describe the chances of an event as capricious.

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