In the above question, I tried to use time contrast which here in this case is present and future.
Important clues I identified:
- little risk of collision - no collision (present)
hence opposite of this would be ‘more collision’
The word that clearly went with this seems like ‘invulnerable’ i.e in the sentence ‘less invulnerable’ which means less safe to collisions and I marked that. But the ETS mentions ‘benign’ as the correct answer when it simply means to be kind as far as I know. Can anyone tell me where I went wrong?
Can you please check again…
Your reasoning is on the right track, but there’s a slight misunderstanding with the word “benign”. In this context, “benign” doesn’t refer to kindness, but rather to something that is harmless or has little or no impact. When we say the orbital environment is “benign”, we mean it’s relatively safe for spacecrafts, with little risk of collision.
On the other hand, “invulnerable” means incapable of being harmed, injured, or affected. If the orbital environment were invulnerable, it would mean it couldn’t be affected by anything, which isn’t the point the sentence is making.
The sentence/question is saying that currently, there’s little risk of collision (a benign environment), but in the future, with more satellites being launched every year, this is likely to change. So, the orbital environment is likely to be less benign (less safe or harmless), implying a higher risk of collision.
