Each of the sentences in the following items has an underlined word, followed by four choices. Select the most appropriate option that is an improvement of the underlined word in the context of the sentence, and mark your response on the Answer Sheet accordingly.
The office memorandum directed personnel to **minimise** their consumption of office stationery by up to twenty percent.
- Asupervise
- Bsurmise
- Clower
- Dreduce
Explanation
The verb 'minimise' means to reduce to the smallest possible amount, which clashes with 'by up to twenty percent' — one cannot minimise something by a fixed percentage. The memorandum asks personnel to cut consumption by a stated proportion, for which 'reduce' is the exact verb. 'Supervise' and 'surmise' are unrelated in meaning. 'Lower' is possible, but 'reduce consumption by X percent' is the standard idiomatic collocation, making 'reduce' the most appropriate improvement.