In each question below, a word is given followed by four sentences. Identify which of the sentences use the given word correctly in terms of both grammar and context. Word: DESPONDENCY 1. The quarterly earnings report, which revealed a third consecutive year of declining export revenues, cast a pall of despondency over the trading floor, with analysts revising their growth forecasts sharply downward before markets had even closed. 2. Chronic despondency among frontline healthcare workers — documented in multiple post-pandemic studies — has emerged as a systemic workforce crisis that hospital administrations have been structurally ill-equipped to address. 3. The committee’s despondency toward the proposed infrastructure bill was rooted not in ideological opposition but in legitimate technical reservations about the feasibility of its projected cost estimates. 4. Philosophers of the Stoic tradition argued that despondency, unlike genuine grief, is a failure of rational self-governance — an indulgence in perceived misfortune that wisdom and discipline can and must overcome.

Sentence 1 uses despondency correctly. Despondency means a state of low spirits caused by loss of hope or courage. Here it describes the emotional atmosphere on a trading floor following bad financial news — a precisely appropriate contextual use.  Sentence 2 uses despondency correctly. “Chronic despondency” describes a persistent state of hopelessness or low morale among healthcare workers — entirely valid both grammatically (as a noun subject) and contextually (as a documented psychological condition in a professional setting).  Sentence 3 uses despondency incorrectly. “Despondency toward” something implies hopeless or dejected feelings about a subject — but the sentence then qualifies this as “rooted in technical reservations,” which describes scepticism or opposition, not hopelessness. The correct word here is “reservations,” “resistance,” or “reluctance” — not despondency, which carries a specific emotional weight of low spirits rather than considered intellectual opposition.  Sentence 4 uses despondency correctly. The philosophical contrast between despondency (as irrational indulgence in perceived misfortune) and genuine grief is a recognised Stoic distinction — the word is used with conceptual precision and grammatical correctness.  Hence (B) Only 1, 2 and 4 is the correct answer.