"Estranged" means alienated. The best answer is "distant" because when you feel estranged, you feel distant from others.

Words you may not know:

• "Exacerbate" means to make worse or to irritate.

"Awry" can act as an adjective or an adverb and means "away from the appropriate, planned, or expected course," so we need to pick out a word that means something like "away from the expected course." While "wiry" sounds similar to "awry," "wiry" means "resembling wire in form and texture." Since "wiry" does not mean the same thing as "awry," it cannot be the correct answer. "Amiss," however, means "not quite right; inappropriate or out of place" as an adjective and "wrongly or inappropriately" as an adverb. Because "amiss" is the answer choice closest in meaning to "awry," it is the correct answer.

Something that is "diminutive" is small, miniature.

"Abominable" means universally hated. If you "detest" something, you hate it. The key here is the strength of the word, an "abominable" thing is awful, not merely bad, or "questionable."

"Mundane" is an adjective that means "dull," without excitement, or refers to the earthly world instead of a spiritual world. 

"Precise" means exact or definitely correct. "Stupid" means unintelligent or without common sense. "Celestial" means related to the sky, or refers to something amazing. "Metaphysical" means related to the philosophy that deals with abstract concepts (being, origin of the universe) but is not grounded in scientific research.

"Feeble" is an adjective that means "weak," or without strength of character.

"Elderly" is a concept related to feeble, as elderly people are often feeble, but "elderly" just means old. "Infantile" could also be related, as infants typically lack physical strength, but "infantile" simply means childish. "Gleeful" means very joyful. "Cumbersome" means inconvenient, or difficult to carry or use because of size.

"Emphatic" is an adjective that means to express something forcefully or to put emphasis on something.

"Gregarious" means outgoing and talkative.

"Dubious" means doubtful, or uncertain.

"Bleak" means desolate and depressing.

"To understand another's feelings" is the answer students will select if they misread emphatic as "empathetic", which means to understand another's feelings.

"Poignant" means heart-rending, or something that evokes sadness. "Poignant" is said poin-yent. 

None of the other words is synonymous with poignant.

"Pompous" means annoyingly self-important, excessively solemn in a forced or affected way.

"Sharp" means able to cut or puncture something, or colloquially it can mean intelligent.

"Wary" means watching for danger, being cautious.

"Eerie" means strange or weird, and is sometimes spelled "eerie" as well.

"Dormant" means "inert," unmoving, asleep or comatose.

None of the other words are synonyms of dormant:

"Rife" means abundant or plentiful.

"Dutiful" means obedient, following one's duties or conscientious.

"Rocky" means rough with stones, pebbles or rocks. Often dormant is used to describe inactive volcanoes, so "rocky" is meant to be a trick answer that triggers an association with dormant volcanoes.

"Wakeful" means awake, not asleep, or attentive. It is the opposite of dormant.

The adjectives "sheer" and "utter" are synonymous. "Sheer" means nothing other than and utter means complete, absolute, or total. Here are two examples of their use: 1) His "utter" fascination with the magician made his mother smile. 2) He used nothing but his "sheer" imagination to draw the comic. The other words are not synonymous with "sheer."