To make something more active and effective is to ...

• A. Enhance
• B. Potentiate
• C. Amplify
• D. Accelerate

Answer: (B)

Potentiate means to increase the potency or effectiveness of something, making it more capable of producing a strong response. When you want a process or stimulus to have a greater effect without changing how fast or large it is, you’re aiming to make it more potent. In exercise science and physiology, a stimulus that is potentiated delivers a stronger or more efficient response, which is exactly what “more active and effective” implies.

Enhance is a general improvement in quality, which doesn’t specifically emphasize increasing the actual strength of the effect. Amplify increases magnitude or size, which can apply to signals or quantities but doesn’t directly convey greater effectiveness of the action. Accelerate focuses on speed, not on how effective the action is. Thus, potentiation is the best fit for making something more active and effective.