Still vs. quiet

[Helen]

Test No. incompl/inter-83 "Save Our Animals (3)", question 6

and people who had been running about pell mell (in confusion) were now standing ......... and listening to the speeches.

(a) quiet
(b) still
(c) upright
(d) quite

Test No. incompl/inter-83 "Save Our Animals (3)", answer 6

and people who had been running about pell mell (in confusion) were now standing still and listening to the speeches.

Correct answer: (b) still

Your answer was: incorrect
and people who had been running about pell mell (in confusion) were now standing quiet and listening to the speeches.
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Hello,

I guess the clue that enables one to choose between "quiet" and "still" is the succession of adverbs "pell-mell", "higgedly-piggedly", "harum-scarum", which indicates movement rather than noise? And the verb "to stand".
Still, the sentence woulb be correct with "quiet", both grammatically and semantically, wouldn't it?

[Alan]

Hi,

When I write these exercises, I mentally check each list of 4 possibles to see whether there would be a chance of using more than one. In this sentence I deliberately chose still because I think you would need an adverb and quietLY is not one of the 4.

Alan
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