When her husband died of AIDS in 1987, Alice discovered she was HIV positive. Frequent ...2..... of sickness forced her to give up her embroidery job.

Analyze the question: We need the word that best fits the blank in "Frequent ___ of sickness forced her to give up her embroidery job." This is a lexis and structure question about collocation, meaning which words naturally go together.

Explain the concept: In English, certain nouns pair with "of" to describe episodes of an illness. The standard collocation is "a bout of" (or "bouts of") followed by an illness or an activity, e.g. a bout of malaria, a bout of coughing, bouts of fever. A "bout" means a short period of intense illness or activity.

Solution, testing each option:

• A. sufferings is not idiomatic. "Sufferings of sickness" sounds awkward, and "suffering" is mostly uncountable here.
• B. Happenings means events or occurrences. It does not collocate with sickness.
• C. Rounds appears in "rounds of treatment" or "rounds of talks", but "rounds of sickness" is not a standard phrase. (Doctors do "ward rounds", but that is a different sense.)
• D. Bouts gives "Frequent bouts of sickness", which is a natural and correct collocation. It describes repeated episodes of illness, exactly what the sentence needs, and explains why she had to quit her job.

Answer: The correct option is D. Bouts.

Tip: For illness, memorize "bout of" (bout of flu, bout of malaria, bouts of coughing). When you see "frequent ___ of sickness/illness/fever", think "bouts" first. In lexis questions, always test each option by reading it back into the sentence and ask whether a native speaker would say it that way.