NDA (II) 2023 GAT Q23: The Colonel ordered the Soldiers to meet him in the

Q: What is the answer to NDA (II) 2023 GAT Q23?

D. Correct — D, canteen. In service usage a commissary is the store and eating place attached to a base or unit, where rations and provisions are handled. Of the four options only 'canteen' names that kind of shop-cum-eating place on an establishment, so it is the nearest word for the place the Colonel names.

NDA (II) 2023 General Ability Test · Question 23 of 146

Question text verified against the official NDA question paper.

The Colonel ordered the Soldiers to meet him in the commissary.

(a)office
(b)field
(c)playground
(d)canteen

Answer

Why

Correct — D, canteen. In service usage a commissary is the store and eating place attached to a base or unit, where rations and provisions are handled. Of the four options only 'canteen' names that kind of shop-cum-eating place on an establishment, so it is the nearest word for the place the Colonel names.

Why the others are wrong

(a)office — An office is where administrative work is done; a commissary deals in food and provisions.
(b)field — The field is open ground, where training or operations happen, not a supply or dining establishment.
(c)playground — A playground is a space for games and has no link with rations or provisions.

Concept

'Commissary' first named an officer who was put in charge of supplies, and the word then moved to the place where those supplies and meals are provided on a military station.

The setting does the steering here — a Colonel and his soldiers push the word into military vocabulary rather than general vocabulary, and once it is read as a place on a station, 'canteen' is the only fit. One incidental point about the printed sentence: the booklet capitalises 'Soldiers' in mid-sentence, which is a typographic oddity in the original and not the point being tested.

Key facts

A commissary on a military base supplies provisions to service personnel.
In Indian and British usage a canteen is the shop or eating place attached to a station, an institution or a workplace.

Study next

Military vocabulary in NDA English items, such as commissary and garrisonUsing the setting of a sentence to fix a word's field of meaningWords that name both a person and a placeWords for places where food is served: canteen, mess, refectory

Common traps

Picking 'office' because a Colonel is imagined summoning people to one.
Treating the word as general vocabulary and ignoring the military setting.

Asked as a synonym item where a service-specific noun has to be matched to an everyday equivalent.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.

Practice

practice — not a real PYQ
Choose the word nearest in meaning to 'commissary'. The recruits queued outside the commissary for their monthly provisions.
- (a)parade ground
- (b)canteen
- (c)armoury
- (d)hospital
Answer(b) canteen — a commissary supplies provisions and meals on a station.
practice — not a real PYQ
Choose the meaning of 'mess' in this sentence. The young officers dined in the mess.
- (a)a muddle
- (b)a dining hall for service personnel
- (c)a storeroom
- (d)a parade
Answer(b) a dining hall for service personnel — the military sense of the word.