SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 10 September 2024, Shift 3 · English Comprehension · Question 16 of 100

Text as printed on a candidate's response sheet for this shift; answer per SSC's tentative key as marked on that sheet. Solution last reviewed 6 September 2026.

Where this paper and its answers come from

SSC does not publish CGL question papers or a public answer key. The questions and options here are reproduced as printed on a candidate's own response sheet for this shift — the Commission's text, unchanged. Each answer is SSC's tentative key as marked on that sheet; SSC allowed challenges to it and never publishes a final key. The solutions are written by UnlockIAS.

Select the option that can substitute/replace the bracketed word correctly and complete the sentence. They could (always) stay in, or go for a walk.

(a)either
(b)not only
(c)had better
(d)neither

Answer

Why

Correct — A. The trigger is already in the sentence: the or before 'go for a walk'.

Either is the word that pairs with or. Correlative conjunctions come in fixed couples — either … or, neither … nor, not only … but also — and the couple must be completed.

Substituting either also keeps the two alternatives parallel: either stay in or go for a walk, two bare infinitives after 'could'.

No other choice on the list pairs with or, so option (a) is the only substitution that leaves a grammatical sentence.

Why the others are wrong

(b)
not only — Not only pairs with but also, never with or. It would leave the couple unfinished, and it adds rather than offers a choice between two things.
(c)
had better — Had better cannot follow another modal — 'could had better stay' is impossible. It also gives advice instead of setting out two alternatives.
(d)
neither — Neither pairs with nor, and the sentence keeps or. It would also flip the meaning from a choice between two options to a refusal of both.

Concept

Correlative conjunctions work in fixed pairs: either … or, neither … nor, both … and, not only … but also, whether … or.

Exam items test two things about them. First, the partner: if one half is printed, only its own partner can fill the other slot. Second, parallelism: the two elements the pair joins must be the same kind of structure.

Here both halves are verb phrases after the modal 'could', so either sits immediately before the first verb and the balance holds.

The bracketed word, 'always', is grammatically inert — it can be removed and the sentence still works.

That is the design of these items. The clue is never in the bracket, it is in the rest of the sentence, and here it is the little word or.

Key facts

Either pairs with or, and neither pairs with nor.
Not only pairs with but also.
Correlative pairs must join parallel structures, as in either stay in or go for a walk.
Had better is followed by a bare infinitive and cannot stack after another modal such as could.

Study next

Correlative conjunctions and their fixed partnersParallelism after either, neither and not onlyWhy standard English does not stack two modals in one verb phrase

Common traps

Judging the bracketed word on meaning instead of looking for its grammatical partner elsewhere in the sentence.
Choosing neither without noticing that the sentence keeps or, not nor.
Placing the correlative so that the two halves are no longer the same kind of phrase.

SSC's substitute-the-bracketed-word items are decided by something the rest of the sentence demands — a partner word, a preposition, a tense.

The same design appears in this shift at another vocabulary level: also 10 Sep 2024, 16:00, English Q.20, where 'ability' is substituted by aptitude because of what follows it.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.