SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 10 September 2024, Shift 3 · English Comprehension · Question 6 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 most appropriate option to fill in the blank. The group of travellers were wonderstruck by the ___________ of the coin.

(a)white
(b)wait
(c)weight
(d)wide

Answer

Why

Correct — C. The blank sits after the and before of the coin, so it needs a noun that explains why the travellers were wonderstruck.

weight is that noun. It names how heavy the coin is, which is what would strike travellers handling an unfamiliar coin.

wide is the one option grammar removes on its own: its noun form is width, which is not offered.

white and wait can both be nouns, but a coin has no period of delay, and its colour is not what leaves travellers wonderstruck. Option (c) is what is left.

Why the others are wrong

(a)
white — white is not blocked by grammar — the white of an egg is ordinary English. It fails on sense: a coin's colour is not what leaves travellers wonderstruck, and the item is built on the wait/weight pair.
(b)
wait — wait is the homophone trap. It sounds identical to weight but names a delay, and a coin does not have a wait.
(d)
wide — wide is the one option grammar removes on its own. Its noun form is width, which is not among the options, and breadth is an odd thing to be wonderstruck by.

Concept

A blank of this kind is settled in two moves.

First, read what the slot demands grammatically. After the determiner the and before an of-phrase, it demands a noun, which strikes out wide.

Second, choose between the survivors on meaning. white, wait and weight can all be nouns, so only the sense separates them — a colour, a delay, a heaviness — and only heaviness explains being wonderstruck.

The sentence prints The group of travellers were, where many writers would use was, since a collective noun commonly takes a singular verb.

That wording is the paper's own and the item is not testing it, so leave it alone.

Key facts

Weight is a noun meaning how heavy something is.
Wait is normally a verb, and as a noun it means a period of delay.
White is a noun as well as an adjective - the white of an egg, the whites of his eyes.
A slot between the determiner the and an of-phrase must be filled by a noun.

Study next

Homophone pairs worth drilling: wait and weight, principal and principle, stationary and stationeryUsing the grammar of a blank to cut options before meaning is consideredAdjective-to-noun forms such as wide and width, deep and depth

Common traps

Hearing the sentence instead of reading it, which makes wait and weight indistinguishable.
Picking white because coins can be described by colour, when the sentence asks what could astonish someone holding one.

SSC sets confusable spellings either as a fill-in-the-blank, as here, or as a straight spelling choice.

The spelling version also appears at 10 Sep 2024, 16:00, English Q.13 and English Q.15.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.