SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 11 September 2024, Shift 1 · English Comprehension · Question 13 of 95

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 10 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.

Identify the correct synonym of the word given below. FATIGUE

(a)Mission
(b)Obese
(c)Vigour
(d)Tiredness

Answer

Why

Correct — D. Fatigue is extreme tiredness — the state left by hard work, long hours or illness. Tiredness says that in plain words, so it is the synonym.

Test by substitution: "recovering from fatigue" and "recovering from tiredness" carry the same meaning.

The rest are not weaker synonyms. They come from different fields altogether, and one of them, vigour, points the opposite way.

Why the others are wrong

(a)
Mission — Mission is an assigned task or a sense of purpose. It shares no sense with tiredness, and no context lets fatigue stand in for it.
(b)
Obese — Obese means very overweight. It is an adjective describing body mass, while fatigue is a noun naming a state of exhaustion.
(c)
Vigour — Vigour is active physical strength and energy — the opposite of fatigue. A synonym question that offers the antonym punishes anyone who matches on topic instead of sense.

Concept

Fatigue came into English from French and its core sense is weariness after exertion.

English also uses it technically: metal fatigue is the weakening of a material under repeated cycles of stress. The general sense is the one an SSC synonym item wants.

A synonym question is settled by substitution, not by association. Put each option into a sentence the headword fits and keep the one that leaves the meaning unchanged. Options naming the opposite state, like vigour, are there for the candidate who scans for anything nearby in topic.

Fatigue is also a plural noun in military use, where fatigues are work clothes. Nothing in this item points that way, and the options give no reason to reach for it.

Key facts

Fatigue means extreme tiredness caused by exertion, stress or illness.
Vigour means active physical strength and energy, so it is an antonym of fatigue.
Metal fatigue is the weakening of a material under repeated cycles of stress.
Obese is an adjective describing excessive body weight, not a state of tiredness.

Study next

States of the body as synonym and antonym pairs: fatigue, lethargy, vigour, vitalityWord forms of one root: fatigue, fatigued, fatiguingSubstitution as the working test for a synonym

Common traps

Choosing vigour because it belongs to the same subject area as fatigue.
Treating obese as a synonym because both words turn up in health writing.
Answering from the technical sense of metal fatigue when the question gives no context.

SSC asks vocabulary as a bare headword, as here, and also as a word underlined inside a sentence.

A word keyed correct in one paper can appear as a decoy in another — Fatigue is offered as a wrong option for Merit at 11 Sep 2024, 12:30, English Q.1.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.