SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 11 September 2024, Shift 1 · English Comprehension · Question 15 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.

Select the most appropriate synonym of the given word. Adversity

(a)Pleasure
(b)Misfortune
(c)Success
(d)Advantage

Answer

Why

Correct — B. Adversity is a state of hardship or misfortune — difficulty that happens to you, not difficulty you cause. Misfortune names the same thing.

Substitution confirms it: "he kept his humour in adversity" and "he kept his humour in misfortune" read alike.

The remaining three — pleasure, success, advantage — are all positive, which is the signal that they sit on the antonym side of the word.

Why the others are wrong

(a)
Pleasure — Pleasure is enjoyment or satisfaction, an opposite of adversity in feeling. A synonym item that lists the opposite catches anyone matching on topic rather than on sense.
(c)
Success — Success is the achievement of an aim. Adversity is the condition one succeeds in spite of, which is why the two words share so many sentences while meaning opposite things.
(d)
Advantage — Advantage is a favourable circumstance, a benefit. Adversity is an unfavourable circumstance, so the pair sits at opposite ends of one scale.

Concept

Adversity is the noun for hardship. Its adjective adverse means unfavourable or harmful, as in adverse weather or an adverse reaction.

Keep it apart from averse, which means unwilling or opposed and takes the preposition to, as in averse to risk. The two are a letter apart in spelling and unrelated in meaning.

An item like this is really asking whether you can separate hardship words from success words when three of the four options come from the pleasant end.

Adversity is abstract and uncountable in normal use, while misfortune works both ways — a misfortune can name a single unlucky event. The item is not testing that distinction, but it explains why the two are not always interchangeable.

Key facts

Adversity means a state of hardship, difficulty or misfortune.
The adjective adverse means unfavourable or harmful, as in adverse effects.
Averse means strongly disliking or opposed, and takes the preposition to.
Misfortune means bad luck, or an unfortunate event or condition.

Study next

Hardship vocabulary: adversity, affliction, tribulation, plightConfusable pairs: adverse and averseDeriving the adjective from an abstract noun: adversity and adverse

Common traps

Confusing adverse with averse and then reasoning about the wrong meaning.
Choosing success because the phrase success in the face of adversity is so familiar.
Reading advantage as neutral rather than as the positive end of the scale.

SSC tests the same word family through idioms as well as through single words.

Blessing in disguise is keyed as an apparent misfortune that eventually has good results at 19 Sep 2024, 09:00, English Q.16 — the same idea of hardship, reached through an idiom instead of a synonym.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.