SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 11 September 2024, Shift 2 · English Comprehension · Question 13 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 INCORRECTLY spelt word from the given sentence . She recieved an award for her outstanding performance.

(a)outstanding
(b)award
(c)recieved
(d)performance

Answer

Why

Correct — C. The misspelt word is recieved.

The rule is i before e, except after c. After a c the pair is written ei — receive, receipt, deceive, ceiling — so the correct form is received, not recieved.

Outstanding, award and performance are all spelt correctly in the sentence, which leaves option (c) as the single word to mark.

Why the others are wrong

(a)
outstanding — Outstanding is correct as printed. It is a plain compound of out and standing, with no letter doubled or dropped.
(b)
award — Award is correct as printed. The word candidates confuse it with is reward, which is a meaning question rather than a spelling one.
(d)
performance — Performance is correct as printed: perform plus -ance. The frequent misspelling is performence, and the sentence does not commit it.

Concept

The i-before-e pattern is one of the few English spelling rules worth memorising outright.

After c, write ei: receive, receipt, deceive, conceive, perceive, ceiling.

Elsewhere, for the ee sound, write ie: believe, achieve, relieve, niece, field.

The rule covers the ee sound only, so it says nothing about weight or height, and seize and weird break it outright.

Printing the misspelling inside a normal sentence is the whole difficulty: the eye reads for sense and slides over the word. Read the four options as isolated words before you decide.

Key facts

Received is spelt with ei after the c.
The i before e except after c rule applies to words with an ee sound.
Seize and weird take ei without a preceding c and are standard exceptions.

Study next

The ie and ei words SSC repeats: believe, achieve, receipt, ceilingDouble-consonant spellings such as occurrence and accommodationSentence-embedded spelling items, where four words are underlined and one is wrong

Common traps

Reading the sentence for meaning and never comparing the four options letter by letter
Extending i before e to weight or height, where the sound is not ee

SSC asks spelling both as a bare four-word list and inside a sentence like this one. This very word is tested on 9 Sep 2024, 16:00 at English Q.1, where the sentence prints receieved and the answer is the correct spelling, received.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.