SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 11 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 will improve the underlined part of the given sentence. When I saw him, I will ask him to return the book he borrowed.

(a)see him
(b)had seen him
(c)shall see him
(d)have seen him

Answer

Why

Correct — A. The trigger is when heading a time clause about the future. English keeps will and shall out of such a clause: the future is carried by the main verb will ask, and the when-clause takes the simple present.

So the underlined saw him becomes see him — "When I see him, I will ask him to return the book he borrowed." That is option (a).

As printed, a past form stands beside a future one with nothing to justify the jump, which is the mismatch you can hear when you read the sentence aloud.

Why the others are wrong

(b)
had seen him — "had seen him" is the past perfect, which places the seeing before some other past event. Nothing in the sentence is past, and will ask is future.
(c)
shall see him — "shall see him" puts a future auxiliary inside the time clause, which is precisely what the when-rule forbids. The future belongs in the main clause only.
(d)
have seen him — "have seen him" is the present perfect, right only when the first action must finish before the second. Here the asking happens during the meeting, not after it.

Concept

After when, before, after, until, till, as soon as, once and by the time, English uses a present form for future time. The will sits in the main clause.

Present simple covers a single action: "When I see him, I will ask him." Present perfect is used when completion matters: "When I have finished, I will call you."

The rule is about the time clause, not the word when. In a noun clause, will is perfectly correct: "I don't know when he will arrive."

If-clauses of the first conditional follow the same restriction, which is why "If it rains, I will stay" never becomes "If it will rain".

Key facts

After when, before, after, until, as soon as and once, future time takes a present form, not will.
The future auxiliary stays in the main clause: When I see him, I will ask him.
Present perfect appears in the time clause when the first action must be complete: When I have finished, I will call you.
With when introducing a noun clause, will is allowed: I don't know when he will arrive.

Study next

First-conditional if-clauses and the same ban on willTelling a time clause apart from a noun clause introduced by whenSequence of tenses when a past main verb governs the subordinate clause

Common traps

Assuming will must appear twice because the whole sentence is about the future.
Choosing shall see because shall sounds more formal and therefore safer.
Fixing the main clause instead of the underlined segment, which the instruction does not allow.

The underline marks the segment SSC wants rewritten, so read the main clause first — it fixes the time everything else must fit.

A related substitution item runs in this shift at English Q.9, where the underlined segment is replaced by an idiom, keyed Made a scapegoat.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.