SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 11 September 2024, Shift 3 · English Comprehension · Question 3 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 synonym of the given word. Expertise

(a)Clumsiness
(b)Proficiency
(c)Lack
(d)Ignorance

Answer

Why

Correct — B. Expertise is a high degree of skill or knowledge in a particular field, and proficiency is competence or skill at doing something. Both name a capability the person has.

The other three words run the other way — they name an absence of skill or knowledge — so the item is settled by direction before any shade of meaning is weighed.

Option (b) is the one word on the same side of that line.

Why the others are wrong

(a)
Clumsiness — Clumsiness is awkwardness of movement or handling, the absence of deft skill, which puts it on the antonym side of expertise.
(c)
Lack — Lack is a noun of shortage — the absence of something — and it does not name a skill at all.
(d)
Ignorance — Ignorance is want of knowledge, the direct opposite of the informed command that expertise describes.

Concept

A synonym item is a two-step: fix the direction of the given word, then match its domain.

Expertise points positive and its domain is skill or knowledge. Clumsiness and ignorance point negative, and lack points negative without naming a domain at all.

Proficiency is the positive skill-word on the list, so it wins before you argue about degree — and degree is where candidates lose time here.

Expertise normally sits above proficiency in degree. This item does not test that difference, because no other option names skill at all, but keep the ranking in mind when a paper offers mastery and proficiency in the same list.

Key facts

Expertise is expert skill or knowledge in a particular area.
Proficiency is competence or skill, usually the level at which you can do the thing well.
Ignorance is want of knowledge, which makes it an antonym of expertise rather than a near miss.

Study next

The skill ladder: competence, proficiency, expertise, mastery, virtuosityAntonym pairs for ability: expertise and ineptitude, proficiency and incompetenceAbstract-noun endings -ence and -ise in ability words

Common traps

Rejecting proficiency because expertise sounds stronger, when no other option is even positive.
Reading Lack as shorthand for lack of expertise, when the option is the bare noun and carries no such completion.

SSC gives a bare word and four options, and the wrong ones here cluster on the opposite side of the meaning — which is why direction is worth checking first.

Straight synonym items also run at English Q.10 (eloquent) and Q.19 (Paramount) of this shift.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.