Select the most appropriate synonym of the word in brackets to fill in the blank. The________(crux) of his argument was that education should continue throughout life.
- (a)essence
- (b)etiquette
- (c)proposal
- (d)draft
Answer
Why
Correct — A. The crux of an argument is its decisive central point — the thing everything else turns on.
Essence carries the same sense: the intrinsic heart of something. "The essence of his argument was that education should continue throughout life" says what the bracketed word says.
The blank sits between The and of his argument, so it needs an abstract noun naming a part of the argument itself, not a document or a manner. Option (a) is the fit.
Why the others are wrong
- (b)etiquette — Etiquette is the code of polite behaviour in a society or profession. It describes conduct, not the central point of an argument.
- (c)proposal — Proposal is a plan or suggestion put forward. An argument may contain one, but proposal does not mean the decisive point that crux names.
- (d)draft — Draft is a preliminary version of a text. It names a stage of writing, not the substance at the heart of an argument.
Concept
The bracketed-word format asks for a synonym that also survives the sentence, so you apply two filters instead of one.
First, meaning. Crux is the decisive point on which a matter turns, from the Latin for cross. Essence — the intrinsic nature or heart of a thing — sits on that meaning.
Second, fit. The slot is "The ___ of his argument", which wants an abstract noun that a whole argument can have. Proposal and draft are countable things an argument might contain, which reads differently.
Essence also means a concentrated extract, as in vanilla essence. That sense is irrelevant here, and rejecting the option because of it is the commonest way to lose this mark.
Key facts
- Crux means the decisive or most important point at issue, from Latin crux, a cross.
- Essence is the intrinsic nature or indispensable quality of something.
- Etiquette is the customary code of polite behaviour, unrelated to the structure of an argument.
Study next
Common traps
- Choosing proposal because arguments contain proposals, when the sentence asks what the argument's core was rather than what it recommended.
- Reading essence as the perfume or extract sense and ruling it out.
SSC sometimes prints the target word in brackets beside the blank, so the answer has to be a synonym that also reads naturally in the slot.
Plain synonym items run at English Q.3 (Expertise) and Q.19 (Paramount) of this shift.
Related PYQs
No directly related past PYQ was found.