SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 12 September 2024, Shift 1 · English Comprehension · Question 13 of 99

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.

The following sentence has been divided into four segments. Identify the segment that contains an error. Mrs. Sreelakshmi’s / musical intelligence / is superior than / Mrs. Suma’s.

(a)Mrs. Sreelakshmi’s
(b)musical intelligence
(c)Mrs. Suma’s.
(d)is superior than

Answer

Why

Correct — D. The faulty segment is is superior than.

Superior was already a comparative in Latin and was borrowed whole, so its comparison word is to, never 'than'. English keeps 'than' for the comparatives it builds itself with -er or 'more'.

Repair the segment to is superior to and the sentence is clean, with nothing else needing to change. Option (d) is the segment carrying the error.

Why the others are wrong

(a)
Mrs. Sreelakshmi’s — 'Mrs. Sreelakshmi's' is a correct possessive — a singular name takes apostrophe + s — and it is the right form for the owner of the intelligence being compared.
(b)
musical intelligence — 'Musical intelligence' is an ordinary adjective + noun phrase, singular here, and it agrees with the singular verb 'is' that follows.
(c)
Mrs. Suma’s. — 'Mrs. Suma's' is a possessive with the noun 'intelligence' understood after it, which is standard English in a comparison. The apostrophe is correctly placed.

Concept

English builds comparatives two ways. Native adjectives take -er or more, and a second set was imported from Latin already comparative.

The imported ones end in -ior: superior, inferior, senior, junior, prior, anterior, posterior. They take to as their comparison word, never 'than', and they never add 'more'.

So: senior to me, prior to the meeting, inferior to the original. 'More superior' and 'superior than' are wrong for the same reason — both treat an existing comparative as if it were a positive-degree adjective.

The item asks for the segment that contains the error, not for a corrected sentence, so identify the segment and stop. The remaining segments are two possessives and a noun phrase, all sound.

Key facts

Latin comparatives ending in -ior take to: superior to, inferior to, senior to, junior to, prior to.
Those words are already comparative, so 'more superior' is wrong as well.
'Preferable' behaves the same way and takes to — tea is preferable to coffee.
A singular name still takes apostrophe + s in the possessive: Mrs. Suma's.

Study next

The -ior list in full: superior, inferior, senior, junior, prior, anterior, posteriorDouble comparatives and double superlatives: more better, most bestElliptical comparison, where the second noun is left understood

Common traps

Hunting for a spelling or apostrophe fault in the two names and never reaching the preposition.
Accepting 'superior than' because it is common in speech and sounds natural.

SSC repeats this exact preposition fault across shifts: 'superior than' is again the keyed error segment at 23 Sep 2024, 12:30, English Q.8 ('intellectually superior than him').

Segment-style error spotting rewards knowing the -ior list cold, because the fault is one small word inside a segment that otherwise reads well.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.