SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 12 September 2024, Shift 1 · English Comprehension · Question 9 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.

Select the INCORRECTLY spelt word.

(a)Succeed
(b)Preceed
(c)Proceed
(d)Exceed

Answer

Why

Correct — B. Preceed is the altered word. The spelling is precede, ending in -cede.

Only three verbs in English end in -ceed: exceed, proceed and succeed. Every other verb in this family ends in -cede, such as precede, recede, concede and intercede, and a single verb ends in -sede, which is supersede.

Options (a), (c) and (d) are those three -ceed verbs, all correct. Precede is not one of them, so option (b) is what the question is pointing at.

Why the others are wrong

(a)
Succeed — Succeed is printed correctly and is one of the three genuine -ceed verbs. It is here to make the -ceed ending look ordinary enough to accept in Preceed.
(c)
Proceed — Proceed is printed correctly, a second genuine -ceed verb. Its noun procedure drops to a single e, but the verb itself keeps the double e.
(d)
Exceed — Exceed is printed correctly, the third of the -ceed verbs. No letter in it has been altered, so it is not what the question asks for.

Concept

These verbs all descend from Latin cedere, to go or to yield, and English has split their endings three ways.

Three verbs take -ceed: exceed, proceed, succeed.

One verb takes -sede: supersede.

Everything else takes -cede: precede, recede, concede, accede, intercede, secede.

The split cannot be derived, only learnt, and since -cede and -ceed are pronounced identically the ear will not rescue you.

The item works by planting two of the three real -ceed verbs next to the word that looks like it should join them.

If you can recite the three-verb list, the question takes five seconds. If you cannot, all four options look equally plausible.

Key facts

Precede is spelt with -cede and means to come before.
Exceed, proceed and succeed are the three English verbs ending in -ceed.
Supersede is the one English verb ending in -sede.
Proceed keeps its double e, but the related noun procedure has a single e.

Study next

The cede family and its meanings: concede, recede, intercede and secedeVerb-to-noun spelling shifts, such as proceed against procedureOther sound-alike endings that have to be memorised, such as -ance against -ence

Common traps

Generalising from succeed and proceed to preceed, which is the exact error this item plants
Second-guessing supersede into superceed, the same confusion running the other way

Supersede appears as a correctly spelt option at 13 Sep 2024, 12:30, English Q.17, where the keyed misspelling is Occurence, so the family turns up as scenery as well as as an answer.

The four-word spelling format itself recurs across dates, as at 9 Sep 2024, 12:30, English Q.6 (Abismal) and at 12 Sep 2024, 16:00, English Q.6 (Countemptible).

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.