SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 12 September 2024, Shift 2 · English Comprehension · Question 10 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 ANTONYM of the given word. Paralysed

(a)Demure
(b)Healthy
(c)Stifled
(d)Sultry

Answer

Why

Correct — B. Paralysed means robbed of the power to move or act — a limb that will not respond, or by extension a city brought to a standstill.

The opposite the item wants is the state of a body that works as it should. Healthy names exactly that: sound in body, functioning normally.

Of the other three, Stifled runs with paralysed rather than against it, while Demure and Sultry describe manner, not capacity. That leaves option (b) as the only one that reverses the given word.

Why the others are wrong

(a)
Demure — Demure means modest and reserved in manner. It describes how a person carries themselves, not whether the body can move, so it is unrelated to paralysed in either direction.
(c)
Stifled — Stifled means smothered or suppressed — held back from acting. That runs in the same direction as paralysed, not against it, which is what makes it the trap on this list.
(d)
Sultry — Sultry describes hot, close weather, and by extension a sensual manner. It belongs to a different field of meaning altogether and has no opposite relation to paralysed.

Concept

SSC's bare-word antonym item gives you no sentence, so you must fix the word's core idea first and then look for the option that reverses it.

The core idea in paralysed is lost power to move or act. Reverse that and you get working, able, functioning — which is the ground Healthy covers.

The standard decoy on such a list is a near-synonym dressed up as an opposite. Here that is Stifled, which also means held back.

A stricter opposite of paralysed would be a word like mobile or able-bodied, which is not on offer. When the exact converse is absent, SSC expects the broadest option that still reverses the sense, and Healthy is the only candidate in that direction.

Key facts

Paralysed means deprived of the power to move, and is used figuratively of anything brought to a standstill.
Stifle means to smother or suppress, so stifled sits alongside paralysed rather than opposite it.
Demure describes a modest, reserved manner and is used of people's behaviour.
Sultry describes hot and humid weather, and by extension an alluring manner.

Study next

Near-synonym decoys in antonym items, where an option restates the word instead of reversing itAdjectives of physical state: inert, immobile, able-bodied, mobileWords that describe manner versus words that describe capacity

Common traps

Choosing Stifled because it feels like a strong, exam-sounding word, when it means suppressed.
Choosing Demure because it sounds gentle, when it answers a question about manner and not about ability.

SSC sets this either as a bare word, as here, or with the word bracketed inside a sentence — the same shift does the bracketed version at English Q.9, where the antonym of (witty) is keyed as unamusing.

The bare-word form is also asked 9 Sep 2024, 16:00, English Q.12 (Miserable — Cheerful) and 10 Sep 2024, 12:30, English Q.5 (Risible — Serious).

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.