SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 12 September 2024, Shift 2 · English Comprehension · Question 25 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.

In the following passage, some words have been deleted. Read the passage carefully and select the most appropriate option to fill in each blank. People often say that the stars govern their fate but they forget the fact that success or failure is the result of one’s own (1)________. If we sow chaff, we can’t reap grain; and the result or consequence of an action depends on what one does and to the extent he (2)________ it. If we work hard, we succeed only to the extent that we work. People who think that the law of karma is (3)________ may feel that if one is destined to get something he will always get it whether he strives for it or not. But experience tells us that reward and punishments are the direct result of our action. Honesty and hard work never go unrewarded and (4)________ and evil deeds never go (5)________. In fact even the law of karma, in its proper sense, means that the fruit we get is decided by whatever actions we did in the past.

Select the most appropriate option to fill in blank number 5.

(a)vile
(b)unpunished
(c)waste
(d)punished

Answer

Why

Correct — B. The first half of the sentence sets the pattern: 'Honesty and hard work never go unrewarded'.

'Go' here is a linking verb meaning 'remain', and the participle it takes is normally an un- word — go unnoticed, go unanswered, go unrewarded.

The second half repeats the frame with the punishment word, so the blank is unpunished. 'Never go unpunished' is a double negative, and it means bad deeds are always punished.

That is precisely what the passage has just claimed — 'reward and punishments are the direct result of our action'. Option (b).

Why the others are wrong

(a)
vile — Vile describes the deeds themselves, not what happens to them, and 'go vile' would mean turn vile — the wrong idiom and the wrong subject.
(c)
waste — Waste does not fit the frame. The standard idiom is 'go to waste', and nothing here is about something being wasted.
(d)
punished — Punished is the trap. 'Never go punished' says wrongdoing is never punished, contradicting the sentence it sits in and the whole argument of the passage.

Concept

'Go' followed by a past participle is a fixed English pattern meaning 'remain in that state' — go unnoticed, go unpunished, go unchallenged.

The participle in this pattern is characteristically a negative one, built with un-, because the pattern is used to say that something failed to happen.

So the pattern already carries a negative, and the sentence's own 'never' makes a second. Two negatives give a positive: 'never go unpunished' equals 'are always punished'.

That is why (b) and (d) are not near-synonyms but exact opposites.

Blanks 4 and 5 are the two halves of one antithesis. Having taken 'dishonesty' at blank 4, you need blank 5 to complete the punishment side of it.

Key facts

'Go' plus a past participle means 'remain', as in go unnoticed and go unrewarded.
'Never go unpunished' means always punished, while 'never go punished' would mean never punished.
The standard idiom is 'go to waste', not 'go waste'.

Study next

Linking-verb 'go' and its fixed collocationsDouble negatives and how two negatives produce a positive statementThe prefixes un- and dis- used to build participial adjectives

Common traps

Reading 'never go punished' as an emphatic way of saying the same thing.
Choosing the positive participle because the passage is about punishment being certain.

A cloze set can offer a word and its negative-prefix twin in the same four options, which leaves meaning, not grammar, to decide.

The same pair is keyed at 26 Sep 2024, 12:30, EC Q.25, where 'critical voices against social and political (5)____' takes injustice and not 'justice'.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.

In the following passage, some words have been deleted. Read the passage carefully and select the most appropriate option to fill in each blank. People often say that the stars govern their fate but they forget the fact that success or failure is the result of one’s own (1)________. If we sow chaff, we can’t reap grain; and the result or consequence of an action depends on what one does and to the extent he (2)________ it. If we work hard, we succeed only to the extent that we work. People who think that the law of karma is (3)________ may feel that if one is destined to get something he will always get it whether he strives for it or not. But experience tells us that reward and punishments are the direct result of our action. Honesty and hard work never go unrewarded and (4)________ and evil deeds never go (5)________. In fact even the law of karma, in its proper sense, means that the fruit we get is decided by whatever actions we did in the past.