SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 12 September 2024, Shift 3 · English Comprehension · Question 22 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. Gandhi, (1)_________ father of the Indian nation, practiced ‘ahimsa’ in his personal and political life. He firmly believed that non-violence is not meant merely for monks, saints and priests; it is for commoners too. If violence is the law of the (2)_______-beasts, non-violence is the law of the civilised human species. ‘The spirit of the brute is inactive and so he knows no law; he knows only physical might. The dignity of man requires obedience to a higher law, to strength of the spirit,’ Gandhi said. Ahimsa, to Gandhiji, meant that one should love all; even (3)________ enemies. And the expression of love, ahimsa, should be in such a manner that it impresses itself indelibly upon the so-called enemy, and then the enemy must return that love. It is a practically (4)________ philosophy. Gandhi was realistic; he believed that non-violence provides the fullest protection to one’s self-respect and sense of humour. It won’t work in the defence of (5)_______ gains and immoral acts. He called his marches off when people indulged in violence during protests for India’s freedom. His faith in ‘ahimsa’ played an influential role in enabling the creation of an independent India in 1947, with minimum bloodshed, breaking the shackles framed by the British.

Select the most appropriate option to fill in blank number 2.

(a)forest-living
(b)life
(c)forest-lived
(d)alive

Answer

Why

Correct — A. The paper prints the blank hyphenated to its noun, (2)_______-beasts, so whatever fills it has to work as the first half of a compound adjective.

Rule: noun + present participle makes an active compound adjective, as in law-abiding citizen and man-eating tiger. Forest-living reads as living in the forest.

Sense confirms the form. The clause is set against the civilised human species, so these beasts belong to the wild. Option (a).

Why the others are wrong

(b)
life — Life-beasts joins two nouns with no relation between them, and it says nothing about where the beasts live or how they behave, which is what the contrast with the civilised human species needs.
(c)
forest-lived — Forest-lived puts a past participle where an active one is needed. A noun plus -ed compound reads either as a passive (state-owned = owned by the state) or as having a something (long-lived, kind-hearted), and neither reading gets you to living in the forest.
(d)
alive — Alive is one of the a- adjectives, with awake, afraid and asleep, which stand after the verb rather than in front of a noun. Alive-beasts fails on that alone.

Concept

Compound adjectives before a noun are built to a few fixed patterns, and the participle tells you which way the action runs.

Noun plus -ing is active: a man-eating tiger eats men, a forest-living beast lives in the forest.

Noun plus -ed is passive: a state-owned bank is owned by the state. A second, narrower -ed pattern means having a something, as in long-lived and kind-hearted.

So the choice between -living and -lived is not a matter of style. Neither -ed reading delivers the sense wanted here, which is beasts that live in the forest.

Read the blank with the hyphen and the noun already attached. The paper prints (2)_______-beasts, so the answer must survive as the first element of a compound, not as a free-standing word.

Key facts

A noun plus a present participle forms an active compound adjective, as in law-abiding and man-eating.
A noun plus a past participle forms a passive compound adjective and needs a transitive verb, as in state-owned.
Not every noun plus -ed compound is passive: long-lived and kind-hearted mean having a long life and having a kind heart, which is still not the active sense forest-living carries.
Adjectives beginning with a-, such as alive, awake, afraid and asleep, are normally used after a verb rather than before a noun.

Study next

Compound adjectives built with numbers and units: a five-year plan, a ten-rupee notePredicative-only adjectives: alive, awake, afraid, asleep, aloneHyphenating a compound modifier before the noun and dropping the hyphen after it

Common traps

Choosing forest-lived because a past participle looks more formal than an -ing form
Choosing alive because it is the only everyday word in the set

This blank tests the form of a compound adjective. Blank 5, at English Q.25 of this paper, is also a compound adjective, tested on collocation rather than on form.

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. Gandhi, (1)_________ father of the Indian nation, practiced ‘ahimsa’ in his personal and political life. He firmly believed that non-violence is not meant merely for monks, saints and priests; it is for commoners too. If violence is the law of the (2)_______-beasts, non-violence is the law of the civilised human species. ‘The spirit of the brute is inactive and so he knows no law; he knows only physical might. The dignity of man requires obedience to a higher law, to strength of the spirit,’ Gandhi said. Ahimsa, to Gandhiji, meant that one should love all; even (3)________ enemies. And the expression of love, ahimsa, should be in such a manner that it impresses itself indelibly upon the so-called enemy, and then the enemy must return that love. It is a practically (4)________ philosophy. Gandhi was realistic; he believed that non-violence provides the fullest protection to one’s self-respect and sense of humour. It won’t work in the defence of (5)_______ gains and immoral acts. He called his marches off when people indulged in violence during protests for India’s freedom. His faith in ‘ahimsa’ played an influential role in enabling the creation of an independent India in 1947, with minimum bloodshed, breaking the shackles framed by the British.