SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 13 September 2024, Shift 2 · English Comprehension · Question 7 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 10 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.

Parts of the following sentence have been given as options. Select the option that contains an error. I have the hundred reasons to not attend the meeting tomorrow.

(a)the meeting
(b)I have the hundred reasons
(c)to not attend
(d)tomorrow

Answer

Why

Correct — B. The fault is the article. Before hundred used as a round, indefinite quantity, English takes a hundred or one hundred, never the hundred.

The is definite: it points at a set of reasons already identified for the listener, and nothing earlier in the sentence has introduced one.

Corrected, keeping the rest of the sentence as printed: I have a hundred reasons to not attend the meeting tomorrow. Option (b) is the segment carrying the fault.

Why the others are wrong

(a)
the meeting — the meeting is correctly definite. Tomorrow's meeting is a specific one that both speaker and listener have in mind, which is precisely the work the does.
(c)
to not attend — to not attend puts not inside the infinitive. That split is standard modern English and breaks no rule, so this segment is not the one keyed.
(d)
tomorrow — tomorrow is an adverb of time sitting in its normal end position. It takes no preposition in English, and none is used here.

Concept

Error-spotting items on articles turn on one question: is this noun already identified for the listener?

The says yes, this one, the one you already know. A or an says one of a class, newly introduced. Round numbers used loosely take a — a hundred reasons, a thousand times, a dozen excuses.

The same rule explains why the meeting is fine in the very same sentence. That meeting is fixed for tomorrow and both speakers know which one it is, so the definite article earns its place.

The sentence is otherwise idiomatic, which is the design. Items like this reward a deliberate scan of the small words — articles, prepositions, auxiliaries — rather than a hunt for a broken verb.

Key facts

Before hundred, thousand and million used indefinitely, English uses a or one, not the.
The marks a noun already identified for the listener, by earlier mention or by shared knowledge.
The hundred reasons is correct only where a specific set of a hundred has already been named.

Study next

Articles with numbers and quantifiers: a hundred, a few, a couple ofZero article before plural and uncountable nouns used in a general senseError spotting on prepositions that follow common verbs

Common traps

Reading to not attend as the error because not to attend sounds more familiar.
Skipping past the articles because error-spotting practice trains the eye onto verbs first.

In both of the next two items the article is the keyed fault.

At 24 Sep 2024, 12:30, English Q.18 the error is the engineer in Deepak is studying B.tech. at IIT Delhi to become the engineer, where an is needed.

At 19 Sep 2024, 09:00, English Q.18 the keyed segment is the interior of a restaurant, where the second mention of the restaurant should be definite.

The four-segment layout of the same task runs at English Q.16 of this 13 Sep 2024, 12:30 paper.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.