SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 13 September 2024, Shift 3 · English Comprehension · Question 11 of 98

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.

Choose the most appropriate ANTONYM for the underlined word in the given sentence. The war was followed by a long period of prosperity.

(a)Affluence
(b)Security
(c)Secure
(d)Failure

Answer

Why

Correct — D. The underlined word is the noun prosperity, the state of flourishing and doing well, so the opposite wanted is a noun naming the state of not doing well.

Failure is that noun. 'The war was followed by a long period of failure' reverses the sense and still fits the slot after 'a long period of', which takes an abstract noun. Option (d) satisfies both tests.

Why the others are wrong

(a)
Affluence — Affluence means wealth and abundance, which is a synonym of prosperity rather than its opposite. SSC plants the nearest synonym first because a hurried reader matches on topic alone.
(b)
Security — Security is safety from danger, so it opposes the war in the first half of the sentence, not the prosperity in the second. A country can be secure and poor at once.
(c)
Secure — Secure is an adjective where the underlined word is a noun, so it cannot fill the slot after 'a long period of'. In sense it means safe, which is not unprosperous either.

Concept

An antonym set inside a sentence tests two things at once: the sense of the word and its grammatical form.

The slot here is 'a long period of ___', which takes an abstract noun. That alone removes any adjective on the list before meaning is weighed at all.

Then read the sense narrowly. Prosperity is about flourishing, usually in wealth or wellbeing, so its opposites run through failure, adversity, poverty and decline — not through danger, which is what security opposes.

SSC often loads an antonym list with one exact synonym of the underlined word.

Affluence is that plant here, and it catches candidates who read the option list before they read the sentence.

Key facts

Prosperity means the state of flourishing, especially in wealth or wellbeing.
Affluence is a synonym of prosperity, not an antonym.
The slot 'a long period of ___' requires a noun, which rules out the adjective secure.
Common antonyms of prosperity include failure, adversity, poverty and decline.

Study next

Noun and adjective pairs: prosperity and prosperous, security and secure, affluence and affluentAntonym sets built around wealth: affluence, penury, destitution, adversityUsing the grammar of the blank to eliminate options before reading meaning

Common traps

Picking affluence because it is the option most obviously about prosperity.
Choosing security because the sentence mentions war, which is what security actually opposes.

SSC runs the antonym both as a bare word and as a word underlined inside a sentence. 13 Sep 2024, 16:00 sets the sentence form again at EC Q.3 (babbles) and the bare-word form at EC Q.16 (Affirmative).

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.