SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 13 September 2024, Shift 3 · English Comprehension · Question 3 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.

Select the most appropriate ANTONYM of the underlined word. If someone babbles, it means that they talk in a confused or excited way.

(a)Rants
(b)Talkative
(c)Quiet
(d)Gossips

Answer

Why

Correct — C. The sentence defines the word for you: to babble is to talk, and to talk in a confused or excited rush.

The opposite of that is not a different manner of talking. It is the absence of talking.

Quiet reverses the whole action rather than adjusting it, which is what an antonym of a speech verb has to do → option (c).

Why the others are wrong

(a)
Rants — To rant is to talk at length and angrily. It is one more manner of talking, so it sits on the same side of the contrast as babbles, not across from it.
(b)
Talkative — Talkative describes someone who talks a great deal. That runs with the underlined word rather than against it, and an antonym item rewards the reverse.
(d)
Gossips — To gossip is to talk about other people's private affairs. The subject matter changes and the talking continues, so nothing is reversed.

Concept

Three of the four options are manners of speaking, and that is the design of the item.

When an antonym question offers several near-relatives of the given word, the answer is usually the one that steps outside the whole family. Here quiet is the only option that stops the speech instead of recolouring it.

babble carries other senses too — a baby's first sounds, the running murmur of a stream — but the sentence pins it to confused or excited talk, and the antonym must answer the sense the sentence fixes.

The options are not all the same part of speech: babbles is a verb, quiet and talkative are adjectives. The key here is the sense-level opposite, so do not eliminate an option merely because it changes word class.

Key facts

Babble means to talk rapidly in a confused or excited way.
The same verb describes the continuous murmur of a stream, which is where babbling brook comes from.
Rant, gossip and prattle are manners of talking, so they group with babble rather than against it.

Study next

Speech verbs and their shades: babble, prattle, mumble, mutter, rantAntonym items whose wrong options are near-synonyms of the given wordReticent, taciturn and laconic as adjectives for the opposite of talkative

Common traps

Picking talkative because it is the most obviously speech-related option on the list
Rejecting quiet on the grounds that it is an adjective and babbles is a verb
Reading babble as the sound of a stream and hunting for a water-related opposite

The underlined word is often explained inside the sentence itself, so the sentence doubles as a definition you can lean on.

Antonyms of underlined words also run at 09 Sep 2024, 12:30, English Q.7 (inquisitive, keyed to Disinterested) and 11 Sep 2024, 09:00, English Q.3 (cruel, keyed to Kind).

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.