SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 17 September 2024, Shift 2 · English Comprehension · Question 2 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.

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. We should plan our actions judiciously before going to war.

(a)Irrelevant
(b)Irreverent
(c)Irritatingly
(d)Irrational

Answer

Why

Correct — D. The word under test is judiciously, from Latin 'judicium', judgement. To act judiciously is to act with sound judgement — sensibly, with reason applied.

So the opposite has to remove reason, and 'irrational' is built on exactly that root.

Every option here opens with ir-, so the prefix decides nothing. The roots do: relevance, reverence, irritation, reason. Only the last names the thing 'judicious' is made of, which is option (d).

Why the others are wrong

(a)
Irrelevant — Irrelevant negates relevance — not connected to the matter in hand. A war plan can be entirely relevant and still be foolish, so this does not reverse 'judiciously'.
(b)
Irreverent — Irreverent negates reverence — showing no respect for what others hold sacred. It is a comment on manners and attitude, not on the quality of a decision.
(c)
Irritatingly — Irritatingly means annoyingly. It is the option that copies the -ly adverb ending, which is why it tempts, but being annoying is not the opposite of judging well.

Concept

An antonym item tests the root, not the prefix. All four options can be negative and still only one of them can negate the right idea.

Judicious and its adverb judiciously come from the same Latin stem as judge, judgement and judicial: deciding well after weighing a matter. Its opposites are injudicious, imprudent, unwise, and — where reason is abandoned altogether — irrational.

Judicious is not judicial. Judicial means relating to courts and judges, and has no bearing on whether a decision was wise.

The option set does not preserve the adverb form: 'irrational' is an adjective while the word under test is an adverb. The key goes by sense, so matching -ly to -ly steers you to the wrong root.

Key facts

Judicious means showing good judgement, and its adverb is judiciously.
Judicious and judicial are different words, judicial meaning relating to courts and judges.
Irrational means not governed by reason, the direct negative of rational.

Study next

Reading the root under a shared negative prefix: rational, reverent, relevant, responsibleJudicious against judicial, and other adjective pairs grown from one Latin stemAntonym items where all four options carry the same prefix

Common traps

Matching the -ly ending and choosing 'irritatingly'.
Reading 'judiciously' as 'judicially' and hunting for a courtroom word.
Treating the shared ir- prefix as evidence when every option carries it.

SSC builds antonym sets in which the four options share a prefix or an ending, so the discrimination has to happen at the root rather than at the edges of the word.

'Judicious' is also asked 25 Sep 2024, 16:00, English Q.2, there as a synonym item keyed to 'prudent'.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.