SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 17 September 2024, Shift 2 · English Comprehension · Question 6 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 in the sentence given below. I refuse to let anything come in the way of my dreams.

(a)permit
(b)repress
(c)accord
(d)balk

Answer

Why

Correct — A. The target is the phrase come in the way (of), which means to obstruct, to hinder, to stop something going ahead.

Its converse is to let it go ahead — to allow, to permit.

The sentence itself points at the phrase: 'I refuse to let anything come in the way of my dreams', where 'let' and 'come in the way' already pull against each other. Option (a) is the word that turns obstruction back into allowing.

Why the others are wrong

(b)
repress — Repress means to hold down or subdue by force. That is obstruction intensified, so it lands on the same side as the phrase under test rather than opposite it.
(c)
accord — Accord means to grant or bestow something on somebody — to accord a guest a warm welcome. It gives a thing to a person, where the sentence needs letting an event proceed.
(d)
balk — Balk means to hesitate or refuse to go on, and transitively to thwart a plan. Either reading obstructs progress, which is what 'come in the way' already does.

Concept

'Come in the way of' belongs to a small group of English phrases in which a physical image stands for interference: to stand in the way, to get in the way, to block someone's path. Whatever the verb, the sense is stopping progress.

An antonym item on such a phrase wants the reverse of the whole phrase, not of a single word inside it. 'Way' has no opposite. Obstruct does, and its opposites are permit, allow, facilitate and enable.

The response sheet keeps the sentence but loses the underlining, so nothing on the page marks the target. The option set restores it: permit, repress, accord and balk are all about allowing or preventing, which fixes 'come in the way' as the phrase under test.

Key facts

To come in the way of something is to obstruct or hinder it.
Permit means to allow something to happen, the direct converse of obstructing it.
Balk means to hesitate or to refuse to proceed, and can also mean to thwart.

Study next

Phrases of interference: stand in the way, get in the way, put a spanner in the worksAntonyms of hinder: permit, allow, facilitate, enable, furtherAntonym items whose target is a phrase rather than a single word

Common traps

Hunting for the opposite of one word such as 'way' or 'come' instead of the whole phrase.
Choosing 'balk' because it is the least familiar word and so feels like the intended answer.
Taking 'accord' as the converse because it sounds like granting permission, when it means bestowing a thing on a person.

SSC underlines a whole idiomatic phrase and then offers single-word options, so you have to gloss the phrase first and match the gloss rather than the words.

Hinder-and-permit vocabulary is also asked 19 Sep 2024, 12:30, English Q.14, where the antonym of 'Hinder' is keyed to 'Facilitate'.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.