SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 17 September 2024, Shift 2 · English Comprehension · Question 8 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 given word. Attack

(a)Defence
(b)Ambush
(c)Engagement
(d)Production

Answer

Why

Correct — A. Attack is aggressive action against a target; defence is the work of resisting it.

They are the standard opposed pair — an army on the attack against an army in defence, a team's attack against a team's defence.

The other options stay inside the vocabulary of combat without reversing anything, which is what makes them tempting. Belonging to the same subject is not the same as being an opposite. Option (a) is the reversal.

Why the others are wrong

(b)
Ambush — An ambush is a surprise attack made from a concealed position. It is a kind of attack, so it moves further along the same direction instead of turning back against it.
(c)
Engagement — In military use an engagement is a fight or encounter between forces. Fighting is not the opposite of attacking, and the everyday senses of an appointment or a betrothal are further off still.
(d)
Production — Production means manufacturing or output. It shares no field at all with attack, and can be struck out before you weigh the remaining options.

Concept

Antonym items are decided by direction, not by subject matter. Attack, ambush and engagement all belong to the vocabulary of combat, and that shared field is exactly the trap.

Attack and defence are a converse pair: the two roles in any confrontation. Whichever side is attacking, the other is defending. Ambush names a manner of attacking and engagement names the clash itself, so neither of them reverses the word.

Note the spelling as printed: defence is British, defense American.

Attack has a medical sense too — a heart attack, an attack of fever — where the natural opposite would be recovery rather than defence. The bare word with no sentence leaves the combat sense, and the option set confirms it.

Key facts

Attack and defence are converse roles: one side attacks while the other defends.
An ambush is a surprise attack made from a hidden position.
In military use an engagement is a battle or encounter between opposing forces.
Defence is the British spelling and defense the American one.

Study next

Converse antonym pairs: attack and defence, buy and sell, lend and borrowAntonym sets where three options share a subject field with the given wordBritish and American spelling pairs: defence and defense, offence and offense

Common traps

Choosing 'ambush' because it is the most vivid war word in the set.
Reading 'engagement' only as an appointment or a betrothal and dismissing it for the wrong reason.

SSC gives the bare word and draws the option set from a single subject field, so the field cannot be your filter. Direction is.

Attack turns up on the other side of the question at 12 Sep 2024, 09:00, English Q.1, where it is the keyed antonym of 'Secure'.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.