SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 17 September 2024, Shift 3 · English Comprehension · Question 10 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 option that can be used as a one-word substitute for the given group of words. A thing fit to eat.

(a)Unpalatable
(b)Edible
(c)Uneatable
(d)Toxic

Answer

Why

Correct — B. The trigger is the suffix. -ible / -able on a verb root means 'capable of being' or 'fit to be'.

Edible is Latin edere, to eat, plus -ible: literally fit to be eaten.

That is the group of words given, near enough word for word. The other three either deny fitness or grade how a thing tastes, and only option (b) states it.

Why the others are wrong

(a)
Unpalatable — Unpalatable means unpleasant to the taste. A dish can be perfectly fit to eat and still taste bad, so the word grades enjoyment, not fitness.
(c)
Uneatable — The prefix un- reverses the idea. 'Uneatable' means not fit to be eaten, which is the opposite of the phrase given.
(d)
Toxic — Toxic means poisonous. That is the strongest possible denial of 'fit to eat', not a substitute for it.

Concept

One-word substitution rewards suffix sense more than a memorised list. -ible and -able both mean 'able to be' or 'fit to be': audible is fit to be heard, portable is able to be carried, edible is fit to be eaten.

Read the suffix first and the question shrinks to 'which root is hiding here?' — eat, so ed-. As a rough guide, -ible sits on Latin stems that no longer stand alone in English (aud-, ed-, vis-), while -able attaches to whole English words (readable, washable).

English does have 'eatable', which means much the same as edible, but the paper offers only its negative, uneatable. Reading the prefix before the root settles the option in one pass.

Key facts

Edible comes from Latin edere, to eat, and means fit or safe to be eaten.
The suffixes -able and -ible both mean 'able to be' or 'fit to be'.
Unpalatable describes taste, not fitness: an unpalatable dish may still be edible.
Inedible and uneatable are the negatives of the idea this phrase asks for.

Study next

One-word substitutes built on -able and -ible: audible, portable, legible, tangibleSeparating edible, eatable, palatable and digestible inside a sentenceNegative prefixes that flip a substitute word: in-, un-, non-

Common traps

Picking a word that grades taste when the phrase asks about fitness.
Missing the negative prefix on 'uneatable' and reading it as the positive form.
Treating 'toxic' as close enough because it is about food, when it is an antonym.

SSC builds this item on the -able / -ible suffix again and again. 'Loud enough to be heard' takes Audible at 26 Sep 2024, 12:30, English Q.3, and 'A thing that can be easily carried by hands' takes Portable at 23 Sep 2024, 12:30, English Q.5.

The negative is asked the same way: 'Incapable of being defeated' takes Invincible at 12 Sep 2024, 16:00, English Q.18.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.