SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 17 September 2024, Shift 3 · General Intelligence and Reasoning · Question 22 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.

‘Meek’ is related to ‘Bold’ in the same way as ‘Spend’ is related to ‘________’. (The words must be considered as meaningful English words and must not be related to each other based on the number of letters/number of consonants/vowels in the word.)

(a)Expend
(b)Donate
(c)Pay
(d)Hoard

Answer

Why

Correct — D. Name the relation before you read the options.

Rule: the given pair are opposites, not near-synonyms. Meek means submissive and yielding; bold means daring and assertive.

So the second pair must be opposites too. Spend is to part with money.

To hoard is to keep money back and pile it up rather than use it — the reverse of spending, and the answer is option (d).

Why the others are wrong

(a)
Expend — Expend means to spend or use up. It is a synonym of the first word, and the relation the stem sets up is the opposite one.
(b)
Donate — Donate is to give money away. That is still parting with it, so it sits on the same side of the relation as spend.
(c)
Pay — Pay is to hand over money that is owed — another way of spending, not the reverse of it.

Concept

A word analogy asks for the relation first and the word second. Read the given pair, say the relation out in your own words, and only then look at the options.

Meek and bold are opposites, so the second pair has to be opposites. Three of the four options here are ways of spending — the standard build: every option is in the right topic and only one is right about the relation.

The rider in the stem rules out letter counts and vowel counts, which leaves meaning as the only ground the item can stand on.

Hoard carries a shade of excess, of piling up more than is needed. Its core sense — to keep and store rather than use — is still the exact reverse of spend.

Key facts

Meek means submissive and bold means daring, so the given pair is an antonym pair.
To hoard is to accumulate and hold back, especially money or supplies.
Expend, donate and pay all describe parting with money, as spend does.

Study next

Analogy items where three options are synonyms of the first word and one is its antonymNaming the relation from the given pair before reading any optionAntonym pairs whose opposite is a verb of keeping rather than a word built with a negative prefix

Common traps

Assuming the pair is a synonym pair because both words describe a manner.
Reading meek as weak and hunting for a strength-and-weakness pair instead of a submissive-and-assertive one.
Rejecting hoard because save feels like the neater opposite, when hoard is the reversal on offer.

SSC prints the same rider on analogy stems — the link must not rest on letter or vowel counts — which is a signal that the relation is one of meaning. Fix that relation from the given pair, and the near-synonyms fall away.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.