SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 18 September 2024, Shift 1 · English Comprehension · Question 10 of 99

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 INCORRECTLY spelt word.

(a)Accommodate
(b)Conscientious
(c)Mischievious
(d)Ostentatious

Answer

Why

Correct — C. The word is spelt mischievous, not Mischievious.

It is built on the noun mischief: the f turns to v, as it does in thief → thieves, and -ous is added straight on. That leaves three syllables, mis-chie-vous.

The extra i in the printed option comes from the careless pronunciation mis-CHEE-vee-us, which rhymes the word with devious and previous. Those two really do carry -ious. Mischief has no i to donate.

Why the others are wrong

(a)
Accommodate — Accommodate is spelt correctly here — double c and double m. A candidate who remembers only that something in this word doubles will suspect it, mark it, and leave the real error standing.
(b)
Conscientious — Conscientious is correct as printed. It grows out of conscience, so the -sci- of that word survives into the adjective and the ending is -entious.
(d)
Ostentatious — Ostentatious is correct as printed. It follows its noun ostentation, keeping the -tat-, and its ending is a genuine -ious — which is exactly why it makes good bait.

Concept

Spelling items of this kind reward one habit: trace the word back to its root.

Mischievous comes from mischief. Conscientious comes from conscience and keeps that word's -sci-. Ostentatious comes from ostentation and keeps its -tat-.

There is no rule that decides -ous against -ious by ear, because both endings are common and the mispronunciation of mischievous sounds exactly like a word that takes -ious. The root decides it, and the root here supplies no i.

All four options are ordinary dictionary words printed with no sentence around them, so nothing in the item helps you reason it out. This is pure recall, and it is worth a few seconds only.

Key facts

Mischievous is spelt m-i-s-c-h-i-e-v-o-u-s and has three syllables, mis-chie-vous.
It is formed from the noun mischief, which is why no i appears before the -ous ending.
Accommodate carries a double c and a double m.
Conscientious keeps the -sci- of conscience and ends in -entious.

Study next

The -ous, -ious and -eous adjective endings and the nouns they are built fromDouble-letter words that candidates habitually cut: accommodate, occurrence, embarrass, millenniumWords whose common mispronunciation drives the misspelling, such as mischievous and grievous

Common traps

Marking Accommodate because its double letters look excessive
Reading Mischievious at speed and hearing the familiar word instead of seeing the extra i
Assuming an -ious ending must be the error, which would condemn Ostentatious as well

SSC prints four dictionary words with no sentence around them, so the item is pure recall and should cost you seconds, not minutes.

The same misspelling, keyed as the error under the same instruction, is set again at 9 Sep 2024, 16:00, English Q.10, where it stands beside Privilege, Accommodate and Millennium.
The words standing beside it here are tested in their own right too — Conscientious as the correct spelling at 11 Sep 2024, 12:30, English Q.18, and accommodate as the correction at 23 Sep 2024, 16:00, English Q.7.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.