SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 18 September 2024, Shift 1 · General Intelligence and Reasoning · Question 8 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 option that is related to the third word in the same way as the second word is related to the first word. (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) Sugar : Sweet :: Habanero : ?

(a)Sour
(b)Spicy
(c)Salty
(d)Bitter

Answer

Why

Correct — B. Rule: the second word names the quality the first food is known for.

Sugar is the standard example of sweet.
A habanero is a variety of chilli pepper, and what it is known for is heat.

Everyday English calls that heat spicy, so habanero pairs with Spicy, option (b), exactly as sugar pairs with sweet.

Why the others are wrong

(a)
Sour — Sour belongs to lemon or vinegar. Sourness reports acidity, and a habanero is not acidic — its defining quality is burning heat.
(c)
Salty — Salty belongs to salt and to salted food. A habanero carries no notable salt, and heat is not a salt sensation.
(d)
Bitter — Bitter belongs to bitter gourd or raw coffee. Chilli heat is a burning sensation rather than a bitter taste, and ordinary usage does not confuse the two.

Concept

Word analogies are solved by naming the relation in words before you look at the options. Here the relation is food to its defining quality, and it has to transfer whole.

A habanero is a variety of chilli pepper, and its defining quality in cooking is pungency — heat.

Strictly, spiciness is not one of the basic tastes: capsaicin stimulates heat and pain receptors rather than taste buds. The question uses the everyday sense of the word, and so should you.

The bracketed rider bars letter-count and vowel-count links, so the relation must be semantic. When the unfamiliar word is the one you are asked about, the options often give the category away — three basic tastes and one non-taste sensation point to a food known for heat.

Key facts

A habanero is a variety of chilli pepper.
Sour, salty and bitter are basic tastes.
Spiciness is a heat and pain sensation, not one of the basic tastes.
Sugar : Sweet and Habanero : Spicy are both food-to-defining-quality pairs.

Study next

Food-to-taste and food-to-source analogiesAnalogies built on a defining property rather than on category membershipExam vocabulary for spices, peppers and culinary terms

Common traps

Guessing from the sound of habanero and reading it as a herb or a sauce.
Insisting the answer be a basic taste, which rules out the intended option.
Choosing bitter because chilli is unpleasant in quantity.

The same three-word analogy frame runs at 13 Sep 2024, 09:00, Reasoning Q.3 and at 13 Sep 2024, 16:00, Reasoning Q.2. Name the relation in words first, then test it on each option.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.