SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 18 September 2024, Shift 1 · English Comprehension · Question 9 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 most appropriate ANTONYM of the given word. Autonomy

(a)Dependence
(b)Permanence
(c)Economical
(d)Independence

Answer

Why

Correct — A. Autonomy is the condition of governing oneself: self-rule, freedom from outside control.

Reverse that and you get the condition of relying on another, which is dependence. The two are a standard opposed pair in political writing and in ordinary use alike.

The option set places independence right beside dependence, so the item turns on reading the prefix rather than the shape of the word. Strip the in- away and you have the antonym you want.

Why the others are wrong

(b)
Permanence — Permanence is about lasting through time, and what it opposes is impermanence. Autonomy says nothing about duration, so the two words do not meet.
(c)
Economical — Economical is an adjective meaning thrifty, while autonomy is a noun. It fails the part-of-speech test, and its meaning is unrelated as well.
(d)
Independence — Independence is a synonym of autonomy rather than its opposite. It is placed here for the reader who registers the shape of a word before its sense.

Concept

Autonomy comes from the Greek autos, self, and nomos, law — literally self-law. Hold that literal sense and the antonym follows, because not living under your own law means living under someone else's.

The set is built on a prefix trick. Dependence and independence differ by two letters and are exact opposites of each other, so a reader who matches on word shape takes the wrong one.

Read the instruction word, ANTONYM, before you read the options. That single habit disarms the whole design.

In political usage autonomy is not quite the same as full independence — an autonomous region governs itself inside a larger state.

That distinction does not change the answer here, because dependence reverses both of them.

Key facts

Autonomy: the right or condition of self-government, from Greek autos (self) and nomos (law).
Dependence: the state of relying on or being controlled by someone else.
Independence is a synonym of autonomy in general use, not an antonym of it.

Study next

Prefix pairs that flip a meaning: dependence and independence, relevant and irrelevant, literate and illiterateNouns of self-rule: autonomy, sovereignty, self-determinationChecking the instruction word before scanning an option set

Common traps

Picking independence because it shares both the letters of dependence and the sense of the cue word.
Letting economical through without the part-of-speech check, when the cue autonomy is a noun and economical is an adjective.

The synonym-as-distractor design appears again at 18 Sep 2024, 09:00, English Q.1, where illusive sits among the options for the antonym of deceptive. The plain one-word antonym instruction is used at 17 Sep 2024, 12:30, English Q.5 (Synthetic).

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.