SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 18 September 2024, Shift 2 · English Comprehension · Question 16 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 10 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 meaning of the given word. Pugnacious

(a)Impatient
(b)Waspish
(c)Good-tempered
(d)Arrogant

Answer

Why

Correct — B. Pugnacious describes someone eager to argue or fight: combative, quarrelsome, quick to take offence.

Waspish describes that temperament from its sharp-tongued side — irritable, ready to sting with a retort. Of the four words offered, it is the one that names a readiness to attack.

The other three describe waiting badly, being pleasant, and thinking oneself superior → option (b).

Why the others are wrong

(a)
Impatient — Impatient means unwilling to wait or to tolerate delay. Impatience can be entirely silent, and it carries none of the combativeness pugnacious does.
(c)
Good-tempered — Good-tempered is the direct opposite: an even, slow-to-anger disposition, which is the temperament a pugnacious person lacks.
(d)
Arrogant — Arrogant names an overbearing sense of one's own importance. An arrogant person may never quarrel, and a pugnacious one need not feel superior.

Concept

Pugnacious comes from Latin pugnare, to fight, from pugnus, a fist — the root behind pugilist, impugn and repugnant. Knowing the root settles the item even if waspish is new to you.

Waspish is built on the insect: quick to sting, sharply irritable in speech.

The two are not exact equivalents. Pugnacious is an eagerness to fight, waspish a sharpness of temper. When no option matches exactly, take the one on the same axis and check that the rest are further away.

The stem asks for the most appropriate meaning, not for a dictionary definition, so a near neighbour can be keyed. Waspish is on the ill-tempered, ready-to-attack side, and the other three are not on that axis at all.

Key facts

Pugnacious comes from Latin pugnare, to fight, from pugnus, a fist.
Pugilist, impugn and repugnant share that root.
Waspish means sharply irritable or spiteful in speech, from the sting of a wasp.

Study next

Latin pugnare and its English descendantsAdjectives for a quarrelsome temperament: belligerent, bellicose, truculent, combativeReading an option list for the axis it tests when no option is an exact synonym

Common traps

Assuming an unfamiliar headword must pair with the most familiar option, which sends you to Impatient.
Treating pugnacious as merely bad-mannered, which makes Arrogant look close enough.

SSC set the same headword at 10 Sep 2024, 12:30, English Q.9, where the option list carried Belligerent and that is the keyed answer. The word you must produce changes with the options, so learn the sense rather than a fixed pair.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.