SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 18 September 2024, Shift 2 · English Comprehension · Question 18 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 option that means the same as the underlined group of words to fill in the blank. Most of the rivers dry up during the summer season, but the Ganga is full of water round the year because it is __________.

(a)biennial
(b)annual
(c)perennial
(d)biannual

Answer

Why

Correct — C. The words the blank has to swallow are full of water round the year, and one word carries exactly that load: perennial.

Latin per- means through and annus means year, so perennial = lasting through the year. Of a river it is the standard term for one that flows in every season.

The sentence's own contrast settles it: most rivers dry up in summer, the Ganga does not — option (c).

Why the others are wrong

(a)
biennial — Biennial means happening every two years. It fixes an interval between separate events, not a flow that never stops, so it cannot replace round the year.
(b)
annual — Annual means yearly, once in a year. It names how often something recurs — an annual report, an annual flood — while the sentence needs a river that never stops.
(d)
biannual — Biannual means twice a year. Like biennial it is built on bi-, two, and it counts occurrences rather than describing something continuous.

Concept

One-word substitution asks you to compress a phrase without changing its meaning, and the quickest route is usually the root.

per- carries through (perennial, permanent, persist).
bi- carries two (bicycle, bilingual, biennial).
ann- / -enn- carries year (annual, anniversary, biennial).

Split the option before you weigh the sentence: per + enn + ial reads through-the-year on its own. Geography uses the word in the same sense — a perennial river carries water in every season, a seasonal river does not.

Sometimes the phrase stands on its own and you simply name it — a place where fruit trees are grown, keyed orchard, 10 Sep 2024, 09:00, English Q.9. Here it is buried in a sentence instead.

The embedded form hands you a free check. Read your word back into the sentence and see whether its contrast survives.

Key facts

Perennial means lasting through the whole year, and of a river, flowing in every season.
Biannual means twice a year. Biennial means once every two years.
Annual names a once-a-year frequency, not continuity.

Study next

Latin number prefixes in exam vocabulary: bi-, tri-, semi-, quadri-Perennial, seasonal and ephemeral rivers — the geography sense of the same wordOne-word substitutions built on per-: permanent, perpetual, persistent

Common traps

Reading biannual as every two years, which is biennial.
Picking annual because the sentence mentions a year, when what it needs is continuity, not yearly recurrence.

The same compression, with the phrase underlined inside a sentence, is also asked 24 Sep 2024, 16:00, English Q.3 (things that can be seen and touched, keyed tangible) and 17 Sep 2024, 16:00, English Q.19 (food that is not fresh, keyed stale).

In those two the underlined phrase is swapped out for the word. Here the blank sits beside it, so the finished sentence keeps both: the Ganga is full of water round the year because it is perennial.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.