SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 18 September 2024, Shift 2 · English Comprehension · Question 20 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 ANTONYM of the given word. Dogmatic

(a)Conservative
(b)Liberal
(c)Diplomatic
(d)Concerned

Answer

Why

Correct — B. Dogmatic means laying down opinions as if they could not be questioned: my view is settled and yours is not up for discussion.

The quality being reversed is therefore openness to other views, not politics and not manners.

Liberal, in its ordinary sense of broad-minded and tolerant of opinions unlike your own, undoes exactly that — option (b).

Why the others are wrong

(a)
Conservative — Conservative means preferring the established way to a new one. It is the political partner of liberal, which is why it is on offer, but resisting change is not the opposite of holding a view as beyond question.
(c)
Diplomatic — Diplomatic describes how something is said — tactfully, without giving offence. A speaker can be perfectly diplomatic and still treat every belief as settled.
(d)
Concerned — Concerned means worried about or involved in something. It says nothing about how firmly a view is held, so it is not on the same axis as dogmatic.

Concept

An antonym item is decided by the axis the headword sits on, not by whether an option feels positive.

Dogmatic comes from dogma, a doctrine laid down by authority as beyond dispute. The axis is certainty against openness: dogmatic, doctrinaire and opinionated at one end; liberal, broad-minded and tolerant at the other.

Test each candidate by asking what it reverses. Conservative reverses novelty. Diplomatic reverses bluntness. Neither reverses dogma — broad-mindedness does.

Do not read liberal politically here. SSC is using its dictionary sense: willing to respect or accept opinions and behaviour different from one's own.

The pairing with conservative in option (a) is the trap that sense is set against.

Key facts

Dogmatic means asserting opinions as though they were established fact, allowing no argument.
Dogma is a doctrine laid down by an authority as unquestionably true, and dogmatic is its adjective.
Liberal carries a non-political sense — open to new ideas, tolerant of other people's views.

Study next

Words on the certainty axis: dogmatic, doctrinaire, adamant, sceptical, open-mindedSecond, non-political senses of liberal, radical and conservativeAntonym sets whose trap is the antonym of an option rather than of the headword

Common traps

Answering conservative because it opposes liberal, not because it opposes dogmatic.
Choosing diplomatic, which is about the manner of speaking rather than the firmness of a belief.

Bare-word antonyms — a headword with no sentence around it — are also asked 25 Sep 2024, 12:30, English Q.8 (Bombastic, keyed Simple), 24 Sep 2024, 12:30, English Q.3 (Hostile, keyed Friendly) and 12 Sep 2024, 16:00, English Q.9 (Monotonous, keyed Engrossing).

An antonym with the word underlined inside a sentence is asked in this same shift at English Q.12, where the antonym of annoyance is keyed Serenity.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.