SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 18 September 2024, Shift 3 · English Comprehension · Question 3 of 98

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 option that can be used as a one-word substitute for the given group of words. A short stay that you make while on a longer journey

(a)Tent
(b)Refugee
(c)Stopover
(d)Saga

Answer

Why

Correct — C. Split the definition in two: a short stay, made while on a longer journey. Both halves have to live inside the word.

A stopover is exactly that — a brief halt at an intermediate point, after which the traveller carries on.

It is the ordinary term for the night spent between two connecting flights, which is option (c).

Why the others are wrong

(a)
Tent — A tent is a portable shelter — an object, not a period of staying. Where you sleep does not answer the question of what the stay itself is called.
(b)
Refugee — A refugee is a person who has fled danger. It names a human being, and nothing in the definition concerns a person or flight from danger.
(d)
Saga — A saga is a long story, or by extension a drawn-out sequence of events. Length is its whole point, and the definition asks for something short.

Concept

One-word-substitute items are decided by matching every element of the definition, not by finding a word that feels near enough.

The definition here has three elements: a stay, a short one, set inside a longer journey. Stopover carries all three.

Test the rejects the same way. Tent names a shelter, refugee names a person, saga names a long narrative. Each misses at least one element, however familiar the word looks.

Layover is the near-synonym you may have met, and it fits the definition just as well. SSC has printed one of the two here, so answer from what is on the page rather than from the word you would use yourself.

Key facts

A stopover is a short break in a longer journey, taken at an intermediate point.
A saga is a long narrative, so its length is the opposite of what this definition needs.
A refugee is a person who has fled danger, not a kind of stay.

Study next

One-word substitutes for travel and stay, such as itinerary, layover, sojourn and transitCompounds ending in -over that name events rather than actions, such as handover and takeoverBuilding the habit of matching each element of a definition before choosing

Common traps

Choosing tent because both a tent and a stopover carry a flavour of travel.
Treating saga as a synonym of journey, when it names a story.

One-word substitutes are a fixture of SSC English, and the definition usually has two or three elements that the right word must satisfy in full.

This shift also sets them at English Q.11 (omnipotent) and Q.17 (exceeding). The same format runs on 9 Sep 2024, 09:00, English Q.9 (contentious) and 10 Sep 2024, 09:00, English Q.2 (bureaucracy).

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.