SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 19 September 2024, Shift 1 · English Comprehension · Question 6 of 100

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 to substitute the underlined segment in the given sentence. Transnational linkages, for example, sever the nation-state’s integrity and corrupt state-society relations.

(a)cohesion and erode
(b)divergence and relativity
(c)severance and revolution
(d)controversy and diminution

Answer

Why

Correct — A. The slot takes a noun and then a verb: an object for "sever", followed by a second verb to govern "state-society relations".

cohesion is what "sever" can take. You sever what holds a thing together, and cohesion is precisely a nation-state's holding-together.

erode is a finite verb in the same tense as "sever", so one subject drives two parallel verbs: linkages sever the cohesion and erode the relations.

That noun-plus-verb shape is what option (a) supplies and the rest do not.

Why the others are wrong

(b)
divergence and relativity — Two nouns, no verb. "...and relativity state-society relations" leaves the second half of the sentence with nothing to govern it.
(c)
severance and revolution — Two nouns again, so the sentence loses its second verb, and "severance" merely repeats the "sever" already standing in the sentence.
(d)
controversy and diminution — Two abstract nouns, the same structural failure — and "sever a controversy" reverses the collocation, since one settles a controversy rather than severing it.

Concept

Substitution items test collocation and parallel structure at the same time.

Collocation is which words habitually keep company: you sever ties, links or cohesion, and you erode trust, confidence or relations. A word can be a perfect synonym and still be the wrong partner.

Parallelism is the grammar half. A compound predicate needs the same part of speech on both sides of "and", and here "sever ... and erode ..." keeps two finite verbs under one subject.

Check part of speech before meaning — it eliminates faster.

The candidate response sheet does not preserve underlining, so the replaced segment has to be recovered from the options. A noun plus a finite verb is the shape the sentence needs, which fixes the replaced words as "integrity and corrupt".

Key facts

Sever collocates with what binds things together: ties, links, relations, cohesion.
Erode collocates with what wears away gradually: trust, confidence, authority, relations.
A compound predicate joined by "and" needs the same grammatical form on both sides of the conjunction.

Study next

Collocation with abstract nouns: erode trust, sever ties, forge linksParallel structure in compound predicatesEliminating substitution options by part of speech before meaning

Common traps

Judging on meaning alone and missing that the other options offer two nouns where a verb is needed.
Picking "severance and revolution" because "severance" echoes the "sever" already in the sentence.

Substituting an underlined segment is a standing SSC format, and it tests grammar as often as vocabulary. It appears at English Q.10 in this same 09:00 shift, at 19 Sep 2024, 12:30, English Q.7, and at 19 Sep 2024, 16:00, English Q.12 and Q.16.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.