SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 19 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 6 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. Inevitable

(a)Confident
(b)Avoidable
(c)Clear
(d)Inexorable

Answer

Why

Correct — B. Inevitable is a prefixed word, and a prefixed word carries its own antonym inside it.

The Latin is evitare, to avoid. Add the negative in- and you have what cannot be avoided, that is, certain to happen. Strip the prefix off and the opposite is already written for you: avoidable, what can be prevented or got round.

The key takes option (b).

Why the others are wrong

(a)
Confident — Confident describes a person's certainty about themselves or an outcome. Inevitable describes an event that cannot be escaped, so the two are not on the same axis.
(c)
Clear — Clear means plain or easy to understand, and it reverses obscure. Certainty of understanding is not the same thing as certainty of happening.
(d)
Inexorable — Inexorable means relentless and not to be moved by persuasion, so it is a near-synonym of inevitable. It is the hardest option here and the furthest from an antonym.

Concept

Antonym items on prefixed words are usually solved by taking the prefix apart.

Inevitable = in- (not) + Latin evitare (to avoid): what cannot be avoided. Remove the negative and avoidable is the antonym, with no further vocabulary needed.

Inexorable begins with the same in- and is not the mirror image. Its root is exorare, to prevail on by entreaty, so inexorable is what no pleading will turn aside — relentless. It stands beside inevitable, not against it.

Two options here begin with in-, and the prefix alone does not tell you which is the negative of the headword's root. You have to know what the root under the prefix means.

Key facts

Inevitable comes from Latin evitare, to avoid, with the negative prefix in-.
Inexorable means relentless and not to be moved by persuasion.
Avoidable means capable of being prevented or kept away from.

Study next

Negative prefixes and what they attach to: in-, un-, dis-, non-Latin roots hidden inside prefixed English words, such as evitare in inevitableSeparating near-synonyms planted in antonym sets: inevitable and inexorable

Common traps

Assuming the prefixed option must be the antonym, which points straight at inexorable.
Treating confident as the opposite because inevitable feels like a word about certainty.

SSC tests the same prefix reading in one-word substitutes.

At 12 Sep 2024, 16:00, English Q.18 the stem incapable of being defeated is keyed to Invincible against Invisible, Unavoidable and Ineluctable, where every option shares a negative prefix and only the root separates them.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.