SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 19 September 2024, Shift 3 · English Comprehension · Question 5 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 option to fill in the blank. The US ________ building was built in the year 1800.

(a)captain
(b)capitol
(c)capital
(d)cannibal

Answer

Why

Correct — B. The blank sits directly in front of the word building, and only one spelling in the list names a building.

Capitol, with an o, is the building in which a legislature meets — the US Capitol in Washington, D.C. houses the United States Congress. Option (b) is what the sentence needs.

Capital, with an a, covers everything else the sound can mean: a seat-of-government city, money in a business, an upper-case letter. None is a building.

The year in the stem is scenery. The item turns on the letter before the l.

Why the others are wrong

(a)
captain — Captain is an officer or a leader — of a ship, a team or a company of soldiers. It shares only its first syllable with the answer and describes a person, not a building.
(c)
capital — Capital is the real trap and the more familiar word, but it names a city, a sum of money or a letter. A legislature does not meet in a capital, it meets in a capitol.
(d)
cannibal — Cannibal is a person who eats human flesh. It is in the list only because it opens with ca-, and nothing in the sentence invites it.

Concept

Capital and capitol are homophones in most accents, so the exam can only test them in writing.

Capital descends from Latin caput, head — the head city of a country, the head sum in a business, the head form of a letter.

Capitol is the narrower word. It came into English from the Capitoline Hill in Rome, and it names a building where a legislature sits.

The usual memory hook is the shape of the letter: capitOl has an o, like the dome on the building.

The stem states that the building was built in the year 1800. That is the paper's claim, not the reason for the answer — nothing about the date favours one spelling over the other.

Key facts

A capitol is a building in which a legislature meets, such as the US Capitol in Washington, D.C., the home of the United States Congress.
A capital is a seat-of-government city, wealth used in business, or an upper-case letter.
The English word capital descends from Latin caput, meaning head.
The word capitol traces back to the Capitoline Hill in Rome.

Study next

Homophone pairs worth learning: principal and principle, stationary and stationery, complement and complimentThe Latin root caput and its English descendants: capital, captain, decapitateFill-in-the-blank items that test spelling rather than meaning

Common traps

Choosing capital because it is the commoner word, without noticing that the blank modifies building
Spending time checking the year in the sentence instead of comparing the four spellings

SSC hides homophones in fill-in-the-blank items and in error-spotting items alike. The principal and principle pair is keyed as the faulty segment at 18 Sep 2024, 12:30, English Q.10, where the sentence prints he lived by the same principals.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.