SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 23 September 2024, Shift 2 · English Comprehension · Question 1 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 synonym of the given word. Obstinate

(a)Submissive
(b)Stubborn
(c)Adaptive
(d)Obedient

Answer

Why

Correct — B. Obstinate describes someone who refuses to change a position or a course of action however good the argument against it. Stubborn is the plain English word for that same refusal, so option (b) is the synonym.

Sort the four choices by direction and the item settles itself: stubborn digs in, while submissive, adaptive and obedient all describe someone who gives way.

Why the others are wrong

(a)
Submissive — Submissive means yielding to another person's authority without resistance. That is precisely the behaviour an obstinate person refuses, so it sits at the opposite end of the scale.
(c)
Adaptive — Adaptive means readily adjusting to new conditions. An obstinate person is defined by not adjusting, so this option reverses the sense of the stem word.
(d)
Obedient — Obedient means doing as one is told. It describes compliance, not persistence, and it is the near-antonym SSC plants when the stem word carries a disapproving tone.

Concept

Synonym items in SSC CGL are usually decided by direction, not by fine shades of feeling. Split the four options into those pointing the same way as the stem word and those pointing the opposite way.

Obstinate (Latin obstinare, to persist) means unyielding. Submissive, adaptive and obedient all describe a person who gives way, so they fall together on one side, and a four-option item cannot have three answers.

That leaves stubborn alone on the unyielding side.

Obstinate and stubborn are not identical in register — obstinate is the more formal and slightly more disapproving word — but SSC tests the core sense, not the register.

Key facts

Obstinate means refusing to change an opinion or a course of action despite good reasons to do so.
Obdurate, headstrong, adamant and dogged belong to the same synonym group as obstinate.
Submissive, obedient, docile and compliant form the opposite group, all describing someone who yields.
Obstinate comes from Latin obstinare, to persist in.

Study next

The unyielding synonym group: obdurate, adamant, intransigent, doggedThe yielding group that supplies its antonyms: submissive, compliant, docile, pliantLatin prefixes that recur in SSC vocabulary sets: ob-, sub-, ad-

Common traps

Reading obstinate as simply a negative word and picking whichever option sounds most negative
Choosing obedient because both words come up in talk about discipline and authority

SSC recycles this pair across formats.

Obstinate is itself keyed as the meaning of obdurate on 24 Sep 2024, 12:30, English Q.4, and the analogy Obstinate : Stubborn opens a reasoning item on 25 Sep 2024, 12:30, Reasoning Q.7, where Resolute has to be paired with Determined.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.