SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 23 September 2024, Shift 2 · English Comprehension · Question 21 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.

In the following passage, some words have been deleted. Read the passage carefully and select the most appropriate option to fill in each blank. Music is perhaps the most popular and widely practised (1)______ of fine arts, transcending all kinds of cultural and linguistic barriers. Any form of fine art is (2)________ to master and almost impossible to perfect, and music is no exception. Nature, it is learnt, has blessed almost two-thirds of the human race with musical ability of some sort. Music has the power to (3)______ out the deepest emotions. In fact, it is a magic medicine, and many seek refuge in it when they are depressed or stressed. It is this intimacy that makes us listen to music (4)______ even hum or sing sometimes. This singing, or realistically speaking, expressing one’s emotion musically sometimes takes a serious turn. The desire to sing before an audience is innocent and beautiful, and indeed, it is perfectly alright to have such a genuine desire. But it is also important to understand that singing is an (5)________ art—a highly refined one at that, which requires systematic, prolonged and strict training to be acceptable.

Choose the most appropriate option to fill in blank no. 1.

(a)form
(b)design
(c)format
(d)substance

Answer

Why

Correct — A. The blank sits in "Music is perhaps the most popular and widely practised (1)______ of fine arts", so it needs a noun that names a branch of the fine arts, with music as one of them.

The passage supplies the word itself in the very next sentence: "Any form of fine art is (2)____ to master...". Form of art is the fixed collocation for a branch of the arts.

Option (a) is the reading the passage confirms one line later.

Why the others are wrong

(b)
design — Design means a plan or an arrangement of parts. A branch of the arts is not a design of the fine arts, and the passage never uses the word, so nothing in the paragraph supports it.
(c)
format — Format names the shape or arrangement in which something is presented — a file format, a television format. It describes packaging, not a category of art, and it wins choices only because it looks like form.
(d)
substance — Substance means the material or the essential content of a thing. The sentence calls the blank popular and widely practised, which describes an activity people take up, not the stuff art is made of.

Concept

In a cloze passage the evidence is usually inside the passage, not in your ear for which word sounds finest.

Here the writer repeats the deleted noun one sentence later — "Any form of fine art" — which is as close to a printed answer as these items get. Read one sentence past the blank before choosing.

The second support is collocation: English says art form and form of art, and no native phrase pairs format, design or substance with fine arts in that slot.

All four options are ordinary nouns, so the item is decided by collocation and by the passage's own repetition rather than by any of them being wrong English.

Key facts

Form of art, or art form, is the standard collocation for a branch of the arts such as music, painting or dance.
The passage answers this blank itself in the following sentence: Any form of fine art is difficult to master.
Format means the shape or arrangement in which something is presented, not a category of art.

Study next

Collocations with form: art form, form of government, form of addressReading the sentence after the blank as the evidence in cloze passagesNear-synonyms that do not swap: form, format, design, structure

Common traps

Choosing format because it shares its first four letters with form
Filling the blank from the first half of the sentence without reading on

SSC's cloze passage carries five blanks across a single paragraph, numbered English Q.21 to Q.25 in this paper and in the same slots on 12 Sep 2024, 12:30 and 25 Sep 2024, 16:00.

Because the blanks share one paragraph, wording elsewhere in that paragraph is fair evidence for any of them.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.

In the following passage, some words have been deleted. Read the passage carefully and select the most appropriate option to fill in each blank. Music is perhaps the most popular and widely practised (1)______ of fine arts, transcending all kinds of cultural and linguistic barriers. Any form of fine art is (2)________ to master and almost impossible to perfect, and music is no exception. Nature, it is learnt, has blessed almost two-thirds of the human race with musical ability of some sort. Music has the power to (3)______ out the deepest emotions. In fact, it is a magic medicine, and many seek refuge in it when they are depressed or stressed. It is this intimacy that makes us listen to music (4)______ even hum or sing sometimes. This singing, or realistically speaking, expressing one’s emotion musically sometimes takes a serious turn. The desire to sing before an audience is innocent and beautiful, and indeed, it is perfectly alright to have such a genuine desire. But it is also important to understand that singing is an (5)________ art—a highly refined one at that, which requires systematic, prolonged and strict training to be acceptable.