Select the most appropriate option to substitute the underlined segment in the given sentence. Aesthetic value is specifically a way in which we can get positive conclude value from the world at large.
- (a)can get positive convalescent value
- (b)can get positive contrastive value
- (c)can get positive conclusive value
- (d)can get positive convulsive value
Answer
Why
Correct — C. The underlined segment reads 'can get positive conclude value'. Conclude is a verb, and the slot in front of the noun value needs an adjective, so the repair is the adjective built on that very root: conclusive.
Option (c) supplies it. The other three are adjectives as well, so they all fix the grammar — but each is built on a different Latin root, and each wrecks the meaning while doing so.
Why the others are wrong
- (a)can get positive convalescent value — Convalescent means recovering from illness, from Latin convalescere, to grow strong again. The grammar works, but nothing in a sentence about aesthetic value is recuperating.
- (b)can get positive contrastive value — Contrastive means serving to mark a contrast. The sentence says we take something positive from the world at large, not that we are setting two things against each other.
- (d)can get positive convulsive value — Convulsive means marked by violent, involuntary spasms. It shares only the con- opening with conclude, which is exactly what makes it a tempting look-alike.
Concept
A substitution item breaks in one of two ways: the segment is grammatical but wrong in meaning, or it carries the right meaning in the wrong form. This one is the second kind.
The sentence wants the adjective of conclude and prints the bare verb instead. English builds that adjective as conclusive, on the same pattern that gives decisive from decide and persuasive from persuade.
Spot the -de to -sive shift and the option list resolves before you have weighed the meanings of the other three words.
The sentence stays clumsy even after the repair — positive conclusive value is not natural English — but the task is to choose the best of the four printed options, not to rewrite the writer's sentence.
Key facts
- Conclusive is the adjective from conclude and means decisive, or settling a question.
- Convalescent means recovering from illness.
- Convulsive means marked by violent, involuntary spasms.
- Contrastive means serving to mark a contrast between two things.
Study next
Common traps
- Weighing the four options for meaning first, when the printed segment already fails on grammar
- Choosing convulsive because it looks closest to conclusive on the page
SSC builds these option sets from one suffix and four unrelated roots.
Conclusive appears as a wrong choice in a fill-in-the-blank set on 19 Sep 2024, 16:00, English Q.24, where comprehensive is keyed, and again among the choices of an antonym item on 23 Sep 2024, 16:00, English Q.2.
Related PYQs
No directly related past PYQ was found.