SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 23 September 2024, Shift 3 · English Comprehension · Question 16 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 ANTONYM of the underlined word in the given sentence. Her behaviour was so ostentatious that it attracted the attention of everyone in the room.

(a)Gentle
(b)Restrained
(c)Repulsive
(d)Attractive

Answer

Why

Correct — B. Ostentatious means showy, staged to impress an audience.

Its opposite is behaviour held back and undemonstrative, which is restrained. Test it in the sentence: restrained behaviour would not have attracted the attention of everyone in the room, so it reverses the word and its stated effect together.

Option (b) is the antonym.

Why the others are wrong

(a)
Gentle — Gentle is the opposite of rough or harsh, a different axis altogether. A display can be gentle and still be ostentatious, so it does not reverse the word.
(c)
Repulsive — Repulsive means disgusting, the opposite of appealing. It reverses attracted in the sentence rather than ostentatious, which is the underlined word.
(d)
Attractive — Attractive is lifted straight from attracted the attention. Showy behaviour is often attractive, so the two sit together comfortably and cannot be opposites.

Concept

Ostentatious describes display staged for onlookers — excessive, pretentious showing off. Its opposites cluster around holding back: restrained, modest, unassuming, understated.

In a sentence-based antonym item the underlined word is the target and the rest of the sentence is context. The slip this item invites is reversing a nearby word instead, and two of these four options fit exactly that slip.

Both repulsive and attractive answer attracted the attention, not ostentatious. Fix the underlined word in your head before you look down at the options.

Key facts

Ostentatious means showily pretentious, designed to impress the people watching.
Restrained, modest, unassuming and understated all serve as its opposites.
The same word appears as a correctly spelt option in the spelling item at 18 Sep 2024, 09:00, English Q.10.

Study next

Antonym pairs across display and reserve: ostentatious, flamboyant, restrained, understatedSentence-based antonym items where a distractor reverses a different word in the sentenceWords set both as vocabulary and as spelling, such as ostentatious and conscientious

Common traps

Answering the verb attracted instead of the underlined adjective
Taking gentle as the opposite because ostentatious behaviour feels loud

This stem underlines a word inside a sentence and plants a distractor that opposes some other word in that same sentence. The in-sentence form appears again at English Q.2 of this paper, and the bare-word form at English Q.3.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.

Topic: Antonyms — all 102 SSC CGL questions on it, every solved shift.