SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 23 September 2024, Shift 3 · English Comprehension · Question 18 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 option that can be used as a one-word substitute for the given group of words. A place to park aeroplanes

(a)Hanger
(b)Shed
(c)Hangar
(d)Depot

Answer

Why

Correct — C. A hangar is the large building in which aircraft are housed, sheltered and serviced. That is precisely the group of words the stem gives: a place to park aeroplanes.

The item is built as a homophone trap. Hangar and hanger sound identical and differ by one letter, and only the -ar spelling names the aircraft building.

Option (c) is the single word that carries both halves of the phrase — a shelter, and one defined by what it shelters.

Why the others are wrong

(a)
Hanger — Hanger is the shaped frame you hang clothes on, or a person who hangs something. Same sound, different word, and the -er spelling never names a building for aircraft.
(b)
Shed — A shed is any small roofed structure, usually for tools or storage. It supplies the shelter idea but nothing about aircraft, so it fails the defining half of the phrase.
(d)
Depot — A depot is a storehouse, or the yard where buses and trains are kept and maintained. It belongs to road, rail and warehousing, not to aviation.

Concept

One-word substitution rewards the option whose dictionary definition matches the phrase, not one that merely shares its area of meaning.

Three options here name places where things are kept. Only one is defined by the thing being kept, and that is what the phrase asks for.

The second layer is spelling. English keeps a set of homophone pairs, and this option list prints one of them side by side — hangar against hanger. Read the letters, not the sound.

The stem says aeroplanes, so the deciding feature is aircraft — not size, not roofing. A shed and a depot are both places to park things, but neither is defined by what is parked in it.

Key facts

A hangar is a building for housing and servicing aircraft, while a hanger, spelt -er, is the device you hang clothes on.
Depot names a storehouse, or a yard where road and rail vehicles are kept and maintained.
Hangar and hanger are homophones: identical in sound, distinct in spelling and in meaning.

Study next

Homophone pairs that decide a spelling item, such as stationary and stationery, principal and principleOne-word substitutes for places, such as aviary, apiary, granary and arsenalNaming the defining feature of a phrase before you scan the option list

Common traps

Choosing Hanger because it is the spelling you see more often.
Settling for Shed because the phrase talks about parking rather than flying.
Deciding by sound, which cannot separate the two spellings at all.

The bare one-word-substitute stem is also set at 09 Sep 2024, 09:00, English Q.9 (a person who likes to argue about anything, keyed Contentious) and 09 Sep 2024, 16:00, English Q.2 (an order of law requiring people to remain indoors, keyed Curfew).

The version where two options differ by a single letter is the harder shape, because meaning alone will not separate them.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.

Topic: One-word substitution — all 77 SSC CGL questions on it, every solved shift.