SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 24 September 2024, Shift 1 · English Comprehension · Question 23 of 98

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. The mathematician Federico Ardila-Mantilla grew up in Colombia, an (1) ______________ student but gifted in math. He was failing most of his classes at his high school in Bogotá when someone (2) _______________ him to apply to MIT. He had not heard of the school. To his surprise, he got in, and he went on scholarship. Mathematically, he did well. One of his professors, an acid-tongued theoretician known to (3) ____________ his audience to a herd of cows, routinely tucked ‘open’ math problems into homework assignments, without telling the students. These had never been solved by anyone. Ardila solved one. He went on to receive his bachelor’s and Ph.D. in math from MIT. But his academic experience was also one of isolation. Part of it had to do with his own (4) _____________. Part of it was cultural. As a Latino, he was very much in the minority in the department, and he did not feel comfortable in American mathematical spaces. No one had tried to explicitly (5) ______________ him, yet he felt alone. In math, collaborating with others opens up new kinds of learning and thinking. But in his nine years at MIT, Ardila worked with others only twice.

Select the most appropriate option to fill in blank no. 3

(a)compare
(b)differentiate
(c)strangulate
(d)malign

Answer

Why

Correct — A. The word after the blank is the trigger. The frame reads blank his audience to a herd of cows, and with the preposition to only one of these verbs gives sensible English.

Compare X to Y means to liken one thing to another, and it is the standard collocation for a figurative likeness.

The meaning agrees: an acid-tongued professor is one who says cutting things, and likening a lecture hall to cattle is exactly that. Option (a).

Why the others are wrong

(b)
differentiate — differentiate takes from or between — you differentiate one thing from another. Differentiate his audience to a herd of cows is not English, and drawing distinctions is not what an acid tongue does.
(c)
strangulate — strangulate means to throttle or constrict. It takes a plain object and no to-phrase, and the passage describes a sharp-tongued professor, not a violent one.
(d)
malign — malign means to speak ill of somebody. It takes a direct object, so the to-phrase would have to mean he badmouthed his audience to the cows, which the passage does not support.

Concept

Many English verbs are locked to particular prepositions, so a blank followed by a preposition can be settled by collocation.

Compare goes with to when you are likening things and with with when you are examining them side by side. Differ and differentiate go with from. Distinguish goes with between.

So before weighing four meanings, read the word immediately after the blank. Here to removes three options at once, and the tone word acid-tongued confirms that the remaining verb is being used to mock, not to analyse.

Key facts

Compare X to Y likens the two. Compare X with Y sets them side by side to weigh similarities and differences.
Differentiate takes from or between, never to.
Malign means to speak evil of somebody and takes a direct object.
Acid-tongued describes someone whose remarks are sharp and cutting.

Study next

Verb and preposition collocations: compare to, differ from, distinguish between, contrast withCompare to against compare with in formal writingVocabulary of mockery, including deride, ridicule, liken and lampoon

Common traps

Choosing differentiate because it sounds academic. The preposition to rules it out before the meaning does.
Reading acid-tongued as merely witty. It marks the professor as cutting, which is why a mocking likeness fits.

Blank 1 of this same passage, English Q.21 of this shift, is decided by the connector but rather than by a preposition, so read past each blank before weighing the options.

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. The mathematician Federico Ardila-Mantilla grew up in Colombia, an (1) ______________ student but gifted in math. He was failing most of his classes at his high school in Bogotá when someone (2) _______________ him to apply to MIT. He had not heard of the school. To his surprise, he got in, and he went on scholarship. Mathematically, he did well. One of his professors, an acid-tongued theoretician known to (3) ____________ his audience to a herd of cows, routinely tucked ‘open’ math problems into homework assignments, without telling the students. These had never been solved by anyone. Ardila solved one. He went on to receive his bachelor’s and Ph.D. in math from MIT. But his academic experience was also one of isolation. Part of it had to do with his own (4) _____________. Part of it was cultural. As a Latino, he was very much in the minority in the department, and he did not feel comfortable in American mathematical spaces. No one had tried to explicitly (5) ______________ him, yet he felt alone. In math, collaborating with others opens up new kinds of learning and thinking. But in his nine years at MIT, Ardila worked with others only twice.