SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 24 September 2024, Shift 2 · English Comprehension · Question 20 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 INCORRECTLY spelt word.

(a)Atempt
(b)Agree
(c)Admit
(d)Guilty

Answer

Why

Correct — A. Atempt is the misspelling. The word is attempt, with a double t after the a and a single m.

The doubling is not decoration. Attempt is the Latin prefix ad- fused to temptare, and ad- assimilates to the letter it meets: ad plus t gives att-, exactly as in attend, attach and attract.

Agree, Admit and Guilty are all printed correctly, so option (a) is the one to mark.

Why the others are wrong

(b)
Agree — Agree is correct as printed — one g, then -ree. Nothing in it doubles or drops a letter.
(c)
Admit — Admit is correct: single d, single m, single t. Its derived forms double the t in admitted and admitting, but the base word does not.
(d)
Guilty — Guilty is correct — the silent u after the g belongs to the spelling, as it does in guilt, guard and guest.

Concept

This format gives four ordinary words with no sentence to help, so it is pure recall. What makes it learnable is knowing where English doubles a consonant.

The reliable handle is the prefix. Latin ad- meaning to or towards assimilates to the first letter of the stem: ad plus tempt gives attempt, ad plus firm gives affirm, ad plus nounce gives announce.

Dropping one letter of that doubled pair is the misspelling this option is built on.

Three of the four options begin with A, which is the design of the set: your eye is pulled into comparing the A-words while the misspelling hides among them.

Key facts

Attempt is spelt with a double t and a single m.
The Latin prefix ad- assimilates before many consonants, giving attend, attach, affirm and announce.
Admit has single letters throughout, but admitted and admitting double the t before a vowel ending.

Study next

Consonant doubling before -ed and -ing: admit to admitted, prefer to preferredAssimilated Latin prefixes ad-, in-, con- and sub- before a consonantCommonly misspelt words worth drilling: occurrence, accommodate, embarrass, mischievous

Common traps

Scanning for a hard word and skipping Atempt because it looks familiar at a glance.
Doubting Guilty because of the silent u.
Assuming the misspelt option must be the longest word in the set.

The bare four-word version recurs with the doubling rule underneath — also asked 13 Sep 2024, 09:00, English Q.6 (Atributes for attributes) and 17 Sep 2024, 09:00, English Q.18 (Eficient for efficient).

SSC also plants the same kind of word inside a sentence and asks you to pick it out: 19 Sep 2024, 09:00, English Q.15 keys Fundamentels.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.