SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 24 September 2024, Shift 3 · English Comprehension · Question 17 of 99

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 synonym of the given word. Evoke

(a)Induce
(b)Abandon
(c)Reduce
(d)Divert

Answer

Why

Correct — A. Evoke means to call something forth — a memory, a feeling, a reaction. Induce means to bring something about or cause it to happen.

Both verbs put something into existence that was not there a moment before, and that shared sense of producing a response is what the item tests — option (a).

The rest of the set moves the other way: abandon lets a thing go, reduce shrinks it, divert redirects one that already exists. None of them brings anything into being.

Why the others are wrong

(b)
Abandon — Abandon means to leave behind or give up. Evoking calls something up and abandoning lets something go, so the two point in opposite directions.
(c)
Reduce — Reduce means to make smaller in size, amount or degree. It rhymes with induce and shares the Latin ducere, to lead, but leading back is not calling forth.
(d)
Divert — Divert means to turn something aside from its course. A diverted feeling already exists and is being redirected, whereas an evoked feeling is summoned in the first place.

Concept

Evoke comes from Latin evocare — e- (out) plus vocare (to call) — literally to call out. The same vocare gives vocation, invoke, revoke and provoke.

Induce comes from in- plus ducere (to lead), so it leads something in or brings it on: induce sleep, induce a reaction.

The overlap is causation. A speech can evoke sympathy or induce sympathy, and both say the feeling was produced. Evoke leans towards memories and emotions, induce towards states and actions.

Induce is not a perfect match — evoke usually calls up something already latent, while induce brings on a new state. Among the four printed options it is the only one that means causing anything at all.

Key facts

Evoke means to call forth a feeling, a memory or a reaction.
Induce means to bring about or cause something.
Evoke comes from Latin evocare, to call out, the root behind invoke and revoke.
Reduce and induce share the Latin ducere, to lead, and mean different things.

Study next

The vocare family: invoke, revoke, provoke, evocativeThe ducere family: induce, deduce, reduce, conduceTelling evoke, elicit and provoke apart in a synonym set

Common traps

Matching by rhyme and picking reduce because it sounds like induce.
Reading evoke as invoke, which means to call on an authority, a law or a spirit.
Expecting elicit as the textbook synonym and stalling when it is not printed.

SSC prints the bare verb with four options and no sentence, so the Latin root is the fastest route in and the rhyming option is the planted trap.

The same bare-word design runs at 24 Sep 2024, 16:00, English Q.2 (Grotesque, keyed Ugly) and English Q.13 (Necessary, keyed Essential).

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.