SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 25 September 2024, Shift 1 · English Comprehension · Question 10 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 to fill in the blank. Ram failed initially but after a few years, he _________ in every field.

(a)enjoyed
(b)elevated
(c)succeeded
(d)reserved

Answer

Why

Correct — C. The instruction asks for an ANTONYM, and the word the blank must reverse is failed.

Two words fix the direction of that reversal: but, and "after a few years". Together they say the early state did not last, so the blank has to undo failing, not extend it.

Succeeded is the exact opposite of failed, and it fits the frame the sentence supplies — you succeed in something, so "succeeded in every field" is idiomatic, and the past simple matches "failed". That is option (c).

Why the others are wrong

(a)
enjoyed — Enjoyed names a feeling, not an outcome, so it does not reverse failing. It is also transitive in this sense — you enjoy something — and the sentence gives it no object to take.
(b)
elevated — Elevated means raised or lifted to a higher position, and it normally needs an object: something elevates someone. A person can be elevated without ever having failed, so it is not the opposite of failed.
(d)
reserved — Reserved means set aside or booked as a verb, and reticent as an adjective. Neither sense reverses failing, and "reserved in every field" has no sensible reading.

Concept

An antonym-in-context item sets two conditions at once, and a word has to satisfy both.

Meaning: it must be the opposite of the target word, here failed — not merely a positive-sounding word.

Fit: it must sit in the frame the sentence already built. The frame is "_____ in every field", so the verb has to be one that takes in and needs no object. Succeed does both.

The response sheet stores the sentence as plain text, so the underlining is not preserved here.

It is recoverable all the same: failed is the only word in the sentence whose opposite is on offer, and the contrast word "but" points straight at it.

Key facts

Succeed is followed by in before a field or an activity, as in succeed in business.
Fail and succeed are the standard antonym pair for outcomes, and the noun pair is failure and success.
Enjoy is transitive in standard use and needs a direct object after it.
Elevate means to raise to a higher position or level and normally takes an object.

Study next

Antonym-in-blank items where the answer must also match the tense of the target wordVerb-plus-preposition pairs SSC tests: succeed in, result in, depend onTransitive and intransitive verbs, and which ones can stand without an object

Common traps

Reading the item as a synonym question and choosing a word close in sense to failed
Picking a positive-sounding verb without testing whether the sentence gives it an object
Skimming past but, which is what fixes the direction of the contrast

Here the antonym is set inside a sentence, so the connector and the preposition do part of the elimination before meaning is even weighed.

The bare form, with no sentence at all, is also asked in this paper at English Q.4 (Dissolve) and English Q.7 (Laudable).

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.