SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 25 September 2024, Shift 1 · English Comprehension · Question 13 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 option to fill in the blank. Raj is very interested in studying human psychology, so he decided to pursue his master’s degree in __________.

(a)Archaeology
(b)Psychology
(c)Philosophy
(d)Anatomy

Answer

Why

Correct — B. The hinge is so, which makes the second clause a consequence of the first. Whatever fills the blank has to be the subject Raj is already interested in.

The sentence names that subject outright: human psychology. The degree therefore has to be in Psychology, which is option (b).

No vocabulary knowledge is needed. Each remaining option names a different discipline, and any of them would break the cause-and-effect the sentence sets up.

Why the others are wrong

(a)
Archaeology — Archaeology studies the human past through material remains — excavated objects, structures, sites. It examines what people left behind, not how the mind works, so it does not follow from an interest in psychology.
(c)
Philosophy — Philosophy asks about knowledge, existence and ethics by argument rather than by empirical study of behaviour. It is the closest trap, because both concern the mind, but the sentence names psychology outright.
(d)
Anatomy — Anatomy is the study of bodily structure — organs, tissues, the physical body. Studying the brain as an organ is anatomy, while studying thought and behaviour is psychology.

Concept

Not every blank tests vocabulary. This one tests whether you read the whole sentence before you read the options.

So links a cause to its result, and the result clause here repeats the field named in the cause clause. The answer is therefore already inside the stem.

The technique generalises: when a blank sits after a result connector, look back for what the connector is a result of, and check whether the sentence has already supplied it.

The difficulty is psychological rather than linguistic.

Repeating a word from the stem feels too easy to be right, so candidates hunt for a cleverer answer. In a comprehension blank the plain repetition is often exactly what is wanted.

Key facts

Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behaviour.
Archaeology studies the human past through material remains such as artefacts and sites.
Anatomy is the study of the structure of the body.
So, used as a coordinator, marks the clause that follows it as a result of the clause before.

Study next

Result connectors and what they commit the next clause to: so, therefore, hence, consequentlyDiscipline names that get confused with one another: anthropology, sociology, archaeology, anatomyReading the full stem before scanning the options in fill-in-the-blank items

Common traps

Rejecting Psychology because repeating a word from the stem feels too obvious
Choosing Philosophy on the loose sense that both deal with the mind
Treating the blank as a free vocabulary slot and ignoring so

This blank is comprehension, not vocabulary — the field is named in the sentence and the connector carries it across.

A blank decided by the connector rather than by the dictionary is also asked in this paper at English Q.10, where "but" forces the antonym of failed.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.