SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 25 September 2024, Shift 1 · English Comprehension · Question 16 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 option that can be used as a one-word substitute for the given group of words. To go through an area making a lot of noise and causing damage

(a)Violence
(b)Cacophony
(c)Rampage
(d)Brutality

Answer

Why

Correct — C. The clue opens with the infinitive To go through, so it defines an action and the answer has to work as a verb.

Rampage is that verb: to rush through a place violently, making noise and destroying things. "A crowd rampaged through the market" matches the clue element by element — through an area, noise, damage.

Rampage is also the only verb among the four options, so the part of speech settles it before meaning is weighed. That is option (c).

Why the others are wrong

(a)
Violence — Violence is a noun naming behaviour intended to hurt. It carries no sense of moving through an area, and a noun cannot fill a slot the clue writes as an infinitive.
(b)
Cacophony — Cacophony covers only the noise — a harsh, discordant mixture of sounds. It says nothing about damage or about going through a place, and it too is a noun.
(d)
Brutality — Brutality is savage cruelty, again a noun and again a quality rather than an act. A rampage may be brutal, but brutality is not the going-through that the clue defines.

Concept

Two filters solve almost every one-word substitution item, in this order.

Part of speech. The clue's first word declares it. A clue starting "To ..." wants a verb; one starting "A ..." or "One who ..." wants a noun.

Completeness. The answer must cover the whole clue. Here that means three things at once: movement through an area, a lot of noise, and damage. Cacophony covers the noise and stops there.

Rampage is also a noun, most often in the phrase "on the rampage", which is why the verb reading can slip past a candidate.

The clue's grammar is what rules that out: it defines an action, not a state of being on one.

Key facts

Rampage works as a verb and as a noun, as in rioters rampaged through the town, or went on the rampage.
Cacophony means a harsh, discordant mixture of sounds.
Brutality is a noun meaning savage physical cruelty.
A clue that begins with To calls for a verb, while one beginning A or One who calls for a noun.

Study next

One-word substitutes that are verbs: rampage, abscond, capitulate, procrastinateUsing the clue's first word to fix the part of speech before reading the optionsNoise words that are not damage words: cacophony, din, clamour, uproar

Common traps

Choosing Violence because the clue mentions damage
Choosing Cacophony because the clue mentions noise, when it covers only half the clue
Missing that To go through demands a verb, not a noun naming the behaviour

The clue is written as a dictionary definition, and each seeded option matches one fragment of it — the noise, the damage, the cruelty — without matching the action itself.

One-word substitution is also asked in this paper at English Q.15, where the clue is a noun phrase and the answer is a noun.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.