SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 25 September 2024, Shift 3 · English Comprehension · Question 15 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. The mother couldn’t _________ such an insult from her son in front of the others.

(a)bier
(b)bear
(c)beer
(d)bare

Answer

Why

Correct — B. The blank follows couldn't and so must be a verb, and the sense the sentence needs is to put up with something.

Bear carries exactly that sense — 'I can't bear the noise', 'bear the pain'. Option (b) is the spelling that goes with it.

The set is built on sound: all four options are pronounced as one of two words. Meaning decides, and only bear means to endure.

Why the others are wrong

(a)
bier — A bier is a stand, not an action. It is the frame on which a coffin or body is carried, and a noun cannot follow 'couldn't' in this slot.
(c)
beer — Beer is the drink. It is a noun, so 'couldn't beer such an insult' leaves the sentence with no verb — and beer sounds like bier, not like bear.
(d)
bare — 'Bare' means uncovered, or to uncover. 'Couldn't bare such an insult' would say the mother was unable to expose it, which is not what a person does with an insult from her son.

Concept

Homophone items hand you words that sound alike and differ only in spelling and meaning. The grammar of the slot usually settles them before the meaning has to.

Here the slot after couldn't demands a bare infinitive, which removes bier and beer at once because both are nouns.

Between the two spellings left, meaning decides. Bear means to carry or to endure. Bare means uncovered, or to strip something bare. An insult is endured, not uncovered.

The four options are two homophone pairs, not one. Bear and bare rhyme with 'air'; beer and bier rhyme with 'ear'. Sorting them into pairs halves the work.

Key facts

Bear as a verb means to endure or to carry, as in 'bear the pain' and 'bear a burden'.
Bare is an adjective meaning uncovered and a verb meaning to uncover, as in 'bare your soul'.
A bier is the stand or frame on which a coffin or a body is carried.
Bear and bare are homophones, as are beer and bier, but the two pairs do not rhyme with each other.

Study next

Homophone pairs that turn on spelling alone, such as flour and flower, their and there, principal and principleVerbs of enduring and the words they collocate with: bear, endure, tolerate, standThe other senses of bear: bear a child, bear fruit, bear witness

Common traps

Writing 'bare' because it looks like the plainer spelling, when it means uncovered.
Testing the options by pronunciation, which cannot separate bear from bare at all.
Forgetting that the slot after 'couldn't' can hold nothing but a verb.

The same fill-a-homophone task runs with a different pair at English Q.19 of this sitting, where Ruby offers to knead the flour.

It also runs at 18 Sep 2024, 09:00, English Q.2 (he rode his bike as fast as he could) and at 13 Sep 2024, 12:30, English Q.4 (the floor was decorated with candles).

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.