SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 26 September 2024, Shift 1 · English Comprehension · Question 8 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 verb / verb phrase to fill in the blank. Akshaya ______________ hard for the entrance exam and received a high score.

(a)studies
(b)has studied
(c)studied
(d)was studied

Answer

Why

Correct — C. The trigger is the second verb: and received a high score. 'Received' is simple past, so the sentence is already anchored at a definite, finished point in past time.

The blank names the studying that produced that score — the same finished occasion — so it takes the simple past: studied.

Coordination by 'and' does not by itself force one tense on both verbs. What settles it here is that the sentence offers no second time frame to move into. Option (c) is the form that matches.

Why the others are wrong

(a)
studies — Studies is simple present. It clashes with 'received', which has already anchored the sentence in the past.
(b)
has studied — Has studied is present perfect, which resists a definite finished past. 'Received a high score' reports exactly such a finished result, so the plain past is the form the sentence needs.
(d)
was studied — Was studied is passive — it makes Akshaya the thing being studied. The sentence needs an active verb with Akshaya doing the work.

Concept

Fill-in-the-verb items are decided by a time anchor elsewhere in the sentence: another verb, a time expression, or a phrase of duration.

Here the anchor is the coordinated verb received. It reports a finished result at a definite past moment, and the blank names the studying that produced it, so the blank is simple past too.

Change the anchor and the answer changes with it. 'For the past two months' would force a present perfect continuous, and a 'before' clause naming a later past event would force the past perfect.

Three options are ordinary active forms and differ only in tense, so the item is a tense-anchor test rather than a vocabulary one.

Key facts

Coordinated verbs need not share a tense: 'She was born in 1990 and lives in Mumbai' is ordinary English.
The simple past reports a completed action at a definite past time.
'Was studied' is the passive of 'study', so it needs something that is studied, not a student.

Study next

Duration anchors such as 'for the past two months' and the present perfect continuousThe past perfect for the earlier of two past events

Common traps

Choosing the present perfect because it sounds more careful than a plain past
Missing that 'was studied' is passive rather than a past form of 'study'

The same stem, 'Select the most appropriate verb / verb phrase to fill in the blank', appears on 18 Sep 2024, 16:00, English Q.6, where 'for the past two months' keys 'have been renovating'.

It appears again on 26 Sep 2024, 12:30, English Q.10, where a 'before' clause keys the past perfect 'had won'. Read the sentence's other verb before you read the options.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.