SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 26 September 2024, Shift 3 · English Comprehension · Question 14 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 given word. Astute

(a)Stupid
(b)Dispute
(c)Temporary
(d)Illegal

Answer

Why

Correct — A. Astute means shrewd: quick to size up a situation and to use what it sees. The scale it sits on is judgement, so its opposite must be a word for poor judgement.

Stupid is that word — slow to understand, lacking sharpness. Astute and stupid stand at the two ends of one scale, which is what an antonym item asks for.

The other three sit on scales of their own: disagreement, duration and legality. None of them reverses astute, so the reversal is option (a).

Why the others are wrong

(b)
Dispute — Dispute means a disagreement, or to argue against something. It is in the set for its rhyme with astute, not for its meaning, which says nothing about sharpness of judgement.
(c)
Temporary — Temporary means lasting for a short time. Astute makes no claim about duration, so temporary is neither its synonym nor its antonym — it measures a different thing.
(d)
Illegal — Illegal means against the law. Shrewdness and legality are unconnected, and an astute plan may be perfectly lawful, so this option reverses nothing.

Concept

An antonym item wants the word at the far end of the same scale, so the first move is to name the scale.

Astute measures judgement — how sharply a person reads a situation and acts on it. Once that is named, options measuring time or legality drop out without further thought.

Astute carries a faint edge of self-interest: an astute buyer spots the bargain before anyone else. Its core, though, is perceptiveness, and perceptiveness is the sense the reversal has to work on.

Stupid is blunter than the formal opposite of astute, which would be obtuse or naive. SSC does not always offer the elegant antonym, so choose the best word on the list rather than the one you would write yourself.

Key facts

Astute means having sharp judgement, shrewd and perceptive.
Shrewd, sagacious and perceptive are synonyms of astute.
Obtuse and naive are the formal antonyms of astute.
Dispute means a disagreement and is unrelated to astute despite the rhyme.

Study next

Antonyms on the judgement scale, such as astute, shrewd, obtuse and gullibleLook-alike option sets, such as astute, aptitude, attitude and altitudeFormal antonym vocabulary, such as sagacious, discerning and ingenuous

Common traps

Choosing dispute because it echoes the sound of astute
Rejecting stupid as too plain a word for a formal-sounding one
Looking for the opposite of 'cunning' instead of the opposite of 'sharp-witted'

SSC gives the word bare, with no sentence, so you have to supply the sense yourself before comparing options. Astute turns up again as a decoy option at 10 Sep 2024, 16:00, English Q.20, where the answer is aptitude.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.