SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 26 September 2024, Shift 3 · English Comprehension · Question 4 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.

Complete the sentence with the most appropriate set of ANTONYMS of the highlighted word. . ‘Grisly’. The other day Jimmy behaved _ with Jammy and that was quite _ for me.

(a)pleasantly , comforting
(b)rudely, attractive
(c)ghastly, shameless
(d)disgusting, atrocious

Answer

Why

Correct — A. Grisly means causing horror or disgust — gruesome. Both blanks have to be filled with words that reverse that.

Option (a) gives pleasantly and comforting: behaviour that is agreeable, and an effect that reassures rather than horrifies. Each word is an opposite of grisly, not merely a different word.

The form check confirms it. Behaved takes an adverb, and pleasantly is an adverb; the second blank follows quite and needs an adjective, which comforting supplies.

Why the others are wrong

(b)
rudely, attractive — Rudely is not the opposite of grisly — rude behaviour is still unpleasant. Only the second word moves to the positive side, and a pair item needs both blanks reversed.
(c)
ghastly, shameless — Ghastly is a synonym of grisly, so this pair repeats the highlighted word instead of opposing it. Shameless is negative as well, leaving nothing reversed.
(d)
disgusting, atrocious — Disgusting and atrocious both sit close to grisly in sense. Choosing them keeps the sentence horrifying, which is the reading the ANTONYM instruction asks you to overturn.

Concept

This is an antonym item wearing a fill-in-the-blanks costume. Grisly means gruesome and horrifying, and the answer must reverse it twice over.

Test each pair on two counts. Sense first: is each word an opposite of grisly, or just some other negative word? Then form: behaved needs an adverb, and the slot after quite needs an adjective.

A pair fails if either half fails. That is what makes it harder than a single-word antonym — a half-right pair is still wrong.

The word under test is printed on its own as 'Grisly' before the sentence, so nothing inside the sentence tells you how Jimmy behaved. The one word decides both blanks.

Key facts

Grisly means causing horror or disgust, and is close in sense to gruesome and ghastly.
Pleasant and comforting are its opposites: agreeable, and reassuring.
Behaved is followed by an adverb, which is why the first blank takes pleasantly and not pleasant.
Grisly and grizzly are different words — grizzly means greyish, and names the bear.

Study next

Antonym pairs where both blanks must be reversed, not only oneAdverb and adjective slots: behaved pleasantly against was pleasantLook-alike words that mean different things, such as grisly, ghastly and grizzly

Common traps

Reversing one blank, finding it right, and accepting the pair on that alone
Reading ghastly as an opposite simply because it is the less familiar word
Putting an adjective in the first blank when behaved requires an adverb

SSC highlights one word and opens two blanks, and the keyed pair must oppose the word in both.

The same vocabulary is tested in single-word form at 09 Sep 2024, 12:30, English Q.13, where the antonym of Scary is keyed as comforting — the very word this item uses.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.