SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 9 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 6 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 phrase. A short interesting story about a real person or event

(a)Anecdote
(b)Sketch
(c)Poem
(d)Narrative

Answer

Why

Correct — A. The phrase sets three conditions: short, interesting, and about a real person or event. Anecdote carries all three — a brief account of a real incident, told to amuse or to make a point. Option (a) meets the definition exactly.

Run the definition backwards as a check. Every anecdote is short, and every anecdote reports something that actually happened, so no part of the phrase is left unaccounted for.

Each of the other three drops the requirement of truth, or of brevity, or both.

Why the others are wrong

(b)
Sketch — Sketch means a rough outline, a quick drawing or a short comic piece. Its core sense is roughness, and it never requires the content to be true.
(c)
Poem — Poem names a composition in verse. Form is its defining feature, and nothing about a poem requires it to be short, interesting or real.
(d)
Narrative — Narrative is the general word for any account of connected events, real or invented, of any length. It is the genus where the phrase asks for the species.

Concept

One-word substitution rewards reading the definition as a checklist. Break the phrase into its conditions — short, interesting, real — and keep only the option that satisfies every one of them.

Narrative fails on two conditions, poem on all three, sketch on truth. Anecdote is the only survivor.

The commonest wrong turn is an option that is right in kind but wrong in scope, which is precisely what narrative is here.

Anecdote is confused in the exam hall with antidote, a remedy against poison. The two share a shape and nothing else.

Key facts

An anecdote is a short account of a real incident, usually told to entertain or to illustrate a point.
Anecdote comes from Greek anekdota, meaning things unpublished.
Antidote, a remedy against poison, is an unrelated word and a standing confusion.

Study next

One-word substitutes for kinds of writing: memoir, biography, satire, elegyGenus-and-species traps where the general word is offered beside the exact oneLook-alike pairs worth drilling: anecdote and antidote, prescribe and proscribe

Common traps

Picking narrative because it is undeniably a story, while ignoring the words short and real.
Reading anecdote as antidote under time pressure and rejecting it.

One-word substitution runs right through this section. The same instruction appears at 09 Sep 2024, 09:00, English Q.6 (unit of weight for precious stones, keyed Carat), Q.7 (proficient in speaking many languages, keyed Multilingual) and Q.9 (a person who likes to argue about anything, keyed Contentious).

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.