SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 9 September 2024, Shift 2 · English Comprehension · Question 18 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 5 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 synonym of the given word. Berserk

(a)Stubborn
(b)Demented
(c)Absurd
(d)Lazy

Answer

Why

Correct — B. Berserk means wildly out of control — frantic, crazed, violent. It is the sense you hear in "the crowd went berserk".

Demented, in its everyday use, means behaving irrationally, out of one's mind. That is the same idea: a mind no longer under control.

Both words judge behaviour as unhinged rather than naming a settled character trait, so demented is the closest of the four.

Why the others are wrong

(a)
Stubborn — Stubborn names a fixed temperament — refusing to change your mind or your course. A settled trait is not a sudden loss of control, so it misses the frenzy at the heart of "berserk".
(c)
Absurd — Absurd judges an idea or a situation, not a person: ridiculous, contrary to reason. "Berserk" judges behaviour, so the two words are not even applied to the same kind of thing.
(d)
Lazy — Lazy is unwilling to make an effort — close to the opposite of the frantic, high-energy behaviour "berserk" names.

Concept

Berserk entered English from the Old Norse berserkr, the name for warriors said to fight in an uncontrollable fury. The modern word keeps that core: a sudden, violent loss of control.

A synonym item wants the option that shares the word's core sense, not one that merely shares its disapproving tone.

Stubborn, absurd and lazy are all unflattering. Only "demented" carries the specific idea of a mind that is no longer under control.

Demented also has a clinical sense — suffering from dementia — and some candidates reject it for being too narrow.

SSC is using the everyday sense here: wild, irrational, out of one's mind.

Key facts

"Berserk" comes from Old Norse berserkr, warriors described as fighting in an uncontrollable fury.
"Go berserk" is the word's usual collocation, and it is said of behaviour, never of ideas or objects.
"Demented" means both "suffering from dementia" and, in ordinary use, "behaving irrationally".

Study next

The out-of-control synonym cluster: frenzied, frantic, manic, deranged, unhingedFixed-temperament words (stubborn, obstinate, dogged) against temporary-state words (frantic, hysterical, berserk)Synonym sets built on "mad": demented, deranged, delirious, distraught

Common traps

Picking whichever option feels most negative — all four carry disapproval, only one carries the meaning.
Ruling out "demented" because you read it only in its medical sense.

SSC's synonym items give a bare word with no sentence, so there is no context to lean on: the four options are one true synonym plus three words from the same emotional register.

This shift asks the format twice more — English Q.14 (Abundant → Ample), also a bare word, and English Q.15, where the word is underlined inside a sentence (09 Sep 2024, 12:30).

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.