SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 9 September 2024, Shift 3 · English Comprehension · Question 19 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 most appropriate option to substitute the underlined segment in the given sentence. There are many factories in the operative area of the city.

(a)industrious
(b)mechanical
(c)industrial
(d)serviceable

Answer

Why

Correct — C. The sentence names a part of a city that holds many factories, and the fixed English term for that is an industrial area.

Industrial is the adjective of industry, so it describes a place given over to manufacturing. Operative means working or in force, which says nothing about factories.

The response sheet does not carry the underline, but all four options are adjectives fitting the slot before "area" — so the segment being replaced is operative, and option (c) is the key.

Why the others are wrong

(a)
industrious — Industrious means hard-working and describes people, not places: an industrious clerk, never an industrious area. It is the standard trap here because it shares the root industry.
(b)
mechanical — Mechanical means relating to machines, or done without thought. A mechanical area is not a term for a district, and a factory district is defined by manufacturing, not by machinery alone.
(d)
serviceable — Serviceable means fit for use or hard-wearing, as in serviceable boots. It rates the condition of a thing and cannot name the character of a city district.

Concept

Adjectives built on one root but different suffixes split by what they are allowed to describe.

Industrial attaches to places, output and processes: an industrial area, industrial output, an industrial dispute. Industrious attaches to people and their habits: an industrious student.

A segment-substitution item asks for the word that both fits the grammar and is the conventional collocation. Grammar alone leaves all four options standing here, so collocation decides it.

Operative is not bad English — it means in force, or functioning — it simply does not describe a district full of factories. The item tests precision, not a broken rule.

Key facts

Industrial describes places and processes connected with manufacturing, as in industrial area.
Industrious describes a person who works hard.
Operative as an adjective means in force or functioning, as in the rule is now operative.

Study next

Suffix pairs that change what a word may describe, such as economic and economical.Collocation practice with the nouns area, sector and zone.Segment-substitution and one-word-substitution question types in SSC CGL Tier-I English.

Common traps

Picking industrious because it shares the root industry and looks like the harder word.
Treating operative as an error to be corrected rather than a word to be replaced with a better fit.

Segment-substitution items give a word that is grammatical but imprecise and ask for the conventional term.

This shift pairs it with a sound-alike choice at English Q.18 (right, write, rite) and a synonym-in-a-blank at English Q.8 (9 Sep 2024, 16:00).

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.