SSC CGL 2025 Tier-I · 12 September 2025, Shift 2 · English Comprehension · Question 9 of 100

We transcribed this text from the pictures on a candidate's response sheet for this shift; the answer is the key SSC colour-marked on that sheet. Solution last reviewed 13 September 2026.

Where this paper and its answers come from

SSC does not publish CGL question papers or a public answer key. From 2025 the candidate response sheet prints every question and option as a picture, so the text here is transcribed from those pictures for this shift and checked against them independently; where the layout carries meaning, the picture is shown as well. Each answer is the key SSC colour-marked on that sheet. SSC released a tentative key for challenge and later its final one, both only to candidates behind a login, and the sheet does not say which of the two it carries. The solutions are written by UnlockIAS.

Select the correct option: Nothing short of a paradigm shift will ___ the entrenched bureaucratic inertia.

(a)persuade
(b)dislodge
(c)dissuasion
(d)disillusion

Answer

Why

Correct — B. will ___ needs a base-form verb, and its object is the entrenched bureaucratic inertia.

Entrenched means dug in and firmly established, like troops in a trench. What is dug in has to be forced out, and dislodge means to force something from a fixed position.

'Nothing short of a paradigm shift will dislodge the entrenched bureaucratic inertia.' → option (b)

Why the others are wrong

(a)
persuade — Persuade takes a person as its object: you persuade someone to act. Inertia is a state, not a mind that can be talked round, so 'persuade the inertia' does not work.
(c)
dissuasion — Dissuasion is a noun, the act of talking someone out of something. After the modal will the blank needs a verb, so a noun cannot fill it.
(d)
disillusion — Disillusion is a verb, but it means to free a person from a false belief, as in 'the result disillusioned his supporters'. Inertia holds no belief to lose.

Concept

In a verb blank, the verb must suit its object as well as the grammar.

The object is inertia, resistance to change, strengthened by entrenched: firmly established and hard to move. The verb must mean forcing it out of that position, and dislodge does.

Nothing short of means 'nothing less than': only a paradigm shift, a fundamental change of approach, will do it. That strength matches dislodge, which implies force, not gentle influence.

Persuade and dissuasion belong to the vocabulary of influencing people, and disillusion changes what a person believes. Dislodge is the verb that acts on something stuck in place.

Key facts

Dislodge means to force out of a fixed or established position.
Entrenched means firmly established and difficult to change.
Nothing short of means nothing less than: only that will do.
A modal such as will is followed by the base form of a verb, never a noun.

Study next

Verb and object collocations, such as dislodge an obstacle, quell dissent and undermine reliabilityPersuade and dissuade, and their nouns persuasion and dissuasionWord-form blanks: telling the verb, noun and adjective of one family apart

Common traps

Choosing persuade because inertia sounds like something people are talked out of
Choosing dissuasion because it sounds formal, without checking that will needs a verb

A verb blank decided by sense and object is also tested at 12 Sep 2025, 16:00, English Q.9, where 'a veiled attempt to ___ dissent' is keyed quell.

15 Sep 2025, 16:00, English Q.9 keys undermined in 'unforeseen variables ___ the reliability of its conclusions'.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.

Topic: Fill in the blank — all 96 SSC CGL questions on it, every solved shift.