SSC CGL 2025 Tier-I · 13 September 2025, Shift 2 · English Comprehension · Question 1 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 most appropriate synonym of the given word: BIBLIOPHILE

(a)Publisher
(b)Bookkeeper
(c)Librarian
(d)Book-lover

Answer

Why

Correct — D. Split the word into its two Greek parts: biblio-, 'book', and -phile, 'one who loves'.

A bibliophile is a person who loves books, often one who collects them. Book-lover says the same thing in plain English → option (d).

The suffix asks for a feeling about books, not a job done with them. Publisher, bookkeeper and librarian are all occupations.

Why the others are wrong

(a)
Publisher — Publisher names a business role: the person or firm that prepares and issues books for sale. A publisher need not love books, and a bibliophile need not publish one.
(b)
Bookkeeper — Bookkeeper is a trap on the word 'book'. A bookkeeper keeps a firm's financial accounts, its account books, and has nothing to do with reading or collecting.
(c)
Librarian — Librarian is the closest pull because it involves books every day. But it names a profession, running a library, while bibliophile names a love of books any reader can have.

Concept

A synonym item asks for the word's core sense, and the parts of bibliophile hand it to you.

Biblio- comes from Greek biblion, 'book', the root of bibliography, a list of books. -phile comes from Greek philos, 'loving', as in Anglophile, an admirer of things English.

Three options here are jobs connected with books. Only Book-lover describes a person's attitude to them, and that attitude is what -phile marks.

Dictionaries gloss bibliophile as a lover of books and also as a collector of books. Either way the core is a love of books, which is what option (d) says.

Key facts

A bibliophile is a person who loves or collects books.
Biblio- means book, from Greek biblion, as in bibliography.
-phile means one who loves, as in Anglophile and cinephile.
The opposite suffix is -phobe, one who fears or dislikes, as in Anglophobe.

Study next

Greek -phile and -phobe words, such as Anglophile, audiophile and xenophobeWords built on biblio-, such as bibliography and bibliomaniaThe phil- prefix at the front of a word, as in philanthropist and philosopher

Common traps

Choosing Librarian because it is the most bookish job on the list, when -phile asks for a love, not a job
Reading Bookkeeper as someone who keeps books to read, when it means someone who keeps accounts

The given word is printed bare, after a colon, and three of the options are occupations around books.

The same Greek phil-, 'loving', is keyed at 9 Sep 2024, 09:00, English Q.13, where philanthropic replaces altruistic. Philanthropist is a wrong option at 17 Sep 2024, 09:00, English Q.15, a one-word substitute keyed Pessimist.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.

Topic: Synonyms — all 129 SSC CGL questions on it, every solved shift.