SSC CGL 2025 Tier-I · 14 September 2025, Shift 1 · English Comprehension · Question 13 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 11 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.

We doubt SSC's key on this question.

Wiktionary and Etymonline record pauldron only as shoulder armour, so no option holds a true homonym; the key can only be read as picking the one sentence where the word cannot mean armour, and this card follows it.

The answer below is still the option SSC's key marks, and we solve to that option.

Select the sentence containing the homonym of the highlighted word: The knight raised his pauldron before mounting.

(a)The blacksmith polished the steel pauldron until it gleamed.
(b)The art historian admired the engraved pauldron of the effigy.
(c)The biology student dissected the pauldron of the sea slug.
(d)The museum displayed a 15th-century Italian pauldron.

Answer

Why

Correct — C. In the highlighted sentence, pauldron is armour: the plate that guards a knight's shoulder.

Sentences (a), (b) and (d) keep that sense. A blacksmith polishes a steel pauldron, an effigy carries an engraved one, a museum displays a 15th-century Italian one.

Sentence (c) has a biology student dissect a sea slug. A sea slug has no shoulder armour, so (c) is the sentence where the word must mean something else — the reading the key takes: option (c).

Why the others are wrong

(a)
The blacksmith polished the steel pauldron until it gleamed. — The blacksmith and the steel he polishes belong to armour-making. Pauldron keeps the stem's meaning, a shoulder plate, so this is the same word in the same sense.
(b)
The art historian admired the engraved pauldron of the effigy. — An effigy is a sculpted figure of a person, and the engraved pauldron on it is carved shoulder armour. The sense matches the stem's exactly.
(d)
The museum displayed a 15th-century Italian pauldron. — A 15th-century Italian pauldron in a museum is a real piece of plate armour. The word means just what it means in the stem.

Concept

A homonym shares its spelling and sound with another word of unrelated meaning: a stern warning, and the stern of a ship.

In this format every option repeats the highlighted word, so spelling cannot help. Fix the stem's meaning first, then look for the sentence where that meaning cannot hold.

A pauldron is plate armour for the shoulder. Etymonline traces it to Old French espauleron, from espaule, 'shoulder'.

Wiktionary and Etymonline record pauldron only as shoulder armour. Neither gives a sense that fits a sea slug, so strictly no option holds a true homonym.

The item works by elimination: (a), (b) and (d) are plainly armour, and (c) is the sentence set outside it.

Key facts

A pauldron is a piece of plate armour that protects the shoulder.
Etymonline traces pauldron to Old French espauleron, from espaule, 'shoulder'.
An effigy is a sculpture or model of a person.
Stern is a true homonym: strict, as in a stern warning, and the rear of a ship.

Study next

Homonyms with a nautical second sense: stern, bowPolysemy versus homonymy: one word with related senses, or two unrelated words sharing a formArmour vocabulary: pauldron, gauntlet, visor

Common traps

Reading the effigy sentence as a new meaning because it is about art, when its pauldron is still shoulder armour
Looking for a different spelling, when every option spells pauldron the same way

The same format with a true homonym appears at 21 Sep 2025, 16:00, English Q.19, where the stern of a ship is keyed against a stern warning.

At 12 Sep 2025, 09:00, English Q.13, introit is keyed the way pauldron is here: the one sentence set outside the stem's setting.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.

Topic: Homonyms and confusables — all 10 SSC CGL questions on it, every solved shift.