SSC CGL 2025 Tier-I · 14 September 2025, Shift 2 · 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.

Select the sentence containing the homonym of the highlighted word: The tripos system at Cambridge remains a model of academic rigor.

(a)The tripos involved oral defense and written modules.
(b)He broke his tripos into discrete phases of analysis.
(c)The ceremonial tripos stool toppled during the investiture.
(d)She passed the natural sciences tripos with distinction.

Answer

Why

Correct — C. In the given sentence tripos is Cambridge's honours examination system. The homonym is the sentence where the same word means something else.

In (c) tripos describes a stool that topples during a ceremony. That is a physical object, not an examination.

It matches an older, now obsolete sense of tripos: a three-legged structure, a tripod → option (c).

Why the others are wrong

(a)
The tripos involved oral defense and written modules. — oral defense and written modules are parts of an examination. Tripos here is the Cambridge exam, the same meaning as in the given sentence.
(b)
He broke his tripos into discrete phases of analysis. — his tripos is still his degree course and its exams, split into phases of study. The phrasing is unusual, but the meaning is the academic one of the given sentence.
(d)
She passed the natural sciences tripos with distinction. — passed ... with distinction is what a candidate does with an examination. The natural sciences tripos is the exam sense again, not a second meaning.

Concept

A homonym is a word with the same form as another but a different meaning: a stern warning, the stern of a ship.

At Cambridge, a tripos is the final examination for a BA honours degree. An older, now obsolete sense of the word is a three-legged structure, a tripod.

Test each option by asking what the tripos is in that sentence: something passed, examined or divided into stages, or something that can topple.

The University of Cambridge's own account traces the name to the seventeenth century, when verses were read out at graduation ceremonies by someone seated on a three-legged stool, or tripos.

The lists of graduating students were later written on the back of these Tripos verses, and the name passed to the courses.

Key facts

Tripos (Cambridge University): the final examinations for a BA honours degree.
Tripos (obsolete): a three-legged structure, a tripod.
Stern means strict as an adjective and the rear of a ship as a noun.

Study next

Homonyms that switch word class: stern (strict) and stern (rear of a ship)Homophones, which share a sound but not a spelling: floor and flourUsing the words around a noun to fix its sense: passed the tripos vs the tripos stool toppled

Common traps

Choosing (b) because broke his tripos into phases reads strangely, when odd phrasing is not a new meaning
Picking the least familiar-sounding sentence instead of asking what tripos names in each

The same item type is keyed at 21 Sep 2025, 16:00, English Q.19, where a stern warning is set against the stern of the ship.

18 Sep 2025, 12:30, English Q.13 sets a bishop's mitre against a steel mitre joint.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.

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