SSC CGL 2025 Tier-I · 14 September 2025, Shift 2 · English Comprehension · Question 2 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 most appropriate antonym of the given word. Placatory

(a)Pacifying
(b)Soothing
(c)Aggravating
(d)Conciliatory

Answer

Why

Correct — C. Placatory means meant to calm someone's anger or win them round: a placatory smile, a placatory letter.

The antonym must stir anger up or make things worse. Aggravating does that in both its senses, making a problem worse and, in everyday use, annoying → option (c).

The other three options all mean calming, so they are synonyms of the given word.

Why the others are wrong

(a)
Pacifying — Pacifying means calming someone or restoring peace, which is what a placatory remark sets out to do. It is a synonym, not an antonym.
(b)
Soothing — Soothing means easing anger, pain or worry. A placatory word is meant to soothe, so this option repeats the given word's meaning.
(d)
Conciliatory — Conciliatory means intended to end a quarrel or regain goodwill. It is the closest synonym of placatory in the list, the reverse of what the question asks.

Concept

Placatory is the adjective from placate, to make someone less angry or hostile. Both come from Latin placare, 'to calm, appease'.

A placatory tone tries to calm: its synonyms are conciliatory, pacifying, soothing and appeasing.

The antonym has to increase anger or trouble: aggravating, provoking, inflaming, antagonising. The first dictionary sense of aggravate is to make a bad situation worse, as in 'aggravate an injury'.

Aggravating has two senses, making worse and annoying. Either one works against calm, so either reading gives the antonym here.

Key facts

Placate means to make someone less angry. Placatory means intended to do that.
Synonyms of placatory: conciliatory, pacifying, soothing, appeasing.
Antonyms of placatory: aggravating, provoking, inflaming, antagonising.
Implacable, from the same Latin root, means impossible to placate: an implacable enemy.

Study next

Verbs of calming: placate, appease, mollify, allay, pacifyAggravate against exacerbate, and the two senses of aggravate

Common traps

Choosing conciliatory or pacifying because they are familiar, without registering that the question asks for the antonym
Confusing placatory with placid, which describes a calm nature rather than an attempt to calm someone

The same calm-against-worse opposition is keyed at 9 Sep 2024, 12:30, English Q.20, where the ANTONYM of allay is aggravate and mollify sits among the wrong options.

Implacable, from the same root, is set as a synonym item at 15 Sep 2025, 12:30, English Q.1, keyed Unyielding.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.

Topic: Antonyms — all 114 SSC CGL questions on it, every solved shift.