SSC CGL 2025 Tier-I · 14 September 2025, Shift 3 · English Comprehension · Question 3 of 95

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 antonym of the given word. Mendacious

(a)Dishonest
(b)Fraudulent
(c)Truthful
(d)Deceitful

Answer

Why

Correct — C. Mendacious means given to lying, untruthful. It comes from Latin mendax, 'lying, deceitful'.

An antonym must reverse that on the same axis, truth versus lies. Truthful sits at the other end → option (c).

Dishonest, Fraudulent and Deceitful all stand on the lying side with mendacious, so each is a synonym.

Why the others are wrong

(a)
Dishonest — Dishonest is a near-synonym of mendacious, not its opposite. A mendacious witness is a dishonest one.
(b)
Fraudulent — Fraudulent means done or obtained by deception, as in a fraudulent claim. It sits on the lying side with mendacious, so it is a synonym.
(d)
Deceitful — Deceitful means trying to make people believe what is false. That is close to mendacious, so it answers a synonym item, not this antonym one.

Concept

An antonym item is decided by polarity: find the axis the word sits on, then pick the option at the other end.

Mendacious sits at the lying end of the truth axis. Dishonest, Fraudulent and Deceitful stand beside it. Truthful is the lone option at the other end.

When three options agree with the given word, the item is testing whether you read antonym in the instruction.

Key facts

Mendacious means given to lying, untruthful.
Its noun is mendacity, meaning lying or untruthfulness.
It comes from Latin mendax, 'lying, deceitful'.
Veracious, meaning truthful, is a formal antonym.

Study next

Latin-root pairs on the truth axis: mendacious and veracious, mendacity and veracityAntonym items where three options are synonyms of the given word

Common traps

Reading the instruction as synonym and picking one of the three lying-side options
Confusing mendacious with mendicant, which means a beggar

Mendacious is keyed as the synonym of the bracketed word misleading at 10 Sep 2024, 16:00, English Q.9, so the same word has been asked from the other side.

The truth axis also decides 17 Sep 2024, 16:00, English Q.6, where the antonym of Candid is keyed Dishonest.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.

Topic: Antonyms — all 137 SSC CGL questions on it, every solved shift.