SSC CGL 2025 Tier-I · 15 September 2025, Shift 3 · 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 legal scholar revised the digest of civil statutes.

(a)He took a tablet to aid his digest after the meal.
(b)The magazine’s monthly digest reached a million readers.
(c)The editor proofread the tax digest overnight.
(d)The court referenced an old digest of maritime law.

Answer

Why

Correct — A. In the given sentence, digest is a noun meaning a compilation or summary: a collected summary of civil statutes.

In option (a) the word points to the stomach instead: a tablet taken after the meal to aid his digest. That is the food sense, the one the verb digest carries when you digest a meal.

Same spelling, different meaning, so option (a) holds the homonym.

Why the others are wrong

(b)
The magazine’s monthly digest reached a million readers. — monthly digest is a condensed round-up that a magazine puts out. That is the same summary sense as the given sentence, applied to reading matter instead of law.
(c)
The editor proofread the tax digest overnight. — tax digest is a compilation of tax material that an editor proofreads. Same noun, same summary sense as the digest of civil statutes.
(d)
The court referenced an old digest of maritime law. — digest of maritime law repeats the given sentence's own sense almost word for word: a compiled summary of law, here cited by a court.

Concept

A homonym, in this question, is the same word used with a different meaning.

digest has two families of sense. As a noun it is a compilation or summary: a digest of statutes, a news digest. As a verb it means to break down food in the body, and by extension to take in information.

The given sentence uses the summary sense. Look for the option where the context forces the other one; here after the meal and the tablet do that.

Standard English would write aid his digestion. The option keeps digest because the question needs that word in every option; read it for its sense, the body's handling of a meal, and it stands apart from the other three.

Strictly, both senses descend from the Latin verb digerere, so the question uses homonym loosely: same spelling, different meaning.

Key facts

digest (noun): a compilation or summary of material, such as a digest of statutes.
digest (verb): to break down food in the body, or to take in information.
The noun for breaking down food is digestion: a tablet to aid digestion.

Study next

Homonyms with an everyday and a technical sense: a stern warning, the stern of a shipWords that are both noun and verb with different meanings: digest, object, presentHomophones versus homonyms: right and write share a sound, not a spelling

Common traps

Rejecting option (a) because aid his digest sounds odd, when that shift of sense is the point
Picking the magazine digest because its setting differs from law, though its meaning does not

The same set-up decides 21 Sep 2025, 16:00, English Q.19, where a stern warning is set against the stern of a ship, and 18 Sep 2025, 12:30, English Q.13, where a bishop's mitre is set against a welder's mitre joint. In both, the keyed option is the one that moves the word to a different meaning.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.

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