SSC CGL 2025 Tier-I · 16 September 2025, Shift 1 · English Comprehension · Question 9 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 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 correct option: The artifact was notable not merely for its age but also for the _____ with which it was preserved.

(a)meticulousness
(b)velocity
(c)brevity
(d)severity

Answer

Why

Correct — A. The trigger is with which it was preserved: the blank names the manner in which the artifact was kept.

Not merely … but also adds a second reason the artifact was notable, so the blank must be a quality of that preserving which deserves notice.

Meticulousness, great care and attention to detail, is that quality → option (a).

Why the others are wrong

(b)
velocity — Velocity is speed in a given direction. Preserving an artifact is not a motion, so 'the velocity with which it was preserved' makes no sense.
(c)
brevity — Brevity means shortness, of time or of speech. An artifact notable for its age has been kept over a long time, so brevity pulls against the sentence.
(d)
severity — Severity means harshness or seriousness, as of a punishment or an illness. Harshness is not a quality of careful preservation, and would not make the artifact notable.

Concept

The ___ with which is a frame for manner: the ease with which, the speed with which, the care with which. The noun in the blank must describe how the action was done.

Here the action is preserved, so the noun must be something preservation can be done with. Care fits, and speed, shortness and harshness do not.

Not merely X but also Y joins two parallel items. Both age and the blank are reasons the artifact is notable.

Of the four nouns, meticulousness alone describes care. Velocity, brevity and severity measure speed, length and harshness.

Key facts

Meticulousness is great care and precise attention to detail. The adjective is meticulous.
'The ___ with which it was done' asks for a noun of manner, such as care, ease or skill.
Not merely X but also Y adds Y to X as a parallel item, not a contrast.
Velocity is speed in a direction, brevity is shortness, and severity is harshness.

Study next

Correlative pairs: not only … but also, not merely … but also, either … orNouns of manner after 'the ___ with which': ease, alacrity, diligence, precisionLook-alike -ity nouns: brevity, levity, gravity, severity

Common traps

Choosing velocity because 'with which' suggests how fast something happened
Reading not merely … but also as a contrast and looking for a negative noun such as severity

A one-sentence blank under the stem 'Select the correct option', where the words around the blank decide the meaning.

A vocabulary blank of this kind is also asked at 12 Sep 2025, 12:30, English Q.9 ('Nothing short of a paradigm shift will ___ the entrenched bureaucratic inertia', keyed dislodge).

15 Sep 2025, 16:00, English Q.9 keys undermined in 'unforeseen variables ___ the reliability of its conclusions'.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.

Topic: Fill in the blank — all 96 SSC CGL questions on it, every solved shift.