SSC CGL 2025 Tier-I · 17 September 2025, Shift 1 · 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 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.

We doubt SSC's key on this question.

Wiktionary and Etymonline record simony only as the buying or selling of sacred things, so no option holds a true homonym; the key can only be read as marking the sentence where the word cannot carry that sense, and this card follows it.

The answer below is still the option SSC's key marks, and we solve to that option.

Select the sentence containing the homonym of the highlighted word: The bishop condemned the act as simony, citing canonical law.

(a)The preacher was accused of simony for charging for blessings.
(b)The court equated indulgence-selling with simony.
(c)The alchemist failed to explain the simony in his formulas.
(d)Simony was rampant in medieval ecclesiastical courts.

Answer

Why

Correct — C. In the stem, simony is a church offence: buying or selling sacred things, such as church offices or pardons. The bishop and canonical law fix that sense.

Sentences (a), (b) and (d) keep it: a preacher charging for blessings, indulgence-selling, simony in ecclesiastical courts.

Sentence (c) puts simony in an alchemist's formulas, where selling sacred things cannot fit. That is the sentence the key marks → option (c).

Why the others are wrong

(a)
The preacher was accused of simony for charging for blessings. — Charging for blessings is selling a sacred thing for money, which is exactly what simony means. Same word, same sense as the stem.
(b)
The court equated indulgence-selling with simony. — Indulgence-selling is the sale of Church pardons, and pardons are among the sacred things Wiktionary's definition of simony names. The meaning matches the stem.
(d)
Simony was rampant in medieval ecclesiastical courts. — Ecclesiastical courts are church courts, so simony here is the same church offence the bishop condemned. Nothing moves the word to a second meaning.

Concept

A homonym shares its spelling and sound with a word of unrelated meaning: a stern warning, and the stern of a ship.

Every option repeats simony, so spelling cannot help. Fix what the stem's word means, then look for the sentence where that meaning cannot hold.

Simony is named after Simon Magus, who in Acts 8 offered money for the power of conferring the Holy Spirit and was rebuked by Peter.

Wiktionary and Etymonline record simony with one sense only: the buying or selling of sacred things.

Neither gives a sense that fits an alchemist's formulas, so strictly no option holds a true homonym.

The item works by elimination: (a), (b) and (d) are plainly the church offence, and (c) is the sentence where that reading fails.

Key facts

Simony is the buying or selling of sacred things, such as church offices, pardons or consecrated objects.
Etymonline traces simony to Simon Magus, who in Acts 8 tried to buy the power of conferring the Holy Spirit.
Canonical law, or canon law, is the law of the Church.
Stern is a true homonym: strict, as in a stern warning, and the rear of a ship.

Study next

True homonym pairs: stern (strict) and stern (rear of a ship), bank (of a river) and bank (for money)Polysemy versus homonymy: related senses of one word, or two unrelated words sharing a formChurch vocabulary in this item: simony, indulgence, ecclesiastical, canon law

Common traps

Choosing (b) because indulgence-selling sounds like a separate offence, when the sale of pardons is one of the things simony covers.
Looking for a different spelling, when every option spells simony the same way.

At 17 Sep 2025, 16:00, English Q.13, corbel, a wall bracket, is keyed the same way: the sentence that sets the word in Machiavellian strategy.

The format with a true homonym appears at 21 Sep 2025, 16:00, English Q.19, where the stern of a ship is keyed against a stern warning.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.

Topic: Homonyms and confusables — all 29 SSC CGL questions on it, every solved shift.