SSC CGL 2025 Tier-I · 17 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.

We doubt SSC's key on this question.

Wiktionary and Etymonline record corbel only as an architectural bracket, so no option holds a true homonym; the key can only be read as marking the sentence where the word cannot mean that bracket, 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 monk meditated beneath the ancient corbel protruding from the chapel wall.

(a)The corbel cracked under the weight of the vaulted stone.
(b)The corbel was adorned with grotesques typical of Gothic style.
(c)The scholar explained the political corbel in Machiavellian strategy.
(d)The mason restored the damaged stone corbel last year.

Answer

Why

Correct — C. In the stem, corbel is a building term: a bracket of stone or wood jutting from a wall to carry weight. Here it protrudes from a chapel wall.

Sentences (a), (b) and (d) keep that sense: a corbel cracking under vaulted stone, one carved with Gothic grotesques, a stone one a mason restores.

Sentence (c) sets the word in Machiavellian strategy, where a wall bracket cannot fit. That is the sentence the key marks → option (c).

Why the others are wrong

(a)
The corbel cracked under the weight of the vaulted stone. — Cracked under the weight of the vaulted stone describes a bracket carrying a load, which is what a corbel does. Same word, same sense as the stem.
(b)
The corbel was adorned with grotesques typical of Gothic style. — Adorned with grotesques is carved decoration, and Gothic style is architecture. The corbel is still the stem's wall bracket, only ornamented.
(d)
The mason restored the damaged stone corbel last year. — A mason works in stone, and the damaged stone corbel he restores is the same projecting bracket. Nothing moves the word out of building.

Concept

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

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

A corbel is a structural piece jutting out of a wall to carry weight above it. Its name goes back to Latin corvus, 'raven', for the bracket's beak-like shape.

Wiktionary and Etymonline record corbel only in building: the bracket itself, and a verb meaning to support by corbels.

Neither gives a sense that fits political strategy, so strictly no option holds a true homonym.

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

Key facts

A corbel is a structural member jutting from a wall to carry a weight above it.
Corbel comes from Old French corbel, a diminutive traced to Latin corvus, 'raven', for its beak-like shape.
Stern is a true homonym: strict, as in a stern warning, and the rear of a ship.

Study next

Homonyms that switch word class: stern (strict) and stern (the rear of a ship)Polysemy versus homonymy: related senses of one word, or two unrelated words sharing a formChurch-architecture words in this item: corbel, vault, chapel

Common traps

Reading the Gothic grotesques sentence as a new meaning because it is about art, when its corbel is still a carved bracket
Hunting for a different spelling, when every option spells corbel the same way

At 14 Sep 2025, 09:00, English Q.13, pauldron, shoulder armour, is keyed the same way: the sentence that sets the word on a sea slug.

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

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.

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