SSC CGL 2025 Tier-I · 19 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 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.

Choose the correct semantic fit: The intervention was seen as a _____ to escalating tensions.

(a)deterrent
(b)detention
(c)detraction
(d)derision

Answer

Why

Correct — A. The frame is a _____ to escalating tensions: a countable noun, then to, naming something that works against the tensions.

A deterrent is something that discourages an action or makes it less likely, and it takes to: a deterrent to crime.

So the intervention was seen as a check on escalation → option (a).

Why the others are wrong

(b)
detention — Detention is the act of holding someone in custody, or keeping a pupil after school. It holds people, and a detention to tensions makes no sense.
(c)
detraction — Detraction is the belittling of someone's worth, and its verb pairs with from, as in detract from. Belittling does nothing to calm tensions.
(d)
derision — Derision means scornful mockery, and mockery would not check tensions. Its countable sense, a person or thing derided, makes no sense before to escalating tensions either.

Concept

A semantic-fit item gives four look-alike words and one frame. Here all four begin with de-, so the sound helps nothing and the meaning decides.

Read the frame first. The article a needs a countable noun, and to escalating tensions needs a noun that acts against them.

Deterrent is the lone option that names something discouraging. It comes from the verb deter, to discourage or prevent.

Detention can take a as well, so the article alone does not settle the item. The meaning does: a detention holds a person, while a deterrent discourages the thing named after to.

Key facts

A deterrent is a thing that discourages, or is meant to discourage, an action.
Deterrent takes the preposition to: a deterrent to crime.
Derision in its usual sense, scornful mockery, is uncountable.
Detract, the verb behind detraction, is followed by from.

Study next

Confusable de- verbs: deter, detain, detract and derideNouns with a fixed preposition: a deterrent to, an obstacle to, a threat toCountable and uncountable nouns in blank-filling items

Common traps

Choosing by sound among four words that all start with de-, instead of testing each in the sentence
Taking detention as a kind of restraint on the tensions, when detention holds people in custody

Vocabulary-in-context blanks also appear at 12 Sep 2025, 16:00, English Q.9 (a veiled attempt to ___ dissent, keyed quell) and 15 Sep 2025, 16:00, English Q.9 (unforeseen variables ___ the reliability of its conclusions, keyed undermined).

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No directly related past PYQ was found.

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