SSC CGL 2025 Tier-I · 19 September 2025, Shift 2 · 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.

Select the sentence containing the homonym of the highlighted word: The medieval monk copied the codex meticulously.

(a)The scribe placed the codex beside the incunabulum.
(b)The librarian digitized a rare codex from Florence.
(c)The AI engineer optimized the codex for faster computation.
(d)The codex was bound in goatskin vellum.

Answer

Why

Correct — C. In the given sentence a monk copies the codex, so codex means an old handwritten book.

Options (a), (b) and (d) keep that sense: a book set beside an early printed book, a rare book a librarian digitises, a book bound in vellum.

In option (c) an AI engineer optimises it for faster computation, which no manuscript can be. The book sense cannot apply there, so that is the changed meaning the key marks → option (c).

Why the others are wrong

(a)
The scribe placed the codex beside the incunabulum. — incunabulum, an early printed book, is a neighbour on the same shelf. A scribe placing a codex beside one keeps codex as a manuscript book — the same meaning, not a homonym.
(b)
The librarian digitized a rare codex from Florence. — A rare codex from Florence, digitised by a librarian, is a manuscript volume being scanned. The meaning matches the given sentence exactly.
(d)
The codex was bound in goatskin vellum. — bound in goatskin vellum describes a book's cover. Binding is done to books, so codex again means a manuscript volume, the same sense as the monk's.

Concept

A homonym is a word with the same form as another but a different meaning. The test is not whether a sentence uses the word, but whether it uses it in the same sense.

Fix the sense from the given sentence first. A monk copying something meticulously tells you codex is a manuscript book.

Then read each option for its context clue. Scribe, librarian and binding all belong to books. An AI engineer and computation do not, so that sentence forces a different reading.

The item never says what codex means in option (c). The computing context is what rules out the book sense, and that is enough to answer it.

Do not learn a computing sense from it. Wiktionary gives codex only two senses: an early manuscript book and, in pharmacology, an official list of medicines.

The computing word it resembles is codec, from coder-decoder.

Key facts

Codex means an old manuscript book, especially an ancient one (plural codices).
An incunabulum is a book printed before 1501 (plural incunabula).
A homonym shares its form with another word but differs in meaning.

Study next

Common homonyms such as bank, current and watch, where context fixes the senseManuscript and church vocabulary: codex, missal, breviary, incunabulumHomophones versus homographs: same sound versus same spelling

Common traps

Choosing the sentence with the rarest word, incunabulum, instead of the one where the meaning changes
Reading homonym as synonym and picking a sentence where codex means the same thing

19 Sep 2025, 09:00, English Q.13 and 18 Sep 2025, 09:00, English Q.13 use the same design: three sentences keep the word's usual sense, and the key puts it where that sense cannot apply.

They key a rare basilica with serrated leaves and the hydraulic fief for flow control.

Neither is a real sense either. Wiktionary has basilica only as a church or hall, and fief only as land or a domain under someone's control.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.

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