SSC CGL 2025 Tier-I · 19 September 2025, Shift 3 · English Comprehension · Question 8 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 one-word substitute for: 'A harmless, inert substance or pill prescribed more for psychological benefit than for any physiological effect'.

(a)Panacea
(b)Placebo
(c)Antidote
(d)Palliative

Answer

Why

Correct — B. A placebo is a harmless, inactive pill or treatment given for its effect on the patient's mind rather than on the body.

The stem's triggers are inert (it does nothing chemically) and psychological benefit (any gain comes from the patient's belief).

That is the definition of Placebo → option (b).

Why the others are wrong

(a)
Panacea — Panacea is a remedy claimed to cure every disease or solve every problem. It promises effects everywhere, while a placebo is inert.
(c)
Antidote — Antidote is a medicine that counteracts a particular poison. It works chemically on the body, the physiological effect the stem rules out.
(d)
Palliative — Palliative is a treatment that relieves pain or symptoms without curing the cause. Its relief acts on the body, so it is not inert.

Concept

Placebo is Latin for 'I shall please'. In medicine it has two uses: a dummy treatment given to reassure a patient, and a control in drug trials.

The placebo effect is a benefit a patient experiences from a treatment with no active ingredient, put down to their belief in it.

All four options are medical words, so the definition's detail decides: inert and psychological point to one of them.

Palliative is the nearest trap, because neither a palliative nor a placebo cures the cause. The difference is that a palliative acts on the body, and a placebo, being inert, does not.

Key facts

A placebo is an inert pill or treatment given for psychological rather than physiological effect.
Placebo is Latin for 'I shall please'.
Placebos are used as controls in trials of new drugs.
A panacea is a supposed cure-all, an antidote counters a poison, a palliative relieves symptoms.

Study next

Medical vocabulary: prognosis, prophylactic, sedative and antisepticRemedy words compared: panacea, nostrum, elixir and antidoteWords related to Latin placere, to please: placid, complacent and placate

Common traps

Choosing Palliative because it also leaves the cause untreated, missing that it acts on the body
Taking Antidote as a general word for any medicine, when it counters a specific poison

The definition is given in full and all four options are medical words, so the decisive detail is inert.

A one-word substitute with close neighbours as options is also asked at 14 Sep 2025, 9:00, English Q.6 ('A person who eats excessively or greedily', keyed Glutton over Gourmet, Epicure and Sybarite).

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.