SSC CGL 2025 Tier-I · 21 September 2025, Shift 1 · English Comprehension · Question 19 of 99

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.

No option uses a true homonym of tenure, because (a), (b) and (d) keep its sense of holding and (c)'s 'tenure of pain' fits no English sense in Wiktionary, so the key can only be read as marking the odd use out.

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 philosopher's tenure at the institution was legendary.

(a)He lost tenure due to academic misconduct.
(b)The lease agreement defines tenure by clause.
(c)The sculptor captured the tenure of pain in marble.
(d)Colonial tenure laws were challenged by activists.

Answer

Why

Correct — C. In the stem, tenure is the philosopher's holding of a post at the institution — his time there.

Sentences (a), (b) and (d) keep that idea of holding: an academic post that can be lost, the holding of leased property, and colonial rules on how land was held.

Sentence (c) attaches tenure to pain, which is not held as a post, a lease or land. The key reads this as the different meaning. See the dispute note → option (c).

Why the others are wrong

(a)
He lost tenure due to academic misconduct. — Lost tenure is the academic sense: a permanent post with job security, which misconduct can cost. It is still a post that is held — the stem's own idea.
(b)
The lease agreement defines tenure by clause. — The lease agreement sets out the holding of a leased property. That is tenure as holding — Etymonline's earliest sense, 'land or property so held'.
(d)
Colonial tenure laws were challenged by activists. — Colonial tenure laws governed who held land and on what terms. Land holding is the sense Etymonline records first, from the early 15th century — the same word as the stem's.

Concept

A homonym shares its spelling or sound with another word of unrelated meaning: bank (the side of a river) and bank (a place for money). Fix the stem's meaning first, then look for the sentence where the same form means something unrelated.

Tenure comes from Old French tenure, built on tenir, 'to hold', from Latin tenere. Its senses — an office held, the period it is held, a permanent academic post, land held — all keep that idea.

Strictly, no option here holds a true homonym. Wiktionary's four senses of the noun — possessing a thing or an office, a period of possession, a permanent academic post, a right to hold land — all belong to one word.

'The tenure of pain' sits awkwardly with all four. It reads most naturally with a meaning like 'character', which Wiktionary gives to the look-alike word tenor ('stamp; character; nature'), not to tenure.

Key facts

Tenure comes from Old French tenure, from tenir, 'to hold', and ultimately from Latin tenere.
Etymonline dates tenure's land sense, 'land or property so held', to the early 15th century.
The sense of holding a status or position is attested by the 1590s, and the academic 'guaranteed tenure of office' from 1957.
Tenor is a separate word: Wiktionary's senses for it run from a singing voice range to 'character' and 'nature'.

Study next

Homonymy versus polysemy: two unrelated words sharing a form, or one word with related sensesLook-alike pairs: tenure and tenorWords from Latin tenere, 'to hold': tenant, tenet, tenacious

Common traps

Picking (b) or (d) because land feels like a different subject from an academic post — both still use tenure for something held, the stem's own idea.
Reading 'lost tenure' in (a) as a new meaning: the academic sense is a permanent post, still a post that is held.

At 12 Sep 2025, 09:00, English Q.13 (introit), every option also keeps the stem's sense, and the key marks the sentence that takes the word out of its usual setting.

At 18 Sep 2025, 09:00, English Q.13, the key marks 'The engineer calibrated the hydraulic fief for flow control' — a landholding word, like tenure, put inside a machine.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.

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