SSC CGL 2025 Tier-I · 22 September 2025, Shift 1 · English Comprehension · Question 10 of 98

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.

In the given passage, some words have been deleted. Read the passage intently and choose the most appropriate option to fill in each blank:
Global sustainability discourse has not so much evolved as ossified into a lexicon of managerial (1) _____—terms engineered more for reputational lubrication than ecological redress. What was once a moral reckoning with planetary precarity now traffics in dashboards and metrics, calibrated less to redistribute power than to launder it. Words like “resilience,” ”stakeholder engagement,” and “net-zero” populate position papers, their meanings stretched until they acquire the elasticity of (2) _____.In this semantic economy, language ceases to be revelatory and becomes performative. Reports teeter on euphemism; declarations bristle with procedural piety. Crises are not named; they are (3) _____ into ‘developmental challenges.’ The grammar of suffering is bleached, even as the facts remain uncompromising. What emerges is not truth, but a choreography of credibility—an affective simulation of care. Meanwhile, epistemic asymmetries persist: indigenous knowledge is (4) _____ as “local insight,” offered just enough space to decorate, never to reorient. Environmental justice, once confrontational, now wears a diplomatic smile, folded neatly into intergovernmental communiqués. If sustainability is to escape the orbit of self-congratulation, it must surrender its obsession with optics and inhabit the discomfort of history. Anything less is not stewardship—it is semantic (5) _____ masquerading as progress.

What should come in the place of blank number (2)?

(a)rhetoric
(b)science
(c)sovereignty
(d)urgency

Answer

Why

Correct — A. The clause reads: "their meanings stretched until they acquire the elasticity of (2) _____."

The trigger is meanings stretched. A word pulled until it fits any purpose no longer commits to a meaning. It is used for effect, and language used for effect is rhetoric.

The next sentence confirms it: language 'ceases to be revelatory and becomes performative'. Persuasion without content is rhetoric → option (a).

Why the others are wrong

(b)
science — Science depends on fixed, precise definitions, the opposite of elasticity. The clause says these words were stretched until their meanings went loose, which is what scientific language is built to prevent.
(c)
sovereignty — Sovereignty is supreme authority over a state. The clause is about what has happened to the meanings of words, and 'the elasticity of sovereignty' says nothing about language.
(d)
urgency — Urgency runs against the passage. It says the discourse has moved from 'a moral reckoning with planetary precarity' to dashboards and metrics, so the stretched words have lost force, not gained urgency.

Concept

A cloze blank is settled by the words around it. Here the clue comes just before the blank: meanings stretched until they are elastic.

A word that can be pulled to fit any purpose persuades without committing to anything. That is rhetoric in its critical sense: language chosen for effect rather than for meaning.

The passage then names the shift itself: language stops being 'revelatory' and becomes 'performative'.

Rhetoric also has a neutral sense, the art of persuasive speaking. The passage uses the critical one. Its examples are the words it lists: resilience, stakeholder engagement and net-zero.

Key facts

Rhetoric: language meant to persuade or impress, often regarded as lacking sincerity or real content.
Revelatory: revealing something previously unknown or hidden.
Sovereignty: supreme authority, especially of a state to govern itself.

Study next

Using the sentence after a cloze blank as confirmationVocabulary for empty language: rhetoric, jargon, platitude, euphemism

Common traps

Choosing urgency because the passage is about a planetary crisis, instead of reading what the blank describes: stretched word meanings.
Rejecting rhetoric because its neutral sense, the art of persuasion, sounds too positive for this passage.

Here one passage carries five numbered blanks, each asked as its own question. Blank (1) is 22 Sep 2025, 09:00, English Q.9, keyed lubricants, which the very next words confirm: 'terms engineered more for reputational lubrication'.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.

In the given passage, some words have been deleted. Read the passage intently and choose the most appropriate option to fill in each blank:
Global sustainability discourse has not so much evolved as ossified into a lexicon of managerial (1) _____—terms engineered more for reputational lubrication than ecological redress. What was once a moral reckoning with planetary precarity now traffics in dashboards and metrics, calibrated less to redistribute power than to launder it. Words like “resilience,” ”stakeholder engagement,” and “net-zero” populate position papers, their meanings stretched until they acquire the elasticity of (2) _____.In this semantic economy, language ceases to be revelatory and becomes performative. Reports teeter on euphemism; declarations bristle with procedural piety. Crises are not named; they are (3) _____ into ‘developmental challenges.’ The grammar of suffering is bleached, even as the facts remain uncompromising. What emerges is not truth, but a choreography of credibility—an affective simulation of care. Meanwhile, epistemic asymmetries persist: indigenous knowledge is (4) _____ as “local insight,” offered just enough space to decorate, never to reorient. Environmental justice, once confrontational, now wears a diplomatic smile, folded neatly into intergovernmental communiqués. If sustainability is to escape the orbit of self-congratulation, it must surrender its obsession with optics and inhabit the discomfort of history. Anything less is not stewardship—it is semantic (5) _____ masquerading as progress.