SSC CGL 2025 Tier-I · 22 September 2025, Shift 1 · English Comprehension · Question 2 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.

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 most appropriate antonym of the given word. Dissemble

(a)Disguise
(b)Reveal
(c)Obscure
(d)Pretend

Answer

Why

Correct — B. To dissemble is to hide your true feelings, motives or beliefs behind a false appearance.

The opposite of hiding is showing. Reveal means to make known something that was secret or concealed. Both are verbs, at the two ends of the same conceal-or-show scale → option (b).

Why the others are wrong

(a)
Disguise — Disguise means to change how something looks so it is not recognised, or to conceal a feeling. That is what dissembling does, so it is a synonym, not an opposite.
(c)
Obscure — Obscure, as a verb, means to keep something from being seen or understood. It hides, as dissemble does, so it stands on the same side as the given word.
(d)
Pretend — Pretend means to act as if something is true when it is not. Someone who dissembles is putting on a pretence, so this is a near-synonym.

Concept

An antonym item asks for the word at the opposite pole of the same scale. Dissemble sits at the concealing end: it covers the truth with a false face.

The options split three to one. Disguise, Obscure and Pretend all conceal or feign, alongside dissemble. Reveal is the lone word at the showing end.

Test by substitution: 'she dissembled her anger' and 'she disguised her anger' say the same thing. 'She revealed her anger' says the reverse.

Do not read dissemble as disassemble, which means to take something to pieces. The extra syllable makes it a different word, and its opposite, assemble, is not among the options.

Key facts

Dissemble means to conceal one's true motives, feelings or beliefs.
It goes back to Latin dissimulare, 'to disguise, conceal', which also gives dissimulate.
Disassemble means to take something apart, and is a different word.
Reveal means to make known something previously secret or unknown.

Study next

Near-synonyms of dissemble, such as dissimulate, feign and masqueradeAntonyms for concealment, such as reveal, disclose, divulge and unveil

Common traps

Reading dissemble as disassemble and looking for a word meaning put together
Picking Disguise because it is closest in meaning, when the item asks for the opposite

An antonym set padded with synonyms of the given word also appears at 12 Sep 2025, 16:00, English Q.2 (Erudite, keyed Uninformed, against Scholarly, Learned and Intellectual).

Dissimulates, from the same Latin source, is a wrong option in the cloze at 23 Sep 2025, 09:00, English Q.8, keyed reifies.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.

Topic: Antonyms — all 137 SSC CGL questions on it, every solved shift.