SSC CGL 2025 Tier-I · 23 September 2025, Shift 1 · English Comprehension · Question 11 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.

In the following passage, some words have been deleted. Read the passage intently and choose the most appropriate option to fill in each blank:
To speak of the political as an abstract structure is, perhaps, already to concede to the logic of the archive: that which preserves through containment, and [1] _____ through its very naming. The subject here is neither born nor made—but suspended, deferred in the machinic interplay of signifiers. One becomes governable only to the extent that one appears, and to appear is already to capitulate to the syntax of recognition. Power, then, does not suppress but surfaces—it emerges in the folds of citation, in the gentle violence of classification. The biometric gaze is not ocular but computational; not what it sees, but what it does not allow to vanish. Resistance, if it resists at all, cannot be found in opposition, but in [2] _____—in the refusal to be coherent, in the grammarless whisper. The body, meanwhile, becomes a ledger: inscribed, decoded, re-encoded. What justice can exist in such a system? Not that of law, but of rupture. A justice that unbinds, that refuses the terms of its own invocation. It is not reparation that is sought, but [3] _____—the unworking of systems, the destitution of legibility. To enter this mode is to abandon appeal, to relinquish the comfort of meaning. One must instead submit to the possibility of a justice that never arrives, that remains [4] _____, excessive and unlocatable. Only then can we imagine a politics not of representation, but of presence without capture, of subjectivity without scaffolding. What remains, finally, is not identity but [5] _____—a presence that eludes, that persists in the absence of affirmation.

What should come in the place of blank number [4]?

(a)imminent
(b)incalculable
(c)deferred
(d)restitutive

Answer

Why

Correct — B. The blank opens a list of three: 'a justice that never arrives, that remains [4] _____, excessive and unlocatable'.

Its partners say this justice goes beyond limits (excessive) and cannot be placed (unlocatable).

Incalculable, too great or too uncertain to be calculated, belongs with them: all three say this justice cannot be pinned down → option (b).

Why the others are wrong

(a)
imminent — Imminent means about to happen. The same sentence calls this 'a justice that never arrives', so a justice on the point of arriving contradicts it.
(c)
deferred — Deferred means postponed, which only restates 'never arrives' in terms of time. The words listed with the blank, excessive and unlocatable, describe scale and place, and incalculable is the one that matches them.
(d)
restitutive — Restitutive means restoring or compensating, the adjective of restitution. The passage has already said 'It is not reparation that is sought', so a restoring justice is the one it rejects.

Concept

When a blank sits in a list — [4], excessive and unlocatable — let the listed words define it. Here both describe a justice that cannot be contained: it exceeds limits and has no location.

Incalculable means too great or too uncertain to be calculated or estimated. It completes the picture of a justice beyond measure and beyond place.

That fits the passage's turn away from law and 'reparation' towards 'rupture'.

Deferred is the strongest distractor: 'a justice that never arrives' sounds like postponement, and the passage has already used deferred of the subject ('suspended, deferred'). The key goes to incalculable, the word that matches the two adjectives listed with the blank.

Key facts

Incalculable: too great or too uncertain to be calculated or estimated.
Imminent means about to happen, not to be confused with eminent (distinguished) or immanent (inherent).
Restitutive is the adjective of restitution: restoring or compensating.
Deferred means put off to a later time.

Study next

Imminent, eminent and immanentUsing the other words in a list to fix the sense of a blankNegative prefixes in- and un- in adjectives: incalculable, unlocatable

Common traps

Choosing deferred because 'never arrives' sounds like postponement, without checking the adjectives listed with the blank.
Reading imminent as immanent (inherent), a word that sounds apt in a theory passage.

Another passage in the same abstract register is set at 24 Sep 2025, 12:30, English Q.11 (blank [4], keyed ablation).

This passage's blank [3] is English Q.10 and blank [5] is English Q.12.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.

In the following passage, some words have been deleted. Read the passage intently and choose the most appropriate option to fill in each blank:
To speak of the political as an abstract structure is, perhaps, already to concede to the logic of the archive: that which preserves through containment, and [1] _____ through its very naming. The subject here is neither born nor made—but suspended, deferred in the machinic interplay of signifiers. One becomes governable only to the extent that one appears, and to appear is already to capitulate to the syntax of recognition. Power, then, does not suppress but surfaces—it emerges in the folds of citation, in the gentle violence of classification. The biometric gaze is not ocular but computational; not what it sees, but what it does not allow to vanish. Resistance, if it resists at all, cannot be found in opposition, but in [2] _____—in the refusal to be coherent, in the grammarless whisper. The body, meanwhile, becomes a ledger: inscribed, decoded, re-encoded. What justice can exist in such a system? Not that of law, but of rupture. A justice that unbinds, that refuses the terms of its own invocation. It is not reparation that is sought, but [3] _____—the unworking of systems, the destitution of legibility. To enter this mode is to abandon appeal, to relinquish the comfort of meaning. One must instead submit to the possibility of a justice that never arrives, that remains [4] _____, excessive and unlocatable. Only then can we imagine a politics not of representation, but of presence without capture, of subjectivity without scaffolding. What remains, finally, is not identity but [5] _____—a presence that eludes, that persists in the absence of affirmation.