SSC CGL 2025 Tier-I · 23 September 2025, Shift 1 · English Comprehension · Question 2 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.

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 synonym of the given word: ASPERITY

(a)Kindness
(b)Harshness
(c)Softness
(d)Delight

Answer

Why

Correct — B. Asperity means harshness of tone or manner, as in 'she answered with asperity'. It can also mean roughness of a surface.

Both senses come from Latin asper, 'rough', so the synonym must carry roughness or severity. Harshness does → option (b).

Why the others are wrong

(a)
Kindness — Kindness is gentleness and goodwill, the reverse of a harsh manner. It is an antonym of asperity, not a synonym.
(c)
Softness — Softness reverses both senses of asperity: a soft voice is not harsh and a soft surface is not rough. It opposes asper, 'rough', instead of matching it.
(d)
Delight — Delight is great pleasure, a feeling rather than a quality of tone or surface. It has no link to roughness or severity.

Concept

A synonym item turns on the word's core sense. For asperity that sense is roughness: of voice and temper, as in a sharp reply, or of a surface, as in unevenness.

The options split two ways. Kindness and Softness stand at the gentle pole, opposite asperity, and Delight is a feeling that belongs to neither side.

Harshness is the option on asperity's side of the line.

Asperity shares its root with exasperate, from Latin exasperare, 'to make rough, irritate'. If exasperate is familiar, it is a quick way to recall the harsh sense.

Key facts

Asperity means harshness of tone or manner, and also roughness of a surface.
It comes from Latin asper, 'rough'.
Exasperate is from the same root, through Latin exasperare, 'to make rough, irritate'.
Its opposites are words of gentleness, such as mildness and softness.

Study next

Words for harsh speech: acerbity, acrimony, invective, tiradeAsperity against aspersion, a damaging remark about someone's character

Common traps

Reading asperity as aspiration or aspersion, which look alike but mean ambition and a damaging remark
Choosing Softness because it fits the surface sense, without noticing that it points the opposite way

A word for harsh speech is the given word in the same synonym frame at 18 Sep 2025, 12:30, English Q.1: INVECTIVE, keyed Tirade.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.

Topic: Synonyms — all 129 SSC CGL questions on it, every solved shift.