SSC CGL 2025 Tier-I · 24 September 2025, Shift 2 · English Comprehension · Question 6 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.

Choose the correct one-word substitute for: 'A person who is unable to pay debts'.

(a)Pauper
(b)Bankrupt
(c)Spendthrift
(d)Debtor

Answer

Why

Correct — B. The definition turns on unable to pay. A bankrupt is a person, or company, legally declared unable to pay their debts.

The word is also an adjective: a firm that goes bankrupt has failed financially.

Bankrupt covers both halves of the definition, owing debts and being unable to pay them → option (b).

Why the others are wrong

(a)
Pauper — Pauper means a very poor person. Poverty is not debt: a pauper may owe nothing, while the definition needs debts the person cannot pay.
(c)
Spendthrift — Spendthrift is someone who spends money wastefully. That is a habit that can lead to debt, not the state of being unable to pay it.
(d)
Debtor — Debtor means anyone who owes money, including someone repaying a loan on time. Every bankrupt is a debtor, but the definition adds unable to pay, which debtor does not.

Concept

A one-word substitute must match every part of the definition. 'A person who is unable to pay debts' has two parts: the person owes money, and cannot pay it.

Debtor matches only the first part. Pauper and spendthrift are about money, through poverty and waste, without naming debt at all.

Bankrupt matches both. Its near-synonym is insolvent, unable to pay debts owed.

The word comes from Italian banca rotta, literally 'broken bench', the banca being a moneylender's bench or counter.

Key facts

Bankrupt: a person or organization legally declared unable to pay debts.
Insolvent: unable to pay debts owed, a near-synonym of bankrupt.
Debtor: anyone who owes money. The person owed is the creditor.
Spendthrift: one who spends money wastefully, a habit rather than a legal state.

Study next

Money words: insolvent, impecunious, indigent, penuriousPerson-words for spending: spendthrift, miser, prodigal, philanthropist

Common traps

Choosing debtor because it contains debt. It misses the definition's key condition, unable to pay.
Treating pauper as the same as bankrupt. A pauper is poor but need not owe anything.

The same definition is the sentence at 18 Sep 2024, 12:30, English Q.14: 'Bankrupts are those who are incapable to pay their debts.' Debt vocabulary also appears at 20 Sep 2025, 09:00, English Q.7, where 'Cancellation of a penalty or debt' is keyed Remission.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.

Topic: One-word substitution — all 125 SSC CGL questions on it, every solved shift.