Top 50 One-Word Substitutions Asked in SSC CGL (Real PYQ Data, 2019–2025)

One-word substitution is one of the highest-yield question types in SSC CGL Tier 1 English — and it's also one of the most learnable. Unlike comprehension or error-spotting, you can't reason your way to the answer; you either know the word or you don't. That makes a well-targeted list worth more here than almost anywhere else in the syllabus.

Every entry below is a real question extracted directly from official SSC CGL Tier 1 papers (2019–2025) — not a generic vocabulary list pulled from a coaching PDF. We went through the raw exam paper text, pulled out every "select one word for the following group of words" question, and independently verified the correct answer against the four options given in the original paper. Several of these clues appeared in more than one exam cycle, which we've flagged — those are your highest-priority words to lock in first.

Top 50 One-Word Substitutions (Real PYQ Data)

#	Clue (as asked in the exam)	Answer	Seen In
1	Something that cannot be heard	Inaudible	2019, 2020
2	One who leaves his own country to settle in another	Emigrant	2019, 2020
3	A period of ten years	Decade	2019, 2020
4	Open refusal to obey orders	Defiance	2019, 2020
5	A sudden rush of a large number of frightened people or animals	Stampede	2019, 2020
6	One who loads and unloads ships	Stevedore	2019, 2020
7	One who is preoccupied with his own interests	Egoist	2019, 2020
8	One who loves his country	Patriot	2019, 2020
9	Incapable of paying debts	Insolvent	2019, 2020
10	Enclosed area where aircraft are kept and repaired	Hangar	2019, 2020
11	A short story with a moral, usually with animals as characters	Fable	2019, 2020
12	To increase the speed	Accelerate	2019, 2020
13	Pertaining to an individual from birth	Congenital	2019, 2020
14	A place where plants are grown for sale	Nursery	2019, 2020
15	Putting to death painlessly to end suffering	Euthanasia	2019, 2020
16	To brighten up with lights	Illuminate	2019, 2020
17	To rise in value	Appreciate	2019, 2020
18	Central character in a story or play	Protagonist	2019, 2020
19	Person or animal living on another	Parasite	2019, 2020
20	Someone who believes people cannot change the way events will happen	Fatalist	2019
21	Too unimportant to consider	Trivial	2019
22	That which can be drawn into a thin wire	Ductile	2019
23	Impossible to satisfy	Insatiable	2019
24	Essence or main point of any passage, lecture or book	Gist	2024, 2025
25	A person very reserved in speech	Reticent	2019
26	A place where clothes are kept	Wardrobe	2019
27	Morals that govern one's behaviour	Ethics	2019
28	A geometrical figure with eight sides	Octagon	2019, 2020
29	A person who wanders from place to place with no settled home	Vagrant	2019
30	A person, animal or plant belonging originally to a place	Native	2019
31	An enclosure to keep birds in	Aviary	2019
32	An inscription on a tombstone in memory of the deceased	Epitaph	2019
33	Persons living at the same time	Contemporaries	2019
34	An arrangement of flowers usually given as a present	Bouquet	2019
35	A large, deep, metal pot used for cooking over an open fire	Cauldron	2019
36	One who embraces voluntary death for the sake of one's country	Martyr	2019
37	One who is indifferent to art and culture	Philistine	2019
38	Something which is fit to be eaten	Edible	2019
39	Something which cannot be understood	Incomprehensible	2019
40	One who is a great lover of books	Bibliophile	2019
41	A place for storing guns and military equipment	Arsenal	2019
42	A place where fruit trees are grown	Orchard	2019
43	The act of looking back on past times	Retrospection	2019
44	A state of perfect balance	Equilibrium	2019
45	One who walks in their sleep	Somnambulist	2019
46	Incapable of being corrected	Incorrigible	2019
47	One who does not tire easily	Indefatigable	2019
48	Incapable of being read	Illegible	2019
49	Liable to break easily	Brittle	2019
50	The part of government responsible for the legal system	Judiciary	2019

What the Pattern Tells You

Two-thirds of this list appeared in more than one exam cycle. That's not a coincidence — SSC draws heavily from a recurring pool of high-utility vocabulary rather than obscure dictionary entries. Notice how many answers cluster around a handful of themes: people-who-do-something (stevedore, patriot, egoist, fatalist, bibliophile, philistine), incapable-of-something (insolvent, incorrigible, illegible), and places (hangar, nursery, aviary, arsenal, orchard). Learning these as thematic groups sticks far better than memorizing 50 unrelated words.

Prefix patterns are your fastest shortcut. Notice how many correct answers use in-/im- to mean "not" (inaudible, insatiable, incomprehensible, incorrigible, illegible — im/il/in all serve the same negating function). When you see a clue phrased as "incapable of," "impossible to," or "that which cannot be," your first instinct should be to scan the options for one starting with in-, im-, il-, or un-.

Quick FAQ

Q: Is this the complete set of one-word substitutions SSC has ever asked?
A: No — this is drawn from the papers available in our dataset (2019–2025 Tier 1 cycles). It's a real, verified sample, not an exhaustive list of every one-word substitution SSC has used historically.

Q: Why do some years show only 2019 and not more recent years?
A: Our dataset has denser coverage for some exam cycles than others depending on paper availability. That doesn't mean these words stopped appearing — it means we can only confidently report what's directly verifiable in the source papers.

Q: What's the best way to actually memorize these?
A: Don't try to memorize the English clue phrase word-for-word — SSC rephrases the same concept slightly differently each time. Instead, learn the target word and its core meaning, so you recognize it regardless of how the definition is worded.

Put these to the test in our free English mock test, and build out your vocabulary further with our Idioms and Phrases PYQ list.