SSC CGL 2025 PYQ — Question 89

SSC CGL - 14 Oct 2025 - Shift 1 • English • Q89

In the given passage, some words have been deleted. Read the passage intently and choose the most appropriate option to fill in each blank:

To speak of skill education merely in terms of employment is to overlook its deeper cartography. A skill, unlike rote instruction, is (1)

-given not not only through repetition but through failure-through the art of learning why something didn't work. In societies obsessed with certification, the nuanced textures of experiential learning often vanish behind laminated credentials. Yet, the true economy of skill is shaped not in boardrooms or training modules, but in the improvisations of the workshop, the reworkings of the prototype, the quiet recalibration of hand and intent. The question, then, is not how many are trained, but how many are truly (2) just tools but the time to develop trust in them. Skill is not the opposite of theory, but its extension into movement. And yet, the classroom remains strangely allergic to the tactile. The logic of assessments continues to value abstraction over (3) reducing competence to the ability to recall, not to remake. In the rush to map vocational pathways, we risk scripting lives as modules-linear, predictable, void of deviation. But skill, like thought, thrives in divergence. Its pedagogy must embrace the messiness of practice, the necessity of slowness, and the possibility of (4). To prepare youth for uncertainty, we must teach them to linger-not just to do, but to (5) doing.

What should come in the place of blank number (5)?

Show answer & explanation

Correct answer: C

Explanation

Correct Answer

reflect on

Explanation

The most appropriate phrase for blank (5) is reflect on. Throughout the passage, the author advocates for a deeper, more thoughtful approach to skill education that goes beyond mindless repetition or linear modules. By teaching students to linger—to pause and consider the process—they move from being mere doers to individuals who understand the why and how behind their actions. Reflect on doing captures this essence of thoughtful, experiential learning, which is a key theme of the passage.

The other options do not align with the author's argument. Automate would reinforce the linear, predictable model the author criticizes. Resist would imply an adversarial relationship with work, rather than an analytical one. Master is a goal, but reflect on doing captures the specific pedagogical method of lingering that the author is promoting.