Assistant Provident Fund Commissioner (APFC) 2016 recruitment test, advertisement 170. Transcribed from the Commission's own booklet (series A, B-CRHE-O-PAPA); answer as per the official UPSC final answer key. This question is in Part A. Answer last reviewed 24 August 2026.

What is the indication out of the sentence : 'I gave him a piece of my mind' ?

(a)Appreciation
(b)Warning
(c)Greeting
(d)Scolding

Answer

Why

Correct — D, (d) Scolding.

‘To give someone a piece of one’s mind’ is a fixed idiom, and a fixed idiom does not mean the sum of its words. Its settled sense is to tell somebody plainly and angrily what you think of what they have done — to scold or rebuke them. That is the sense a dictionary records: to express one’s opinion strongly, to voice disagreement or dissatisfaction with another person, to scold. So the sentence reports a telling-off, and ‘Scolding’ is what it indicates.

The words are what mislead. ‘A piece of my mind’ sounds like a share of one’s thinking, which would be advice, or an opinion offered in good faith. English has phrases that do mean exactly that, and they are built from almost the same words — ‘to speak one’s mind’ is to say frankly what one thinks, with no anger implied, and ‘to my mind’ simply means ‘in my opinion’. The idiom in the stem is neither. The ‘piece’ is given, not shared, and what is handed over is the speaker’s displeasure.

Two checks settle it. First, tone: the idiom is never used of praise, so an option in the register of approval cannot be right. Second, direction in time: a scolding looks back at what has already been done, and that is how this idiom is always used — the anger is about conduct already past. An option that points forward, at what the hearer must or must not do next, is describing a different speech act. Only ‘Scolding’ answers both.

Why the others are wrong

(a)Appreciation — ‘Appreciation’ is the wrong register altogether. The idiom belongs to the vocabulary of anger, and it is never used to report praise: nobody who has just complimented a colleague says he gave him a piece of his mind. The option is there for the candidate who reads the words rather than the phrase — ‘a piece of my mind’ can sound like a generous act, a share of one’s own thought handed over to somebody else, and English does use ‘share your thoughts’ in exactly that friendly way. The lesson is the standard one for this whole block: once a group of words has hardened into an idiom, its meaning is fixed by usage, not by the words, and a warm-sounding phrase can carry a cold meaning. If the intended sense were approval the sentence would have used one of the many idioms that do carry it, such as taking one’s hat off to a person or singing his praises.
(b)Warning — ‘Warning’ is the nearest wrong answer on the list, and it is the one worth spending time on. A warning is about the future: it tells the hearer what will follow if he does or does not do something, and it can be delivered quite calmly. Giving somebody a piece of your mind is about the past: it is an outburst of displeasure at conduct that has already happened, and it carries no necessary threat about what comes next. English keeps separate idioms for the two jobs — to read somebody the riot act, to put somebody on notice, or to give a word of caution, all point forward, while giving a piece of one’s mind, telling somebody off and taking somebody to task all point back. The two can of course occur together in real life, which is why the option is tempting; but the item asks what the sentence indicates, and what it indicates is the rebuke, not a condition attached to future behaviour.
(c)Greeting — ‘Greeting’ has nothing to connect it to the idiom at all, and it is offered as the fourth option rather than as a serious contender — a set of four needs a fourth. It is still worth naming why it cannot work: a greeting is a formula for opening an encounter (‘good morning’, ‘how do you do’), it is directed at the person rather than at anything he has done, and it carries no judgement. The idiom in the stem judges: it reports the speaker delivering his opinion of somebody’s conduct with some heat. A candidate short of time can eliminate this option on register alone, which is the practical skill this block rewards — sort the four options by tone first, keep the ones that could belong to an angry sentence, and only then decide between them.

Concept

An idiom is a group of words whose meaning cannot be worked out from the meanings of the individual words. ‘To give someone a piece of one’s mind’ is a good example, because every word in it is ordinary and the whole is not: it means to scold or rebuke, to tell somebody plainly and with feeling that you disapprove of what they have done.

The phrase belongs to a small family built on the word ‘mind’, and the family is worth learning together because examiners set its members against one another. ‘To speak one’s mind’ is to say openly what one thinks, honest but not necessarily angry. ‘To be of one mind’ is to agree. ‘To have a mind to do something’ is to be inclined to do it. ‘To my mind’ means in my opinion. ‘To bear in mind’ is to remember. Only the idiom in this stem is hostile, and it is hostile every time it is used.

The general habit the item rewards is to treat a suspected idiom as a single unit of vocabulary — a word with a spelling several words long. When you meet one, do not translate it piece by piece; ask what act it reports. Here the act is a telling-off, and once that is settled, the option list sorts itself: one option names approval, one names a greeting, one names a caution about the future and one names the rebuke.

This is the first item of the paper, and the ten items that open the APFC booklet are printed in English only, under a direction that says so; there is no Hindi version of them. They are not the synonym-and-antonym pairs that some other papers in this family open with. They test idioms, expressions, literary and technical terms, the effect of word order, and the ordering of a sentence — that is, whether a candidate reads English as an English reader does rather than decoding it word by word.

A first question is usually a gentle one, and this is: the idiom is common, and most candidates will have met it. What the setter has done is build the option list so that carelessness still costs something. Three of the four options are plausible descriptions of things people do when they speak — appreciate, warn, greet — and only one of them fits this particular formula. The candidate who half-remembers the idiom, or who reasons from the friendly-sounding words, has a choice of ways to go wrong.

The practical lesson for an English block of this kind is to answer the idiom before looking at the options. Say to yourself what the phrase means in your own words — here, ‘he told him off’ — and then find the option that matches. Reading the options first invites you to try each one in the sentence, and three of them can be made to sound possible if you are willing to bend the idiom.

Key facts

‘To give someone a piece of one’s mind’ means to express one’s opinion strongly and with displeasure — to scold or rebuke somebody for what they have done.
It is always critical in tone. The phrase is never used of praise, however generous the words ‘give’ and ‘share’ may sound.
‘To speak one’s mind’ is the neutral cousin: to say frankly what one thinks, with no anger implied. ‘To my mind’ means simply ‘in my opinion’.
A scolding looks back at conduct already past; a warning looks forward to what will happen next. English keeps separate idioms for the two — to take somebody to task against to put somebody on notice.
The first ten items of this paper are printed in English only, and a direction at the head of the page states that they carry no Hindi version.

Study next

The ‘mind’ family of idioms: speak one’s mind, be of one mind, have half a mind to, bear in mind, out of one’s mind, in two minds.Idioms of rebuke and their shades: take to task, tell off, haul over the coals, read the riot act, call to account, dress down.Idioms of praise, so that the register of an option can be judged at once: take one’s hat off to, sing somebody’s praises, give credit where it is due.Why an idiom cannot be translated word by word, with the classic Indian-examination examples: to let the cat out of the bag, to beat about the bush, to burn the midnight oil.The difference between an idiom, a proverb and a phrasal verb, since all three appear in this block of the paper.

Common traps

Reading the words instead of the phrase. ‘A piece of my mind’ sounds like a share of one’s thinking, which is the opposite of what the idiom reports.
Confusing it with ‘to speak one’s mind’, which is frank but not angry.
Choosing ‘Warning’ because a scolding often comes with one. The idiom describes anger at what is past, not a condition about what comes next.
Trying each option inside the sentence rather than deciding the idiom’s meaning first. Three of these four can be made to sound plausible that way.

Idioms are asked in this paper in the plainest possible shape: the expression is quoted inside the stem, often in italics or single quotes, and the four options are short paraphrases. There is no sentence to complete and no blank to fill, so everything turns on whether the phrase is known. Expect the option list to include one paraphrase built from the literal words, one that names a related but distinct speech act, and one from the opposite emotional register — a set that punishes half-knowledge more than ignorance. The English-only block of this paper carries several such items in a row, so the efficient preparation is a list of the two or three hundred idioms that recruitment papers reuse, learned with their tone attached: angry, admiring, evasive, resigned. Tone alone eliminates half of a typical option set.

Related PYQs

EPFO_APFC_2016_Q3

'He was hoist by his own petard' refers to

(a) He had problems as a result of his own plans to hurt others
(b) He was high up on the pole
(c) He would usually run away from trouble
(d) He was indifferent to his surroundings

Answer(a) He had problems as a result of his own plans to hurt others

The next idiom item of this English-only block, where the phrase is again quoted whole and the options paraphrase it.

EPFO_APFC_2016_Q6

Rivalry between the two clans has become water under the bridge means

(a) The rivalry continues
(b) It has become a thing of the past
(c) It connects the two clans
(d) It is not forgotten

Answer(b) It has become a thing of the past

An idiom set inside a full sentence rather than quoted, so the meaning has to be recovered from context as well as from memory.

Practice

practice — not a real PYQ
What is indicated by the sentence : ‘When the accounts finally came out, she took the treasurer to task’ ?
- (a)She thanked him
- (b)She reprimanded him
- (c)She gave him extra work
- (d)She promoted him
Answer(b) She reprimanded him — ‘to take somebody to task’ means to call a person to account and rebuke him for something he has done. The literal-looking option (c) is the trap, because ‘task’ suggests work assigned; the idiom has nothing to do with allotting duties, and options (a) and (d) belong to the register of approval, which the idiom never carries.
practice — not a real PYQ
‘He spoke his mind at the meeting’ differs from ‘He gave the manager a piece of his mind’ in that the first
- (a)reports anger and the second does not
- (b)is frank but not necessarily angry
- (c)means he changed his opinion
- (d)means he said nothing at all
Answer(b) is frank but not necessarily angry — ‘to speak one’s mind’ describes candour and can be perfectly friendly, while ‘to give somebody a piece of one’s mind’ is always a rebuke. Option (a) inverts the pair, and options (c) and (d) describe things neither idiom says.

Why