Pull your socks up
- (a)To get well-dressed for the occasion
- (b)Improve your work or behaviour
- (c)To speak in an honest way without hesitation
- (d)To be in control of an organization, often secretly
Answer
B
Why
Correct — B, 'Improve your work or behaviour'. To 'pull your socks up' means to make an effort to improve your performance or conduct after doing poorly — option (b).
Why the others are wrong
- (a)To get well-dressed for the occasion — A literal reading of adjusting one's socks; the idiom is about improving effort, not dressing up.
- (c)To speak in an honest way without hesitation — That is closer to 'call a spade a spade'; it has nothing to do with raising one's performance.
- (d)To be in control of an organization, often secretly — That is 'pull the strings', a different idiom about hidden control.
Concept
'Pull your socks up' means to make a determined effort to improve your work or behaviour.
Related PYQs
No directly related past PYQ was found.
Practice
- practice — not a real PYQ
Choose the correct meaning of the idiom 'buck up'.
- (a)To become sad
- (b)To make an effort to improve or cheer up
- (c)To give up
- (d)To fall behind
Answer(b) To make an effort to improve or cheer up — close in sense to 'pull your socks up'.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Choose the correct meaning of the idiom 'pull the strings'.
- (a)To improve one's behaviour
- (b)To control events secretly from behind the scenes
- (c)To play music
- (d)To dress smartly
Answer(b) To control events secretly from behind the scenes — contrast this with 'pull your socks up'.