SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 11 September 2024, Shift 2 · English Comprehension · Question 5 of 100

Text as printed on a candidate's response sheet for this shift; answer per SSC's tentative key as marked on that sheet. Solution last reviewed 6 September 2026.

Where this paper and its answers come from

SSC does not publish CGL question papers or a public answer key. The questions and options here are reproduced as printed on a candidate's own response sheet for this shift — the Commission's text, unchanged. Each answer is SSC's tentative key as marked on that sheet; SSC allowed challenges to it and never publishes a final key. The solutions are written by UnlockIAS.

Select the most appropriate meaning of the given idiom. Jump the gun

(a)To start all over again
(b)To stop a process
(c)Using a gun for sports
(d)To do something too soon and too quickly

Answer

Why

Correct — D. Jump the gun means to act before the right moment, to start too early.

The picture behind it is a sprinter who moves before the starter's pistol fires and is called back for a false start.

Carry that across to any premature act — announcing a result before the count is finished, celebrating before the deal is signed. Option (d), to do something too soon and too quickly, is the only choice that says early.

Why the others are wrong

(a)
To start all over again — To start all over again is what go back to square one means. Jumping the gun is starting too early, not starting a second time.
(b)
To stop a process — To stop a process turns the idiom around. A false start does halt the race, but the phrase names the runner's premature move, not the stoppage that follows it.
(c)
Using a gun for sports — Using a gun for sports is the literal reading, and the literal reading is the one thing an idiom does not mean. It is placed here for the candidate who has never met the phrase.

Concept

An idiom is a fixed phrase whose meaning cannot be assembled from its words, so the only real defence is having met it before.

Jump the gun comes from track athletics, where the race begins on the firing of the starter's pistol and a runner who leaves before it has jumped the gun. The phrase long ago left the track and now covers any premature act.

When an idiom is unfamiliar, discard the option that merely restates its words. That option is put there for exactly that purpose.

Note how narrow the keyed meaning is: too soon and too quickly. Jumping the gun is about timing, not about haste in general and not about error, so a paraphrase that does not mention earliness cannot be it.

Key facts

Jump the gun means to act or speak prematurely.
The phrase comes from track athletics, where an early start before the starter's pistol is a false start.
The literal sense of an idiom is precisely what it does not mean, which makes the literal option a standing distractor.

Study next

Idioms of timing: at the eleventh hour, in the nick of time, ahead of timeIdioms drawn from sport: on the ball, par for the course, throw in the towelTelling jump the gun apart from jump to conclusions

Common traps

Choosing the literal option about guns and sport
Confusing jump the gun, which is about acting early, with jump to conclusions, which is about judging on too little

SSC states the idiom bare and offers four paraphrases, the same shape as English Q.10 of this shift, where To read between the lines is keyed to understanding more than the words suggest. A near-literal option sits in both sets.

The bare-idiom frame also runs at 9 Sep 2024, 12:30, English Q.4, with Break a leg.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.