SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 11 September 2024, Shift 3 · English Comprehension · Question 17 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. Nobody’s fool

(a)Not easily deceived
(b)The wisest person
(c)A complete fool
(d)All are fools

Answer

Why

Correct — A. Nobody's fool decodes almost literally: there is nobody whose fool he is, so there is nobody who can take him in.

The idiom credits a person with enough shrewdness not to be tricked — that is not easily deceived, option (a).

Note what it does not claim. This is praise by negation: it denies gullibility rather than ranking the person against anyone else.

Why the others are wrong

(b)
The wisest person — "The wisest person" turns a denial of gullibility into a superlative. Being hard to fool is not the same as being the cleverest in the room.
(c)
A complete fool — "A complete fool" is the literal reading with nobody's dropped. The possessive is exactly what negates the noun, so removing it reverses the idiom.
(d)
All are fools — "All are fools" makes the phrase a verdict on everyone else. Nobody's fool describes only the person it is applied to.

Concept

English often praises by denying a fault. No slouch, not half bad and no fool all work this way, and nobody's fool is the same move: it awards shrewdness by ruling out being duped.

That is why the correct meaning is modest. It says the person cannot be taken in; it does not promise brilliance, learning or rank.

The literal reading is printed among the options here: a complete fool, option (c), is the exact reverse of the key.

Grammatically the phrase is a possessive with a negative determiner, which is why students who parse it word by word often land on the reverse of what it means.

Key facts

Nobody's fool means shrewd and not easily deceived or taken advantage of.
The praise is delivered by negation, as in no slouch and not half bad.
The idiom describes the person it is applied to, not the people around them.

Study next

Idioms built on fool: a fool's errand, a fool's paradiseLitotes, or saying something by denying its oppositeIdiom items where one option offers the literal, word-by-word reading

Common traps

Reading the words one at a time and landing on a complete fool.
Upgrading not deceived into wisest, which the phrase never claims.
Assuming the phrase must be an insult because fool appears in it.

Idioms come both as a bare meaning question, as here, and as a segment to be replaced inside a sentence.

This shift asks the meaning of "A dime a dozen" at English Q.18, and at English Q.9 it swaps an underlined segment for the idiom Made a scapegoat.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.