SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 12 September 2024, Shift 2 · English Comprehension · Question 13 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 option to fill in the blank. We have postponed this movie outing too many times, so we are going tomorrow, come _____ or shine.

(a)hail
(b)rain
(c)mountain
(d)thunder

Answer

Why

Correct — B. The blank is not a free slot — it sits inside a fixed idiom, and an idiom's words are locked.

The idiom is come rain or shine: whatever happens, whatever the weather. It pairs wet weather against sunshine, and it is the one English fixes in this frame.

The sense also matches the sentence. After postponing the outing too many times, the speaker is committing to go tomorrow regardless of conditions — which is what the idiom asserts. Option (b) completes it.

Why the others are wrong

(a)
hail — Hail is genuine weather, which is what makes it tempting, but come hail or shine is not an English idiom. Swapping a near-equivalent into a fixed phrase breaks it.
(c)
mountain — Mountain is not weather at all, so it gives no contrast with shine, and no idiom fixes it in this frame. It is the odd one out of the four on sense alone.
(d)
thunder — Thunder is weather but the wrong kind for the contrast — thunder is a sound, while the idiom sets rain, which stops an outing, against sunshine, which does not.

Concept

An idiom's meaning does not come from adding its words up, and its wording cannot be edited. English carries many fixed pairs of this shape: come rain or shine, come hell or high water, by hook or by crook, through thick and thin.

When a blank falls inside one, no amount of grammar will find the answer, because every option fits grammatically. The test is whether you recognise the phrase.

The idiom also appears as rain or shine and as come rain or come shine, with no change in meaning. SSC prints the come ___ or shine frame, so the blank takes the single word rain.

Key facts

Come rain or shine means whatever the circumstances, regardless of conditions.
The same idea is carried by come hell or high water.
In fixed idioms the words are not substitutable, even by close synonyms.

Study next

Fixed binomial idioms: through thick and thin, by hook or by crook, come hell or high waterWeather idioms: under the weather, a storm in a teacup, steal someone's thunderRecognising when a blank sits inside an idiom rather than in open grammar

Common traps

Choosing hail or thunder because the slot obviously wants a weather word, and both are weather words.
Testing the four options for grammar, when all four fit and grammar therefore decides nothing.

SSC asks idioms in several shapes — give the meaning, fill the blank, or replace a plain phrase with the idiom. The same shift runs the replacement version at English Q.3, where wished me good luck becomes Told me to break a leg.

The fill-the-blank version is also asked 10 Sep 2024, 09:00, English Q.3, keyed on the fence.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.