SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 13 September 2024, Shift 1 · English Comprehension · Question 3 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 10 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. A bad patch

(a)A path that is untravelled
(b)A dangerous road to walk on
(c)A person who takes a difficult path
(d)A period of time when a person faces lots of troubles

Answer

Why

Correct — D. A bad patch is a spell of difficulty — a run of weeks or months in which things keep going wrong for someone. You go through a bad patch, or hit one.

Patch here means a stretch of time, as it does in a rough patch or a purple patch. It is not a piece of ground and it is not a path.

Option (d) is the reading that makes the phrase a period of time, which is what the idiom names.

Why the others are wrong

(a)
A path that is untravelled — A path that is untravelled answers a different word. It reads patch as path, and the idiom says nothing about roads.
(b)
A dangerous road to walk on — A dangerous road to walk on keeps the literal picture of ground underfoot. A bad patch describes time, not terrain.
(c)
A person who takes a difficult path — A person who takes a difficult path turns the phrase into a description of someone. A bad patch names a period, and nobody is called one.

Concept

Fix what kind of thing the idiom names before you weigh how difficult each option sounds.

A bad patch is a noun phrase naming a period of time. Any option describing a road, a place or a person is out on that ground alone, before meaning is considered.

Patch carries this time sense across a small family of phrases. A rough patch is a difficult stretch, a purple patch a run of unusual success. The adjective decides whether the period is good or bad.

Three of the four options describe a road or the person walking it, so the item is built on the patch and path confusion rather than on any fine shade of meaning.

Key facts

A bad patch means a period during which someone meets repeated trouble.
The usual verbs are go through a bad patch and hit a bad patch.
A purple patch is the opposite sort of period, a run of unusual success.

Study next

Idioms built on patch, spell and stretch as words for a period of timeIdiom options that swap in a near-homophone of the key word, such as path for patchIdioms of hard times: at a low ebb, in deep water, out of the frying pan

Common traps

Reading patch as path and picking the road option
Taking the phrase literally as a damaged piece of ground

Here SSC gives the idiom bare, with no sentence around it, so nothing narrows the meaning and it simply has to be known.

Turned a deaf ear to is set the same way at English Q.20 of this 13 Sep 2024, 09:00 paper. To read between the lines runs at 11 Sep 2024, 12:30, English Q.10, and At a low ebb at 23 Sep 2024, 09:00, English Q.16.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.