SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 23 September 2024, Shift 1 · English Comprehension · Question 16 of 97

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. At a low ebb

(a)In a critical moment
(b)In a happy state
(c)In an unemployed mode
(d)In a depressed or weak state

Answer

Why

Correct — D. The image behind the idiom is the tide. Ebb is the sea moving away from the shore, so a low ebb is the water at its lowest.

Carried over to people and affairs, the phrase means at a low point — spirits, health, morale or trade in a weak, run-down condition.

"Her confidence was at a low ebb after the interview" says she was low, not that she was in danger or out of work. In a depressed or weak state is that sense stated plainly → option (d).

Why the others are wrong

(a)
In a critical moment — In a critical moment names a decisive turning point. At a low ebb describes a condition that lasts, not the instant at which things could go either way.
(b)
In a happy state — In a happy state reverses the idiom. The tide image is water at its lowest, so the phrase points down rather than up.
(c)
In an unemployed mode — Unemployed narrows the idiom to work. At a low ebb says nothing about a job — health, morale and trade can all be at a low ebb.

Concept

An idiom you have not met can often be rebuilt from its literal image, and this one is a tide.

Ebb is the movement of the sea away from the shore; the movement back towards it is the flow. At a low ebb is the water at its lowest point — the beach at its widest, the harbour at its emptiest.

Transferred to people and affairs, the phrase means at a low point. Spirits, health, morale, trade and confidence can all be at a low ebb, and the sense is weak and run down rather than dangerous.

"Depressed" in the keyed option means lowered or reduced — depressed spirits, a depressed market — not the clinical illness.

The idiom also describes a state that lasts a while, and that duration is what separates it from a moment of crisis.

Key facts

Ebb is the movement of the tide away from the shore, and flow is the movement back towards it.
At a low ebb means at a low point, in a weak or poor condition.
The phrase applies to spirits, health, morale and business alike.
"Ebb and flow" means a repeated rise and fall.

Study next

Tide idioms: ebb and flow, the turn of the tide, go with the tideReconstructing an unfamiliar idiom from its literal imageIdioms of low spirits: at a low ebb, down in the dumps, in the doldrums

Common traps

Choosing In a critical moment because a low point sounds like a crisis, when the idiom names a condition rather than a turning point.
Guessing from the word low alone and stopping at the first negative-sounding option.
Reading ebb as a word about work or money and taking the unemployment option.

SSC prints the idiom bare, with no sentence around it, and keys a plain-English paraphrase rather than a second idiom.

A neighbouring low-period idiom is keyed at 13 Sep 2024, 09:00, English Q.3, where "A bad patch" is glossed "A period of time when a person faces lots of troubles".

This shift also sets an idiom at English Q.2, where "Off and on" is keyed "Now and then".

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.