Select the most appropriate meaning of the given idiom. Left out in the cold
- (a)To be in hiding
- (b)To be ignored
- (c)To go underground
- (d)To be extremely negative
Answer
Why
Correct — B. The idiom is leave someone out in the cold: to shut a person out of a group, a plan or a decision so that their claims are ignored. The cold is figurative — it is the outside of the room, not the weather.
To be ignored is the standard gloss, so option (b).
The grammar helps as well. Left is passive, so the answer has to describe something done to a person, and hiding and going underground are both things a person chooses to do.
Why the others are wrong
- (a)To be in hiding — To be in hiding is a choice the person makes to avoid being found. Being left out in the cold is done to someone by others, so the direction of the action is wrong.
- (c)To go underground — To go underground means to disappear deliberately, usually from the authorities. Like being in hiding, it describes concealment chosen, not exclusion suffered.
- (d)To be extremely negative — To be extremely negative reads cold as coldness of temperament. In this idiom cold marks the place a person is left, outside the group, not the mood they are in.
Concept
An idiom cannot be read from its parts, but the parts still fix who is doing what.
Leave someone out in the cold means to exclude them from a group or a decision so that their interests count for nothing. Give someone the cold shoulder is the neighbouring idiom with the same shade of deliberate neglect.
The passive framing does real work here. Because the person is left, the answer must be something suffered, which removes both concealment options at once.
SSC prints the idiom in its passive form, Left out in the cold, and that is a clue in itself: the person is acted on, and only the keyed option describes something done to them.
Key facts
- To leave someone out in the cold is to exclude them from a group, plan or decision.
- The idiom is normally used in the passive: he was left out in the cold.
- Give someone the cold shoulder carries the same sense of deliberate neglect.
- To go underground is to hide from the authorities, which is concealment rather than exclusion.
Study next
Common traps
- Taking cold literally and picking the option about temperament
- Choosing to go underground because both phrases suggest being out of sight
SSC asks idioms in both directions — give the idiom and ask its meaning, or give a sentence and ask which idiom fits.
Meaning items run at 13 Sep 2024, 09:00, English Q.3 on a bad patch, and at 10 Sep 2024, 16:00, English Q.10 on care a hang, keyed to showing no interest — the same neglect sense that decides this item.
Related PYQs
No directly related past PYQ was found.