SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 23 September 2024, Shift 3 · 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 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 underlined idiom. This year’s budget is unlikely to pass as law since the president’s proposed budgets typically face a jaundiced eye but this one has gotten even more scepticism.

(a)Jealousy
(b)Good will
(c)Confidence
(d)Resentment

Answer

Why

Correct — D. A jaundiced eye is a view soured by bitterness or hostility, and the word for that in these options is resentment.

The sentence supplies the check: the budget faces a jaundiced eye "but this one has gotten even more scepticism". Scepticism is the mild end of the same scale, so the idiom sits at the hostile end — a grudging, mistrustful reception. That is option (d).

Why the others are wrong

(a)
Jealousy — Jealousy is the near-miss, since jaundiced can shade towards envy. But envy needs something coveted, and the sentence's own cue is scepticism, which is mistrust rather than longing.
(b)
Good will — Good will is the reverse of what the idiom describes. A budget met with good will would stand a fair chance of passing, which is the opposite of what the sentence reports.
(c)
Confidence — Confidence would mean the president's budgets are trusted. The sentence says they are unlikely to pass and are met with scepticism, so trust is exactly what is absent.

Concept

Idiom items are decided by the sentence around the phrase as much as by the phrase itself. A jaundiced eye names a view distorted by bad experience — bitter, hostile, mistrustful. The image is of a discoloured view, where whatever the eye looks at comes back tinged.

Here the idiom sits next to "even more scepticism", which tells you both that the reception is unfriendly and how unfriendly it is.

Match the strength of the idiom to the strength of the sentence and one option is left standing.

Dictionaries let jaundiced shade towards envy as well as bitterness, so jealousy is not an absurd reading. The sentence is what decides between them: a budget is doubted, not envied.

Key facts

To view something with a jaundiced eye is to view it with bitterness, prejudice or hostility.
The sentence pairs the idiom with scepticism, which fixes the reading as mistrust rather than envy.
Resentment is bitterness at something felt to be wrong or unfair, which is the reception described here.

Study next

Eye idioms of attitude, such as a jaundiced eye, turning a blind eye and raising an eyebrowUsing the surrounding clause to choose between two dictionary shades of one idiomThe vocabulary of disapproval, from scepticism through distaste to resentment

Common traps

Taking jaundiced to mean ill or sickly, because that is what the medical word means
Choosing jealousy from the yellow-and-envy association when nothing in the sentence is coveted

Here the idiom sits inside a sentence whose other clause settles the meaning, so the whole line has to be read before choosing. The same shift sets the idiom "off and on" at English Q.20 in this format.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.

Topic: Idioms and phrases — all 60 SSC CGL questions on it, every solved shift.