SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 24 September 2024, Shift 1 · English Comprehension · Question 1 of 98

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 phrasal verb to fill in the blank. We need to __________ a solution to this problem before it gets worse.

(a)cut down on
(b)break down
(c)come up with
(d)break up

Answer

Why

Correct — C. The blank takes an object, a solution, and the sentence needs the sense "produce or think of".

Come up with is the phrasal verb for producing an idea, plan or answer — you come up with a solution, a name, an excuse.

Read it back: We need to come up with a solution to this problem before it gets worse → option (c).

Why the others are wrong

(a)
cut down on — Cut down on means to reduce your consumption of something — cut down on sugar, on spending. Nobody reduces a solution, and the sentence wants one created.
(b)
break down — Break down means to stop working, or to separate something into parts. It suits a machine or a problem, not the making of a solution.
(d)
break up — Break up means to end a relationship or to disperse a gathering. Neither sense takes a solution as its object.

Concept

A phrasal verb is a verb plus a particle whose meaning you cannot read off the parts — come up with has nothing to do with climbing.

This item fixes the object and lets you choose the verb, so the object is the clue. A solution is something you produce, so the phrasal verb has to be one of production.

Test each candidate by asking what it normally takes as its object: cut down on takes a quantity, break up takes a group, break down takes a machine or a process.

Three of the four options are built on the same two verbs, cut and break. Recognising the verb is therefore not enough here — the particle decides.

Key facts

Come up with means to produce or think of an idea, plan or solution.
Cut down on means to reduce the amount of something you use or consume.
Break down means to stop functioning, or to divide something into smaller parts.
Break up means to end a relationship, or to disperse a gathering.

Study next

Phrasal verbs built on come: come across, come by, come roundPhrasal verbs built on break: break into, break out, break throughSeparable and inseparable phrasal verbs, and where the object can sit

Common traps

Choosing break down because problems get broken down, when the blank takes a solution
Reading come up with as literal upward movement
Picking a phrasal verb that is common rather than one that fits the object

SSC also tests phrasal verbs in substitution form, where one already sits inside the sentence and you replace it. That form is at English Q.3 of this shift (called back becomes called around) and at 13 Sep 2024, 12:30, English Q.13, where put on has to become put off.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.

Topic: Fill in the blank — all 40 SSC CGL questions on it, every solved shift.