SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 24 September 2024, Shift 2 · English Comprehension · Question 17 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 option to substitute the underlined segment in the given sentence. Nina has not yet learned how to straighten up and fly right.

(a)be professional in flying the aircraft
(b)forget the wrongdoings of the others
(c)improve her absurd behaviour and act seriously
(d)remember the past and prepare for the future

Answer

Why

Correct — C. Straighten up and fly right is an idiom, so its meaning is not the sum of its words: it means to start behaving properly and take things seriously.

The frame confirms the direction. 'Has not yet learned how to' marks something Nina still fails to do, so the answer has to describe a change in her own conduct.

Option (c) states exactly that: improve her absurd behaviour and act seriously.

Why the others are wrong

(a)
be professional in flying the aircraft — The literal reading of 'fly' — an aircraft, flown properly. Nothing in the sentence puts Nina in a cockpit.
(b)
forget the wrongdoings of the others — Forgiveness aimed at other people. The idiom is about the subject's own conduct, not about what others have done.
(d)
remember the past and prepare for the future — A statement about time, past and future. The idiom carries no reference to either.

Concept

The image behind the idiom is an aircraft held level and on course, transferred to a person's conduct: stop being erratic, straighten out, behave.

An idiom item is decided by the idiom, not by the sentence around it. The sentence tells you only whom the change applies to, and 'Nina has not yet learned how to' fixes that as Nina herself.

The wrong options follow a familiar shape here: one takes a word literally, and the rest offer plausible life advice that the idiom never states.

'Absurd behaviour' in the keyed option is stronger wording than the idiom strictly carries — the idiom covers any wayward or careless conduct. It is still the only option that describes the subject reforming her own behaviour.

Key facts

Straighten up and fly right means to start behaving properly and take things seriously.
The metaphor is drawn from flying — a plane held level and on course.
'Has not yet learned how to' places the required change in Nina's own behaviour.

Study next

Idioms of reform and conduct: turn over a new leaf, pull up one's socks, mend one's waysIdioms built on a physical image: on course, off the rails, plain sailingIdiom items where the literal sense of one word is offered as an option

Common traps

Reading 'fly' literally and choosing the aviation option.
Choosing an option about other people's wrongdoing when the idiom describes the subject's own conduct.

SSC asks idioms both bare and underlined inside a sentence. Q.9 of this shift underlines 'the gift of the gab' in a sentence about a speaking competition, and 9 Sep 2024, 16:00, English Q.13 does the same with 'at her wits' end'.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.