SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 24 September 2024, Shift 3 · English Comprehension · Question 19 of 99

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 in the following sentence. The leader of the Legislative Assembly won the hearts of the members through his maiden speech during the session in state council.

(a)closure speech
(b)first speech
(c)logical speech
(d)final speech

Answer

Why

Correct — B. The word under test is the adjective maiden, which in this use means "first ever" - the first instance of something for the person or thing described.

A maiden speech is the first speech a member delivers in a legislature, and that is exactly the setting the sentence supplies: the leader of the Legislative Assembly speaking during a session of the state council.

The meaning asked for is "first speech", option (b).

Why the others are wrong

(a)
closure speech — Closure means bringing something to an end - in a house of legislature, a motion to end debate. Maiden points the other way, to a first occasion, so this reverses the sense.
(c)
logical speech — Logical grades the reasoning inside a speech. Maiden grades its place in a sequence, and the sentence has already told you the effect the speech had rather than how it argued.
(d)
final speech — The straight opposite of the key. Maiden marks the first, not the last, and this option catches anyone who half-remembers the phrase as a farewell address.

Concept

Maiden as an adjective means first - the first of its kind for whoever or whatever it describes.

English keeps that sense alive in a small group of fixed collocations: maiden speech, maiden voyage, maiden flight, maiden century. In each one the noun is having its first outing.

The parliamentary use is the most formal of them: a newly elected member's first address to the house is a maiden speech. Because the phrase is fixed, you cannot reason it out from the ordinary noun maiden - you either hold the collocation or you guess.

SSC files this under idioms although "maiden speech" is a fixed collocation rather than a figurative idiom. All four options name a kind of speech, so the noun gives nothing away and the whole item turns on the one adjective.

Key facts

Maiden speech means a member's first speech in a legislature.
Maiden voyage is a ship's first voyage and maiden flight is an aircraft's first flight.
A maiden over in cricket is an over in which no runs are scored, so maiden does not always mean first.
Maiden name is the surname a woman used before marriage.

Study next

Fixed collocations with maiden: voyage, flight, century, nameIdioms versus fixed collocations in the SSC idiom-meaning questionParliamentary vocabulary that appears in English papers: adjournment, quorum, closure

Common traps

Reading maiden as young or unmarried and then choosing an option about tone.
Choosing final speech because both a first and a last speech are one-off occasions.
Carrying the cricketing maiden, an over without runs, into this sentence.

The idiom-meaning item gives one sentence and four paraphrases, and asks only for the sense of the underlined phrase.

The same format is keyed for "the gift of the gab" at 24 Sep 2024, 12:30, English Q.9 (a talent for speaking) and for "the tip of the iceberg" at 26 Sep 2024, 09:00, English Q.6.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.