SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 25 September 2024, Shift 1 · English Comprehension · Question 14 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 that can substitute the underlined part in the following sentence. The entire speech of the revivalist fell flat with the crowd that was present there.

(a)had somewhat of a result on
(b)had a great impact on
(c)had moderate influence on
(d)had no effect on

Answer

Why

Correct — D. The part to be substituted is the idiom fell flat with, and fall flat means to fail completely to produce the intended effect — no laugh, no applause, no persuasion.

A substitute has to keep that failure total. Had no effect on does exactly that: the speech reached the crowd and moved them not at all.

It also fits the frame, with past simple "had" matching "fell" and "on" taking "the crowd that was present there" as its object. That is option (d).

Why the others are wrong

(a)
had somewhat of a result on — Somewhat of a result concedes a partial effect, which is the reverse of falling flat. The wording is loose as well — "had somewhat of a result on" is not idiomatic English.
(b)
had a great impact on — A great impact is the direct opposite of the idiom. Fall flat says the speech landed with nothing, not that it moved the crowd.
(c)
had moderate influence on — Moderate influence still grants the speech some success. Fall flat is absolute — an idiom of complete failure, with no room for a middling result.

Concept

An idiom is a single unit of meaning, and you cannot assemble it from its parts. Fall plus flat does not add up to failure by any rule.

Fall flat is used of things meant to land on an audience — a joke, a performance, a speech, a launch. The verb inflects normally: falls flat, fell flat, has fallen flat.

A substitution item then asks for two things at once: the same meaning, and a phrase that slots into the surrounding grammar without further repair.

The response sheet keeps the sentence as plain text, so the underlining is not preserved here.

The stretch is still identifiable: every option is of the shape "had ... on", so the part being replaced must be the verb-and-preposition group fell flat with.

Key facts

Fall flat means to fail to produce the intended effect, especially of a joke, a performance or a speech.
The idiom inflects on its verb, giving falls flat, fell flat and has fallen flat.
A substitution option must fit the surrounding grammar as well as the meaning, which is why every option here ends in a preposition.
A revivalist is a person who leads or conducts a religious revival.

Study next

Idioms of failure: fall flat, fall through, come to nothing, go up in smokeSubstitution items where every option is grammatically insertable and only the sense decidesIdioms built on flat: flat out, flat broke, fall flat

Common traps

Reading fell flat literally, as something physically falling
Choosing had a great impact on after skimming, because the sentence sounds like praise of a speech
Softening the idiom to a partial effect and settling for moderate influence

Idioms appear in two shapes here: a plain phrase that must replace an idiom, as in this item, and an idiom that must replace a plain phrase.

The second shape is also asked in this paper at English Q.2, where "straight from the horse's mouth" substitutes the underlined segment.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.