SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 25 September 2024, Shift 2 · English Comprehension · Question 13 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 option to substitute the underlined part of the following sentence. My brother always received the lion’s share of every meal that we had.

(a)the major portion
(b)the pet’s share
(c)the last bite
(d)a very small part

Answer

Why

Correct — A. The lion's share means the largest or best part of something being divided, from Aesop's fable in which the lion claims the biggest portion of a joint hunt.

The sentence needs a quantity, and a large one: the brother 'always received' it, from every meal. The major portion says exactly that → option (a).

Why the others are wrong

(b)
the pet’s share — The pet's share is not an idiom. An idiom's words are fixed, and swapping the animal destroys the phrase without leaving any sense of size behind.
(c)
the last bite — The last bite is what remains at the end, a small leftover. The idiom names the biggest portion, not the final one.
(d)
a very small part — A very small part reverses the idiom. Receiving it from every meal describes a standing advantage, which a small part cannot be.

Concept

An idiom is a fixed phrase. Its words cannot be swapped for near-synonyms, and its meaning cannot be assembled from them one at a time.

The lion's share means the largest or best part of what is being divided. Aesop's fable supplies the image: the lion joins the hunt and then claims the biggest portion for himself.

Every wrong option here is also about quantity — a pet's share, the last bite, a very small part. That is deliberate. A candidate who half-remembers the phrase knows it concerns size but not which end of the scale, and the option set is built to catch precisely that gap.

The sentence gives you a second check independent of the idiom. 'Always received ... of every meal' describes a standing advantage, and only a large portion can be one.

Key facts

The lion's share means the largest or best part of something that is divided.
The phrase comes from Aesop's fable in which the lion takes the biggest portion of a joint hunt.
An idiom's wording is fixed, so the pet's share or the tiger's share is not English.

Study next

Idioms of quantity and advantage: the lion's share, the upper hand, the better part ofReplacing a plain phrase with an idiom, the reverse direction SSC also setsIdioms that come from Aesop: cry wolf, sour grapes, the lion's share

Common traps

Taking the idiom apart word by word and deciding that a share must be a fair or modest one
Choosing the literal-sounding option because the sentence is about meals and bites
Assuming any animal name will serve inside a fixed phrase

SSC asks idioms in both directions, and the underlined-segment format can carry either one.

Meaning-of-the-idiom is asked on 09 Sep 2024, 16:00, English Q.13 (at her wits' end), while the reverse — replacing a plain description with the idiom — is asked on 10 Sep 2024, 16:00, English Q.14 (spill the beans) and on 09 Sep 2024, 12:30, English Q.12 (a blessing in disguise).

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.