Select the most appropriate option that can substitute the underlined part in the following sentence. We all have to pull our socks up for the upcoming Board exam, if we want to get outstanding grades.
- (a)revive interest in old matters
- (b)calm down impudent contempt
- (c)act in a proper manner
- (d)work harder than before
Answer
Why
Correct — D. Pull your socks up means to make a greater effort — to improve on how you have been performing so far.
The sentence fixes which kind of improvement is meant: the effort is 'for the upcoming Board exam' and its purpose is 'to get outstanding grades'. That is a demand for more work, and work harder than before states it → option (d).
Why the others are wrong
- (a)revive interest in old matters — Revive interest in old matters faces backwards. The sentence points forward to an exam that has not happened yet, and the idiom is about effort still to come.
- (b)calm down impudent contempt — Calm down impudent contempt answers nothing in the sentence. There is no rudeness or anger here, only an exam and the grades wanted from it.
- (c)act in a proper manner — The sentence attaches the phrase to exam grades, so effort is what is being asked for. Acting properly is conduct, and conduct on its own does not raise a grade.
Concept
Pull your socks up is an idiom of renewed effort, addressed to someone whose recent performance has not been good enough. The image is a schoolchild or a runner tightening loose socks before getting on with the job.
The standard gloss is 'make an effort to improve', and the improvement may be in work or in behaviour. The sentence decides which, and here the purpose clause makes it work.
An idiom-substitution item therefore has two steps: recall the phrase, then check that the sentence supports the reading you have chosen. The second step separates two options that both sound plausible.
Dictionaries gloss the idiom as improving one's work or behaviour, so 'act in a proper manner' is not an absurd reading. It loses because this sentence measures the improvement in grades.
Key facts
- Pull your socks up means to make an effort to improve, most often an effort to work harder.
- The idiom presumes that recent performance has fallen short.
- An idiom substitution must fit the sentence's own purpose clause, not only the idiom in isolation.
Study next
Common traps
- Stopping at the first option that mentions effort or conduct without testing it against the purpose clause
- Reading the idiom literally, as tidying oneself up before setting out
- Assuming any option about good behaviour will satisfy an exam sentence
SSC prints the idiom inside a sentence and asks for a plain-English substitute, which makes the sentence part of the evidence rather than decoration.
The same shape is asked on 09 Sep 2024, 16:00, English Q.13, where at her wits' end must be matched to a meaning, and in reverse on 09 Sep 2024, 12:30, English Q.12, where a plain description must be replaced by a blessing in disguise.
Related PYQs
No directly related past PYQ was found.