SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 25 September 2024, Shift 3 · 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 correct idiom to substitute the underlined segment in the following sentence. Due to her impoverished state, most of her relatives treated her with contempt.

(a)Gave a wide space to her
(b)Turned up their nose at her
(c)Turned the corner at her
(d)Came in handy

Answer

Why

Correct — B. The segment to replace is treated her with contempt, so the idiom has to mean looking down on someone.

To turn up your nose at someone or something is to reject it as beneath you — the physical gesture of disdain turned into a phrase. Option (b) puts the relatives in exactly that posture.

The grammar matches too. The idiom takes at before the person scorned, so 'her' keeps the same place in the sentence that it held before the swap.

Why the others are wrong

(a)
Gave a wide space to her — The real idiom is 'give a wide berth to', not 'a wide space'. Even in its correct form it means to keep well away from someone, which is avoidance rather than contempt.
(c)
Turned the corner at her — 'Turn the corner' means to start improving after a difficult stretch, as a patient does after a crisis. It takes no object, so 'turned the corner at her' is not English.
(d)
Came in handy — 'Come in handy' means to prove useful. It says something turned out to be needed and helpful, which is the reverse of the scorn this sentence describes.

Concept

Idiom-substitution items are decided in two moves, and skipping the second is what costs the mark.

Meaning first: 'treated her with contempt' calls for an idiom of scorn — not of avoidance, not of recovery, not of usefulness.

Grammar second: the idiom must take the same object the plain phrase took. 'Turn up your nose at her' keeps 'her' as the object through the preposition at, while 'turn the corner' has no slot for an object at all.

The paper prints the singular 'nose' for a plural subject. Ordinary usage would be 'turned up their noses at her', one nose each, but the idiom and its meaning are unchanged by the number.

Key facts

To turn up your nose at something is to reject it as not good enough for you.
To give someone a wide berth is to stay well away from them.
To turn the corner is to pass the worst point of an illness or difficulty and begin to improve.
To come in handy is to turn out to be useful.

Study next

Idioms of scorn and dismissal: look down on, sneer at, snubIdioms built on parts of the body: nose, hand, foot, eyeIdioms whose meaning turns on the preposition, such as look up, look up to and look into

Common traps

Accepting 'gave a wide space to her' as a loose version of 'gave a wide berth' and marking it.
Choosing an idiom on subject matter alone without checking that it can take the sentence's object.
Treating avoidance and contempt as the same attitude — one keeps its distance, the other looks down.

The reverse shape — the idiom given, its meaning wanted — runs at English Q.20 of this sitting ('Let the dust settle') and at 12 Sep 2024, 16:00, English Q.8, where the motto 'When life gives you lemons' has to be read as making the best of a difficult situation.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.