SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 26 September 2024, Shift 2 · 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 meaning of the underlined idiom. Bincy’s mother kept her cards close to her chest.

(a)Kept her plans and thoughts hidden
(b)Informed that all the cards must be kept safe
(c)Kept her purse and money by herself
(d)Decided to show more affection

Answer

Why

Correct — A. The idiom is to keep your cards close to your chest — to hold your plans, opinions and intentions back so that nobody can read them.

The picture behind it is a card player holding the hand tight against the chest so that no one at the table sees it.

Applied to the mother in the sentence, that is kept her plans and thoughts hidden → option (a).

Why the others are wrong

(b)
Informed that all the cards must be kept safe — This reads the phrase literally, as advice about looking after playing cards. An idiom's meaning is not the sum of its words, which is the whole point of the question type.
(c)
Kept her purse and money by herself — Purse and money swaps one physical object for another and stays just as literal. The idiom is about withholding information, not guarding possessions.
(d)
Decided to show more affection — Affection reverses the sense. Holding cards to the chest is concealment; nothing in the phrase suggests showing anything to anyone.

Concept

Idiom items reward knowing the phrase, but the option set usually helps you: the wrong choices cluster around the literal words while the right one restates the figurative sense.

Three options here talk about cards, a purse or affection — objects and feelings. Only option (a) talks about plans and thoughts, which is what a concealment idiom is about.

When an idiom is unfamiliar, ask what kind of thing the phrase is about — information, money, time, effort — and keep the option that matches that kind.

American English usually says play your cards close to the vest. British and Indian usage keeps chest, as the paper does. The meaning is identical.

Key facts

To keep or play one's cards close to one's chest means to keep plans and intentions secret.
The American variant of the same idiom is close to the vest.
An idiom's meaning cannot be assembled from its individual words, which is what the literal options test.

Study next

Concealment and disclosure idioms: under wraps, let the cat out of the bag, spill the beansCard and gambling idioms: show your hand, an ace up your sleeve, on the cardsChoosing between a literal and a figurative option when the idiom is unknown

Common traps

Reading the idiom literally because the sentence names a person and an object
Picking the option that echoes the words of the phrase, on the assumption the answer should sound similar

SSC underlines the idiom inside a short sentence and offers one figurative reading against two or three literal ones.

Also set at 13 Sep 2024, 12:30, English Q.9 (a straight shooter → a thoroughly upright straightforward person).

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.