SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 26 September 2024, Shift 2 · English Comprehension · Question 6 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 to fill in the blank. Just bite the ______ and tell him the truth.

(a)shot
(b)gun
(c)dust
(d)bullet

Answer

Why

Correct — D. The idiom is bite the bullet: to force yourself to do something painful or unpleasant that you have been putting off.

The sentence supplies exactly that frame — 'and tell him the truth' is the unwelcome duty being urged, and 'Just' marks it as something the listener has been avoiding.

An idiom is fixed, so no near-synonym may be swapped in for bullet, and none of the other nouns makes an English idiom that fits this sense. Option (d).

Why the others are wrong

(a)
shot — bite the shot is not an English idiom. Shot belongs to other fixed phrases — call the shots, a shot in the dark — and none of them means facing an unpleasant task.
(b)
gun — bite the gun is not an idiom either. The gun phrases are jump the gun, meaning act too early, and stick to your guns, meaning refuse to back down.
(c)
dust — Bite the dust is a real idiom, which makes it the dangerous option, but it means to die, to fail or to be defeated. Nobody is being defeated here — the listener is being urged to confess.

Concept

An idiom is a fixed expression: its meaning does not follow from its words, and its words cannot be exchanged for synonyms. That is why a fill-in-the-blank idiom item is a memory test with a comprehension check bolted on.

Bite the bullet is often traced to battlefield surgery before anaesthetics, when a patient was given a bullet to bite on. Treat that as a story attached to the phrase rather than a settled etymology — what the exam wants is the meaning: to endure something painful because it cannot be avoided.

The blank sits inside the idiom, so the sentence can confirm your choice but cannot derive it. If the phrase is not in your memory, 'tell him the truth' at least rules out the option that means defeat.

Key facts

Bite the bullet means to face something painful or unpleasant rather than avoid it.
Bite the dust means to die, to fail or to be defeated.
Jump the gun means to act before the right moment.
Idioms are fixed expressions — replacing one word with a synonym destroys the meaning.

Study next

Idioms built on weapons: jump the gun, stick to your guns, a shot in the darkIdioms of endurance: grin and bear it, face the musicIdiom items where the blank falls inside the fixed phrase

Common traps

Choosing dust because 'bite the dust' is a real idiom you have heard.
Reading the sentence literally — no biting is involved.
Assuming an idiom tolerates a synonym: 'chew the bullet' is not English.

The same idiom is asked as a meaning question — 'What does the idiom Bite the bullet mean?' — at 10 Sep 2024, 12:30, EC Q20, and as a segment substitution at 19 Sep 2024, 16:00, EC Q16.

Learn the meaning once and both framings are covered — the idiom itself is fixed, so only the question type around it changes.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.