Select the most appropriate option to substitute the underlined part of the following sentence. The playwright has faced many ups and downs in his literary career, which spanned for almost 30 years.
- (a)much truth and falsehood
- (b)much light and darkness
- (c)many agreements and disagreements
- (d)many good and bad times
Answer
Why
Correct — D. The underlined phrase is the idiom ups and downs, which means alternating spells of good and bad fortune spread across a period of time.
Option (d), many good and bad times, is that meaning stated plainly — a run of periods, some of them good and some bad.
The sentence supports the reading. A literary career of almost 30 years is exactly the kind of stretch over which fortunes rise and fall, so the substitute leaves the meaning untouched.
Why the others are wrong
- (a)much truth and falsehood — Truth and falsehood swaps fortune for honesty. A career full of falsehood is a claim the sentence never makes, and the idiom says nothing about whether the playwright was truthful.
- (b)much light and darkness — Light and darkness is a metaphor for knowledge or hope, not for good and bad periods of a career. Nothing in the sentence sets that image up, so the substitution reads as decoration.
- (c)many agreements and disagreements — Agreements and disagreements are about dealings with other people. The sentence describes the course of the playwright's own career, not his quarrels, so this narrows the idiom to a sense it does not carry.
Concept
A substitution item hands you an idiom in place and asks for its plain-English equal. Fix the meaning from the idiom alone before you look at the options.
Ups and downs means a mixture of good and bad periods. That single decision settles the item, because only one option restates it.
Then read the replacement back into the sentence. A phrase that changes what the sentence claims about the playwright — that he lied, or that he quarrelled — is not a substitute, it is a different sentence.
The sentence's own wording, spanned for almost 30 years, is redundant English, since span already means to extend over. That is not what the item tests, and you are asked only about the underlined phrase.
Key facts
- Ups and downs means alternating periods of good and bad fortune.
- The idiom describes a stretch of time, not a disagreement between people.
- A substitution answer must preserve the sentence's meaning, not merely fit its grammar.
Study next
Common traps
- Picking the phrase that sounds most literary rather than the one that means the same thing
- Reading agreements and disagreements as the opposition the idiom needs, when the idiom is about fortunes
SSC underlines an idiom inside an ordinary sentence and offers four replacements, of which one keeps the meaning intact.
The same substitution frame runs at 09 Sep 2024, 12:30, English Q.12 (keyed a blessing in disguise) and 13 Sep 2024, 12:30, English Q.13 (keyed put off).
Related PYQs
No directly related past PYQ was found.