SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 26 September 2024, Shift 3 · English Comprehension · Question 3 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 word segment that can substitute the bracketed word segment correctly and complete the sentence meaningfully. We will have to (put the meeting away) as the Director is not well.

(a)put the meeting up
(b)put the meeting again
(c)put the meeting on
(d)put the meeting off

Answer

Why

Correct — D. The reason clause, as the Director is not well, calls for postponement, and the phrasal verb that means postpone is put off.

Put off is separable, so a noun object may sit between the two parts: put the meeting off. That is the shape option (d) prints.

The bracketed segment uses put away, which means to store or tidy something out of sight. You can put a file away; a meeting cannot be put away.

Why the others are wrong

(a)
put the meeting up — Put up means to accommodate someone, to erect something, or with with to tolerate it. None of those senses does anything for a meeting the Director cannot attend.
(b)
put the meeting again — Put again is not a phrasal verb. Again is an adverb, not a particle, so the segment never forms the set expression the sentence needs.
(c)
put the meeting on — Put on means to stage or to wear — you put on a play, or a coat. Putting the meeting on would mean going ahead with it, the opposite of what the Director's illness forces.

Concept

A phrasal verb takes its meaning from the particle, so the particle is the whole question. Put off is postpone, put away is store, put up is accommodate or erect, put on is stage or wear.

Work from the reason the sentence gives rather than from the sound of the phrase. The Director is unwell, so the meeting has to move to a later date.

Put off is separable. With a noun object either order is allowed — put off the meeting, or put the meeting off — but with a pronoun only put it off is possible.

The bracketed phrase is real English used with the wrong object, so nothing sounds broken when you read the sentence aloud. You have to know what each particle does.

Key facts

Put off means to postpone something to a later time.
Put away means to return something to its place or store it.
Put up with means to tolerate, while put up alone means to accommodate or to erect.
Put off is separable, so a pronoun object must sit between put and off.

Study next

The particle meanings of put: off, away, up, on and downSeparable and inseparable phrasal verbs, and where a pronoun object goesPhrasal verbs of postponement and cancellation, such as put off and call off

Common traps

Choosing put on because the meeting is being spoken of as an event
Treating put away as postponement, since both suggest moving something aside
Accepting put again on the strength of what again means, though it forms no phrasal verb

SSC brackets a phrasal verb that is correct English but wrong for its object, and the four options change only the particle.

Put off is keyed again at 13 Sep 2024, 12:30, English Q.13, where The wedding was put on until January has to become put off.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.