SSC CGL 2025 Tier-I · 14 September 2025, Shift 1 · English Comprehension · Question 21 of 100

We transcribed this text from the pictures on a candidate's response sheet for this shift; the answer is the key SSC colour-marked on that sheet. Solution last reviewed 11 September 2026.

Where this paper and its answers come from

SSC does not publish CGL question papers or a public answer key. From 2025 the candidate response sheet prints every question and option as a picture, so the text here is transcribed from those pictures for this shift and checked against them independently; where the layout carries meaning, the picture is shown as well. Each answer is the key SSC colour-marked on that sheet. SSC released a tentative key for challenge and later its final one, both only to candidates behind a login, and the sheet does not say which of the two it carries. The solutions are written by UnlockIAS.

Choose the most suitable option to replace the highlighted part of the sentence: It is high time you must change your habits.

(a)changed your habits
(b)must have changed your habits
(c)change your habit
(d)will change the habit

Answer

Why

Correct — A. The trigger is It is high time. After It is (high) time + subject, standard English uses the past simple with a present meaning: the action is overdue.

So the modal must goes and change becomes changed: 'It is high time you changed your habits.'

The keyed option makes that change and keeps your habits as printed → option (a).

Why the others are wrong

(b)
must have changed your habits — Must have changed is a deduction about the past — I am sure you changed them. After It is high time the verb is a plain past simple, with no modal.
(c)
change your habit — Change is the base form, but It is high time + subject takes the past simple: you changed. The option also shrinks habits to a single habit.
(d)
will change the habit — Will change puts a future form after It is high time, which takes the past simple. The switch to the habit also points to one particular habit the sentence never identifies.

Concept

It is time, It is high time and It is about time, followed by a subject, take the past simple: 'It is high time you changed your habits.'

The past form here does not refer to past time. It marks the action as overdue — you have not changed yet, and you should.

The same idea can be written with a to-infinitive: 'It is high time for you to change your habits.'

The printed sentence highlights must change your habits, so each option replaces the whole verb phrase, modal included.

Key facts

It is (high/about) time + subject + past simple: It is high time you changed your habits.
The past form after It is high time refers to the present and signals that the action is overdue.
The to-infinitive pattern means the same: It is high time for you to change your habits.
Must have + past participle expresses a confident guess about the past: He must have left.

Study next

Past forms with present meaning: I wish I knew, I would rather you stayed, It is time we leftMust have + past participle as a deduction about the pastIt is time for + object + to-infinitive

Common traps

Keeping change because the sentence is about now — after It is high time, the present meaning is carried by a past form.
Picking must have changed because it looks past — it is a modal deduction, not the past simple the pattern needs.

Here the pattern is tested by replacing a highlighted modal phrase, must change your habits, with the past simple.

English Q.20 of this shift uses the same format, with will planted after the inverted condition 'Had I known'.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.

Topic: Sentence improvement — all 98 SSC CGL questions on it, every solved shift.