SSC CGL 2025 Tier-I · 14 September 2025, Shift 3 · English Comprehension · Question 7 of 95

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 13 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.

Select the correct option: The journalist refused to ___ her sources despite repeated legal threats.

(a)give out
(b)give over
(c)give away
(d)give up

Answer

Why

Correct — D. The object of the blank is her sources, the people who gave her information. The repeated legal threats are pressure to hand them over.

Give up has exactly that sense: to surrender someone, or to inform on them, as when a gang member gives up an accomplice to the police.

She refused to surrender her sources → option (d).

Why the others are wrong

(a)
give out — Give out means to distribute or announce, as in give out leaflets or give out the results. Surrendering or informing on people is not one of its senses.
(b)
give over — Give over as 'hand over' is rare and used of things, as in giving the deeds over to a solicitor. In regional British and Irish speech it means stop. Neither fits surrendering sources.
(c)
give away — Give away is the closest miss: it can mean to reveal a secret. But that sense usually describes a slip, as when a sneeze gives away a hiding place. A deliberate refusal under legal pressure is give up's territory.

Concept

All four options share give, so the particle carries all the meaning.

give up: surrender, relinquish, or stop doing something
give away: make a gift of something, or let a secret slip
give out: distribute, announce, or stop working
give over: hand over (rare), devote, or stop (regional)

The trigger is the object, her sources, read with the legal threats. Pressure to surrender people to an authority calls for give up.

Give away can also mean reveal, and 'refused to give away her sources' would be understood. Wiktionary glosses that sense as revealing something unintentionally, while its first sense of give up is to surrender or inform on someone. The key follows that closer fit.

Key facts

Give up someone: surrender them, or inform on them, as in giving a suspect up to the police.
Give away: make a gift of something, or reveal a secret by a slip.
Give away prizes: hand them out at a ceremony.
Give out: distribute or announce, and of a machine, stop working.

Study next

The senses of give up: surrender, relinquish, quit, lose hopePhrasal verbs with give: give in, give off, give way

Common traps

Knowing give up only as quit, and so choosing give away for the revealing sense
Choosing give out because it can mean announce, when the sentence is about surrendering people

The contrast between give up and give away is tested at 17 Sep 2024, 12:30, English Q.3, where 'The principal gave up' is the error segment because handing prizes to winners is give away.

Phrasal-verb blanks also appear at 16 Sep 2025, 12:30, English Q.10 (keyed arrive at) and 17 Sep 2025, 12:30, English Q.8 (keyed clean out).

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.

Topic: Fill in the blank — all 96 SSC CGL questions on it, every solved shift.