SSC CGL 2025 Tier-I · 17 September 2025, Shift 3 · English Comprehension · Question 15 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: He took pain to finish the task on time.

(a)had pain
(b)took pains
(c)gave pain
(d)took the pain

Answer

Why

Correct — B. The idiom is take pains: to use care and effort to do something despite the trouble. In this sense pains is plural and takes no article.

The sentence is in the past, so it reads "He took pains to finish the task on time" → option (b).

Singular pain means physical or mental suffering, which the sentence does not describe.

Why the others are wrong

(a)
had pain — had pain means felt pain, as in had pain in his knee. It describes suffering, not effort, and forms no idiom with to finish.
(c)
gave pain — gave pain means caused someone hurt. It needs a person on the receiving end and has nothing to do with working hard to meet a deadline.
(d)
took the pain — took the pain adds an article and keeps the singular. The fixed phrase is plural with no article: took pains, or took great pains.

Concept

Take pains (to do something) means to use care and effort despite trouble or inconvenience. Related phrases, take great pains and be at pains, keep pains plural too.

The phrase has a fixed form: make pains singular or add an article, and it stops being the idiom.

The singular pain is the ordinary noun for hurt, so took pain reads as that noun, not as the idiom.

Every option keeps some form of pain, so the choice turns on the verb, the article and the number together. Only took pains gets all three right.

Key facts

Take pains (to do something): to use care and effort despite trouble or inconvenience.
Related phrases keep the plural too: take great pains, be at pains.
Singular pain means physical or mental suffering: had pain, gave pain.

Study next

Idioms fixed in the plural: make amends, be on good termsPhrases close in meaning to take pains: be at pains, go to great lengthsIdioms where the article changes the meaning: take place versus take the place of

Common traps

Choosing took the pain because it keeps the verb took, missing that the idiom needs the plural
Reading pain as the ordinary noun for hurt, when pains in this idiom means effort

Idioms are tested for meaning at 17 Sep 2025, 16:00, English Q.4 (To cry stinking fish).

Here the idiom's form is tested instead: the options vary the verb, the article and the number of pain.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.

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