SSC CGL 2025 Tier-I · 18 September 2025, Shift 1 · English Comprehension · Question 4 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 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.

Choose the correct meaning of idiom: Came of age

(a)Reached adulthood legally or socially
(b)Understood morality for the first time
(c)Abandoned earlier beliefs
(d)Inherited property

Answer

Why

Correct — A. To come of age is to reach adult status: the age at which the law, or society, treats a person as an adult.

The keyed option says exactly that, reached adulthood legally or socially. 'Came of age' is the same idiom in the past tense → option (a).

Why the others are wrong

(b)
Understood morality for the first time — Understood morality for the first time narrows the idiom to one inner discovery. Coming of age names a stage reached, adulthood, not a particular moral lesson.
(c)
Abandoned earlier beliefs — Abandoned earlier beliefs describes a change of mind. Come of age refers to reaching maturity and says nothing about giving up views.
(d)
Inherited property — Inherited property describes a transfer of wealth, which can happen at any age. Come of age names the stage of life reached, adulthood.

Concept

The idiom works at two levels. Literally, a person comes of age on reaching the age of majority, the age at which the law treats them as an adult.

Figuratively, a thing comes of age when it becomes fully developed: 'the technology has come of age'.

The keyed option covers the literal, personal sense, and its 'legally or socially' takes in both the legal age and the social recognition of adulthood.

The phrase also works as an adjective, coming-of-age: a coming-of-age film or novel is one about growing up.

Key facts

Come of age means to reach adult status.
Age of majority is the legal term for the age at which a person becomes an adult.
Figuratively, a movement or industry comes of age when it becomes fully developed or established.
A coming-of-age novel, about a young person growing up, is also called a bildungsroman.

Study next

Idioms of growing up and gaining experience: cut one's teeth, find one's feet, wet behind the earsThe literary term bildungsroman and the coming-of-age story

Common traps

Letting something that can accompany adulthood, such as an inheritance or a new moral outlook, stand in for the idiom's plain meaning

The same 'Choose the correct meaning of idiom:' stem is used for Won his laurels at 18 Sep 2025, 09:00, English Q.3.

The definition itself turns up as a wrong option at 10 Sep 2024, 12:30, English Q.2: 'When something develops completely and reaches maturity' is offered for cook your goose, which is keyed to interfere with, disrupt or ruin something for someone.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.

Topic: Idioms and phrases — all 97 SSC CGL questions on it, every solved shift.