SSC CGL 2025 Tier-I · 20 September 2025, Shift 1 · English Comprehension · Question 3 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: Flash in the pan

(a)A bright idea
(b)A sudden success that fails to last
(c)A criminal plan
(d)A methodical worker

Answer

Why

Correct — B. A flash in the pan is a sudden success that fades and is not repeated: a singer with one hit and nothing after it.

The keyed meaning, a sudden success that fails to last, states that sense almost word for word → option (b).

The image comes from flintlock guns. The priming powder in the pan could flash without firing the main charge: noise and smoke, but no shot.

Why the others are wrong

(a)
A bright idea — A bright idea keeps the flash, a burst of light, and drops the failure. The idiom is about success that does not last, not about a clever thought.
(c)
A criminal plan — A criminal plan has no link to the idiom's image or its use. Nothing in a flash in the pan involves crime or planning of any kind.
(d)
A methodical worker — A methodical worker is steady and consistent, the reverse of a flash in the pan, whose success is sudden and short-lived.

Concept

An idiom item tests the fixed meaning of a phrase, which its words alone do not give. Flash in the pan has nothing to do with a cooking pan.

The phrase comes from flintlock firearms. A small priming charge in the pan was meant to fire the main charge in the barrel. When it flashed alone, there was smoke and noise but no shot.

So the idiom names a promising start with no follow-through: sudden success that does not last.

The phrase is said of people and of things alike: an athlete, a band, a product or a fashion can each be a flash in the pan.

Key facts

A flash in the pan is a sudden success that is not repeated or does not last.
The phrase comes from flintlock firearms, where the priming powder in the pan could flash without firing the main charge.
It works as a noun phrase: the band was a flash in the pan.

Study next

Idioms for short-lived fame: a nine days' wonder and a one-hit wonderIdioms from old firearms: hang fire, and lock, stock and barrel

Common traps

Picking A bright idea because the flash suggests brilliance, ignoring that the idiom is about failing to last
Reading the pan as a cooking pan and guessing from a kitchen image

The same stem, Choose the correct meaning of idiom, is used at 17 Sep 2025, 16:00, English Q.4 (To cry stinking fish, keyed Undervaluing one's own worth or effort) and at 12 Sep 2025, 12:30, English Q.2 (Move heaven and earth, keyed To work tirelessly to achieve something).

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.

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