Idioms and Phrases Questions and Answers

Answer: A

A chip of the old block means exhibiting the characteristics of one's parents or ancestors.

The idiom compares a child to a chip cut from the same block of wood as the parent, so made of the same material. The sentence fits it exactly: young Bill is as courageous as his father. The usual modern form is a chip off the old block.

The wooden image tempts the reading 'behaving mechanically as a piece of wood', but the idiom is about resemblance, not stiffness. Obstinacy and friendliness are traits a child could share with a parent, but the idiom names the resemblance itself, not any particular trait.

Answer: B

To take with a grain of salt means to take with some reservation.

To take a statement with a grain (or pinch) of salt is to accept it only partly, keeping some doubt about how accurate it is. The phrase goes back to the Latin cum grano salis.

It does not mean rejecting the statement outright, so 'not to believe at all' goes too far. 'To take seriously' and 'to support' are close to the opposite, since the idiom signals scepticism.

Answer: C

A square peg in a round hole means a person unsuitable to the position he/she holds.

A square peg cannot fit a round hole, so the image describes someone in a job or role that does not suit their abilities or temperament, which is why the man in the sentence is never happy with his work.

The idiom describes a mismatch between person and position, not the difficulty of a task, so 'faced with an impossible task' and 'trying to achieve an impractical goal' miss the point. 'Forcing entry to a position' reads the image literally as pushing the peg in.

Answer: D

To smell a rat means to suspect some foul play.

The idiom comes from a dog or cat that smells a rat it cannot see: it senses that something hidden is wrong. In the sentence the speaker suspects that the fire was not an accident but deliberate.

'Detect a bad smell' is the literal reading the idiom is built to trap. 'To misunderstand something' and 'to ignore' are unrelated; the idiom is about growing suspicion, not confusion or indifference.

Answer: B

Fits and starts means unsteady.

Something done in fits and starts is done in short irregular bursts, stopping and starting rather than continuously, as in 'he worked on the book in fits and starts'.

Regular is the opposite. Rapid speaks of speed, which the idiom does not imply, and puzzled describes confusion, which has nothing to do with it.

Answer: C

A dressing-down is a scolding.

To give someone a dressing-down is to reprimand him severely, as in 'the coach gave the team a dressing-down after the defeat'.

The phrase has nothing to do with bandages (dressing a wound), clothes or an expensive gown, or pretending; those options play on the literal meanings of 'dressing'.

Answer: D

The idiom means one who is full of big talk but lacks substance and actions.

All hat and no cattle is a Texan expression for someone who dresses and talks like a rich cattle rancher but owns no cattle: a show-off with nothing behind the display. In the sentence, Hinson could be its 'poster boy' because he promised much and delivered little, which is why losing his job is called good news.

The idiom says nothing about getting others into trouble, hard work or meanness with money.

Answer: C

God's acre is a cemetery beside a church.

The phrase, a translation of the German Gottesacker, is an old name for a churchyard used as a burial ground: the plot of land belonging to God where the dead are laid to rest.

The church, its aisle and its altar are the building and parts of it, not the burial ground beside it.

Answer: B

A flash in the pan is a sudden but temporary success.

The idiom comes from the old flintlock musket: sometimes the powder in the priming pan flashed without firing the main charge, so there was a bright burst and then nothing. A flash in the pan is therefore something that makes a striking start but soon fades, an effort that comes to nothing.

'A spectacular and lasting success' gets the first half right but contradicts the essential idea of not lasting. 'A complete failure' misses the initial brilliance, and 'a well-planned strategy' has no connection with the idiom.

Answer: C

By the skin of her teeth means just barely.

To do something by the skin of one's teeth is to succeed or escape by the narrowest possible margin, with almost nothing to spare. The phrase comes from the Book of Job. In the sentence, she saved her business during the crash, but only narrowly.

'Very easily' is the opposite of the idiom's meaning. 'With a lot of financial help' and 'by cheating' explain how something might be done, but the idiom says nothing about the means, only about how close the outcome was.