Idioms and Phrases Questions and Answers

Answer: C

To cut one short means to interrupt one.

To cut someone short is to stop them before they have finished speaking: I tried to explain, but he cut me short.

The idiom carries no sense of insulting, criticising or loving. It can be rude, but what it describes is the interruption itself.

Answer: C

By leaps and bounds means rapidly.

The idiom describes very quick progress or growth, as if jumping forward rather than walking. Prices going up by leaps and bounds are rising fast and sharply.

Gradually is the opposite, slowly and steadily. Irregularly and systematically describe the pattern of change, not its speed.

Answer: D

'To make headway' is to make progress.

The phrase comes from sailing, where headway is a ship's forward movement through the water. Figuratively, to make headway is to move forward or progress, especially against difficulties: The talks are finally making headway.

It does not mean making little progress, which is nearly the opposite, nor heading for a collision, nor simply setting out to travel.

Answer: A

In a Hobson's choice, one must accept what is offered as there is no alternative.

The phrase comes from Thomas Hobson, a seventeenth-century stable owner in Cambridge who rented out horses on the rule that a customer must take the horse nearest the door or none at all. So a Hobson's choice is a free choice in name only: take it or leave it.

It is the opposite of choosing freely among many alternatives, and it has nothing to do with consulting a group.

Answer: C

To fight tooth and nail means to make every possible effort to win.

The idiom pictures someone fighting with every weapon available, even teeth and nails, and so describes a fierce, determined struggle, as in 'the residents fought tooth and nail to save the park'.

It says nothing about the battle being lost, so (A) is wrong; 'heroically' adds a moral quality the idiom lacks; and fighting in a cowardly way is the opposite of its sense.

Answer: D

Makes my mouth water means stimulates my appetite.

Food that makes your mouth water looks or smells so good that it makes you hungry; literally, the smell triggers the flow of saliva in anticipation of eating.

Giddiness, vomiting and sickness are unpleasant reactions, the reverse of the pleasant hunger the expression describes.

Answer: B

Well off means rich.

To be well off is to be wealthy or financially comfortable: He is rich these days. The phrase is often used of a change in fortune, as the words these days suggest.

Poor is the opposite. Happy and sad describe feelings, not money; a well-off person may be either, so neither replaces the phrase.

The opposite phrase is badly off, meaning poor. Well off for something means having plenty of it: The town is well off for schools.

Answer: B

In a fix means confused.

To be in a fix is to be in a difficult or awkward situation where one does not know what to do. The rest of the sentence makes the sense clear: the speaker cannot decide whether to help him or not.

Satisfied is the opposite of the uncertainty described, and angry is a different feeling altogether. Since confused fits, "None of these" is wrong.

Similar idioms for a difficult position are in a spot, in a jam and in a dilemma, the last used when there are two choices, as here.

Answer: C

Dead against means strongly opposed to.

Dead here is an intensifier meaning "completely", so dead against is completely or firmly against: I am strongly opposed to the practice of dowry.

Strong liking to and strongly happy to express approval, the reverse of the meaning, and neither is idiomatic English. Because the third option fits exactly, "None of these" is wrong.

Other phrases built the same way are dead tired (very tired) and dead certain (completely certain).

Answer: D

Beat about the bush means to talk irrelevantly.

To beat about the bush is to avoid the main point by talking around it, without saying directly what one means. The sentence sets it against come to the point, which confirms the sense.

To talk to the point and to talk relevantly are the opposite of the idiom; they describe what the speaker is asking for. To talk angrily is about tone, not about avoiding the subject.

The idiom is also written beat around the bush, the usual form in American English.