Question:
Son, ________! Research the company before you apply for the job.
Son, ________! Research the company before you apply for the job.
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Use “hold your horses” when you want to tell someone to wait and think before acting.
Updated On: Jul 15, 2026
- build castles in the air
- hit the ceiling
- get off on the wrong foot
- hold your horses
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The Correct Option is D
Approach Solution - 1
The phrase hold your horses means to slow down, wait, or be patient before taking action. Here, the father is advising the son to pause and research the company before applying, making this the most logical choice.
Other options: (A) means to dream impractically, (B) means to lose one's temper, and (C) means to start something poorly — none fit the advice of pausing before action.
Other options: (A) means to dream impractically, (B) means to lose one's temper, and (C) means to start something poorly — none fit the advice of pausing before action.
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Approach Solution -2
The question asks which idiom best completes a father's advice to his son to research a company before applying for a job. Let's weigh each idiom against that context.
- Build castles in the air: This idiom describes making plans that are unrealistic or impractical, like daydreaming about something that will never happen. The sentence is not about unrealistic dreaming, it is about pausing before acting, so this does not fit.
- Hit the ceiling: This means to become extremely angry very suddenly. There is no sign of anger in the sentence; the father is giving calm, practical advice, so this idiom does not match the context.
- Get off on the wrong foot: This describes starting a relationship or task badly right from the beginning. The sentence is advice given before the son applies, not a description of a bad start already made, so this does not fit either.
- Hold your horses: This idiom means to slow down, wait, and not act too hastily. It fits perfectly here, since the father is telling his son to pause and do his research before rushing to apply for the job.
Only the fourth idiom carries the sense of pausing and being patient before taking action, which is exactly the advice being given in the sentence.
Therefore, the correct answer is hold your horses.
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Approach Solution -3
Idioms often keep a trace of their literal imagery inside their figurative meaning. Looking at the literal picture behind each phrase here helps confirm which one fits a father telling his son to slow down before applying for a job.
- Build castles in the air: The literal image is constructing something that has no ground to stand on, which figuratively became dreaming up unrealistic plans. That image has nothing to do with waiting or pausing.
- Hit the ceiling: The literal image is something flying upward violently, which figuratively became losing one's temper suddenly. That image conveys anger, not patience.
- Get off on the wrong foot: The literal image is stumbling at the very first step, which figuratively became starting badly. That describes a bad beginning already made, not advice given in advance.
- Hold your horses: The literal image is pulling back on a horse's reins to stop it from charging ahead, which figuratively became wait, don't rush. This image matches exactly what a father would say to slow his son down before he acts.
Tracing each idiom back to its literal picture shows that only "hold your horses" carries the image of pulling back and waiting, matching the advice given in the sentence.
Therefore, the correct answer is hold your horses.
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Top CLAT English Questions
- In the realm of contemporary literature, the interplay between character and setting is a nuanced dance that shapes the narrative’s essence. The setting, often described with painstaking detail, becomes more than a backdrop; it becomes a character, influencing the plot and character development.
Consider, for instance, the barren expanse of the desert in Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake. The arid landscape mirrors the sense of isolation felt by the protagonist, Gogol, as he navigates his identity crisis in a foreign land. The relentless sun and vast sands are not mere descriptions; they are the silent witnesses to his inner turmoil.
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[Extracted, with edits, from “Justice and the Two Ideas of India”, by G. Mohan Gopal, Frontline] - Everything she wanted was here, at Carignano, in Kasauli. Here, on the ridge of the mountain, in this quiet house. It was the place, and the time of life, that she had wanted and prepared for all her life-as she realized on the first day at Carignano, with a great, cool flowering of relief - and at last she had it. She wanted no one and nothing else. Whatever else came, or happened here, would be an unwelcome intrusion and distraction. This she tried to convey to the plodding postman with a cold and piercing stare from the height of the ridge onto his honest bull back. Unfortunately, he did not look up at her on the hilltop but stared stolidly down at the dust piling onto his shoes as he plodded on. A bullock-man, an oafish ox, she thought bitterly. She stepped backwards into the garden and the wind suddenly billowed up and threw the pine branches about as though to curtain her. She was grey, tall and thin and her silk sari made a sweeping, shivering sound and she fancied she could merge with the pine trees and be mistaken for one. To be a tree, no more and no less, was all she was prepared to undertake.
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- In the realm of contemporary literature, the interplay between character and setting is a nuanced dance that shapes the narrative’s essence. The setting, often described with painstaking detail, becomes more than a backdrop; it becomes a character, influencing the plot and character development.
Consider, for instance, the barren expanse of the desert in Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake. The arid landscape mirrors the sense of isolation felt by the protagonist, Gogol, as he navigates his identity crisis in a foreign land. The relentless sun and vast sands are not mere descriptions; they are the silent witnesses to his inner turmoil.
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The question of justice for the poor is, however, an altogether different challenge. No country in the world has been able to secure justice for the poor. Most of the jails of the richest countries are filled with the poorest. The “masses” are more often victims of the criminal justice system than of crime. In India as well, jails are almost exclusively filled with the poor. The civil justice system is hardly accessible to them. They are often victimised by lawyers, touts and court staff. They are docket-excluded, a new type of untouchability. The language and the logic—and the colonial and feudal culture—of the judicial system are alien to them. It rarely takes cognisance of their needs and interests.
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What pleased and satisfied her so, here at Carignano, was its barrenness. This was the chief virtue of all Kasauli of course-its starkness. It had rocks, it had pines, it had light and air. In every direction there was a sweeping view - to the north, of the mountains, to the south, of the plains. Occasionally an eagle swam through this clear unobstructed mass of light and air, that was all. And Carignano, her home on the ridge, had no more than that. Why should it? The sun shone on its white walls. Its windows were open the ones facing north opened on to the blue waves of the Himalayas flowing out and up to the line of ice and snow sketched upon the sky, while those that faced south looked down the plunging cliff to the plain stretching out, flat and sere to the blurred horizon.
Yes, there were some apricot trees close to the house. There were clumps of iris that had finished blooming. There was the kitchen with a wing of smoke lifting out of its chimney and a stack of wood outside its door. But these were incidental, almost unimportant.
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The 19th century ushered in a new era of literary giants. Jane Austen’s novels, such as Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility, provide incisive social commentary through the lens of wit and romance. Austen’s heroines, like Elizabeth Bennet and Elinor Dashwood, remain beloved literary figures known for their intelligence and resilience. The Romantic era brought forth poets like William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who celebrated * 8 UG the beauty of nature and the emotional intensity of the individual. Wordsworth’s ‘‘I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud’’ and Coleridge’s ‘‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’’ are testament to the power of the written words to evoke profound emotions and imagery. Moving towards 20th century, English literature continued to evolve. Virginia Woolf’s ground-breaking novel Mrs. Dalloway explored the inner thoughts and lives of its characters with a modernist narrative style. Dystopian visions, as seen in George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four provided stark warnings about the dangers of totalitarianism and the erosion of individual freedom.
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