Reading Comprehension Questions for CLAT 2025

Each set of questions in this section is based on a single passage. Please answer each question based on what is stated or implied in the corresponding passage. In some instances, more than one option may answer the question; in such a case, please choose the option that most accurately and comprehensively answers the question.

Winston kept his back turned to the telescreen. It was safer, though, as he well knew, even a back can be revealing. A kilometre away the Ministry of Truth, his place of work, towered vast and white above the grimy landscape. This, he thought with a sort of vague distaste this was London, chief city of Airstrip One, itself the third most populous of the provinces of Oceania. He tried to squeeze out some childhood memory that should tell him whether London had always been quite like this. Were there always these vistas of rotting nineteenth-century houses, their sides shored up with baulks of timber, their windows patched with cardboard and their roofs with corrugated iron, their crazy garden walls sagging in all directions? And the bombed sites where the plaster dust swirled in the air and the willow-herb straggled over the heaps of rubble; and the places where the bombs had cleared a larger patch and there had sprung up sordid colonies of wooden dwellings like chicken-houses? But it was no use, he could not remember: nothing remained of his childhood except a series of brightlit tableaux occurring against no background and mostly unintelligible. The Ministry of Truth—Minitrue, in Newspeak [Newspeak was the official language of Oceania. For an account of its structure and etymology see Appendix.]—was startlingly different from any other object in sight. It was an enormous pyramidal structure of glittering white concrete, soaring up, terrace after terrace, 300 metres into the
air.

a) Magnificent
b) Enigmatic
c) Repulsive
d) Intriguing

a) Vivid and pleasant memories
b) Dark and foreboding visions
c) Confusing and fragmented recollections
d) Nostalgic and sentimental moments

a) Hopeful anticipation
b) Desolate resignation
c) Joyful contentment
d) Eager anticipation

a) It symbolizes stability and strength
b) It suggests hierarchical control and authority
c) It represents innovation and progress
d) It signifies secrecy and mystery

a) A focus on architectural grandeur
b) A disregard for societal welfare
c) A commitment to urban renewal
d) A dedication to historical preservation

At this moment the entire group of people broke into a deep, slow, rhythmical chant of ‘B B!…B-B!’—over and over again, very slowly, with a long pause between the first ‘B’ and the second—a heavy, murmurous sound, somehow curiously savage, in the background of which one seemed to hear the stamp of naked feet and the throbbing of tomtoms. For perhaps as much as thirty seconds they kept it up. It was a refrain that was often heard in moments of overwhelming emotion. Partly it was a sort of hymn to the wisdom and majesty of Big Brother, but still more it was an act of self-hypnosis, a deliberate drowning of consciousness by means of rhythmic noise. Winston’s entrails seemed to grow cold. In the Two Minutes Hate he could not help sharing in the general delirium, but this sub-human chanting of ‘B-B!…B-B!’ always filled him with horror. Of course he chanted with the rest: it was impossible to do otherwise. To dissemble your feelings, to control your face, to do what everyone else was doing, was an instinctive reaction. But there was a space of a couple of seconds during which the expression of his eyes might conceivably have betrayed him. And it was exactly at this moment that the significant thing happened—if, indeed, it did happen.

Momentarily he caught O’Brien’s eye. O’Brien had stood up. He had taken off his spectacles and was in the act of resettling them on his nose with his characteristic gesture. But there was a fraction of a second when their eyes met, and for as long as it took to happen Winston knew—yes, he KNEW!—that O’Brien was thinking the same thing as himself. An unmistakable message had passed. It was as though their two minds had opened and the thoughts were flowing from one into the other through their eyes. ‘I am with you,’ O’Brien seemed to be saying to him. ‘I know precisely what you are feeling. I know all about your contempt, your hatred, your disgust. But don’t worry, I am on your side!’ And then the flash of intelligence was gone, and O’Brien’s face was as inscrutable as everybody else’s.

a) Through his enthusiastic participation in the chant
b) Through his inner turmoil and horror at the chant
c) Through his indifference towards O’Brien’s gesture
d) Through his overt defiance and rebellious actions

a) It demonstrates the power of collective resistance.
b) It suggests the presence of underlying dissent among the populace.
c) It highlights the effectiveness of propaganda in shaping behavior.
d) It signifies the triumph of individual autonomy over authoritarianism.

a) The fragility of human connection in a dystopian world
b) The resilience of the human spirit against oppression
c) The inevitability of succumbing to totalitarian control
d) The power of empathy and solidarity in defiance

a) Transparent
b) Mysterious
c) Enigmatic
d) Opaque

a) No error
b) Replace “refrain” with “chant”
c) Remove “was” before “often”
d) Replace “overwhelming” with “overwhelmed”