Read the passages and answer the following questions.
A. He sounded the clacker till his arm ached, and at length, his heart grew sympathetic with the birds’ thwarted desires. They seemed, like himself, to be living in a world that did not want them. Why should he frighten them away? They took upon more and more the aspect of gentle friends and pensioners—the only friends he could claim as being in the least degree interested in him, for his aunt had often told him that she was not. He ceased his rattling, and they alighted anew.
“Poor little dears!” said Jude, aloud. “You shall have some dinner—you shall. There is enough for us all. Farmer Troutham can afford to let you have some. Eat, then my dear little birdies, and make a good meal!”
They stayed and ate, inky spots on the nut-brown soil, and Jude enjoyed their appetite. A magic thread of fellow-feeling united his own life with theirs. Puny and sorry as those lives were, they much resembled his own.
His clacker he had by this time thrown away from him, as being a mean and sordid instrument, offensive both to the birds and to himself as their friend. All at once he became conscious of a smart blow upon his buttocks, followed by a loud clack, which announced to his surprised senses that the clacker had been the instrument of offense used. The birds and Jude started up simultaneously, and the dazed eyes of the latter beheld the farmer in person, the great Troutham himself, his red face glaring down upon Jude’s cowering frame, the clacker swinging __[2]__ hand.
“So it’s ‘Eat my dear birdies,’ __[1]__ young man? ‘Eat, dear birdies,’ indeed! I’ll tickle your breeches, and see if you say, ‘Eat, dear birdies’ again in a hurry! And you’ve been idling at the schoolmaster’s too, instead of coming here, ha’n’t ye, hey? That’s how you earn your sixpence a day for keeping the rooks off my corn!”
Adapted from Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy (1895)
1. Which word is the closest in meaning to the term ‘thwarted’?
a. Defeated
b. Injured
c. Inclined
d. Established
b. Injured
c. Inclined
d. Established
2. What can be written in place of [1]?
a. is it
b. is it not
c. isn’t it
d. its
b. is it not
c. isn’t it
d. its
3. Which word is the farthest in meaning to the term ‘alighted’?
a. improved
b. started
c. ascended
d. lit up
b. started
c. ascended
d. lit up
4. What can be written in place of [2]?
a. out of
b. in his
c. in from
d. out
b. in his
c. in from
d. out
5. Which word is the opposite of the term simultaneously?
a. concurrently
b. singly
c. coincidentally
d. together
b. singly
c. coincidentally
d. together
Answers
- a
- a
- c
- b
- b
B. Selden paused in surprise. In the afternoon rush of the Grand Central Station his eyes had been refreshed __[1]__ the sight of Miss Lily Bart.
It was a Monday in early September, and he was returning to his work from a hurried dip into the country; but what was Miss Bart doing in town at that season? If she had appeared to be catching a train, he might have inferred that he had come on her in the act of transition between one and another of the country-houses which disputed her presence after the close of the Newport season; but her desultory air perplexed him. She stood apart from the crowd, letting it drift by her to the platform or the street, and wearing an air of irresolution which might, as he surmised, be the mask of a very definite purpose. It struck him at once that she was waiting for some one, but he hardly knew why the idea arrested him. There was nothing new about Lily Bart, yet he could never see her without a faint movement of interest: it was characteristic of her that she always roused speculation, that her simplest acts seemed the result of far-reaching intentions.
An impulse of curiosity made him turn out of his direct line to the door, and stroll past her. He knew that if she did not wish to be seen she would contrive to elude him; and it amused him to think of putting her skill to the test.
“Mr. Selden—what good luck!”
She came forward smiling, eager almost, in her resolve to intercept him. One or two persons, in brushing past them, lingered to look; for Miss Bart was a figure to arrest even the suburban traveler rushing to his last train.
Selden had never seen her more radiant. Her vivid head, relieved against the dull tints of the crowd, made her more conspicuous than in a ball-room, and under her dark hat and veil she regained the girlish smoothness, the purity of tint, that she was beginning to lose after eleven years of late hours and indefatigable dancing. Was it really eleven years, Selden found himself wondering, and had she indeed reached the nine-and-twentieth birthday with which her rivals credited her?
Adapted from Edith Wharton’s The House of Mirth, published in 1905
1. What can be written in place of [1]?
a. for
b. by
c. in
d. with
b. by
c. in
d. with
2. Which word is the closest in meaning to the term ‘indefatigable’?
a. exhausting
b. tireless
c. exhilarating
d. lively
b. tireless
c. exhilarating
d. lively
3. In the passage, what does the word “desultory,” convey about Miss Bart?
a. She is purposeless
b. She acts quickly
c. She is decisive
d. She is cognizant
b. She acts quickly
c. She is decisive
d. She is cognizant
4. In the passage, what does the word “elude” mean?
a. Mislead
b. Deceive
c. Attract
d. Evade
b. Deceive
c. Attract
d. Evade
5. Which of the following words could not be used to describe Miss Bart?
a. Cryptic
b. Plaintive
c. Effulgent
d. Irresolute
b. Plaintive
c. Effulgent
d. Irresolute
Answers
- b
- b
- a
- d
- b
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Ruchika Mohapatra
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