Passage – 1 We had just passed Tenali, where I roused myself in order to hear the name of the station. As I was falling asleep again, a violent jolt shot me into the arms of somebody in the seat opposite. The engine with one wheel broken was lying across the track and beside it was the luggage van, likewise, derailed. Groaning, wheezing, gasping, sputtering in its death agony, the engine was like a fallen horse which, snorting, trembling in every limb, its flanks heaving, its chest labouring, seems incapable of making the smallest effort to struggle on to its legs again. The engine stopped because
- (a)the driver had stopped it
- (b)one of the wheels was broken
- (c)there was a halting place
- (d)there was no fuel
Correct — B, one of the wheels was broken. The passage says the engine 'with one wheel broken was lying across the track', and the luggage van beside it was derailed as well, so the stop was a crash caused by the broken wheel rather than anything deliberate.
- (a)the driver had stopped it — The narrator feels a violent jolt that throws him across the compartment, which describes an accident, not a driver bringing a train to a halt.
- (c)there was a halting place — The train had already passed Tenali and the passage mentions no scheduled stop; the engine ends up across the track, not beside a platform.
- (d)there was no fuel — Fuel is never mentioned, and the engine is still groaning, wheezing and sputtering, so it had not simply run dry.
A cause-and-effect comprehension item on the derailment passage, settled by the detail attached to the engine.
The wrong options are all ordinary reasons a train might stop, which is why they tempt. The passage gives one physical cause and it sits inside the phrase describing the engine.
- Filling a gap in the passage with real-world knowledge rather than the text.
Asked as a cause question whose answer is a modifying phrase rather than a full sentence.
No directly related past PYQ was found.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Read the lines and answer. 'The bus, with its front axle snapped, had slewed across the road.' The bus stopped because
- (a)the road was blocked
- (b)its front axle had broken
- (c)the driver braked hard
- (d)it had run out of diesel
Answer(b) its front axle had broken — the cause is in the phrase describing the bus.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Read the lines and answer. 'The lamp, its wick burnt down to the last thread, flickered and went out.' The lamp went out because
- (a)the wind blew it out
- (b)someone put it out
- (c)the wick had burnt away
- (d)the oil had been spilt
Answer(c) the wick had burnt away — the reason is given in the phrase attached to the lamp.