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 is compared to a fallen horse because
- (a)it was groaning like a horse
- (b)it was lying across the track
- (c)it could make no effort to stand upright
- (d)it had a broken wheel
Correct — C, it could make no effort to stand upright. The comparison is spelt out at the end of the passage, where the fallen horse 'seems incapable of making the smallest effort to struggle on to its legs again'. Helplessness, not noise or position, is the point on which the engine and the horse are matched.
- (a)it was groaning like a horse — The groaning, wheezing and gasping describe the engine's dying sounds, and the passage does not say a horse makes those sounds; the simile is completed by the inability to rise.
- (b)it was lying across the track — This is the fact being described rather than the basis of the comparison, and the passage states it before the horse is brought in.
- (d)it had a broken wheel — The broken wheel explains the crash, but the simile turns on what the engine can no longer do, not on the damage that caused it.
A figure-of-speech comprehension item on the simile comparing the wrecked engine to a fallen horse.
When a passage carries a simile, the reason for it is usually stated in the clause immediately after the comparison. Here that clause is about being unable to struggle back onto its legs.
- Picking the most vivid detail in the passage rather than the one the comparison actually rests on.
Asked as a comprehension item on why one thing is compared to another, answered by the clause attached to the image.
No directly related past PYQ was found.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Read the lines and answer. 'The old lorry coughed, shuddered and finally fell silent by the roadside.' The lorry is described as though it were
- (a)a living creature
- (b)a passenger
- (c)a machine in perfect order
- (d)a building
Answer(a) a living creature — coughing and shuddering are human and animal actions given to a machine.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Read the lines and answer. 'The kite hung in the sky like a hawk that has forgotten how to fold its wings.' The kite is compared to a hawk because
- (a)it was made of feathers
- (b)it stayed motionless in the air
- (c)it dived at the ground
- (d)it was hunting for food
Answer(b) it stayed motionless in the air — the clause after the comparison supplies the point.