After this incident I went to Nainital, and returned after nearly a month. I had _____ (21) taken _____ (22) my clothes when I saw Gangu standing _____ (23) a new baby. He was _____ (24) with joy. Even Nanda _____ (25) not have _____ (26) such joy _____ (27) getting Krishna. His face had the same _____ (28) that _____ (29) on the face of a _____ (30) man after a full meal. when I saw Gangu standing _____ a new baby. (Select the word or group of words that best fills this blank in the passage.)
- (a)by
- (b)near
- (c)with
- (d)at
Correct — C, 'with'. English uses 'with' for a person who has something in hand or in his company, so 'standing with a new baby' means Gangu was holding the infant. That is what the passage needs, because the lines that follow read his face as he shows off the child.
- (a)by — 'Standing by' places him beside the baby as though it were lying somewhere on its own, and it is also the idiom for supporting someone, which would say something quite different.
- (b)near — This too merely fixes his distance from the baby, whereas the point of the sentence is that he had brought the child with him.
- (d)at — 'Stand at' takes a place — at the door, at the gate — and does not take a person as its object.
The preposition after a verb of position tells the reader what relation the person bears to what follows — 'with' for accompaniment or possession, 'by' and 'near' for distance, 'at' for a fixed point.
Three of the options put the baby somewhere on the floor beside Gangu, which no reader of the passage would accept once the next sentences are taken in. The blank is best settled by asking what the writer needs to be true a line later, and a father bursting with joy over a newborn is holding it, not standing next to it.
- 'A man with a stick', 'a woman with a child' — 'with' regularly marks what a person carries or has in company.
- 'Stand by' as an idiom means to remain loyal to someone, or to wait in readiness.
- 'At' after a verb of position normally takes a place rather than a person.
- Choosing 'near' or 'by' by picturing the baby as a separate object in the scene.
- Filling the blank without reading on to the lines that describe Gangu's face.
Asked as a selecting-words item — one passage is printed and each numbered blank in it is a separate question.
No directly related past PYQ was found.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Choose the word that best fills the blank — 'An old man _____ a walking stick came up to us.'
- (a)at
- (b)with
- (c)by
- (d)near
Answer(b) with — 'with' marks what a person carries or has in company.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Choose the word that best fills the blank — 'The children were waiting _____ the school gate.'
- (a)with
- (b)at
- (c)of
- (d)into
Answer(b) at — 'at' fixes a person to a particular place.