My most interesting visitor comes at night, when the lights are still burning — a tiny bat who prefers to fly in through the open door, and will use the window only if there is no alternative. His object in entering the house is to snap up the moths that cluster around the lamps. All the bats I have seen fly fairly high, keeping near the ceiling; but this particular bat flies in low, like a dive-bomber, zooming in and out of chair legs and under tables. Once, he passed straight between my legs. Has his radar gone wrong, I wondered, or is he just plain crazy ? What, according to you, can be the most suitable title for the passage ?
- (a)Someone visits me
- (b)Night of Mysteries
- (c)My Nocturnal Visitor
- (d)A Funny Visitor
Correct — C, My Nocturnal Visitor. 'Nocturnal' means active at night, and the passage begins 'My most interesting visitor comes at night'. The title keeps the author's own noun, 'visitor', keeps the possessive that makes the bat his regular guest, and adds the one fact that runs through every line of the piece.
- (a)Someone visits me — 'Someone' points to a person, and the whole point of the passage is that the visitor is a bat. It also drops both the night and the interest the author takes in it.
- (b)Night of Mysteries — The passage describes repeated visits by one small creature, not a single strange night, and it presents nothing as a mystery beyond one question the author leaves open.
- (d)A Funny Visitor — 'Funny' loses the night-time habit altogether, and it misreads the tone; the author's own word is 'interesting', and he wonders whether the bat is crazy rather than finding it comic.
A title item on a short descriptive passage, decided by which option carries both the subject and the circumstance the passage keeps returning to.
The stem asks what, according to you, can be the most suitable title, although the directions for the passage ask you to answer from the passage only. Read it as a passage question: the title that can be defended from the text is the one to choose, and personal taste does not come into it. Tested that way, the winner keeps the writer's own words — the visitor, and the night — while the others swap in a person, a mood or a mystery that the passage does not supply.
- 'Nocturnal' means active or happening at night, and its opposite is 'diurnal'.
- The passage opens with 'My most interesting visitor comes at night', which supplies both halves of the winning title.
- Bats are nocturnal, so the word describes the creature as well as the timing of the visits.
- Taking the invitation to answer 'according to you' as permission to choose a title the passage cannot support.
- Choosing a dramatic title when the passage is quiet and observational.
Asked as a title item whose stem is worded as a matter of opinion but which is still settled by the text.
No directly related past PYQ was found.
- practice — not a real PYQ
The word 'nocturnal' means
- (a)active at night
- (b)found near water
- (c)very small
- (d)living in groups
Answer(a) active at night.
- practice — not a real PYQ
The title 'My Nocturnal Visitor' suits the passage because it
- (a)names the writer
- (b)keeps both the visitor and the night
- (c)mentions the moths
- (d)describes the furniture
Answer(b) keeps both the visitor and the night — the two ideas the passage is built on.