Read the passage carefully. Select your answer from the four alternatives…
2022
Read the passage carefully. Select your answer from the four alternatives given below against each question.
Bacteria vary tremendously and have a great ability to adapt themselves to circumstances. It is this quality which enables them to develop resistance to some antibiotics, like penicillins, and so defeat our attempts to overcome them. Fortunately, our own system is also able to adopt whatever drugs are given, and it is always the body's own resources that beat the enemy in the end. Man's skill in evading infection is very often not to his credit at all, for many bacteria much prefer to keep well out of harm's way and remain free living in the open air. Others live in complete harmony inside the body tissues, taking care not to disturb their protector, so that the body which shelters them is never provoked sufficiently to retaliate and expel them.
Ques: Bacteria cause
- A.
destruction
- B.
disease
- C.
defect
- D.
immunity
Attempted by 4 students.
Show answer & explanation
Correct answer: B
Concept: In a reading-comprehension “complete the statement” question, the right word is rarely lifted verbatim from the passage — it is the single concept that the passage's surrounding vocabulary (near-synonyms, related actions, cause-and-effect language) converges on. Find every phrase describing what is being fought, treated, or evaded, and match that cluster of meaning to the option that names it.
Application: The passage repeatedly frames bacteria's relationship with the human body in combative, medical terms:
bacteria “develop resistance to some antibiotics, like penicillins”
bacteria's resistance lets them “defeat our attempts to overcome them” — yet it is finally the body's own resources that “beat the enemy in the end”
man's skill lies in “evading infection”
Every one of these phrases belongs to the same semantic field — an illness that is treated with drugs and resisted by the body's own defences. Among the four options, only “disease” names that condition directly.
Cross-check: Testing each option against the passage's own vocabulary confirms this:
“destruction” — the passage never describes physical damage or devastation to the body or its structures
“defect” — a defect is an inherent structural or functional flaw already present in something; the passage describes an external agent, not a built-in flaw
“immunity” — reverses the sentence's own logic: it is “our own system” (the body), not the bacteria, that is described as adapting and resisting; attributing immunity to bacteria assigns the defensive property to the wrong side
So, throughout the passage, bacteria are shown causing disease.