Read the passage carefully and select the answer from the four alternatives: I…
2015
Read the passage carefully and select the answer from the four alternatives:
I am a Robot. My registration number is CL-123X. My master Mr. Northrop, calls me ‘Cal’. The ‘X’ means I am a special robot for my master. He is a writer.
I am a simple Robot. I just pick up after him, run his printers, stack his discs and so on and so forth. He says, I do not talk back. I just do what I am told. That is good. Master is happy. I am happy.
I want to be a writer like my master. My master says, he writes mysteries. He tells about people who do wrong things, who hurt others. I feel very bad when I hear that. How can one think of hurting people?
My master says, ‘In my stories people who do wrong are punished’.
I think, that is bad too. It hurts people. My master has three different writers for writing stories. One is very old. He does not use it. I push its keys at night. Words are printed on paper. In the morning my master sees them and smiles. He says, ‘This is not a story, this is gibberish. But I’ll have you reprogrammed if you really want to be a writer’.
Which of the following word means ‘unintelligible talk’?
- A.
Reprogrammed
- B.
Gibberish
- C.
Registration
- D.
Mysteries
Show answer & explanation
Correct answer: B
Concept
A vocabulary-in-context item asks you to match a word's dictionary meaning to a given definition or descriptive phrase. The passage is used only to confirm that the meaning fits the context, not to guess an answer from the plot. 'Unintelligible talk' means speech, writing, or sounds that cannot be understood — language without coherent sense.
Application
In the passage, the narrator types on an old printer at night; in the morning the master reads the printed pages and says, “This is not a story, this is gibberish” — meaning the words make no sense, i.e. they are unintelligible. Checking each option's own dictionary meaning against the target phrase ‘unintelligible talk’:
‘Reprogrammed’ means to alter or reset a device's instructions or programming — the master's threat to the robot, not a description of language.
‘Registration’ means the act of officially recording, enrolling, or assigning an identifying number — illustrated by the robot's own registration number, CL-123X.
‘Mysteries’ means stories or matters that are puzzling, secret, or unexplained — the genre the master writes, not a description of incomprehensible language.
‘Gibberish’ means speech or writing that is unintelligible or meaningless — exactly the sense of ‘unintelligible talk’.
Cross-check
Standard dictionaries (Merriam-Webster, Cambridge, Collins) define ‘gibberish’ as unintelligible or meaningless talk or writing, an exact match for the target phrase; none of the other three words carries that sense under any standard definition, and this matches the exam's own published answer key for this question.