Read the given extract and answer the questions that follow. My tea is nearly…
2024
Read the given extract and answer the questions that follow.
My tea is nearly ready and the sun has left the sky;
Its time to take the window to see Leerie going by;
For every night at tea time and before you take your seat,
With lantern and with ladder he comes posting up the street.
Now Tom would be a driver and Maria may go to the sea;
And my papa’s a banker and as rich as he can be;
But I, when I’m stronger and choose what I’m to do,
O Leerie, I’ll go around at night and light the lamps with you
For we are very lucky, with a lamp before the door;
And Leerie stops to light it as he lights so many more;
And O ! Before you hurry by with ladder and with light,
O Leerie, see a little child and nod to him tonight !
Why does the poet consider himself to be fortunate?
- A.
He has a rich banker father.
- B.
He doesn't have to light other peoples' doors.
- C.
He has light at night by his door.
- D.
He is strong and doesn't have to make a choice in life.
Show answer & explanation
Correct answer: C
In a literal (direct) reading-comprehension question, the answer is the exact idea the passage states outright — you locate the specific line that gives the reason, rather than inferring one.
The final stanza of the poem gives the reason directly: 'For we are very lucky, with a lamp before the door.' The poet is explaining that having a lamp lit outside their own door every evening — thanks to Leerie the lamplighter — is what makes them count themselves fortunate.
The father being 'a banker' and 'rich' appears in the stanza about what Tom, Maria, and the speaker's own father are or might become — it is never given as the reason for the speaker's own good fortune.
The poem never says the speaker is spared from lighting anyone else's doors; that idea does not appear anywhere in the extract.
'When I'm stronger and choose what I'm to do' is the speaker's wish for the future, once he is old enough to become a lamplighter himself — it shows he does not yet get to choose, the opposite of already being free to decide.
So the reason the poem itself gives — a lamp lit before their door every night — is what the correct option captures.