Directions: Read the extract given below and answer the questions by selecting…
2019
Directions: Read the extract given below and answer the questions by selecting the correct/most appropriate options:
The work of hunters is another thing :
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbour know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance :
'Stay where you are until our backs are turned !'
The neighbours meet in the spring season to :
- A.
fill the gaps in the wall.
- B.
to go on a long walk.
- C.
to find out who broke the wall.
- D.
to lift the stones.
Show answer & explanation
Correct answer: A
Concept
In a purpose/reason question on a comprehension passage, the correct option is the action or goal the text itself states as the reason for an event — not an incidental action mentioned along the way. Read for the explicit clause that answers ‘why’ or ‘to what end’, and treat any other action mentioned nearby as a means, not the stated purpose.
Application to this passage
The passage is an extract from Robert Frost’s poem ‘Mending Wall’. The speaker describes gaps that appear in a stone wall each year — gaps whose cause is never seen (‘No one has seen them made or heard them made’) — and says that ‘at spring mending-time we find them there.’ He then states directly: ‘I let my neighbour know beyond the hill; And on a day we meet to walk the line And set the wall between us once again.’ The clause ‘set the wall … once again’ is the stated purpose of the meeting: the neighbours come together to repair the wall — that is, to fill the gaps that have opened up in it. This is reinforced by ‘To each the boulders that have fallen to each,’ which shows them replacing fallen stones back into the gaps.
Why the other options don’t fit
‘To go on a long walk’ describes only the method used to locate the damage (‘meet to walk the line’), not the reason they meet; walking the line is how they inspect the wall, not the purpose of the meeting.
‘To find out who broke the wall’ is never the neighbours’ aim — the poem explicitly says the cause of the gaps is unseen and unheard, so no investigation into a culprit ever takes place.
‘To lift the stones’ names one physical action performed while repairing the wall (‘we have to use a spell to make them balance’), not the overall reason the neighbours meet.
The neighbours meet in spring to fill the gaps in the wall — this matches the poem’s stated act of setting the wall between them once again.