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, 5
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. 10
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 have to use a spell to :
- A.
look for the rabbits.
- B.
to count the number of stones.
- C.
to make the stones obey them.
- D.
to fix the irregular stones in the wall.
Show answer & explanation
Correct answer: D
In a literal reading-comprehension item, the correct option must be traceable to specific words or lines in the passage itself — the right choice restates what the text actually says, without pulling in outside inference the passage does not support.
In this extract from Robert Frost's 'Mending Wall', the neighbours are shown replacing stones that have fallen out of the wall during their yearly repair. The lines read, 'And some are loaves and some so nearly balls / We have to use a spell to make them balance', immediately followed by the chant, 'Stay where you are until our backs are turned!' The spell is spoken exactly at the point where the neighbours are settling these oddly shaped stones — ones like loaves and balls rather than flat, regular blocks — so that the stones stay balanced once fitted into the wall.
Checking the other choices against the text:
look for the rabbits — this action belongs to the hunters described earlier in the extract, who work with dogs to flush rabbits out; it is a separate activity from the neighbours' wall-mending spell.
to count the number of stones — the extract has no line about tallying stones; the spell accompanies the act of placing stones, not counting them.
to make the stones obey them — the chant in the extract is spoken at one specific moment of setting particular stones in place, not as a description of a standing command for general obedience.
Hence, the neighbours use the spell to fix the irregular, loaf- and ball-shaped stones in the wall, which matches 'to fix the irregular stones in the wall.'