Read the passage given below and answer the questions that follow: Chocoholics…
2024
Read the passage given below and answer the questions that follow:
Chocoholics no longer need to feel guilty about their desire for chocolate. They are simply the victim of the genes, scientists have found. The so called “sweet-tooth gene” has been identified by separate teams of researchers and helps explain why some find it harder to resist chocolate bars and cream cakes. It also raises the possibility of designing a drug which could “switch off” the gene and help people resist sugary foods. Children, in particular, risk their health by eating too many sweets and chocolates
To identify the gene, research teams conducted almost identical experiments using mice which have differences in their ability to taste sweet foods. One of the team members said “A sweet taste receptor recognises the sweet content of food and initiates a cascade of events which signals to the brain that a sweet food has been eaten.” He further added, “The same gene exists in humans, so it means that if your parents have a sweet tooth then you probably will as well”.
He said, ”We have always known that some people have a sweeter tooth than others. But it has also been proved that if you are gradually exposed to less sugar, then the body becomes accustomed to less. They will be satisfied with a lower level of sweetness. Doctors warn against any form of gene therapy which seeks to deactivate the sweet gene. ”We have produced this gene through evolution because sweet foods in nature are not poisonous, they give us energy. We all need to have some sugar in our diet,” claim scientists. US researchers are using this discovery to develop artificial sweeteners without any after-taste.
Having a sweet tooth means :
- A.
buying sweet food items from shops
- B.
being fond of sweets and chocolates
- C.
teeth being sweet to taste
- D.
teeth becoming decayed due to sugary food items
Show answer & explanation
Correct answer: B
When a comprehension question asks what an idiom or phrase means as it is used in a passage, the correct reading comes from how the passage itself explains, exemplifies, or develops that phrase — not from the literal, word-for-word sense of the individual words in it.
Here, the passage builds up the meaning of 'sweet tooth' step by step: people who cannot resist chocolate are called 'the victim of the genes'; a 'sweet-tooth gene' is said to 'help explain why some find it harder to resist chocolate bars and cream cakes'; and it adds that 'if your parents have a sweet tooth then you probably will as well'. Together these lines define having a sweet tooth as a strong, often inherited, liking for sweet foods such as chocolate and cakes.
Each of the other statements breaks down under this same context check:
Describing it as buying sweet items from a shop turns a liking into a shopping action — the passage never talks about how or where sweets are obtained, only about the pull towards eating them.
Reading it as the teeth themselves tasting sweet takes 'tooth' in its literal, physical sense, when the passage only ever uses 'sweet tooth' as a fixed phrase for a liking, never as a description of how teeth taste.
Treating it as teeth decaying from sugar confuses the idiom with one possible downstream health effect of eating too many sweets — a separate point the passage raises about children's health, not a definition of the phrase itself.
So the passage's own description of the 'sweet-tooth gene' and of the craving running in families pins the meaning of 'having a sweet tooth' down to being fond of sweets and chocolates.