Read the given passage and answer the questions that follow. We were walking…
2024
Read the given passage and answer the questions that follow.
We were walking across the garden when my daughter spotted a cluster of familiar red flowers. She pulled me to one side and then, looking excitedly at me as though she had a secret to share, she pulled me down to her height and whispered in my ears. I shot up straight almost as soon as she had finished her sentence. With my mouth ajar, I was about to tell her that it was probably not a good idea to do so when I was transported to the time when I was around her age.
It had been a rather long day from school and I was dead tired. I was walking along the pathway that was lined with many ixora plants when my friend grabbed me by the arm. Before I could do anything, he gleefully plucked a single flower from the cluster and showed it to me. Unimpressed, I was not about to be swayed by a puny flower and was about to admonish him when he turned the flower upside down to show me a tiny almost invisible thread-like thing that protruded out from its stalk.
He pulled the faint yellowish thread and right at the end of it, a tiny drop of nectar appeared. At least, that was what I think it was, as it was really quite sweet. That day we raided the ixora plants. We really had a lot of fun. I could still taste the sweetness till today. My daughter’s urgent tug brought me back to reality. I turned to my daughter and decided that she too needed to know the joy of tasting sweet nectar from beautiful blooms.
‘to be transported in time’ means ________.
- A.
travel backwards
- B.
to indulge in time travel
- C.
recollect memories of the past
- D.
to take future decisions
Show answer & explanation
Correct answer: C
Concept: In vocabulary-in-context questions, a figurative or idiomatic phrase is interpreted using clues from the surrounding narrative rather than its literal wording. "To be transported in time" is an idiom meaning to vividly recall or relive a memory from the past, as if mentally carried back to that moment; it does not describe literal or physical movement through time.
Application: In the passage, the narrator sees a cluster of familiar red flowers and is "transported to the time when I was around her age." Immediately afterward, the narrator recounts a specific childhood memory - a friend plucking an ixora flower and showing its sweet nectar. This confirms that the phrase describes the narrator mentally recalling and reliving that earlier memory, triggered by a present-day sight.
Cross-check: Each remaining option can be checked against its own literal sense:
"travel backwards" describes literal physical motion in reverse, not a mental recollection.
"to indulge in time travel" treats the phrase as literal movement between time periods, the sense used in science fiction.
"to take future decisions" is forward-looking, the opposite of recalling something that has already happened.
Since the narrator's experience matches recalling a past memory triggered by a present event, "recollect memories of the past" is the meaning intended by the passage.