Reading Comprehension Questions and Answers

Answer: D

The rhyme scheme is abab.

In the first stanza the line endings are 'ear' (a), 'drumming' (b), 'dear' (a), 'coming' (b). The other stanzas follow the same pattern: 'clear' and 'dear' rhyme, 'brightly' and 'lightly' rhyme, then 'gear' and 'dear', 'morning' and 'warning', and 'there' and 'dear'. Lines one and three rhyme with each other, and lines two and four with each other.

'baba' would put the second line's rhyme first, and 'abcb' and 'abdc' leave lines that do not rhyme.

Answer: C

Kneeling reflects anxiety.

The questions get more worried as the stanzas go on. The soldiers have left the road, and the last question, 'Why are you kneeling ?', shows the person asking the questions has dropped to his or her knees, in fear or prayer, as the danger comes close. Kneeling here is a sign of dread, not calm.

Indifference, anger and jubilation do not fit a person who has been asking nervous questions about armed men approaching.

Answer: B

Mr. Upadhyay was the hostel warden.

The narrator and Patil have slipped out of the hostel, and Upadhyayji stops them on the road and asks where they are going. Later the narrator says to Mrs. Upadhyay, 'Warden Saheb is bothering you unnecessarily', and she scolds her husband with 'what kind of a warden are you ?'. The boys call him 'Sir' as students would, but his role in the institution is that of warden.

Nothing in the passage makes him a school administrator or principal, and he is not shown teaching.

Answer: D

'had managed' is in the Past Perfect tense.

The past perfect is formed with had + past participle (had managed, had gone, had seen). It describes an action completed before another point in the past. Here the narrator had got the tickets before the evening of the play that the rest of the story describes.

The past indefinite (simple past) would be 'we managed', with no auxiliary. The present perfect uses has/have + past participle ('we have managed'), and the present continuous uses am/is/are + -ing ('we are managing'). Neither has had.

Answer: C

She welcomed them.

When the narrator went into the kitchen, 'She was pleased to see me'. She asked about the play, laughed when the boys explained that they could not go, and then told her husband to let the children go and have some fun. Every act is friendly, so she was far from cold or displeased.

The options that say she received them coldly, was displeased with her husband for bringing them or was unhappy to see them all contradict her warmth. She disagreed with her husband only about holding the boys back, not about bringing them home.

Answer: C

Both statements are true, so the answer is both (A) and (B) are True.

(A): the narrator says 'We had managed to get the tickets for the play after much running around' and later shows the tickets to Mrs. Upadhyay, so they had the tickets before setting out, that is, in advance. (B): Mrs. Upadhyay listens to the boys' secret and then tells her husband, 'Why don't you let the children go and have some fun ?', so she takes their side.

The options that call either statement false therefore fail, because the text bears out both.

Answer: D

They were sneaking away to see a play.

The passage opens with Shreeram Lagoo acting in a play at Gandhi School, for which the boys had got tickets. They left the hostel quietly after dinner, the play started at 9.30 p.m. and they were hurrying to the station at 9.15 p.m. The narrator later tells Mrs. Upadhyay that both of them were going to the Gandhi School to see a play.

Their excuse of tea or coffee at the station was a cover story. They were not out for a stroll, football or a film.

Answer: B

The right choice is (B) is True but (A) is False.

(A) is false: Mr. Upadhyay did not meet the boys inside the hostel; they saw him coming from the opposite direction on the road to the station. (B) is true: the play began at 9.30 p.m. and it was already 9.15 p.m. when they were rushing along the road, still on their way to the station, so they were already getting late.

The options that call (A) true, or both false, or both true, therefore fail.

Answer: B

He took them home for coffee.

After Patil said that the boys were going to the station for tea or coffee, Upadhyay replied, 'Come with me. I'll get you some coffee.' and 'He brought us to his home.' He then asked his wife to make the coffee.

He did not walk away after talking, and he plainly reacted. He did not allow the boys to go at that point either: it was his wife who later told him to let them go.

Answer: A

The device is Personification.

Personification gives human or animal qualities to something non-living. Tickets cannot squirm; squirming is the wriggling of a living thing that is uncomfortable or restless. By saying the tickets 'were squirming in our pockets', the writer transfers the boys' own nervous impatience to the tickets, as if the tickets themselves were eager to get to the play.

There is no comparison using 'like' or 'as', so it is not a simile. No run of words begins with the same sound, so it is not alliteration, and no contradictory words are paired, so it is not an oxymoron.