Vocabulary Based Questions - 2 | English for CLAT PDF Download

Directions: Read the passage carefully and answer the questions that follow.
Beyond a bare, weather-worn wall, about a hundred paces from the spot where the two friends sat looking and listening as they drank their wine, was the village of the Catalans. Long ago this mysterious colony quitted Spain, and settled on the tongue of land on which it is to this day. Whence it came no one knew, and it spoke an unknown tongue.
One of its chiefs, who understood Provencal, begged the commune of Marseilles to give them this bare and barren promontory, where, like the sailors of old, they had run their boats ashore. The request was granted; and three months afterwards, around the twelve or fifteen small vessels which had brought these gypsies of the sea, a small village sprang up. This village, constructed in a singular and picturesque manner, half Moorish, half Spanish, still remains, and is inhabited by descendants of the first comers, who speak the language of their fathers.
For three or four centuries they have remained upon this small promontory, on which they had settled like a flight of seabirds, without mixing with the Marseillaise population, intermarrying, and preserving their original customs and the costume of their mother-country as they have preserved its language. Our readers will follow us along the only street of this little village, and enter with us one of the houses, which is sunburned to the beautiful dead-leaf color peculiar to the buildings of the country, and within coated with whitewash, like a Spanish posada.
A young and beautiful girl, with hair as black as jet, her eyes as velvety as the gazelle's, was leaning with her back against the wainscot, rubbing in her slender delicately moulded fingers a bunch of heath blossoms, the flowers of which she was picking off and strewing on the floor; her arms, bare to the elbow, brown, and modelled after those of the Arlesian Venus, moved with a kind of restless impatience, and she tapped the earth with her arched and supple foot, so as to display the pure and full shape of her well-turned leg, in its red cotton, gray and blue clocked, stocking.
At three paces from her, seated in a chair which he balanced on two legs, leaning his elbow on an old worm-eaten table, was a tall young man of twenty, or two-and-twenty, who was looking at her with an air in which vexation and uneasiness were mingled. He questioned her with his eyes, but the firm and steady gaze of the young girl controlled his look. "You see, Mercedes," said the young man, "here is Easter come round again; tell me, is this the moment for a wedding? "I have answered you a hundred times, Fernand, and really you must be very stupid to ask me again."
"Well, repeat it,--repeat it, I beg of you, that I may at last believe it! Tell me for the hundredth time that you refuse my love, which had your mother's sanction. Make me understand once for all that you are trifling with my happiness, that my life or death are nothing to you. Ah, to have dreamed for ten years of being your husband, Mercedes, and to lose that hope, which was the only stay of my existence!"
[Extract from The Count Of Monte Cristo By Alexandre Dumas, Pere]
Q1: In the context of the paragraph, what is the best synonym for the word 'promontory'?
(a) Valley
(b) Plateau
(c) Peninsula
(d) Mountain
Ans: (c)
Sol: A 'promontory' refers to a high point of land or rock projecting into the sea or other water body, which closely aligns with the definition of a 'peninsula'. This is evident from the description that the village of the Catalans is situated on a tongue of land.

Q2: What does the term 'mysterious colony' imply in this context?
(a) A group of people with known origins
(b) A group of people with unclear or unknown origins
(c) A well-known community
(d) An isolated group of individuals
Ans: (b)
Sol: The term 'mysterious colony' suggests a group whose origins or background is not clearly known or understood, as indicated by the statement "Whence it came no one knew".

Q3: Choose the option that best describes the idiom 'run their boats ashore' as used in the paragraph.
(a) To sail the sea indefinitely
(b) To come to a stop or end a journey
(c) To engage in a naval battle
(d) To start a new adventure
Ans: (b)
Sol: The idiom 'run their boats ashore' metaphorically means to conclude a journey or bring something to an end, which is aligned with the Catalans settling down after their sea journey.

Q4: What is an antonym for 'sunburned' as used in the description of the houses?
(a) Tanned
(b) Pale
(c) Darkened
(d) Scorched
Ans: (b)
Sol: 'Sunburned' in the context of the houses implies a deep, darkened color due to exposure. Therefore, 'pale', which means lacking in color or intensity, serves as an antonym.

Q5: In the phrase 'sprang up', what is an analogous phrase that conveys a similar meaning?
(a) Withered away
(b) Rose rapidly
(c) Expanded slowly
(d) Sank down
Ans: (b)
Sol: The phrase 'sprang up' suggests a quick or sudden emergence or growth. Thus, 'rose rapidly' is analogous as it also implies a swift increase or growth. This is evidenced by the rapid development of the village after the arrival of the Catalans.