Passage
Direction for Reading Comprehension: The passages given here are followed by some questions that have four answer choices; read the passage carefully and pick the option whose answer best aligns with the passage
Vocabulary used in speech or writing organizes itself in seven parts of speech (eight, if you count interjections such as Oh! and Gosh! and Fuhgeddaboudit!). Communication composed of these parts of speech must be organized by rules of grammar upon which we agree. When these rules break down, confusion and misunderstanding result. Bad grammar produces bad sentences. My favorite example from Strunk and White is this one: “As a mother of five, with another one on the way, my ironing board is always up.”
Nouns and verbs are the two indispensable parts of writing. Without one of each, no group of words can be a sentence, since a sentence is, by definition, a group of words containing a subject (noun) and a predicate (verb); these strings of words begin with a capital letter, end with a period, and combine to make a complete thought which starts in the writer’s head and then leaps to the reader’s.
Must you write complete sentences each time, every time? Perish the thought. If your work consists only of fragments and floating clauses, the Grammar Police aren’t going to come and take you away. Even William Strunk, that Mussolini of rhetoric, recognized the delicious pliability of language. “It is an old observation,” he writes, “that the best writers sometimes disregard the rules of rhetoric.” Yet he goes on to add this thought, which I urge you to consider: “Unless he is certain of doing well, [the writer] will probably do best to follow the rules.”
The telling clause here is Unless he is certain of doing well. If you don’t have a rudimentary grasp of how the parts of speech translate into coherent sentences, how can you be certain that you are doing well? How will you know if you’re doing ill, for that matter? The answer, of course, is that you can’t, you won’t. One who does grasp the rudiments of grammar finds a comforting simplicity at its heart, where there need be only nouns, the words that name, and verbs, the words that act.
Take any noun, put it with any verb, and you have a sentence. It never fails. Rocks explode. Jane transmits. Mountains float. These are all perfect sentences. Many such thoughts make little rational sense, but even the stranger ones (Plums deify!) have a kind of poetic weight that’s nice. The simplicity of noun-verb construction is useful—at the very least it can provide a safety net for your writing. Strunk and White caution against too many simple sentences in a row, but simple sentences provide a path you can follow when you fear getting lost in the tangles of rhetoric—all those restrictive and nonrestrictive clauses, those modifying phrases, those appositives and compound-complex sentences. If you start to freak out at the sight of such unmapped territory (unmapped by you, at least), just remind yourself that rocks explode, Jane transmits, mountains float, and plums deify. Grammar is . . . the pole you grab to get your thoughts up on their feet and walking.
Question for CAT 2020 Reading Comprehension Questions- 3
Try yourself:Inferring from the passage, the author could be most supportive of which one of the following practices?
Explanation
This is the simplest RC passage, and many questions here can be solved effortlessly. The question asks us to mark a choice of which the author would be supportive. We have to keep the central idea in mind while going through the options. The author opines that grammar is essential to frame sentences and one can’t do away with grammar. Option 4 perfectly fits in. The author would indeed be supportive of such a software as the one that will standardise the rules of grammar as an aid to writers. Option 1 goes out because it is too narrow a choice, and tends to specifically focus on punctuation and capitalization instead of grammar as a whole. Choice 2 is against grammar, so it goes out, while option does not even mention the keyword grammar, which is the focus on the passage.
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Question for CAT 2020 Reading Comprehension Questions- 3
Try yourself:All of the following statements can be inferred from the passage EXCEPT that:
Explanation
The correct answer is Option A. The passage emphasizes the importance of grammar in ensuring clarity and effective communication, but it does not state that grammar's primary purpose is to keep sentences simple. Instead, it highlights the flexibility of language and the role of grammar in organizing thoughts, even when writers occasionally break rules.
The other options are valid because:
B) Subject–predicate relation = noun–verb relation
Inferred: A sentence requires a subject (noun) and a predicate (verb), as explained in the passage.
C) "Grammar Police" = critics of linguistic rules
Inferred: The term "Grammar Police" refers metaphorically to those who strictly enforce grammar rules.
D) Sentences don't always have to be complete
Inferred: The passage acknowledges that incomplete sentences or fragments are acceptable in some cases.
Therefore Option A is the correct answer. .
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Question for CAT 2020 Reading Comprehension Questions- 3
Try yourself:Which one of the following quotes best captures the main concern of the passage?
Explanation
Here we have mark a choice that captures the main idea of the passage. Since the author highlights the importance of grammar in framing correct sentences, choice 1 becomes the right answer. This is too simple a question to demand why others are not the right choice.
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Question for CAT 2020 Reading Comprehension Questions- 3
Try yourself:“Take any noun, put it with any verb, and you have a sentence. It never fails. Rocks explode. Jane transmits. Mountains float.” None of the following statements can be seen as similar EXCEPT:
Explanation
This is an analogy question. You bring two different things together and what you have is a new thing. The right option must have two different things, which when combined should give us a new thing. 4 precisely does that. Vegetable is the noun, the spices is the verb, and the resulting new sentence is the new dish. There is no such analogy visible in 3. We don’t understand the relevance of “same sports equipment”. The question says “take any noun”, but in 3 we are taking ‘a collection of people’. 2 is logically flawed because without a verb we can’t have a sentence. Option 1 might look close, but planting an apple tree alone in a field will not make the field an orchard. We need to have many such apple trees to make an orchard. 4 is the best.
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Question for CAT 2020 Reading Comprehension Questions- 3
Try yourself:Which one of the following statements, if false, could be seen as supporting the arguments in the passage?
Explanation
Here we have to pick a choice, which, when falsified, supports the arguments of the passage. Since 1 is supporting the author, it would not the same when falsified, so 1 goes out. 2 says that one must not think that nouns and verbs are necessary for complete sentences. But when falsified it means that nouns and verbs are necessary for complete sentences, so this supports the author, and is therefore the right answer. Choice 4 is irrelevant because the passage is concerned with grammar and not with rhetoric. Whether some writers regard or disregard the rules of rhetoric has nothing to do with the passage’s chief concern, which is grammar.
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