Tone Based Questions - 3 | English for CLAT PDF Download

Directions: Read the passage carefully and answer the questions that follow.
In early 2020, I moved with my family to Berkeley. We rented a small house near a Whole Foods, and I spent much of the first few weeks wandering aimlessly around town. On one of my first days, I walked by fraternity row and thought of Joan Didion’s essay “On the Morning After the Sixties,” which begins with the following reverie: When I think about the Sixties now I think about an afternoon not of the Sixties at all, an afternoon early in my sophomore year at Berkeley, a bright autumn Saturday in 1953.
I was lying on a leather couch in a fraternity house (there had been a lunch for the alumni, my date had gone on to the game, I do not now recall why I had stayed behind), lying there alone reading a book by Lionel Trilling and listening to a middle-aged man pick out on a piano in need of tuning the melodic line to “Blue Room.” All that afternoon he sat at the piano and all that afternoon he played “Blue Room” and he never got it right…. That such an afternoon would now seem implausible in every detail—the idea of having had a “date” for a football lunch now seems to me so exotic as to be almost czarist— suggests the extent to which the narrative on which many of us grew up no longer applies.
When I first read Didion at the age of fifteen or sixteen, I thought this was “cool,” not because I cared at all about the ideas that separated Didion from her rebellious generation, but rather because the popular kids at my high school were quasi-hippies who wore tie-dyed Allman Brothers Band shirts, drove Ford Explorers, and played lacrosse, and as I disliked them all, I tried to define myself through glamorous New York intellectualism, defined by a pursed-lip frown, a cigarette, and a sophisticated readership who lived just a few blocks from the author herself or, at least, ran into her at the 92nd Street Y. There wasn’t any actual reason for why we had moved to Berkeley, but something wasn’t quite working for me anymore in Brooklyn.
Those details that I had associated with Didion as a teenager had more or less become my life, and although I didn’t particularly hate any of it, I could never quite shake the feeling that I was an intruder or, at the very least, a token presence. There are worse fates, of course, and it’s important to note here that I am talking not about systems of oppression or racism but about how immigrants, in particular, have been written into several narratives at once. This creates an unmoored, almost floating sensation.
Q1: What tone does the author employ when reflecting on their early impressions of Joan Didion's writing?
(a) Dismissive
(b) Nostalgic
(c) Admiring
(d) Indifferent
Ans: (c)
Sol: The author's reflection on their teenage years, describing Didion's writing as "cool," indicates a sense of admiration. This is further underscored by their effort to define themselves through what they perceived as glamorous New York intellectualism, a direct influence of Didion's work.

Q2: Which tone best describes the author's recounting of their move to Berkeley?
(a) Excited
(b) Confused
(c) Resigned
(d) Content
Ans: (b)
Sol: The author states there wasn’t any actual reason for moving to Berkeley and mentions feeling like an intruder or a token presence, suggesting a tone of confusion or lack of clear purpose in their decision to move.

Q3: The tone in the description of the author's high school peers can be best described as:
(a) Envious
(b) Contemptuous
(c) Affectionate
(d) Neutral
Ans: (b)
Sol: The author describes disliking the popular kids who were quasi-hippies and defines their own identity in opposition to them. This suggests a tone of contempt or disdain towards those peers.

Q4: How does the tone shift when the author discusses their feelings about life in Brooklyn?
(a) From uncertainty to clarity
(b) From indifference to engagement
(c) From satisfaction to disillusionment
(d) From contentment to alienation
Ans: (d)
Sol: The author notes that the details they once associated with glamour had become their life, but they couldn't shake off the feeling of being an intruder or a token presence. This shift from a seemingly content life to a sense of alienation is evident in the tone.

Q5: The tone used to describe the afternoon in 1953 in Joan Didion's essay is best characterized as:
(a) Ironic
(b) Sentimental
(c) Disparaging
(d) Reflective
Ans: (b)
Sol: Didion's description of the afternoon, with specific details like lying on a leather couch, listening to piano music, and the feeling that such an afternoon now seems implausible, evokes a sentimental tone, reflecting on a bygone era with a sense of longing or nostalgia.