Factual Based Questions - 5

Directions: Read the passage carefully and answer the questions that follow.
What birds were they? He stood on the steps of the library to look at them, leaning wearily on his ashplant. They flew round and round the jutting shoulder of a house in Molesworth Street. The air of the late March evening made clear their flight, their dark darting quivering bodies flying clearly against the sky as against a limp hung cloth of smoky tenuous blue. He watched their flight; bird after bird: a dark flash, a swerve, a flutter of wings.
He tried to count them before all their darting quivering bodies passed: Six, ten, eleven: and wondered were they odd or even in number. Twelve, thirteen: for two came wheeling down from the upper sky. They were flying high and low but ever round and round in straight and curving lines and ever flying from left to right, circling about a temple of air. He listened to the cries: like the squeak of mice behind the wainscot: a shrill twofold note.
But the notes were long and shrill and whirring, unlike the cry of vermin, falling a third or a fourth and trilled as the flying beaks clove the air. Their cry was shrill and clear and fine and falling like threads of silken light unwound from whirring spools. The inhuman clamour soothed his ears in which his mother's sobs and reproaches murmured insistently and the dark frail quivering bodies wheeling and fluttering and swerving round an airy temple of the tenuous sky soothed his eyes which still saw the image of his mother's face.
Why was he gazing upwards from the steps of the porch, hearing their shrill twofold cry, watching their flight? For an augury of good or evil? A phrase of Cornelius Agrippa flew through his mind and then there flew hither an thither shapeless thoughts from Swedenborg on the correspondence of birds to things of the intellect and of how the creatures of the air have their knowledge and know their times and seasons because they, unlike man, are in the order of their life and have not perverted that order by reason.
And for ages men had gazed upward as he was gazing at birds in flight. The colonnade above him made him think vaguely of an ancient temple and the ashplant on which he leaned wearily of the curved stick of an augur. A sense of fear of the unknown moved in the heart of his weariness, a fear of symbols and portents, of the hawklike man whose name he bore soaring out of his captivity on osierwoven wings, of Thoth,  the god of writers, writing with a reed upon a tablet and bearing on his narrow ibis head the cusped moon.
[Extracts from A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN and DUBLINERS By JAMES JOYCE]
Q1: What is the setting of the scene described in the paragraph?
(a) A garden
(b) A street
(c) A temple
(d) A library
Ans: (b)
Explanation: The passage repeatedly refers to the location as Molesworth Street and mentions the birds flying round the jutting shoulder of a house in that street. Although the character stands on the steps of a library, the wider scene is set on the street outside the library. References to houses and the street make (b) the correct choice; the other options are not supported by the details given.

Q2: What is the significance of the birds' flight in the paragraph?
(a) Augury of good or evil
(b) Symbol of freedom
(c) Representation of vermin
(d) A naturalistic observation
Ans: (a)
Explanation: The narrator explicitly wonders whether he is gazing at the birds as an augury of good or evil and recalls Cornelius Agrippa and Swedenborg, both associated with omens and symbolic meanings. The passage also speaks of fear of symbols and portents, reinforcing that the birds are read as signs. While the description is naturalistic in parts, the dominant significance given in the passage is symbolic (an augury), so (a) is correct.

Q3: How does the character describe the air in the late March evening?
(a) Heavy and oppressive
(b) Clear and smoky
(c) Thick with fog
(d) Hazy and tenuous
Ans: (b)
Explanation: The text says, "The air of the late March evening made clear their flight" and compares the sky to "a limp hung cloth of smoky tenuous blue." These phrases together describe an air that allows clear sight of the birds while the sky itself has a smoky quality. Thus "clear and smoky" best captures the description; the other options do not combine both qualities present in the passage.

Q4: What is the sound of the birds' cries in the paragraph?
(a) Melodious
(b) Harsh and grating
(c) Squeak of mice
(d) A low hum
Ans: (c)
Explanation: The passage directly compares the cries to "the squeak of mice behind the wainscot" and describes a "shrill twofold note." Although the cries are also called shrill and whirring, the simile to mice makes option (c) the most accurate choice. The other options do not match the specific simile and the detailed adjectives used.

Q5: What thought crosses the character's mind regarding the creatures of the air?
(a) They are devoid of knowledge
(b) They have perverted their order of life
(c) They are in correspondence with things of the intellect
(d) They lack the ability to fly
Ans: (c)
Explanation: The passage notes the character's recall of Swedenborg's idea about "the correspondence of birds to things of the intellect" and that birds "have their knowledge and know their times and seasons." This directly supports option (c). The other options contradict the passage, which attributes knowledge and ordered life to the birds rather than ignorance or incapacity.