CAT 1999 — VARC Question 20
Directions: For each of the two questions, indicate which of the statements given with that particular question is consistent with the description of the unseasonable man in the passage below.
Unseasonableness is a tendency to do socially permissible things at the wrong time. The unseasonable man is the sort of person who comes to confide in you when you are busy. He serenades his beloved when she is ill. He asks a man who has just lost money by paying a bill for a friend to pay a bill for him. He invites a friend to go for a ride just after the friend has finished a long car trip. He is eager to offer services which are not wanted, but which cannot be politely refused. If he is present at an arbitration, he stirs up dissension between the two parties, who were really anxious to agree. Such is the unseasonable man.
Directions: In each of the following sentences, a part of the sentence is underlined. Beneath each sentence, four different ways of phrasing the underlined part are indicated. Choose the best alternative among the four.
His mother made great sacrifices to educate him, moving house on three occasions, and severing the thread on her loom’s shuttle whenever Mencius neglected his lessons to make him understand the need to persevere.
Answer & solution
severing the thread on her loom’s shuttle whenever Mencius neglected his lessons to make him understand the need to persevere.
- B
severed the thread on her loom’s shuttle whenever Mencius neglected his lessons to make him understand the need to persevere.
- C
severed the thread on her loom’s shuttle whenever Mencius neglected his lessons to make him understand the need for persevering.
- D
severing the thread on her loom’s shuttle whenever Mencius neglected his lessons to make them understand the need to persevere.
(a) is the correct answer choice.
The main verb ‘made great sacrifices’ in the main clause is modified by both participial clauses to explain the sacrifices she made:
(i) ‘moving house on three occasions’.
(ii) ‘severing the thread ... to make him understand the need to persevere.’
In (b) and (c), ‘severed’ (simple past tense) is used parallel with ‘made’, thereby producing two parallel main clauses. This is not grammatically incorrect, but changes the intended meaning, which was to highlight ‘severing of the thread ...’ as a ‘sacrifice’ the mother made.
(d) uses ‘severing’ correctly, but incorrectly replaces ‘him’ referring to Mencius by ‘them.’