CAT 1999 — VARC Question 23
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.
Bacon believes that the medical profession should be permitted to ease and quicken death where the end would otherwise only delay for a few days and at the cost of great pain.
Answer & solution
- A
be delayed for a few days
- B
be delayed for a few days and
be otherwise only delayed for a few days and
- D
otherwise only delay for a few days and
(c) is the correct answer choice.
The question tests you for the correct use of passive voice and the positioning of adverbs. First, ‘end’ cannot be the doer of the action: ‘would delay,’ but it should correctly be at the receiving end: ‘would be delayed (passive voice).’ Second, both the adverbs ‘otherwise’ and ‘only’ are required for the intended meaning to emerge clearly. Third, these adverbs should be positioned closest to the verb they modify. What better place than to be sandwiched between the auxiliary verb and the main verb: ‘Would be otherwise only delayed.’