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English Test 46
Directions for Questions from 1 to 5:
On the first page of the novel I am writing, I describe a horse — a gray mare named Mathilde. The mare is not a principal character in my novel; on page 23, when she briefly
reappears in the hold of a ship crossing the Atlantic Ocean on her way to South America, I may, in the confusion of a stormy passage, easily forget about her and call her a
pony; worse still, on page 84 where Mathilde is galloping on the plains of the Gran Chaco in Paraguay, I could have her become a filly. My point is that there is a huge
difference between a mare, a pony and a filly. My Mathilde is long-legged, elegant, reliable, whereas a pony is tricky, often mean and tends to nip, and a filly is skittish,
untrained, ready to bolt and do who knows what.

Misspellings and inaccurate quotations and/or inaccurately rendered foreign phrases (and the writer herself is often the one to notice these most) stop the reader cold on the
page. The same is true of typos. In a story I read recently, a dog called Marcia suddenly becomes Marci, and during the few seconds I was musing over the typo I lost sight of
the actual dog. (It can also work the other way around and for the benefit of the writer: Richard Ford tells of meaning to write that someone was cold-eyed; only he typed
old-eyed, which he liked better, so he kept it.) Either way, it doesn’t take much.

Writing consistently goes beyond getting the facts right. “If it is one, say one,” says a Chinese proverb (and not eighteen minus seventeen nor five-sixths plus one-sixth). This
is not, I think, a question of keeping it simple but of making it as true as possible. Not an easy task: At every turn, the sentence invites me to show how much I know, to show
how smart I think I am; every metaphor, every analogy has the potential for fraudulence. Most of my comparisons are odious. Adverbs are hills I must climb to get to my
destination; adjectives are furniture blocking my way. English is a naming language; its power derives from nouns. “Art,” Ken Kesey said, “is a lie in the service of truth,” a
statement which may appear to be contradictory but is not. Interesting, too, how often a true story sounds both false and boring while a lie sounds quite plausible.

(How often have I heard: “Listen, you won’t believe this but it’s a true story and if only I had the time to write, I’d . . . ?” I may believe it, but I don’t want to listen to it.) The
truth does not have the urgency given a lie, nor does it have the consistency or the accuracy. The truth is obvious, self-evident; the truth is right there in front of your nose. A
lie is more trouble. As the liar/writer, I have to convince. I have to appear sincere and be twice as clever so as not to get caught. One way of doing this is to use a lot of
details, to distract the reader: “Yeah, yeah, I tell you, the guy was riding a horse, a big gray mare, with a long white tail and a braided mane, and the other thing I noticed
about the mare is how she kept tossing her head up and down and working the bit in her mouth and how she kept flicking her ears back and forth . . . .” Or else one can do
the opposite: Keep the lie simple and not describe or explain much; let the reader do some of the work: “I told you, he was riding a horsendashyou know what a horse looks
like. . . . “
Making things up — as in fiction — sounds easy and like fun and it may be at first. By page three, to say nothing of by chapter five or six, I guarantee, it becomes harder and
harder to sustain that lie or whatever thestory is that you have made up. Harder still to continue to sustain the belief of your reader as well as to convince him of the worth of
your endeavor; hardest of all for him to trust you with it.

In my case, some of my writing is based on my experience — yes, I lived in Thailand, yes, I spent my
childhood in South America — but most of it is based on accidentals, what I have heard or seen, and the rest on imagination. I borrow a bit here and a bit there; then I mix
and rearrange to make it my own. And if I’m successful, in the end, I won’t be able to remember — like a good liar, I suppose — what is true and what is made up. Or I like to
write about stuff the average reader may not know a whole lot about: Sufis, Thai culinary customs, Guarani lace-making. Or I do a lot of research and then try my damndest
to hide it all — another form of deceit — because every fact, every date, every statistic (however accurate and consistent) in fiction is like a stone hurled into the hull of a boat
and with each stone the boat sinks further in the water. But fiction in the long run and final analysis has more to do with vision and desire than with making things up.

The stronger both are, the more the language will be accurate, consistent and, possibly, lovely. The reverse is also true — the more accurate and consistent the language, the
stronger the vision. Each word must be paid strict attention to, looked after, prized — “a rose by any other name” does not smell as sweet. And there’s no point fooling
around; once a word is set down on paper, it is out there forever (like the cork from a champagne bottle). “Stay on the body,” Gordon Lish used to admonish us in class about
our prose; an example he liked to point to was Amy Hempel’s word-perfect “It was as quiet as a church,” her description of — what else? — of being inside a church in a story
called “In a Tub.” Often, too, the shorter the word the trickier, the more difficult to deal with. And consider, for instance, if Molly Bloom had not said “yes.” For sure, to write is
to engage in a difficult relationship with language. I picture each word as a jealous husband, a demanding lover, an unreliable friend. Language is a problem, a presence, a
kind of energy; language, in the words of Ahab, “taxes me.”

1. What is the author trying to convey by using the imagery of throwing stones into a boat, which sinks
further to talk about fiction?

It becomes more and more difficult to sustain it

Each section irrevocably grounds the story
The stones indicate the burden of being a writer
The feeling of claustrophobia and entrapment as a writer
Putting the reader in endless circles
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2. It can be inferred that fiction

tries to convince the reader of the veracity of the content

tries to interest the reader who knows that fiction is a lie
tries to match the level of lying between the author and the reader
shows that readers are not fooled equally easily
tries to get the reader muddled with a lot of data
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3. What does the author mean by quoting “Art is a lie in the service of truth”?

Art is all about lying in order to make the truth appear more plausible
Art deals with the truth in a different manner and sometimes this might appear as lying
Art lies in order to make the truth more interesting
Art is a lie and truth opposes it

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Art is a lie that conceals the truth

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4. What does the author mean by saying “English is a naming language”?

English is most conducive to indulge in name-calling

The main focus of English literature is names
The power of name-calling is immense in English
English is most suited to talking about different people
English language’s power derives from pronouns
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5. It can be inferred that the author talks about the mistakes with the horse, filly and mare in order to

Present herself as an easygoing person who is not afraid to admit to her mistakes
Showcase instances where she had also committed mistakes
Highlight the details that need to be taken care of while writing a book
In order not to appear too critical of others
Provide a framework for young writers
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Directions for Questions from 6 to 7:

Each of the following questions has a paragraph with one italicized word that does not make sense. Choose the most appropriate replacement for that word from the options
given below the paragraph.

6. Lenin was the initiator of the central drama - the tragedy - of our era, the rise of totalitarian states.
A hhixcd man with a scholar’s habits and a general’s tactical instincts, Lenin introduced to the 20th
century the practice of taking an all-embracing ideology and imposing it on an entire society rapidly
and mercilessly.

hawkish
boorish
rakish
bookish
fiendish
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7. Most countries rely upon the police to enforce the law. Police officers most often must be professionally
trained in law enforcement before they are permitted to act under the ‘migith of law’, to issue legal
warnings and citations, execute search or other legal warrants and to make arrests.

label
flush
colour
grade
tenet
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Directions for Questions from 8 to 10:

In the question, there are four sentences. Each sentence has pairs of words/phrases that are highlighted (in bold). From the highlighted word(s)/phrase(s), select the most
appropriate
word(s)/phrase(s) to form correct sentences. Then, from the options given, choose the best one.

8. He was baron [A] / barren [B] of tender feelings.

The kohl [A] / coal [B] glowed [A] / glowered [B] in the dark giving solace to many.
The pillars were decorated with a freeze [A] / frieze [B] of angels.
The malls want to be in sync [A] / sink [B] with the customers’ demands.

ABAAA
BAABB
ABABA
BBABA
AABAB
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9. It is important to get the ideas of great philosophers through our skull [A] / scull [B].
The embankment was designed to levy [A] / levee [B] a treacherous stream.

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The negotiator made an offer who [A] / that [B] was very attractive to the [A] / a [B] union.
He could profit [A] / prophet [B] greatly from his schooling.

AABAA
BBBAA
ABBAA
AABBB
BABAB
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10. With that, he turns [A] / turned [B] on his heal [A] / heel [B] and fled.
The Maestro assented [A] / ascented [B] to the request for an encore.
It is, sometimes useful, to plumb [A] / plum [B] someone’s thoughts.
The school had a great interest in music and was forming a choral [A] / coral [B] society.

AAABA
BBAAA
BBBBA
AABBA
BBBAA
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