Reading Comprehension — Mock Test 6

His habits and the bare room suggest a dreary, solitary life.

Note: Passage II is Philip Larkin's 'Mr Bleaney' (The Whitsun Weddings, 1964), which is copyrighted and not reproduced. The speaker takes the shabby rented room of the departed Mr Bleaney, whose landlady recalls his dull routines. He comes to fear that how one lives — 'one hired box' — may measure one's worth.

The bare room and his predictable routines show his ordinariness.

Note: Passage II is Philip Larkin's 'Mr Bleaney' (The Whitsun Weddings, 1964), which is copyrighted and not reproduced. The speaker takes the shabby rented room of the departed Mr Bleaney, whose landlady recalls his dull routines. He comes to fear that how one lives — 'one hired box' — may measure one's worth. The source key marks 'luxuriousness', an evident error; corrected to option 4.

The landlady is letting his old room to the speaker.

Note: Passage II is Philip Larkin's 'Mr Bleaney' (The Whitsun Weddings, 1964), which is copyrighted and not reproduced. The speaker takes the shabby rented room of the departed Mr Bleaney, whose landlady recalls his dull routines. He comes to fear that how one lives — 'one hired box' — may measure one's worth.

It opens with the landlady's reported speech and unfolds as a dramatic monologue.

Note: Passage II is Philip Larkin's 'Mr Bleaney' (The Whitsun Weddings, 1964), which is copyrighted and not reproduced. The speaker takes the shabby rented room of the departed Mr Bleaney, whose landlady recalls his dull routines. He comes to fear that how one lives — 'one hired box' — may measure one's worth.

The essay's aim is a solitude of the mind that brings ease.

Note: Passage I is from Montaigne's essay 'Of Solitude' (Essays I.39, 1580), given in a modern translation and summarised here. Solitude aims at living at ease, but people mistake the way: leaving court and market does not free us, since a household is hardly less troublesome than a state, and ambition, avarice, fear and lust follow us into cloisters and schools of philosophy. We must withdraw the soul itself from these attachments.

Changing place without disciplining the mind's passions achieves nothing.

Note: Passage I is from Montaigne's essay 'Of Solitude' (Essays I.39, 1580), given in a modern translation and summarised here. Solitude aims at living at ease, but people mistake the way: leaving court and market does not free us, since a household is hardly less troublesome than a state, and ambition, avarice, fear and lust follow us into cloisters and schools of philosophy. We must withdraw the soul itself from these attachments. Option wording follows the source.

Per the key.

Note: Passage I is from Montaigne's essay 'Of Solitude' (Essays I.39, 1580), given in a modern translation and summarised here. Solitude aims at living at ease, but people mistake the way: leaving court and market does not free us, since a household is hardly less troublesome than a state, and ambition, avarice, fear and lust follow us into cloisters and schools of philosophy. We must withdraw the soul itself from these attachments. Key doubtful: the text says our cares follow us into cloisters and schools of philosophy (D), which supports option 1 or 3 rather than the key.

'He that sings a lasting song / Thinks in a marrow-bone.'

Note: Passage II is W. B. Yeats's 'A Prayer for Old Age' (1934), which is copyrighted and not reproduced. Yeats prays to be guarded from 'thoughts men think / In the mind alone', since lasting song is thought 'in a marrow-bone'. He asks to be spared 'all that makes a wise old man / That can be praised of all', and prays that, though he die old, he may seem 'A foolish, passionate man'.

He names 'all that makes a wise old man / That can be praised of all' — and prays to be guarded from it.

Note: Passage II is W. B. Yeats's 'A Prayer for Old Age' (1934), which is copyrighted and not reproduced. Yeats prays to be guarded from 'thoughts men think / In the mind alone', since lasting song is thought 'in a marrow-bone'. He asks to be spared 'all that makes a wise old man / That can be praised of all', and prays that, though he die old, he may seem 'A foolish, passionate man'.

Old, he prays to remain 'a foolish, passionate man' rather than become a praised sage.

Note: Passage II is W. B. Yeats's 'A Prayer for Old Age' (1934), which is copyrighted and not reproduced. Yeats prays to be guarded from 'thoughts men think / In the mind alone', since lasting song is thought 'in a marrow-bone'. He asks to be spared 'all that makes a wise old man / That can be praised of all', and prays that, though he die old, he may seem 'A foolish, passionate man'.

Per the key: the cosmos is likened to the firm's commercial system. It is also hyperbolic satire on Mr Dombey's self-importance.

Per the key: the firm, the family business, which Dombey imagines as the centre of the universe.

Seeing naked Poor Tom, Lear notes that man by nature lacks the silk, hide, wool and perfume that other creatures have.

Per the key: man 'accommodates' himself with the properties of animals (silk, hide, wool, perfume); stripped of them he is 'unaccommodated'.

Note: Option 1 states the idea at least as well; the key gives option 3.

The passage asks about poetry whose true subject is the poet's selfhood.

Note: Passage I, by Harold Bloom on the uses of poetry, is copyrighted and not reproduced. Bloom asks what use poetry can have when its true subject is the poet's own selfhood. The traditional use was instruction through delight, pleasure being the fulfilment of expectations shaped by past joys. A poetry of the self serves instead the psyche's need for self-recognition, from which originality springs.

Instruction through delight, fulfilling expectations shaped by past joys.

Note: Passage I, by Harold Bloom on the uses of poetry, is copyrighted and not reproduced. Bloom asks what use poetry can have when its true subject is the poet's own selfhood. The traditional use was instruction through delight, pleasure being the fulfilment of expectations shaped by past joys. A poetry of the self serves instead the psyche's need for self-recognition, from which originality springs.

Bloom ties originality to the psyche's need for self-recognition.

Note: Passage I, by Harold Bloom on the uses of poetry, is copyrighted and not reproduced. Bloom asks what use poetry can have when its true subject is the poet's own selfhood. The traditional use was instruction through delight, pleasure being the fulfilment of expectations shaped by past joys. A poetry of the self serves instead the psyche's need for self-recognition, from which originality springs.

Per the key. The line means there is no 'worst', no floor to suffering: each pang, 'schooled at forepangs', wrings wilder.

Note: Key doubtful: none of the options states the sense — that there is no limit to suffering — cleanly.

'Pitched past pitch of grief' — beyond the highest pitch of sorrow.

'Hold them cheap / May who ne'er hung there' (A); 'the mind, mind has mountains' (D). The closing line says death ends all life, so B is false.

The black flag over Wintoncester gaol signals her execution for killing Alec.

Angel and Tess's sister 'Liza-Lu watch from the hill and go on together.

Prospero's vanished masque of spirits.

Life is as insubstantial and transient as a dream, 'rounded with a sleep'.

'How strange we grow when we're alone.'

Note: Passage I is Siegfried Sassoon's 'Alone' ('When I'm alone…'), which is copyrighted in many countries and not reproduced. A man's casual 'When I'm alone' sets the speaker thinking how 'strange we grow when we're alone', unlike the selves that meet and talk and say good-night. 'Alone' is the stillness where our spirits walk, 'life endured and known', which leaves only our inmost faith.