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Literary passages · Question 105 of 305

How does the writer describe the aunt's story?

Question 105

MediumOriginal question

In a low, confidential voice, interrupted at frequent intervals by loud, questionings from her listeners, she [the aunt] began an unenterprising and uninteresting story about a little girl who was good, and made friends with every one on account of her goodness, and was finally saved from a mad bull by a number of rescuers who admired her moral character.

“Wouldn’t they have saved her if she hadn’t been good?” demanded the bigger of the small girls. It was exactly the question that the bachelor had wanted to ask.

“Well, yes,” admitted the aunt , “but I don’t think they would have run quite so fast to her help if they had not liked her so much.”

“It’s the stupidest story I’ve ever heard,” said the bigger of the small girls, with immense .

“You don’t seem to be a success as a story-teller,” said the bachelor suddenly from his corner.

“It’s a very difficult thing to tell stories that children can both understand and appreciate,” she said stiffly.

“I don’t agree with you,” said the bachelor.

“Once upon a time,” began the bachelor, “there was a little girl called Bertha, who was extraordinarily good.”

“She did all that she was told, she was always truthful, she kept her clothes clean, ate milk puddings as though they were jam tarts, learned her lessons perfectly, and was polite in her manners.”

“Was she pretty?” asked the bigger of the small girls.

“Not as pretty as any of you,” said the bachelor, “but she was horribly good.”

There was a wave of reaction in favour of the story; the word horrible in connection with goodness was a that commended itself. It seemed to introduce a ring of truth that was absent from the aunt’s tales of infant life.

How does the writer describe the aunt's story?

Options for question 105

Show the answer and explanation
CorrectNot quiteAnswer C

Correct answer: C

Explanation

  1. He calls it "unenterprising and deplorably uninteresting", about a girl rewarded for goodness: a dull story with a moral.

Worth noting

Words like "deplorably" show the writer is mocking the story, not admiring it.

Concept
Identifying a writer's attitude
Typical time
45 s
Your time
—
The rule this testsThe writer's tone and purpose
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Ten questions from Literary passages, at your own pace.

Practise this chapter →

Ten questions from Literary passages, at your own pace.