Question 304
MediumOriginal questionIt was Mrs. Packletide's pleasure and intention that she should shoot a tiger. Not that the lust to kill had suddenly descended on her, or that she felt that she would leave India safer and more wholesome than she had found it, with one fraction less of wild beast per million of inhabitants. The motive for her sudden deviation towards the footsteps of Nimrod was the fact that Loona Bimberton had recently been carried eleven miles in an aeroplane by an Algerian , and talked of nothing else; only a personally procured tiger-skin and a heavy harvest of Press photographs could successfully counter that sort of thing. Mrs. Packletide had already arranged in her mind the lunch she would give at her house in Curzon Street, in Loona Bimberton's honour, with a tiger-skin rug occupying most of the foreground and all of the conversation. In a world that is supposed to be chiefly swayed by hunger and by love Mrs. Packletide was an exception; her movements and motives were largely governed by dislike of Loona Bimberton.
Circumstances proved . Mrs. Packletide had offered a thousand rupees for the opportunity of shooting a tiger without overmuch risk or exertion, and it so happened that a neighbouring village could boast of being the favoured of an animal of respectable antecedents, which had been driven by the increasing of age to abandon game-killing and confine its appetite to the smaller domestic animals. The prospect of earning the thousand rupees had stimulated the sporting and commercial instinct of the villagers; the cheaper kinds of goats were left about with elaborate carelessness to keep him satisfied with his present quarters. The one great anxiety was lest he should die of old age before the date appointed for the memsahib's shoot.
What kind of tiger is found for her?
Show the answer and explanation
Correct answer: D
Explanation
The animal had been "driven by the increasing infirmities of age to abandon game-killing and confine its appetite to the smaller domestic animals".
She wanted a tiger "without overmuch risk or exertion", and this one fits.
Worth noting
Nothing suggests it was dangerous; the villagers even feared it would die of old age.
- Concept
- Inferring from description
- Typical timeTypical
- 45 s
- Your timeYours
- —
Ten questions from Literary passages, at your own pace.