Question 19
MediumOriginal questionMr Kapoor had run the shop outside the bus stand for twenty-two years, and he could count change faster than any machine. So when the girl in the blue uniform came back ten minutes after buying her notebooks, he she wanted to return something.
"You gave me too much," she said, and put a fifty-rupee note on the counter. "I gave you two hundred. You gave me change for five hundred."
Mr Kapoor looked at the note. He looked at his . It was true. Twenty-two years, and he had made a mistake, and this child, whose shoes were at the toe, had walked all the way back to give him money he would never have missed.
"What's your name?" he asked.
"Lakshmi."
He pushed the note back across the counter. She pushed it back to him. They did this twice more, and then Mr Kapoor laughed, took the note and put it in his till.
The next Monday, when Lakshmi came in for a new pen, she found that it had already been paid for. A card was taped to the counter beside the pens. In Mr Kapoor's careful handwriting, it said: Lakshmi, one pen a month, for as long as this shop stands.
Mr Kapoor "assumed she wanted to return something". Here "assumed" means he
Show the answer and explanation
Correct answer: D
Explanation
He had not asked her anything yet; he simply thought it was likely.
To assume is to take something to be true without checking, and here his assumption turns out to be wrong.
Worth noting
If he had known for certain, he would not have been surprised by what she said next.
- Concept
- Working out a word's meaning from what follows
- Typical timeTypical
- 40 s
- Your timeYours
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Ten questions from Narrative passages, at your own pace.