Question 52
MediumOriginal questionKiran had imagined that birdwatching would be exciting. Instead, on the first morning at the lake, Dr Rao handed her a notebook, a pair of and a folding stool, and told her to sit still.
"For how long?" asked Kiran.
"Until the birds forget you are here," said Dr Rao.
Kiran sat. The mist lay on the water. Nothing happened. A dragonfly landed on her knee and left again. Her legs went to sleep. She counted her own breaths, then the , then the clouds.
After an hour, a grey heron stepped out of the reeds not ten metres away. It stood on one leg, looking at the water with enormous , and then struck so fast that Kiran almost missed it. When it lifted its head, there was a fish in its beak.
After that, the lake seemed to wake up. There were egrets, a kingfisher like a blue , a family of ducks paddling in a line. Kiran forgot her legs. She forgot to count her breaths. She filled three pages of the notebook without looking at the time.
When Dr Rao came back to fetch her, she was surprised to find that it was nearly noon.
"How was it?" asked Dr Rao.
Kiran thought about the heron standing so still for so long, waiting for exactly the right moment.
"I think," she said, "I was learning to be a heron."
Why does the lake "seem to wake up" after the heron appears?
Show the answer and explanation
Correct answer: C
Explanation
Dr Rao had said to wait "until the birds forget you are here". After an hour of stillness, they did.
Once they were used to her, the birds went about their lives around her.
Worth noting
It was morning and nearly noon later, so the sun had not set.
- Concept
- Connecting an earlier instruction to a later event
- Typical timeTypical
- 45 s
- Your timeYours
- —
Ten questions from Narrative passages, at your own pace.