Read the passage and answer the questions given below it.
A boatman on the Ganga will tell you that you hear the river dolphin before you see it. It comes up for air with a short puff, and that sound is why people along the river call it the susu. Then it slips back into water the colour of milky tea.
In water that muddy, eyes are of little use, and this dolphin has almost given up on them. Its eyes are tiny and have no lens. They can tell light from dark, and not much more. The animal finds its way by sound instead. It sends out a stream of clicks and listens for the echoes that bounce back from rocks, banks, fish and the river bottom. From these echoes it builds a picture of the water around it. Scientists call this echolocation. It also has an odd habit: it often swims on its side.
This way of living served it well for a very long time, in the Ganga, the Brahmaputra and the rivers that feed them. The trouble is that the river has grown loud. Motorboats and ferries fill the water with the hum of engines, and the echoes the dolphin depends on come back muffled. Dams and barrages cut the river into pieces. Nets put out for fish trap dolphins too.
In 2009 India named the Ganga river dolphin its national aquatic animal. It is still listed as endangered. On a busy morning near a ferry ghat, the clicks of a susu and the drone of a diesel engine travel through the same brown water.
The word ‘muffled’, as used in the passage, means
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 3
The correct answer is Option (3) → made dull and hard to hear clearly
Muffled means made dull and hard to hear clearly, as if the sound were wrapped in cloth.
- The dolphin listens for the echoes of its own clicks to find its way.
- Boat engines fill the water with a hum. So the echoes come back “muffled”. They are weak and unclear, and the dolphin cannot read them well. Example: Through the closed door, we could hear only the muffled voices of the teachers in the staff room.
Why the Other Options are Incorrect?
Option 1: made sharp and piercing to the ear — Incorrect. Wrong meaning: This is the meaning of shrill. Example: The shrill whistle of the pressure cooker woke the whole house.
Option 2: made to repeat again and again — Incorrect. Wrong meaning: This is the meaning of reverberating. Example: The drumbeats kept reverberating through the old fort long after the band stopped.
Option 4: made short by being cut off suddenly — Incorrect. Wrong meaning: This is the meaning of clipped. Example: The bad line gave us only a few clipped words from Uncle before the call dropped.