Read the following passage and answer the questions.
Conveying bravery and awe, lions have been appropriated since the earliest times as gods and symbols of leadership. They have also been co-opted into the service of commerce and subjected to numerous affronts to their stateliness.
Lions in the Ancient World
To the ancient Mesopotamians, Gilgamesh was a powerful figure who may have been a king. In an epic poem about his reign, he strangled a magical lion with his bare hands. The god Lamassu was shown as a winged lion, while the goddess of love, Inanna-Ishtar, had a lion as one of her symbols.
One of the twelve labours of the Greek hero Heracles (Hercules to the Romans) was to kill the Nemean lion, a creature of incredible ferocity. Its fur was so strong that no knife or spear could pierce it, but Heracles, like Gilgamesh before him, dispatched the beast by strangling it. The Greeks also pictured lions drawing the chariots of their gods and guarding homes.
The ancient Egyptians venerated the lion too. The Sphinx at Giza has the head of a man and the body of a lion. The goddess Sekhmet was shown as a lioness whose task was to destroy the wicked and protect the good.
The Bible tells of Daniel in the lions’ den, and of Samson, who, like Gilgamesh and Heracles, killed a lion with his hands.
The Lion as a Marketing Tool
Manufacturers have shamelessly recruited lions as a sales tool. Well, they’re not going to use snakes, spiders or rats, are they?
The Lion Motor Car Company of Adrian, Michigan, was a short-lived venture (1909–1912) into the growing automobile business. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) has used a roaring lion as its trademark since the 1920s. And C.S. Lewis gave us Aslan, the great lion of his Narnia books.
According to the passage, who killed a lion with his hands?
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 3
The correct answer is Option (3) → Gilgamesh, Heracles and Samson
The passage names three men who killed a lion with their hands.
- Gilgamesh “strangled a magical lion with his bare hands”.
- Heracles killed the Nemean lion “by strangling it”.
- Samson, “like Gilgamesh and Heracles, killed a lion with his hands”.
- So all three names are needed.
Why the Other Options are Incorrect?
Option 1: Heracles only — Incorrect. Too narrow: Heracles did kill a lion this way. But the passage says that Gilgamesh and Samson did so too.
Option 2: Gilgamesh and Heracles only — Incorrect. Too narrow: This leaves out Samson. The passage says Samson also “killed a lion with his hands”.
Option 4: Daniel, Gilgamesh and Heracles — Incorrect. Wrong link: The passage mentions only “Daniel in the lions’ den”. A den is the home of a wild animal. It does not say that Daniel killed a lion.