Read the given passage and answer the four questions that follow:-
Just as he was about to enter the laboratory, Farley noticed that a great deal of activity was taking place in a nearby anteroom. The assistant tried to hurry him past but by dint of dragging his feet Farley managed to steal a quick glance into the room. The sight that met his eyes was so bewildering that he uttered no protest when his guide maneuvered him through the laboratory door. What he saw was this: the woman, Mangala was seated at the far end of the room, on a low divan, but alone and in an attitude of command, as though enthroned. By her side were several small bamboo cages, each containing a pigeon. On the floor, clustered around the woman's feet, were some half-dozen people in various attitudes of supplication. Two or three others were huddled against the wall, wrapped in blankets. Although Farley had glanced into their scarred, unseeing faces for more than an instant, he recognized at once that they, like the man he had seen in the bamboo thicket, were syphilitics, in the final stages of the terrible disease.
Now the young assistant began once again to perform the charade of the previous day, fetching slides, and hurrying back and forth across the room as though egging him on towards some extraordinary discovery. Farley went mechanically about the business of examining the slides they presented him.
His conscience called out to him to go outside and tell them not to waste their hopes on whatever quackery it was that this woman offered; to expose the falsehoods that she and her minions had concocted to deceive those simple people. It was his duty, he knew, to tell them that mankind knew no cure for their condition; that this false prophetess was cheating them of money they could ill afford.
Farley's assistant didn't want him to linger at the entrance of the laboratory as -
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 3
The correct answer is Option (3) → he didn't want Farley to notice the ongoings of the anteroom.
The passage says that the assistant tried to hurry him past the anteroom, but Farley dragged his feet and managed to steal a quick glance into it. Hurrying someone past a room shows that the assistant did not want him to see what was going on there.
Why the Other Options are Incorrect?
Option 1: Farley was getting late for his appointments — Incorrect. Not mentioned: the passage says nothing about appointments.
Option 2: Farley was on the verge of discovering something important. — Incorrect. Misread: the "extraordinary discovery" appears only as part of the assistant's charade, a pretence meant to keep Farley busy; it was not a real reason.
Option 4: he had hidden some people there — Incorrect. Contradicted: the people in the anteroom had come to the woman for help and were there openly; the assistant was keeping the scene away from Farley's eyes, not hiding the people.