Read the given passage and answer the four questions that follow:-
This is a story from long ago, when the last remaining traces of the British still lurked in their old haunts among the pristine Himalayan hills of Darjeeling. These were the early fifties, in other words.
I would spend entire days at a small, dusty bookshop with a faded, green sign over it- a sign painted with gold letters that said: "Mr Mun-Chee's Books." The paint was chipped at many places; you could barely see the second 's'. The shabby old shop was located in a cul-de-sac, a few hundred meters away from my own home. But inside, it was another world. On the floor stood staggering, towering piles of books, yellowed and aged, and the shelves lining all the walls were crammed with journals, lexicons and biographies, dramas, each laboriously cataloged and meticulously arranged. Mr Mun-Chee dealt mostly in antique books; first editions of books, long forgotten, books one hardly ever encountered anymore. There were sixteen editions of Jane Eyre, twenty-two of The Pickwick Papers, and fifty of The Pilgrim's Progress. It was not famous, but it was unique; customers barely ever walked in, as it was so hidden away in a run-down neighborhood. Tabby, the black Tom, my only possession, and I, were only disturbed five times that we spent there. And we spent nearly an entire year at the shop.
The shop was my sanctuary. After the daily ordeal of school, I invariably called out to Tabby and set out for the shop, to read, read, read, with Tabby curled up around my legs.
Mr Mun-Chee's shop was not a new shop as _____.
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 2
The correct answer is Option (2) → its paint was chipped
The passage says "The paint was chipped at many places; you could barely see the second 's'." Paint chips and fades only after many years in sun and rain, so the worn sign is the plain evidence that the shop had stood there a long time and was not new.
Why the Other Options are Incorrect?
Option 1: it was dusty — Incorrect. Wrong reason: dust shows only that the shop was not cleaned; a new shop can also gather dust, so dust alone does not prove age.
Option 3: it was shabby — Incorrect. Wrong reason: shabby means worn, untidy and poorly kept in appearance. The passage does call it "the shabby old shop", but there "shabby" describes how the shop looked, and "old" is added as a separate word; a shop can look shabby through neglect without being old. The detail the passage gives as proof of long years is the chipped paint on the sign.
Example: He wore a shabby coat with frayed cuffs.
Option 4: it had a green sign — Incorrect. Wrong reason: the colour of a sign says nothing about how old a shop is.