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.
By saying that manufacturers have “shamelessly recruited” lions, the writer suggests that
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 1
The correct answer is Option (1) → it is a little cheap to use a noble animal only to sell goods
The passage says “Manufacturers have shamelessly recruited lions as a sales tool.”
- Recruited means taken into service. Shamelessly means without any shame.
- Earlier the writer says lions stand for bravery and leadership. Now they are used just to sell things.
- The word “shamelessly” shows that the writer finds this a little cheap. The writer says it in a joking way, not in anger.
Why the Other Options are Incorrect?
Option 2: companies were wrong to keep real lions in their factories — Incorrect. Misread: Here “recruited” does not mean real lions were brought in. Lions were used as a name or a sign, like the MGM lion.
Option 3: lions were the first animals ever used in advertising — Incorrect. Not mentioned: The passage gives no history of advertising. It does not say which animal was used first.
Option 4: manufacturers are now ashamed of the names they chose — Incorrect. Opposite meaning: “Shamelessly” means the manufacturers felt no shame. It is the writer’s own view of what they did.