Choose the sentences that are examples of oxymoron:
(A) On her first day at college, Meera felt as lost as a kite with a broken string.
(B) Photographers love the beautiful ugliness of the broken old fort outside our town.
(C) Rich in friends and poor in money, Sohan never worried about his empty wallet.
(D) Papa says that hot samosas from the corner stall are his one strong weakness.
Choose the correct answer from the options given below:
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 2
The correct answer is Option (2) → (B) and (D) only
An oxymoron puts two opposite words side by side.
(A) On her first day at college, Meera felt as lost as a kite with a broken string. — Incorrect.
- This is a simile, because Meera is compared to a kite with a broken string using “as lost as”.
(B) Photographers love the beautiful ugliness of the broken old fort outside our town. — Correct.
- “Beautiful” and “ugliness” are opposites, placed side by side in “beautiful ugliness”.
(C) Rich in friends and poor in money, Sohan never worried about his empty wallet. — Incorrect.
- This is antithesis, because “rich in friends” and “poor in money” are two opposite ideas in balanced halves.
(D) Papa says that hot samosas from the corner stall are his one strong weakness. — Correct.
- “Strong” and “weakness” are opposites, placed side by side in “strong weakness”.