Read the passage and answer the questions given below it.
The bridge I glued together from ice-cream sticks in Class 11 held fourteen kilograms before it cracked, and I was prouder of the crack than of the number. It split exactly where my calculations had said it would. For a week, I was certain I would be an engineer.
Over the Diwali break I redrew the menu card of the dhaba near our colony, for nothing, because the old one used four fonts and a clip-art chilli. The owner pinned it up. Nobody remarked on it. But he told me, a little puzzled, that fewer people now asked him what the dishes were. I found that oddly moving, as no load test had been.
People who mean well tell me to pick the safe one. I find that advice facile. Engineering is hardly safe for someone who would be mediocre at it, and design is not frivolous merely because its results are hard to measure. What separates the two, for me, is the kind of wrong I can live with. In engineering, a mistake announces itself: the beam gives way, the code refuses to run. In design, I could be wrong for years and only half suspect it. That ambiguity unsettles me more than any entrance exam.
My physics teacher says that good engineers are designers who have agreed to be checked. A designer at a college open day claimed nearly the opposite: she had trained as a mechanical engineer, then spent ten years unlearning the urge to be sure. I copied both remarks inside my rough notebook. They do not cancel out. The application form closes in three weeks, and I have filled in every box except the one for the course.
What can be inferred from the owner’s remark that fewer people now asked him what the dishes were?
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 2
The correct answer is Option (2) → The redrawn card explained the dishes well enough that customers had less need to ask.
The writer redrew the menu card, and after that customers asked fewer questions about the food.
- The old card was messy. It used “four fonts and a clip-art chilli”.
- Once the new card went up, “fewer people now asked him what the dishes were”.
- The clear card did the explaining. Customers could read it and did not need the owner’s help.
Why the Other Options are Incorrect?
Option 1: Customers were visiting the dhaba less often once the new card went up. — Incorrect. Misread: The owner says fewer people asked questions. He does not say fewer people came.
Option 3: The owner was annoyed that his customers no longer chatted with him at the counter. — Incorrect. Not mentioned: The owner is only “a little puzzled”. Nothing shows that he was annoyed.
Option 4: Customers liked the old menu card better but did not want to say so. — Incorrect. Contradicted: Fewer questions about the dishes show the new card was easier to follow, not that people missed the old one.