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.
The writer asks, “they’re not going to use snakes, spiders or rats, are they?” This question is used to
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 2
The correct answer is Option (2) → make a light-hearted point that companies choose animals that people admire
The writer asks, “they’re not going to use snakes, spiders or rats, are they?”
- The writer does not want an answer. Everyone already knows it. Such a question is called a rhetorical question.
- Snakes, spiders and rats are animals people dislike. Lions are animals people admire.
- So the writer is making a light-hearted (funny, not serious) point. Companies pick a noble animal to sell their goods.
Why the Other Options are Incorrect?
Option 1: find out which animal the readers like best — Incorrect. Misread: The writer does not expect readers to reply. The answer is already given in the question itself with “are they?”.
Option 3: warn readers that snakes and spiders are dangerous — Incorrect. Not mentioned: The writer names these animals only because people dislike them. The writer gives no warning about danger.
Option 4: show that no company has ever used a snake as its symbol — Incorrect. Overstated: The question only says that companies would not want such animals. It makes no claim about every company that ever existed.