Comprehension:
Read the given passage carefully and answer the questions that follow.
She sat at the window watching the evening invade the avenue. Her head was leaned against the window curtains and in her nostrils was the odour of dusty cretonne. She was tired. Few people passed. The man out of the last house passed on his way home: she heard his footsteps clacking along the concrete pavement and afterward crunching on the cinder path before the new red houses. One time there used to be a field there in which they used to play every evening with other people's children. Then a man from Belfast bought the field and built houses in it - not like their little brown houses but bright brick houses with shining roofs. The children of the avenue used to play together in that field - the Devines, the Walters, the Dunns, little Keogh the cripple, she and her brothers and sisters. Ernest, however, never played: he was too grown up. Her father often used to hunt them in and out of the field with his blackthorn stick; but usually little Keogh used to keep nix and call out when he saw her father coming. Still, they seemed to have been rather happy then. Her father was not so bad then; and besides, her mother was alive. That was a long time ago; she and her brothers and sisters were all grown up; her mother was dead. Everything changes. Now she was going away like the others, to leave her home. Home! She looked round the room, reviewing all its familiar objects which she had dusted once a week for so many years, wondering where on earth all the dust came from. She had consented to go away, to leave her home. Was that wise?
The children stopped playing in the field because-
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 3
The correct answer is Option (3) → somebody converted the field into a residential colony.
The passage says, "Then a man from Belfast bought the field and built houses in it." Once the field was built over, the children had no place left to play.
Why the Other Options are Incorrect?
Option 1: they were all grown up. — Incorrect. Wrong reason: they did grow up later, but the passage tells us the field itself disappeared under houses; growing up is mentioned only to show how much time has passed.
Option 2: their mother was dead. — Incorrect. Wrong reason: her mother's death shows how life at home has changed; it is not linked to the field.
Option 4: somebody complained about them to their father. — Incorrect. Not mentioned: her father chased them out of the field with his stick, but the passage speaks of no complaint.