Comprehension:
Read the given passage and answer the five questions that follow.
I caught sight of her at the play, and, in answer to her beckoning, I went over during the interval and sat down beside her. It was long since I had last seen her and if someone had not mentioned her name I hardly think I would have recognised her. She addressed me brightly.
‘Well, it’s many years since we first met. How time does fly! We’re none of us getting any younger. Do you remember the first time I saw you? You asked me to luncheon.’
Did I remember?
It was twenty years ago and I was living in Paris. I had a tiny apartment in the Latin quarter overlooking a cemetery and I was earning barely enough money to keep body and soul together. She had read a book of mine and had written to me about it. I answered, thanking her, and presently I received from her another letter saying that she was passing through Paris and would like to have a chat with me; but her time was limited and the only free moment she had was on the following Thursday and would I give her a little luncheon at Foyot’s afterwards? Foyot’s is a restaurant at which the French senators eat and it was so far beyond my means that I never even thought of going there. But I was flattered and I was too young to have learned to say no to a woman. Few men, I may add, learn this until they are too old to make it of any consequence to a woman what they say. I had eighty francs to last me the rest of the month, and a modest luncheon should not cost more than fifteen. If I cut out coffee for the next two weeks I could manage well enough.
The narrator is all of the following except:
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 1
The correct answer is Option (1) → sadist
A sadist is a person who gets pleasure from causing pain to others (the word comes from the Marquis de Sade, a French writer). Nothing in the passage shows the narrator enjoying anyone's pain; he is polite and obliging, so this is the one description that does not fit him.
Example: Only a sadist would laugh at a wounded animal.
Why the Other Options are Incorrect?
Option 2: friendly — Incorrect. True in the passage: he answers her letter, thanking her, and at the play he goes over and sits down beside her when she beckons.
Option 3: middle-aged — Incorrect. True in the passage: the lunch took place "twenty years ago", when he was young; twenty years later he is no longer young.
Option 4: ingratiating — Incorrect. True in the passage: ingratiating means trying hard to please someone in order to win approval. Flattered by her letter and "too young to have learned to say no to a woman", he agrees to give her lunch at a restaurant far beyond his means.
Example: The salesman greeted us with an ingratiating smile.