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 writer suggests a collocation of joy and pastoral life. Which option is indicative of this?
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 1
The correct answer is Option (1) → There was a community feeling as children played together in the field.
A collocation here means a placing together, and pastoral means of simple country life. The passage links the open field with happiness: "The children of the avenue used to play together in that field", and "Still, they seemed to have been rather happy then." Children of many families playing together in a field joins joy with a pastoral setting.
Why the Other Options are Incorrect?
Option 2: Houses were made of red bricks. — Incorrect. Wrong link: the new red-brick houses replaced the field; they stand for the change, not for the old joy.
Option 3: The pavement was of concrete. — Incorrect. Wrong link: a concrete pavement is a town detail, not a picture of country life or joy.
Option 4: The area was dusty. — Incorrect. Wrong part of the passage: dust appears only inside her room ("dusty cretonne"), and it suggests dullness, not joy.