English Literature - Reading Comprehension Passages: 8 MCQs with Answers

The writer describes the buttonholing bore as ‘the most repellent specimen’, complains that once such a person leans on you ‘you are done’, and confesses the humiliation of having to counterfeit laughter. He mocks the man who congratulates himself on his unfailing sense of humour and the man who quotes his ‘poor dear father’. The exclamation about the incurable weakness of human nature and the rhetorical question ‘What should be done with him?’ show amused irritation rather than anger. The prevailing tone is therefore sarcastic and mildly exasperated, not sympathetic, neutral or cruel.

Birdlime is a sticky substance that was smeared on twigs to trap small birds, which became fixed to it and could not fly away. By borrowing the image, the writer’s friend suggests that the buttonholing bore attaches himself to his victim so closely that escape becomes impossible. The context supports this reading, since the passage has just said that a bore who keeps a reasonable distance can be dealt with, but that once he leans on you and fixes your eyes from a foot away you are finished. The phrase is about inescapability rather than about slipperiness or gossip.

The passage says plainly that there is the bore who begins a funny story and, although you tell him you have already heard it, does not stop. The listener’s protest is registered and simply disregarded, which shows that the bore is absorbed in his own performance and unconcerned with the response of the person in front of him. Forgetfulness would not explain the behaviour, since the objection is made to his face; nor is he shown wondering whether any option is left, or trying to explain the joke better. Self-absorption is the point of the example.

The remark occurs while the writer is introducing the eccentric peer who had unconsciously acquired the habit of thinking aloud. In ordinary life, the writer suggests, we constantly hold back what we really think and utter something more agreeable, and it is precisely this gap between thought and speech that keeps society together. The peer is comic because his private thoughts escaped into speech and stood exposed beside his courteous invitation. The statement therefore means that social harmony depends on people concealing their true thoughts at times, not that complete honesty is what makes society thrive.

The bore quotes the tolerant maxim ‘Live and let live’ and attributes it solemnly to his poor dear father, yet the very act of repeating a worn platitude and forcing it on a captive listener is the opposite of letting others live in peace. The gap between what the words profess and what the speaker actually does is irony. There is no contradiction inside a single phrase, so it is not an oxymoron; the word order is normal, so it is not inversion; and no word is used in two senses at once, so it is not a pun.

The passage shows bores as entirely unaware that they are boring: the man who asks where we should be without our sense of humour actually believes he is amusing, and the storyteller carries on happily after being told his tale is stale. That is statement (a). It also shows them as inconsiderate and uncharitable, since they lean on their victims, pin them with their eyes and force them to counterfeit laughter, which is statement (d). Nothing in the passage suggests that they are mindful of their coarseness, and calling them engaging would contradict the writer’s whole argument.

After saying that nothing is so humiliating as having to counterfeit laughter at the bidding of a bore, the writer admits that we do it all the same and exclaims at the incurable weakness and benignancy of human nature. Benignancy means kindliness or good-natured tolerance, so the false laughter springs from an instinctive unwillingness to hurt the speaker’s feelings. It is thus an act of beneficence, however reluctant. Antipathy would produce silence or rebuff rather than laughter, and neither love nor a sense of disgrace is offered anywhere in the passage as a motive.

‘Spurious’ means false, fake or not genuine. The passage supplies the word ‘counterfeit’ in the sentence about having to counterfeit laughter at the bidding of a bore, and counterfeit carries exactly that sense of something imitated in order to deceive. ‘Nuisance’ names an annoyance and not a falsehood, ‘incurable’ describes what cannot be remedied, and ‘genuine’ is the direct antonym of spurious. Note that counterfeit works here as a verb meaning to feign, though the same word also functions as an adjective and a noun with the sense of a forgery.