ABOUT LANGUAGE ASKED IN CLAT

1. READING AND COMPREHENSION
TYPES OF QUESTIONS

2. • Types of questions in RC
• Reading Comprehension questions can be broadly categorized into two types i.e. Idea based and Fact
based. They can further be subdivided into different categories. Each type of question requires a
special approach. Different entrance examinations stress on different aspects of RC skills.
• A basic understanding of the question types would help you tackle the RC section. It is also a tool you
can use to analyze your performance; evaluate what kind of questions you struggle with; take steps to
overcome the weak areas.
• Idea Based Questions Fact Based Questions
• Main Idea Specific Idea
• Implied Idea Contextual Meaning
• Further Application Example based
• Logical Structure
• Tone/Style

3. • 1. Main Idea Questions
• The main idea refers to the primary purpose of the author behind writing the passage. It is difficult to
answer unless you have understood the essence of the author's intention in the passage. Title
question falls under this category too as the title of a passage means the main idea in a concise form.
• Common question stems for these types of questions are:
• Which of the following is the main idea of the passage?
• The primary purpose of the passage is to….
• The author is primarily concerned with ….
• The thematic highlight of the passage is ….
• The best line to capture the content of the passage is ….
• A suitable title for the passage is….
• Approach:
• Typically, the main idea appears at the beginning or the end of the passage; so, pay special attention
to these parts.
• Eliminate any option that is either too general or too specific.
• Don't read or skim the entire passage to find the answer.
• Eliminate ornamental or vague options.

4. In May 1966, the World Health Organisation was authorised to initiate a global campaign to eradicate
small-pox. The goal was to eradicate the disease in one decade. Because similar projects for malaria and
yellow fever had failed, few believed that smallpox could actually be eradicated, but eleven years after the
initial organisation of the campaign, no cases were reported in the field.
The strategy was not only to provide mass vaccinations, but also to isolate patients with active smallpox in
order to contain the spread of the disease and to break the chain of human transmission. Rewards for
reporting smallpox assisted in motivating the public to aid health workers. One by one, each smallpox
victim was sought out, removed from contact with others and treated. At the same time, the entire village
where the victim had lived was vaccinated.
Today smallpox is no longer a threat to humanity. Routine vaccinations have been stopped worldwide.
• Which of the following is the best title for the passage?
• (a) The World Health Origanisation
• (b) The eradication of smallpox
• (c) Smallpox vaccinations
• (d) Infectious diseases

5. • 2. Specific Idea Questions
• These questions ask specific information mentioned or stated in the passage. These are normally the
easiest questions to answer. The answers are normally mentioned explicitly within the passage.
However, watch out for tricky options.
• Common question stems for these types of questions are:
• The author mentions which of the following?
• Which of the following is true according to the passage?
• The author provides information that would answer which of the following questions?
• Approach:
• Locate where the answer is mentioned in the passage. Don't answer it unless you have located that
section.
• Skim and find the portion from which the question has been asked.
• Don't hesitate to regress. This will ensure accuracy

6. In May 1966, the World Health Organisation was authorised to initiate a global campaign to eradicate
small-pox. The goal was to eradicate the disease in one decade. Because similar projects for malaria and
yellow fever had failed, few believed that smallpox could actually be eradicated, but eleven years after
the initial organisation of the campaign, no cases were reported in the field.
The strategy was not only to provide mass vaccinations, but also to isolate patients with active smallpox
in order to contain the spread of the disease and to break the chain of human transmission. Rewards for
reporting smallpox assisted in motivating the public to aid health workers. One by one, each smallpox
victim was sought out, removed from contact with others and treated. At the same time, the entire village
where the victim had lived was vaccinated.
Today smallpox is no longer a threat to humanity. Routine vaccinations have been stopped worldwide.
• What was the goal of the campaign against smallpox?
• (a) To decrease the spread of smallpox worldwide
• (b) To eliminate smallpox worldwide in ten years
• (c) To provide mass vaccinations against smallpox worldwide
• (d) To initiate worldwide projects for smallpox, malaria and yellow fever at the same time

7. • 3. Implied Idea Questions
• These are the kind of questions where the answers are not explicitly stated in the passage. They are
hinted or implied though. This demands a higher level of comprehension.
• An example of this question could be found in a passage where an author points out various critiques
of the US‟s foreign policy, especially its role in Iraq. Thought the anti-US stance here is not stated
explicitly, it is implied. CAT normally loves to ask such questions.
• Common question stems for these types of questions are:
• It can be inferred that the author believes…
• The author uses… to imply….
• Which of the following can/cannot be inferred from the passage
• Approach:
• In this case, the emphasis is on testing your ability to read between the lines i.e. to infer the author's
purpose in stating something.
• Use elimination method to ensure accuracy
• Make sure that the inference matches the author's tone in the passage

8. In May 1966, the World Health Organisation was authorised to initiate a global campaign to eradicate
small-pox. The goal was to eradicate the disease in one decade. Because similar projects for malaria and
yellow fever had failed, few believed that smallpox could actually be eradicated, but eleven years after the
initial organisation of the campaign, no cases were reported in the field.
The strategy was not only to provide mass vaccinations, but also to isolate patients with active smallpox in
order to contain the spread of the disease and to break the chain of human transmission. Rewards for
reporting smallpox assisted in motivating the public to aid health workers. One by one, each smallpox
victim was sought out, removed from contact with others and treated. At the same time, the entire village
where the victim had lived was vaccinated.
Today smallpox is no longer a threat to humanity. Routine vaccinations have been stopped worldwide
• It can be inferred that
• (a) no new cases of smallpox have been reported this year
• (b) malaria and yellow fever have been eliminated
• (c) smallpox victims no longer die when they contract the disease
• (d) smallpox is not transmitted from one person to another

9. • 4. Contextual Meaning Questions
• In these questions, the meaning of a given word, phrase, or sentence in the passage is asked. These
are easy to answer if one has good command over vocabulary and the ability to understand
contextual usage of words.
• Common question stems for these types of questions are:
• What does the author mean by the line…
• What word can best substitute the word…in the passage?
• The word/phrase … in the passage implies…
• Approach:
• Go back to the passage and read the context in which this word/phrase/sentence has been used.
• Make sure to find out any element of sarcasm or satire in the usage.
• The meaning must match the author's intention.
• These questions typically test your vocabulary too. So make sure to improve your vocabulary.

10. • Every profession or trade, every art and every science has its technical vocabulary, the function of
which is partly to designate things or processes which have no names in ordinary English and partly to
secure greater exactness in nomenclature. Such special dialects or jargons are necessary in technical
discussion of any kind, Being universally understood by the devotees of the particular science or art,
they have the precision of a mathematical formula. Besides, they save time, for it is much more
economical to name a process than to describe it. Thousands of these technical terms are very
properly included in every large dictionary, yet, as a whole, they are rather on the outskirts of the
English language than actually within its borders.
• Different occupation, however, differ widely in the character of their handicrafts and other vocations like
farming and fishing that have occupied great numbers of men from remote times, the technical
vocabulary is very old. An average man now uses these in his own vocabulary. The special dialects of
law, medicine, divinity and philosophy have become familiar to cultivated persons.
• What does the phrase ‘cultivated persons’ mean ?
• A) People who cultivate land.
• B) People who are literate and civilized.
• C) People who are emotional.
• D) People who belong to a particular profession.

11. • Further Application Questions:
• As the name reveals, these questions demand application of logic to extend the passage from where it
ended. This would again depend on your understanding of the author’s line of though and the logic
used by him to develop the passage.
• Common questions stems for these types of questions are:
• The next paragraph of the passage is likely to deal with…
• Which of these is similar to the example used by the author?
• With which of the following statements is the author most likely to agree/disagree…
• The passage is most likely an extract from…
• The author of the passage is most likely a/an …
Approach:
• Read the last paragraph carefully as this would give you an idea of what may follow next.
• Think about the general progression of the passage in terms of the ideas contained in each paragraph
and apply the same logic to extend the ideas of the last paragraph.
• For source of the passage or profession of the author questions, eliminate options on the basis of the
target reader group. It will be hinted by the use of jargons or theory.

12. • Every profession or trade, every art and every science has its technical vocabulary, the function of
which is partly to designate things or processes which have no names in ordinary English and partly to
secure greater exactness in nomenclature. Such special dialects or jargons are necessary in technical
discussion of any kind, Being universally understood by the devotees of the particular science or art,
they have the precision of a mathematical formula. Besides, they save time, for it is much more
economical to name a process than to describe it. Thousands of these technical terms are very
properly included in every large dictionary, yet, as a whole, they are rather on the outskirts of the
English language than actually within its borders.
• Different occupation, however, differ widely in the character of their handicrafts and other vocations
like farming and fishing that have occupied great numbers of men from remote times, the technical
vocabulary is very old. An average man now uses these in his own vocabulary. The special dialects of
law, medicine, divinity and philosophy have become familiar to cultivated persons.
• The writer of this article is
• (a) a scientist
• (b) a politician
• (c) a linguist
• (d) a businessman

13. • Tone Questions:
• An author uses a particular tone in a passage, which relates to the overall attitude displayed by the author in
writing on a topic. Is the author critical, argumentative, witty, nostalgic etc? In short, an author can use a
positive, negative, or neutral tone in a passage. So, tone is defined as the attitude of the author towards the
main idea. The answer to this question is not explicitly stated in the passage and answering this question
requires the ability to comprehend the way the author has treated the subject.
• Finding the tone of the passage becomes necessary in RC because this determines the validity of any
inference. Even in a fact based question, understanding the intention of the author becomes vital to ensure
accuracy.
• Common question stems for these types of questions are:
• The tone of the author in the passage is…
• The tone of the passage is…
• The style of the author can best be described as…
• The attitude of the author towards the main idea is…
• Approach:
• Remember that in this case you should not consider a paragraph in isolation to evaluate the tone. The tone
encompasses the overall attitude of the author. Therefore, you should take the whole passage into account.
• First, think of a description of the tone of the passage. Then look at the options and choose the one that is
the closest.
• Tone questions, invariably, turn into vocabulary question. Work on your vocabulary.
• Read the first and the last paragraph very carefully to answer such questions

14. • Mr. Bingley was good-looking and gentlemanlike; he had a pleasant countenance, and easy,
unaffected manners. His sisters were fine women, with an air of decided fashion. His brother-in-law,
Mr. Hurst, merely looked the gentleman; but his friend Mr. Darcy soon drew the attention of the
room by his fine, tall person, handsome features, noble mien, and the report which was in general
circulation within five minutes after his entrance, of his having ten thousand a year. The gentlemen
pronounced him to be a fine figure of a man, the ladies declared he was much handsomer than Mr.
Bingley, and he was looked at with great admiration for about half the evening, till his manners gave a
disgust which turned the tide of his popularity; for he was discovered to be proud; to be above his
company, and above being pleased; and not all his large estate in Derbyshire could then save him
from having a most forbidding, disagreeable countenance, and being unworthy to be compared with
his friend.
• The attitude of the assembly towards Mr. Darcy turned into one of:
• (1) acute Nostalgia (2) sincere Pleading
• (3) helpless alarm (4) destructive Criticism

15. • When Ovid was banished, he was the most civilized man in a Rome that was dying of civilization. He had so articulated its excesses, its indulgences,
had found such a perfect form for them, that they seemed to be natural. He was the worst kind of subversive: one who tells us, in irresistible
poetry, that it is all right to do as we please.
• Augustus banished Ovid because he was not august. It was one of the most spectacular acts of censorship in history. The poet was sent to the
outer limits of the known world, to Tomis, a barbarian town of 100 rude huts at the mouth of the Danube on the Black Sea. He, who had been the
voice of Rome, became no more than a marginal note. For Ovid, this was as good as cutting out his tongue, for he could not speak to the people of
Tomis. His first year there, he talked to himself, shouted into the wind. Even the landscape of Tomis was unspeakable.
• 'An Imaginary Life' is David Malouf's novelistic reconstruction of Ovid's years of exile, about which almost nothing is known. Mr. Malouf is an
Australian poet, a man whose country embraces, like Ovid's, both cosmopolites and aborigines. His book embodies an original and daring idea: He
has determined to put the author of 'The Metamorphoses', using his book, through one final metamorphosis. At Tomis, Ovid gradually reverses his
Roman decadence and begins again with a tabula rasa, the blank page at the bottom of things.
• The author of 'The Art of Love' must learn to love nature, for there is nothing else at Tomis. To the women there, this prematurely old man of 50 is
half-fool, half-wizard: only Mother Nature will tolerate his advances. When he finds a single wild poppy in a field, it is like a love letter. He begins to
cultivate a garden, an activity as subversive in Tomis as his poems were in Rome. Ovid is taking the first step in trying to soften a society that has
survived by being hard.
• He reconciles himself to life in Tomis to the extent of learning the language. While Latin is a language that expresses differences to the finest
shades of meaning, he finds the language of the barbarians to be one that establishes connections, that pulls phenomena together instead of
apart. He finds that, just as the people of Tomis have no gardens, they have no word for freedom, for in their world, nothing is free, and everything
is connected by coherent necessity to everything else. Isolation is an accomplishment only of advanced cultures.
• Mr. Malouf has a hunger for synthesis, for progression, that pushes poor, old, jaded Ovid towards sentimentality. One day, on a hunt with the
tribesman, he comes upon a wild child. The poet tries to civilize the wild child, and the child teaches the poet, who never learned anything that did
not come out of a book, to howl, to experience the world through his senses. By observing the wild boy, and then following him into the
wilderness, Ovid realizes Rome is not the whole world, and not even the centre of it.
• Ovid realizes that he has been exiled not only from Rome, but from the universe also. The great gossip of Rome learns to repeat the sounds of birds
and beasts. He adopts the wild child as if "he had been handed a new past." Their relationship is a benign translation of the barbarian's sack of
Rome. Spontaneity rears its ugly head, and when Ovid finally dies, in the wild boy's arms, the sky itself is the proscenium for this drama.
• Which of the following can be inferred from the passage?
• (1) Ovid's irreverence leads to his exile to an isolated village.
• (2) Ovid's attempts to civilize the boy backfire on him in unexpected ways.
• (3) Ovid gradually realizes that there are other ways to live and experience; ways that are both beautiful and fulfilling.
• (4) All of the above

16. • According to the passage, what does "dying of civilization" refer to?
• (1) A place where civilization had never existed.
• (2) A civilization that was suffering for betterment and improvement.
• (3) An existing civilization that was facing challenges and therefore finding hard to survive.
• (4) A civilization that was becoming a threat for people because of its growing excesses and was
therefore deteriorating

17. • There is a hideous absurdity in reporting a society where children will not eat in almost the same breath as describing a country
where children cannot. Fat is supposed to be a feminist issue but when five-year-olds apparently have such distorted views of
their own bodies that they starve themselves to ill-health, and the numbers of young men hung up on the thickness of their
thighs becomes large enough to be quantifiable, then it begins to look as if something else is going on. In the past three years
more than 2,000 children have needed hospital treatment for anorexia. According to the Institute for Child Health, three in
every 100,000 children under 13 now suffer from an eating disorder.
• The headline figures are startling. But it is not clear whether more children have eating disorders now than 10 years ago. The
last authoritative count of all patients was in 2004, when 1.6 million were identified; according to the charity B-eat, only
anecdotal evidence exists to show the number is rising. Yet yesterday’s reports will cue storms of protest about the continuing
damage caused by skeletal models and airbrushed photographs. It is true that such images matter, but they matter more
because they legitimize a self starving child’s behavior than because they trigger it. It is a convenient assumption that everyone
wants to look like Cheryl Cole so badly that they will make themselves ill to achieve it. One researcher called it “the socially
sanctioned coloring of distress”. But there is evidence that this is about something much less straightforward than the desire to
be thinner, fostered by Kate Moss’s aphorism that nothing tastes as good as thin feels
• .The basis for this claim is that eating disorders are not restricted to the self-absorbed, consumerist west, and global researchers
find some evidence of a common underlying cause. Of course it is a complex condition with multiple causes including some
research that claims that the west has simply exported its understanding of eating disorders . Others suggest that the more
publicity anorexia gets, the more cases appear. But there is a much more challenging common thread: self-starvation often
appears to be a way that the powerless can exercise some power. In an unyielding world, it offers a form of resistance. In some
places, changing that looks like an impossible political hurdle. Nearer to home there might be easier answers to do with less
pressure and more autonomy. Mental illness among children in the west has been rising for decades. Eating disorders are one
more sign that we are not getting childhood right in this country, and the elevation of individual perfection, personal, academic
or physical, must bear part of the blame.

18. • 1. The tone of the passage is___________.
• (a) pessimistic (b) cavilling (c) sceptical (d) concerned
• 2.The passage has been most likely taken from
• (a) a news report (b) a chrestomathy (c) an editorial (d) an article in a medical journal
• 3. The primary purpose of the second paragraph is to
• (a) establish that it is unclear whether more children have eating disorders now than 10 years ago.
• (b) establish that celebrity images legitimizes eating disorders rather than trigger them.
• (c) establish a link between eating disorders and thin celebrities.
• (d) establish that the rise in eating disorders can only be established through anecdotal evidence.
• 4. According to the passage, eating disorders imply
• (a) that children are not being given the right treatment.
• (b) that mental illness has been rising among youngsters.
• (c) that there are pressures that leave children feeling powerless.
• (d) that the media has glorified the “thin is in” trend.

19. THANK YOU