UPSC One
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2018 · Q29

In this section, you have short passages. After each passage, you will find some items based on the passage. Read the passage carefully and answer the items based on it. You are required to select your answers based solely on the contents of the passage and the opinion of the author.

Passage:

Mr. Rowland Hill, when a young man, was walking through the Lake district, when he one day saw the postman deliver a letter to a woman at a cottage door. The woman turned it over and examined it, and then returned it, saying she could not pay the postage, which was a shilling. Hearing that the letter was from her brother, Mr. Hill paid the postage, in spite of the manifest unwillingness of the woman. As soon as the postman was out of sight, she showed Mr. Hill how his money had been wasted, as far as she was concerned. The sheet was blank. There was an agreement between her brother and herself that as long as all went well with him, he should send a blank sheet in this way once a quarter, and she thus had tidings of him without expense of postage.

The envelope contained

EnglishReading Comprehension
  1. Aa currency note
  2. Btwo written sheets
  3. Cno sheet at all
  4. Da blank sheet

Explanation

The passage states plainly, ‘The sheet was blank.’ There was no currency note and no written message inside the envelope. The blank sheet was the agreed quarterly signal between the siblings. Hence option (d) is correct.