The tone of the passage — Aptitude Question
The tone of the passage: Railways were the first industry to require a single national time. Answer and worked solution on CodeKairo.
- Topic: Reading Comprehension
- Section: Verbal Ability
- Difficulty: Medium
- Time target: 75 seconds
Question
Railways were the first industry to require a single national time. Before them, every town kept its own clock by the sun, and a difference of a few minutes between neighbouring places troubled nobody. A timetable made those minutes intolerable. Within a generation, the railway companies had imposed a standard time across whole countries — not because anyone had argued for it, but because the trains could not run without it.
The tone of the passage is best described as:
Options
- Nostalgic
- Explanatory
- Indignant
- Sceptical
Show the answer and the worked solution
Correct answer: B. Explanatory
Worked solution
- The passage describes a sequence of events and gives the reason for them.
- It expresses neither regret nor anger, so the tone is explanatory.
Answer: Explanatory.
The idea
Ask whether the author is arguing, lamenting or simply accounting for something. An account without evaluation is explanatory.
Shortcut. Scan for judgement words and find none: every sentence reports a fact or a cause ('because the trains could not run'), which marks the tone as explanatory.
Common trap. "Nostalgic" — the look back at towns keeping their own sun time can feel wistful, but the passage expresses no longing or regret.