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GATE 2025 CS (CS1) – Question 6

General Aptitude · Verbal Aptitude: Reading Comprehension and Reasoning · 2 marks · Multiple choice

"I put the brown paper in my pocket along with the chalks, and possibly other things. I suppose every one must have reflected how primeval and how poetical are the things that one carries in one's pocket: the pocket-knife, for instance the type of all human tools, the infant of the sword. Once I planned to write a book of poems entirely about the things in my pocket. But I found it would be too long: and the age of the great epics is past."
(From G.K. Chesterton's "A Piece of Chalk")

Based only on the information provided in the above passage, which one of the following statements is true?

  1. The author of the passage carries a mirror in his pocket to reflect upon things.
  2. The author of the passage had decided to write a poem on epics.
  3. The pocket-knife is described as the infant of the sword.
  4. Epics are described as too inconvenient to write.

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Show answer and explanation

Correct answer: (C) The pocket-knife is described as the infant of the sword.

Explanation

The passage calls the pocket-knife 'the infant of the sword'. The other options misread 'reflected', the planned poems and the reason given for dropping the book.