English Reading Comprehension

Why was the wine at the author’s friends place served in a stone mug?

(a) Because the friend wanted to show that he could use extraordinary glasses to produce different tastes (b) Because the friend wanted to show how rooted to the masses he was inspite of his contrasting upbringing (c) Because the author and his friend belonged to the labour party and both deemed it fi t that, it was only just that one of the greatest wines of the century should be served at his table in earthenware

Directions: Read the passage and answer the question.

Do you recall the pleasure of discovering a new brand that actually delivers something that is perceptively superior to an existing one? It usually doesn’t involve an entirely new approach or radical departure from conventional wisdom — one feels the product in question is effortlessly superior to whatever the previous standard was. This happened to me when I purchased my first pair of Timberland boots in the late Seventies from a cubbyhole of a shop in High Street Kensington. They looked just like other boots but were amazing — robust, comfortable and durable — something I confirmed while I tramped along the Thai - Cambodia border attempting to assist refugees fleeing from the Khmer Rouge.
These days, Timberland has established itself as a clothing, beachwear, and accessories brand, turning out scores of designer boots, shoes, slip - ons and deck shoes. Nowadays they are fully up to speed about their carbon footprint and recently acquired a company with a range of accessories for skateboarders. It is still a good brand, but there is that niggling feeling that Timberland is merely a fashion statement rather than a mould - breaking take on the work boot for the leisured classes.
Like Timberland, Riedel, the pioneer wine glass makers, knocked me sideways when I first tasted Bordeaux from their specially designed glass. It was state - of - the - art and effective; if you ever doubted the curve of a wine glass could completely alter the wine’s taste, you only had to drink an identical wine from two differently designed wine glasses. I can assure you, a Bordeaux tasted from a Burgundy glass was completely different. Various grape varieties taste differently according to the glass used because they affect specific parts of the palate, so that if the wine is “thrown” towards a particular portion of the roof of the mouth, different taste sensations arise.
Riedel glassware turn out their traditional quality products that are more or less still at the summit for their type. However, they now feel impelled to diversify in the desire to “expand the brand”, perhaps aiming to cover all bases while consumers still have a jangle in their sparechange pocket. Or perhaps, having enjoyed enormous growth off the back of a single, simple and inspired idea in the 1950s, Riedel, like Timberland, is experiencing a midlife crisis of sorts.
To celebrate their fiftieth anniversary, Riedel have launched the “Sommeliers Black Tie Range”, ultraexpensive glasses from £50 to £80 a throw. Doubtless there will be a market for these glasses in the tuxedo - wearing classes. The stems are black so when you eye up a filled glass on your banqueting table, it appears that the Lafleur ‘47 (or is it Kangarouge NV?) goes all the way down to the base. To help those hard of seeing, the white wine version merely has a black base and a clear stem. And that’s not all  — Riedel now have something “to wow your guests” called NachtmannBossa Nova plates, which “show off your culinary  presentation skills”. Help! Get me out of here! All I ever wanted was a sturdy pair of boots and a perfect glass for my Bordeaux — not some sort of lifestyle nightmare. It might be time to consider the impact of appropriate glasses for various wines. We should start with Champagne as virtually no one except celebrants at Mongolian National day in Ulan Bator uses those old saucer-shaped ones (Champagne coupes, they’re called). Little - known fact: the shape was allegedly based on Marie - Antoinette’s breast. The slender flute is now the preferred Champagne shape, although I have yet to hear anyone claim it is based on any part of the anatomy of Louis XVI. The flute is superior because it manages to contain the bubbles of the Champagne — and provided you are drinking something not mass-produced by the lifestyle people, you can actually smell its nose.
Flying in the face of this advice, the most memorable Champagne I ever tasted was Cristal Rosé served in a plastic cup on a Eurostar as it pulled out of Paris. We had just spent the night at Chateau de Saran in Epernay drinking no end of different vintages of Dom Perignon, including their rare RosÃ. One of our party thought that while those wines were perfectly acceptable, they didn’t compare to the charms of Cristal RosÃ. I still have no idea how he managed to slip away from the queue at the Gare du Nord and return triumphant, clutching a handful of plastic cups. Even with the handicap of the drinking vessel, it managed to transcend anything we had drunk in the past day or two. I have no doubt it would have been even more ethereal in a flute. The same would apply to my first experience of Latour ‘59, served up in a stone mug on a stem. I drank it with a passionate socialist friend (later a Labour Government Minister) who believed that despite his privileged upbringing, it was only just that one of the greatest wines of the century should be served at his table in earthenware. I watched in horror as he expounded on some now obscure point of the class struggle between slurps from his mug. At the reverse end of the spectrum, I have drunk several bottles of Cheval Blanc ‘83 with a hedge fund owner who insists on serving this glorious wine in eighteenth century crystal, which for all I know could have been Marie - Antoinette’s. It still managed to strut its stuff — no easy task when the crystal is as thick as a bottle top. However, even he was dumbstruck when I arrived with a series of tasting glasses and thought it would be amusing to compare them. The quality leap was discernable but sadly I was not affluent enough to gift them to him, so it will be back to the ancient regime.
Riedel are not the only option when it comes to fine wine; at present I prefer drinking fine Bordeaux from very thin tasting glasses, half the dimensions of the classic Riedel variety. However, Riedel do deserve huge credit for introducing the concept of wine - specific glasses, ranging from Bordeaux and Burgundies to Chianti and red Rhônes.
I recently went to a dinner in honour of Georg Riedel in London, where he had vast displays of his glassware, including the dreaded Black Tie ones. It was tad gratuitous to put up a Riedel glass of Grand - Puy - Lacoste ‘01 against a plastic cup with the same wine. No prizes for which tasted more interesting and revealed more of its character. Still, he is a craftsman and deserves honour. I only wish that the human race wasn’t genetically impelled to always expand and hunt for new markets. It is nothing very new, historically. When the Emperor Augustus died, his will instructed his successor not to expand the boundaries of the Empire, but before too many centuries the legions became restless and began appointing their own Emperors, such was their shame at not being allowed to conquer and pillage. I don’t have any fears about Riedel going down this fatal route if they stopped spreading themselves into the wider philistine world of the consumer. On the contrary, I won’t be too surprised when I hear of the Alcopops Riedel glass or the eco -   friendly slingback Timberland.

What can be said about the writing style of the author?

Directions: Read the passage and answer the question

With nearly 1.1 billion inhabitants, India is the second largest country on earth in population, and seventh largest in geographical area, over 1.1 million square miles. This is almost 1,000 people for every square mile of area nationwide—much denser than even China.

Since achieving independence from British rule in 1947, it has seen its share of conflict, struggle and setbacks. Although India still faces many challenges, it is now poised to reach a higher position on the world scene than at any previous time.

The Indian economy has grown an average of around 6% annually over the past decade and 8% per year over the past three years—among the fastest rates in the world. It boasts of an emerging middle class and increasing gross domestic product, exports, employment and foreign investment. This is complemented by a roaring stock market (index value up by a third in 2005 and by 200% since 2001), low external debt and large foreign exchange reserves. Recent visits from leaders and officials from the United States, France, Germany and Russia have spotlighted India’s rise. These wealthier nations see India as a trading partner with enormous potential.
Although it has not yet matched the financial performance of China—currently the fastest-growing economy in the world—according to some analysts, India shows even more long-term potential for rapid growth. Leaders from both nations have discussed the creation of a Chinese-Indian common market based on the European Union model. Although only an idea at present, if realised, it would be the largest economic system in the world, home for about 2.5 billion consumers—almost 40% of the human race (or 3 of every 8 people on earth)!
India’s growth becomes more impressive in light of the fact that it is driven by a fraction of its population. Much of the nation remains a picture of rural poverty. Nearly all foreign investment in India goes to its six most urban states, with 22 other less developed states virtually ignored. This gap between city and country is keenly felt in places such as Gurgaon, a suburb of the Indian capital New Delhi: “In a land still plagued by deep poverty and backwardness, Gurgaon has become a renowned home of international call centres, business-processing operations, and information technology firms. There are gleaming, glass-paned high-tech towers, condominium blocks, multiplexes, and shopping malls, where Indians dine at Ruby Tuesday, browse for Samsung electronics, or kick the tires at a Toyota, Ford, or Chevy dealer. If one overlooks the dusty pockets of poverty nearby, a few water buffaloes picking at garbage near shanty towns, the look is more Southern California office park than the India of yore”.
Despite the problems seen in India’s underdeveloped countryside—for example, massive unmet infrastructure needs; more illiterate citizens than any other single nation—there are several areas in which the nation excels. These particularly specialised talents have allowed a tiny percentage of the populace—perhaps less than 1%—to spearhead its move toward a higher standing in the world order.
India’s economy is divided between agriculture (which accounts for a quarter of the gross national product), manufacturing (constituting another quarter) and the high-tech service sector, which now makes up fully half of the gross national product. Striving to become a “knowledge superpower,” it hopes to skip the intermediate step of industrial development that has preceded other nations’ march into the Information Age.
Scientific and information technology companies from around the world are opening research and development labs in India—more than 100 in the past five years. One mainstay of the new economy is software development, with ever more global firms outsourcing to India the time intensive work of programming. Businesses worldwide also rely on the country for customer service—phone calls from around the world are directed to call centres in Indian cities such as Bangalore. Other developing markets include pharmaceutical and biotechnology research. Currently, the majority of top American companies send some of their IT work to India, and there is little evidence of a slowdown in this trend.
The business world is also looking in India’s direction. Graduates of the nation’s business programs are in high demand among multinational corporations, with each graduating class commanding a higher average salary than the one before. Those who complete MBA degrees at schools such as the Indian Institute of Management can now expect starting salaries ranging from \$75,000 (USD) at Indian firms to over \$200,000 outside the country. This is comparable to graduates of top American business schools such as Harvard, Stanford and Dartmouth—testimony to the market value of Indian talent in this area of study. As its clout has grown, India has placed a high priority on improving its military capabilities as well. New Delhi has not joined 187 other nations in signing the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), and appeared on the world’s radar screen as a nuclear-armed nation in May 1998, with the detonation of five warheads in the desert near the border of Pakistan. This disturbed many governments around the globe, naturally including that of Pakistan, which responded with nuclear tests of its own.
This stand-off was the turning point that began India’s pursuit of a full-fledged nuclear weapons program. According toThe Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, additional nuclear missile tests occurred in the summer of 2004; since then, the Indian Defense Ministry has earmarked $2 billion annually to build 300 to 400 weapons over the next 5 to 7 years.
India maintains a “no first strike” nuclear policy, and asserts that it only seeks enough nuclear weaponry to effectively deter aggressors. The U.S. President George W. Bush, during a March 2006 visit with the Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, announced cooperation between the two countries on civilian nuclear programs and had previously called India a “responsible” nuclear nation (Der Spiegel). These measures drew an American diplomatic line between India and other nations that have nixed participation in the NPT, such as North Korea and Iran. Whatever its nuclear aspirations, the country has a long military shopping list. Last year, it announced plans to build the first aircraft carrier ever put to sea by a developing nation, and to lease two nuclear submarines from Russia. America has openly discussed the sale of naval vessels, combat aircraft, patrol aircraft and helicopters to India. One former U.S. ambassador to India opined, “Of course, we should sell advanced weaponry to India. The millionman Indian army actually fights, unlike the post-modern militaries of many of our European allies”. Many have compared India’s pattern of growth to its neighbour, China. The countries have much in common— physical borders, immense populations, similar challenges, ancient civilisations and quickly-rising economies. India also measures itself against China, coveting its economic power and international standing, including its permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council.
Though a degree of tension does remain between the two nations, with lingering memories of the brief 1962 war in which China soundly defeated India, the relationship between these two Asian giants is warming up. Trade between them is now increasing at a vigorous pace, and diplomatic relations are at a post-1962 highpoint. Chinese Prime Minister WenJiabao, during a recent visit to New Delhi, hailed cooperation between the two nations as the driving force of a new “Asian Century.” Indian Prime Minister Singh spoke of the potential for India and China to rearrange the world order by working together. Many have pointed out that their economic strengths seem to be tailor-made for a partnership. India seeks to be a major player in the computer software world in the same way that China is in the area of hardware. Cooperation between Beijing and New Delhi could prove a dominant force in the information technology market.
Both nations have a voracious appetite for natural resources, and a recent energy deal neatly symbolized the new Sino-Indian dynamic: India acquired a 20% share in the development of the largest onshore oil field in Iran. The venture happens to be operated and 50% owned by Sinopec—China’s state-run oil company.

However, India could seek to undercut China’s manufacturing prices (as China did with many Southeast Asian countries in the 1990s). But it is more likely to pursue a different segment of the world market by producing higherquality goods, as well as entirely different products.

Time will tell exactly how the relationship will mix competition and cooperation. These two nations both aspire to “first-world” status—and economic gains could be the incentive for a more tightly allied Asia.

With its newfound power, India faces a dilemma: Should it ultimately pursue closer ties with Western nations or with other Asian countries?

After India gained independence, its first Prime Minister spoke of an Asian renaissance, envisioning a tightly bound continent changing the post-World War II landscape. Though premature at the time, the idea is now more feasible than any time since the Cold War era. Along with the improving relations with China, India is also friendly with Russia and Japan. And, as of 2004, the value of India’s trade with other Asian nations surpassed that of exchange with the United States and Western Europe put together.
But the United States—after courting India’s arch-rival Pakistan as an ally in the war on terror after the September 11 attacks—is now distancing itself somewhat from the current Islamabad regime led by Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, focusing on India instead. India’s common ground with the U.S. includes liberal democratic government, capitalism and, among the more educated urban residents, the English language.
       However, America’s courting of India is viewed by some as a way to limit and contain Chinese influence in Asia. Some Indians resent this perception of their nation as a pawn of the U.S. Though they appreciate the American lifestyle and culture, much of the Indian population still sees this lone superpower as a bully. While it may be able to dance with both partners alternately for a while, India will eventually be forced to choose. Which way will this nation turn? We need not merely guess where world events will ultimately lead. While many of the details remain to be seen, the overall framework of the future has been recorded in advance in one book—The Holy Bible.
       In nations such as India, the size of population alone pulls them toward superpower status. Bible prophecy describes global power blocs—superpowers, or groups of superpowers—that will be prominent at the end of the age, shortly before Jesus Christ returns. These powers will be based in the north (Europe), the south (the Arab world), and the “kings of the East”—a group of Asian nations that will band together, eventually fielding a standing army of two hundred million!
The nations of the West, including the United States, are headed for hard times as a result of their national and personal sins against the God that inspired The Bible. He reveals that they will be forsaken by their allies, called “lovers” in Scripture:
“And when you are spoiled, what will you do? Though you clothe yourself with crimson, though you deck yourself with ornaments of gold, though you rend your face with painting, in vain shall you make yourself fair; your lovers will despise you, they will seek your life…All your lovers have forgotten you; they seek you not; for I have wounded you with the wound of an enemy, with the chastisement of a cruel one, for the multitude of your iniquity; because your sins were increased”. India is today one of these “lovers,” but one that will soon prove to be something very different. So will other nations that Western countries now consider to be allies. Keep watching India’s growth toward superpower status—just one part of the inevitable rise of Asia!

Why did Swam leave his friend Mohan in the waters?

Directions: Read the passage and answer the question.

It was Sunday. As usual, there was a great rush of merry makers who had come to the river to swim or to bathe. Those who knew how to swim were jumping into the water from the high bridge or the banks of the deep river. Mohan did not know how to swim so he was merely watching others who were enjoying the fun of swimming. However on the insistence of his friend Swam, he sat on his shoulders and both jumped into the water. Unable to carry Mohan along, Swam left him in the flowing water. Mohan shouted for help. There were so many swimmers but nobody came to his rescue since they were indifferent to the plight of a stranger. I had just reached there, so I was in my full dress. Without undressing I jumped into the river and swam up to the drowning boy. Holding his left arm, I brought him out of water in a way that he might not hinder me from swimming safely. The boy was saved which won me great applause from the people. I had jumped into the water without any fear or hesitation as I knew the art of saving drowning people. I had already saved a few lives from drowning.

Why did Swam jump into the water carrying Mohan on his shoulders?

Directions: Read the passage and answer the question.

It was Sunday. As usual, there was a great rush of merry makers who had come to the river to swim or to bathe. Those who knew how to swim were jumping into the water from the high bridge or the banks of the deep river. Mohan did not know how to swim so he was merely watching others who were enjoying the fun of swimming. However on the insistence of his friend Swam, he sat on his shoulders and both jumped into the water. Unable to carry Mohan along, Swam left him in the flowing water. Mohan shouted for help. There were so many swimmers but nobody came to his rescue since they were indifferent to the plight of a stranger. I had just reached there, so I was in my full dress. Without undressing I jumped into the river and swam up to the drowning boy. Holding his left arm, I brought him out of water in a way that he might not hinder me from swimming safely. The boy was saved which won me great applause from the people. I had jumped into the water without any fear or hesitation as I knew the art of saving drowning people. I had already saved a few lives from drowning.

Why did the writer jump into the river without any fear or hesitation?

Directions: Read the passage and answer the question.

It was Sunday. As usual, there was a great rush of merry makers who had come to the river to swim or to bathe. Those who knew how to swim were jumping into the water from the high bridge or the banks of the deep river. Mohan did not know how to swim so he was merely watching others who were enjoying the fun of swimming. However on the insistence of his friend Swam, he sat on his shoulders and both jumped into the water. Unable to carry Mohan along, Swam left him in the flowing water. Mohan shouted for help. There were so many swimmers but nobody came to his rescue since they were indifferent to the plight of a stranger. I had just reached there, so I was in my full dress. Without undressing I jumped into the river and swam up to the drowning boy. Holding his left arm, I brought him out of water in a way that he might not hinder me from swimming safely. The boy was saved which won me great applause from the people. I had jumped into the water without any fear or hesitation as I knew the art of saving drowning people. I had already saved a few lives from drowning.

Mr. Sharma is most probably working as

Directions: Read the passage and answer the question.

The pre-historic man preferred this area as three of his primary needs — water, raw material for tool making and game in the thick jungles, were available here in plenty. Mr. Sharma found sites on top of hills where huge boulders have been cut flat. These flat rocks were found in a round formation. Probably they sat on these and there was a fire in the middle. It was also a site where the tools were made. It was like a national pastime. They made tools to throw at animals. There was little chance of killing them with one tool. Mr. Sharma says there are strong chances of finding fossils in the area.

The demand for freedom became a ‘great force’. What is the most likely reason for it?

Directions: Read the passage and answer the question.

A whole generation of Indians gave up everything and spent their lives in fighting the British in Gandhi’s way, without hurting, without violence, without hatred. The hope that India would one day be free kept them going through very difficult times and gave them courage. When millions of people want the same thing very much, it is a great force which even the most powerful army cannot oppose.

Which of the following best expresses the main idea of the passage?

Directions: Read the passage and answer the question.

In nearly all human populations a majority of individuals can taste the artificially synthesized chemical phenylthiocarbonide (PTC). However, the percentage varies dramatically – from as low as 60% in India to as high as 95% in Africa. That this polymorphism is observed in non - human primates as well indicates a long evolutionary history which although obviously not acting on PTC, might reflect evolutionary selection for taste discrimination of other, more significant bitter substances, such as certain toxic plants. A somewhat more puzzling human polymorphism is the genetic variability in earwax, or cerumen which is observed in two varieties. Among European populations 90% of individuals have a sticky yellow variety rather than a dry, gray one, whereas in northern China these numbers are approximately the reverse. Perhaps like PTC variability, cerumen is an incidental expression of something more adaptively significant. Indeed, the observed relationship between cerumen and odorous bodily secretions denote that during the course of human evolution, genes affecting body secretions, including cerumen, came under selective influence.

According to the passage, which of the following has NOT contributed to the popular image of Tsavo lions as savage creatures?

Directions: Answer the question based on the following passage.

Fifty feet away three male lions lay by the road. They didn’t appear to have a hair on their heads. Noting the colour of their noses (leonine noses darken as they age, from pink to black), Craig estimated that they were six years old—young adults. “This is wonderful!” he said, after staring at them for several moments. “This is what we came to see. They really are maneless.” Craig, a professor at the University of Minnesota, is arguably the leading expert on the majestic Serengeti lion, whose head is mantled in long, thick hair. He and Peyton West, a doctOral student who has been working with him in Tanzania, had never seen the Tsavo lions that live some 200 miles east of the Serengeti. The scientists had partly suspected that the maneless males were adolescents mistaken for adults by amateur observers. Now they knew better.
The Tsavo research expedition was mostly Peyton’s show. She had spent several years in Tanzania, compiling the data she needed to answer a question that ought to have been answered long ago: Why do lions have manes? It’s the only cat, wild or domestic, that displays such ornamentation. In Tsavo she was attacking the riddle from the opposite angle. Why do its lions not have manes? (Some “maneless” lions in Tsavo East do have partial manes, but they rarely attain the regal glory of the Serengeti lions’.) Does environmental adaptation account for the trait? Are the lions of Tsavo, as some people believe, a distinct subspecies of their Serengeti cousins?
The Serengeti lions have been under continuous observation for more than 35 years, beginning with George Schaller’s pioneering work in the 1960s. But the lions in Tsavo, Kenya’s oldest and largest protected ecosystem, have hardly been studied. Consequently, legends have grown up around them. Not only do they look different, according to the myths, theybehave differently, displaying greater cunning and aggressiveness. “Remember too,” Kenya: The Rough Guide warns, “Tsavo’s lions have a reputation for ferocity.” Their fearsome image became well-known in 1898, when two males stalled construction of what is now Kenya Railways by allegedly killing and eating 135 Indian and African laborers. A British Army officer in charge of building a railroad bridge over the Tsavo River, Lt. Col. J. H. Patterson, spent nine months pursuing the pair before he brought them to bay and killed them. Stuffed and mounted, they now glare at visitors to the Field Museum in Chicago. Patterson’s account of the leonine reign of terror, The Man-Eaters of Tsavo, was an international best-seller when published in 1907. Still in print, the book has made Tsavo’s lions notorious. That annoys some scientists. “People don’t want to give up on mythology,” Dennis King told me one day. The zoologist has been working in Tsavo off and on for four years. “I am so sick of this man-eater business. Patterson made a helluva lot of money off that story, but Tsavo’s lions are no more likely to turn man-eater than lions from elsewhere.”
But tales of their savagery and wiliness don’t all come from sensationalist authors looking to make a buck. Tsavo lions are generally larger than lions elsewhere, enabling them to take down the predominant prey animal in Tsavo, the Cape buffalo, one of the strongest, most aggressive animals of Earth. The buffalo don’t give up easily: They often kill or severely injure an attacking lion, and a wounded lion might be more likely to turn to cattle and humans for food.
And other prey is less abundant in Tsavo than in other traditional lion haunts. A hungry lion is more likely to attack humans. Safari guides and Kenya Wildlife Service rangers tell of lions attacking Land Rovers, raiding camps, stalking tourists. Tsavo is a tough neighborhood, they say, and it breeds tougher lions.
But are they really tougher? And if so, is there any connection between their manelessness and their ferocity? An intriguing hypothesis was advanced two years ago by Gnoske and Peterhans: Tsavo lions may be similar to the unmaned cave lions of the Pleistocene. The Serengeti variety is among the most evolved of the species—the latest model, so to speak—while certain morphological differences in Tsavo lions (bigger bodies, smaller skulls, and maybe even lack of a mane) suggest that they are closer to the primitive ancestor of all lions. Craig and Peyton had serious doubts about this idea, but admitted that Tsavo lions pose a mystery to science.

The book 'Man-Eaters of Tsavo' annoys some scientists because

Directions: Answer the question based on the following passage.

Fifty feet away three male lions lay by the road. They didn’t appear to have a hair on their heads. Noting the colour of their noses (leonine noses darken as they age, from pink to black), Craig estimated that they were six years old—young adults. “This is wonderful!” he said, after staring at them for several moments. “This is what we came to see. They really are maneless.” Craig, a professor at the University of Minnesota, is arguably the leading expert on the majestic Serengeti lion, whose head is mantled in long, thick hair. He and Peyton West, a doctOral student who has been working with him in Tanzania, had never seen the Tsavo lions that live some 200 miles east of the Serengeti. The scientists had partly suspected that the maneless males were adolescents mistaken for adults by amateur observers. Now they knew better.
The Tsavo research expedition was mostly Peyton’s show. She had spent several years in Tanzania, compiling the data she needed to answer a question that ought to have been answered long ago: Why do lions have manes? It’s the only cat, wild or domestic, that displays such ornamentation. In Tsavo she was attacking the riddle from the opposite angle. Why do its lions not have manes? (Some “maneless” lions in Tsavo East do have partial manes, but they rarely attain the regal glory of the Serengeti lions’.) Does environmental adaptation account for the trait? Are the lions of Tsavo, as some people believe, a distinct subspecies of their Serengeti cousins?
The Serengeti lions have been under continuous observation for more than 35 years, beginning with George Schaller’s pioneering work in the 1960s. But the lions in Tsavo, Kenya’s oldest and largest protected ecosystem, have hardly been studied. Consequently, legends have grown up around them. Not only do they look different, according to the myths, theybehave differently, displaying greater cunning and aggressiveness. “Remember too,” Kenya: The Rough Guide warns, “Tsavo’s lions have a reputation for ferocity.” Their fearsome image became well-known in 1898, when two males stalled construction of what is now Kenya Railways by allegedly killing and eating 135 Indian and African laborers. A British Army officer in charge of building a railroad bridge over the Tsavo River, Lt. Col. J. H. Patterson, spent nine months pursuing the pair before he brought them to bay and killed them. Stuffed and mounted, they now glare at visitors to the Field Museum in Chicago. Patterson’s account of the leonine reign of terror, The Man-Eaters of Tsavo, was an international best-seller when published in 1907. Still in print, the book has made Tsavo’s lions notorious. That annoys some scientists. “People don’t want to give up on mythology,” Dennis King told me one day. The zoologist has been working in Tsavo off and on for four years. “I am so sick of this man-eater business. Patterson made a helluva lot of money off that story, but Tsavo’s lions are no more likely to turn man-eater than lions from elsewhere.”
But tales of their savagery and wiliness don’t all come from sensationalist authors looking to make a buck. Tsavo lions are generally larger than lions elsewhere, enabling them to take down the predominant prey animal in Tsavo, the Cape buffalo, one of the strongest, most aggressive animals of Earth. The buffalo don’t give up easily: They often kill or severely injure an attacking lion, and a wounded lion might be more likely to turn to cattle and humans for food.
And other prey is less abundant in Tsavo than in other traditional lion haunts. A hungry lion is more likely to attack humans. Safari guides and Kenya Wildlife Service rangers tell of lions attacking Land Rovers, raiding camps, stalking tourists. Tsavo is a tough neighborhood, they say, and it breeds tougher lions.
But are they really tougher? And if so, is there any connection between their manelessness and their ferocity? An intriguing hypothesis was advanced two years ago by Gnoske and Peterhans: Tsavo lions may be similar to the unmaned cave lions of the Pleistocene. The Serengeti variety is among the most evolved of the species—the latest model, so to speak—while certain morphological differences in Tsavo lions (bigger bodies, smaller skulls, and maybe even lack of a mane) suggest that they are closer to the primitive ancestor of all lions. Craig and Peyton had serious doubts about this idea, but admitted that Tsavo lions pose a mystery to science.

The sentence which concludes the first paragraph, “Now they know better”, implies that

Directions: Answer the question based on the following passage.

Fifty feet away three male lions lay by the road. They didn’t appear to have a hair on their heads. Noting the colour of their noses (leonine noses darken as they age, from pink to black), Craig estimated that they were six years old—young adults. “This is wonderful!” he said, after staring at them for several moments. “This is what we came to see. They really are maneless.” Craig, a professor at the University of Minnesota, is arguably the leading expert on the majestic Serengeti lion, whose head is mantled in long, thick hair. He and Peyton West, a doctOral student who has been working with him in Tanzania, had never seen the Tsavo lions that live some 200 miles east of the Serengeti. The scientists had partly suspected that the maneless males were adolescents mistaken for adults by amateur observers. Now they knew better.
The Tsavo research expedition was mostly Peyton’s show. She had spent several years in Tanzania, compiling the data she needed to answer a question that ought to have been answered long ago: Why do lions have manes? It’s the only cat, wild or domestic, that displays such ornamentation. In Tsavo she was attacking the riddle from the opposite angle. Why do its lions not have manes? (Some “maneless” lions in Tsavo East do have partial manes, but they rarely attain the regal glory of the Serengeti lions’.) Does environmental adaptation account for the trait? Are the lions of Tsavo, as some people believe, a distinct subspecies of their Serengeti cousins?
The Serengeti lions have been under continuous observation for more than 35 years, beginning with George Schaller’s pioneering work in the 1960s. But the lions in Tsavo, Kenya’s oldest and largest protected ecosystem, have hardly been studied. Consequently, legends have grown up around them. Not only do they look different, according to the myths, theybehave differently, displaying greater cunning and aggressiveness. “Remember too,” Kenya: The Rough Guide warns, “Tsavo’s lions have a reputation for ferocity.” Their fearsome image became well-known in 1898, when two males stalled construction of what is now Kenya Railways by allegedly killing and eating 135 Indian and African laborers. A British Army officer in charge of building a railroad bridge over the Tsavo River, Lt. Col. J. H. Patterson, spent nine months pursuing the pair before he brought them to bay and killed them. Stuffed and mounted, they now glare at visitors to the Field Museum in Chicago. Patterson’s account of the leonine reign of terror, The Man-Eaters of Tsavo, was an international best-seller when published in 1907. Still in print, the book has made Tsavo’s lions notorious. That annoys some scientists. “People don’t want to give up on mythology,” Dennis King told me one day. The zoologist has been working in Tsavo off and on for four years. “I am so sick of this man-eater business. Patterson made a helluva lot of money off that story, but Tsavo’s lions are no more likely to turn man-eater than lions from elsewhere.”
But tales of their savagery and wiliness don’t all come from sensationalist authors looking to make a buck. Tsavo lions are generally larger than lions elsewhere, enabling them to take down the predominant prey animal in Tsavo, the Cape buffalo, one of the strongest, most aggressive animals of Earth. The buffalo don’t give up easily: They often kill or severely injure an attacking lion, and a wounded lion might be more likely to turn to cattle and humans for food.
And other prey is less abundant in Tsavo than in other traditional lion haunts. A hungry lion is more likely to attack humans. Safari guides and Kenya Wildlife Service rangers tell of lions attacking Land Rovers, raiding camps, stalking tourists. Tsavo is a tough neighborhood, they say, and it breeds tougher lions.
But are they really tougher? And if so, is there any connection between their manelessness and their ferocity? An intriguing hypothesis was advanced two years ago by Gnoske and Peterhans: Tsavo lions may be similar to the unmaned cave lions of the Pleistocene. The Serengeti variety is among the most evolved of the species—the latest model, so to speak—while certain morphological differences in Tsavo lions (bigger bodies, smaller skulls, and maybe even lack of a mane) suggest that they are closer to the primitive ancestor of all lions. Craig and Peyton had serious doubts about this idea, but admitted that Tsavo lions pose a mystery to science.

"The usual dour moral lessons were drawn." Which of the following would be the most likely dour lesson drawn upon Moliere's death?

Directions: Answer the question based on the following passage.

Among the considerable number of men dedicated to the task of keeping Louis XIV entertained, several met bizarre ends. In 1671 at Chantilly, the great chef Vatel, after providing the king and some 2,000 courtiers with three superb meals on the first day of their visit, killed himself on the next, when a consignment offish he had ordered failed to appear (it turned up shortly thereafter). Jean-Baptiste Lully, in charge of music for all the royal festivities, managed to stab himself in the foot with his conductor's baton while directing a performance of one of his own works in 1687; he died soon afterwards when gangrene set in.
Nothing, however, quite equals the death of Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, the self-styled sieur de Moliere. a man established by 1672 as actor/manager and chief playwright of la troupe du ropi, performing at the Palais Royal in Paris and much in demand at court. But might it not be a bit dangerous to counterfeit death? Moliere, as Argan, the hypochondriac protagonist of his last comedy, Le Malade Imaginaire, enquired, when about to do just that, during the play's fourth performance on February 17th, 1673. No, no, the maid Toinette reassured him, what danger could there be? But Moliere did, in fact, die: not actually on stage - though he finished Argan's part with considerable difficulty - but an hour or two later at home. Predictably, a strictly Catholic France where actors were excommunicated and refused burial in consecrated ground (though churchmen patronised the theatre and wrote plays themselves), the usual dour moral lessons were drawn.
The stage chair in which Moliere as Argan was stricken in earnest, not in jest, can still be seen on permanent display in the upper lobby of the Comedie Francaise - the theatre which, in effect, he founded. It is, apart from the plays themselves and their prefaces, almost the only tangible relic of a man much written about by friends and enemies during and immediately after his lifetime, who nevertheless remains in many ways mysterious, despite endlessly proliferating scholarly and critical research. Virginia Scott, author of the latest attempt at a biography, is well aware of the difficulties. No one can disentangle legend from fact, fiction from truth - not even in the brief life attached to the collected edition of Moliere's works produced by his associate La Grange in 1682, or in the 1705 biography by Grimmarest. Moliere himself left no letters, no diaries, no memoirs. None of the various houses in which he is said to have lived remains, nor do any of his personal possessions. Not only do his contemporaries provide ambiguous and conflicting reports, but the basic facts are wanting. Shakespeareans may complain about a certain paucity of information, but at least they know where their man was buried and whom he married. Molieristes do not.
Ms. Scott is engagingly candid about her biographical method. "My agenda is to express those intersections between myself and the past that I experience imaginatively...I order what I know or believe I know so as to create characters whom I choose to call Moliere and Madeleine - who could have made with some degree of probability the choices I believe the real Moliere and Madeleine to have made." So she is free to decide that Armande Bejart, the teenager Moliere married in 1662, was indeed the daughter of his former mistress Madeleine Bejart by the Comte de Modene, rather than her youngest sister. (But not, as some of his enemies suggested, also Moliere’s daughter.) As to where and when the respectable Jean-Baptiste Poquelin first met the distinctly bohemian Madeleine, and how he was drawn away from the solid family upholstery business into the theatre, she does not pretend to offer more than speculation. Like everyone who writes about Moliere, Ms. Scott combs the plays themselves for clues about his private life and comes up with suggestions that mayor may not be right. Most innovative of all, perhaps, is her hypothesis that Moliere's relationship with his young protégé Baron was homoerotic - though even that was hinted at by the more malicious of his contemporaries.
The last biography of Moliere published in English, John Palmer's Moliere (1930; reprinted in 1970), is still worth reading. To compare it, however, with Ms. Scott's is to realise how enormously attitudes have changed during the intervening years. Nervous even about Moliere's illicit relationship with Madeleine, Palmer could not bring himself to say more than that probably they had an affair. Over Baron's possibly sexual appeal to Moliere he maintained total silence. Also very much of its period was his slight regard for that improvised Italian theatre which provided Moliere with many dramatic types, and his contempt for lavish baroque spectacle of the kind that Louis XIV loved and on which Moliere wasted his talents. The ballet de cour and comedies-ballets are now regarded with far more interest and respect than was the case in 1930 (as indeed are the court masques that Ben Jonson and Inigo Jones created for James I). Both the delicious Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme and Le Malade Imaginaire are, after all, comedies-ballets - a category that a more flexible 21st-century idea of theatre can once again accommodate.
Ms. Scott provides valuable correctives here. The strength of her book (as might be expected from the author of The Commedia dell' Arte in Paris, 1990) lies less in its portrait of Moliere himself than in the densely researched and persuasive background against which she is able to situate him. This is made up of families and places (she is particularly good on the 13 years during which Moliere and his troupe wandered the French provinces before returning to Paris), while also including portraits of his enemies, as well as eminent friends such as Boileau, La Fontaine and Racine. She does not offer much in the way of commentary on the plays themselves. What she does do is arrestingly illuminate the complex world of theatre and court, both in Paris and elsewhere, that finally constitutes almost all that can really be known of Moliere's life.

It can be inferred from the passage that Moliere was

I. a play wright II. an actor III. a novelist IV. a poet

Directions: Answer the question based on the following passage.

Among the considerable number of men dedicated to the task of keeping Louis XIV entertained, several met bizarre ends. In 1671 at Chantilly, the great chef Vatel, after providing the king and some 2,000 courtiers with three superb meals on the first day of their visit, killed himself on the next, when a consignment offish he had ordered failed to appear (it turned up shortly thereafter). Jean-Baptiste Lully, in charge of music for all the royal festivities, managed to stab himself in the foot with his conductor's baton while directing a performance of one of his own works in 1687; he died soon afterwards when gangrene set in.
Nothing, however, quite equals the death of Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, the self-styled sieur de Moliere. a man established by 1672 as actor/manager and chief playwright of la troupe du ropi, performing at the Palais Royal in Paris and much in demand at court. But might it not be a bit dangerous to counterfeit death? Moliere, as Argan, the hypochondriac protagonist of his last comedy, Le Malade Imaginaire, enquired, when about to do just that, during the play's fourth performance on February 17th, 1673. No, no, the maid Toinette reassured him, what danger could there be? But Moliere did, in fact, die: not actually on stage - though he finished Argan's part with considerable difficulty - but an hour or two later at home. Predictably, a strictly Catholic France where actors were excommunicated and refused burial in consecrated ground (though churchmen patronised the theatre and wrote plays themselves), the usual dour moral lessons were drawn.
The stage chair in which Moliere as Argan was stricken in earnest, not in jest, can still be seen on permanent display in the upper lobby of the Comedie Francaise - the theatre which, in effect, he founded. It is, apart from the plays themselves and their prefaces, almost the only tangible relic of a man much written about by friends and enemies during and immediately after his lifetime, who nevertheless remains in many ways mysterious, despite endlessly proliferating scholarly and critical research. Virginia Scott, author of the latest attempt at a biography, is well aware of the difficulties. No one can disentangle legend from fact, fiction from truth - not even in the brief life attached to the collected edition of Moliere's works produced by his associate La Grange in 1682, or in the 1705 biography by Grimmarest. Moliere himself left no letters, no diaries, no memoirs. None of the various houses in which he is said to have lived remains, nor do any of his personal possessions. Not only do his contemporaries provide ambiguous and conflicting reports, but the basic facts are wanting. Shakespeareans may complain about a certain paucity of information, but at least they know where their man was buried and whom he married. Molieristes do not.
Ms. Scott is engagingly candid about her biographical method. "My agenda is to express those intersections between myself and the past that I experience imaginatively...I order what I know or believe I know so as to create characters whom I choose to call Moliere and Madeleine - who could have made with some degree of probability the choices I believe the real Moliere and Madeleine to have made." So she is free to decide that Armande Bejart, the teenager Moliere married in 1662, was indeed the daughter of his former mistress Madeleine Bejart by the Comte de Modene, rather than her youngest sister. (But not, as some of his enemies suggested, also Moliere’s daughter.) As to where and when the respectable Jean-Baptiste Poquelin first met the distinctly bohemian Madeleine, and how he was drawn away from the solid family upholstery business into the theatre, she does not pretend to offer more than speculation. Like everyone who writes about Moliere, Ms. Scott combs the plays themselves for clues about his private life and comes up with suggestions that mayor may not be right. Most innovative of all, perhaps, is her hypothesis that Moliere's relationship with his young protégé Baron was homoerotic - though even that was hinted at by the more malicious of his contemporaries.
The last biography of Moliere published in English, John Palmer's Moliere (1930; reprinted in 1970), is still worth reading. To compare it, however, with Ms. Scott's is to realise how enormously attitudes have changed during the intervening years. Nervous even about Moliere's illicit relationship with Madeleine, Palmer could not bring himself to say more than that probably they had an affair. Over Baron's possibly sexual appeal to Moliere he maintained total silence. Also very much of its period was his slight regard for that improvised Italian theatre which provided Moliere with many dramatic types, and his contempt for lavish baroque spectacle of the kind that Louis XIV loved and on which Moliere wasted his talents. The ballet de cour and comedies-ballets are now regarded with far more interest and respect than was the case in 1930 (as indeed are the court masques that Ben Jonson and Inigo Jones created for James I). Both the delicious Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme and Le Malade Imaginaire are, after all, comedies-ballets - a category that a more flexible 21st-century idea of theatre can once again accommodate.
Ms. Scott provides valuable correctives here. The strength of her book (as might be expected from the author of The Commedia dell' Arte in Paris, 1990) lies less in its portrait of Moliere himself than in the densely researched and persuasive background against which she is able to situate him. This is made up of families and places (she is particularly good on the 13 years during which Moliere and his troupe wandered the French provinces before returning to Paris), while also including portraits of his enemies, as well as eminent friends such as Boileau, La Fontaine and Racine. She does not offer much in the way of commentary on the plays themselves. What she does do is arrestingly illuminate the complex world of theatre and court, both in Paris and elsewhere, that finally constitutes almost all that can really be known of Moliere's life.

We can say that Ms Scott's biographical method is

Directions: Answer the question based on the following passage.

Among the considerable number of men dedicated to the task of keeping Louis XIV entertained, several met bizarre ends. In 1671 at Chantilly, the great chef Vatel, after providing the king and some 2,000 courtiers with three superb meals on the first day of their visit, killed himself on the next, when a consignment offish he had ordered failed to appear (it turned up shortly thereafter). Jean-Baptiste Lully, in charge of music for all the royal festivities, managed to stab himself in the foot with his conductor's baton while directing a performance of one of his own works in 1687; he died soon afterwards when gangrene set in.
Nothing, however, quite equals the death of Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, the self-styled sieur de Moliere. a man established by 1672 as actor/manager and chief playwright of la troupe du ropi, performing at the Palais Royal in Paris and much in demand at court. But might it not be a bit dangerous to counterfeit death? Moliere, as Argan, the hypochondriac protagonist of his last comedy, Le Malade Imaginaire, enquired, when about to do just that, during the play's fourth performance on February 17th, 1673. No, no, the maid Toinette reassured him, what danger could there be? But Moliere did, in fact, die: not actually on stage - though he finished Argan's part with considerable difficulty - but an hour or two later at home. Predictably, a strictly Catholic France where actors were excommunicated and refused burial in consecrated ground (though churchmen patronised the theatre and wrote plays themselves), the usual dour moral lessons were drawn.
The stage chair in which Moliere as Argan was stricken in earnest, not in jest, can still be seen on permanent display in the upper lobby of the Comedie Francaise - the theatre which, in effect, he founded. It is, apart from the plays themselves and their prefaces, almost the only tangible relic of a man much written about by friends and enemies during and immediately after his lifetime, who nevertheless remains in many ways mysterious, despite endlessly proliferating scholarly and critical research. Virginia Scott, author of the latest attempt at a biography, is well aware of the difficulties. No one can disentangle legend from fact, fiction from truth - not even in the brief life attached to the collected edition of Moliere's works produced by his associate La Grange in 1682, or in the 1705 biography by Grimmarest. Moliere himself left no letters, no diaries, no memoirs. None of the various houses in which he is said to have lived remains, nor do any of his personal possessions. Not only do his contemporaries provide ambiguous and conflicting reports, but the basic facts are wanting. Shakespeareans may complain about a certain paucity of information, but at least they know where their man was buried and whom he married. Molieristes do not.
Ms. Scott is engagingly candid about her biographical method. "My agenda is to express those intersections between myself and the past that I experience imaginatively...I order what I know or believe I know so as to create characters whom I choose to call Moliere and Madeleine - who could have made with some degree of probability the choices I believe the real Moliere and Madeleine to have made." So she is free to decide that Armande Bejart, the teenager Moliere married in 1662, was indeed the daughter of his former mistress Madeleine Bejart by the Comte de Modene, rather than her youngest sister. (But not, as some of his enemies suggested, also Moliere’s daughter.) As to where and when the respectable Jean-Baptiste Poquelin first met the distinctly bohemian Madeleine, and how he was drawn away from the solid family upholstery business into the theatre, she does not pretend to offer more than speculation. Like everyone who writes about Moliere, Ms. Scott combs the plays themselves for clues about his private life and comes up with suggestions that mayor may not be right. Most innovative of all, perhaps, is her hypothesis that Moliere's relationship with his young protégé Baron was homoerotic - though even that was hinted at by the more malicious of his contemporaries.
The last biography of Moliere published in English, John Palmer's Moliere (1930; reprinted in 1970), is still worth reading. To compare it, however, with Ms. Scott's is to realise how enormously attitudes have changed during the intervening years. Nervous even about Moliere's illicit relationship with Madeleine, Palmer could not bring himself to say more than that probably they had an affair. Over Baron's possibly sexual appeal to Moliere he maintained total silence. Also very much of its period was his slight regard for that improvised Italian theatre which provided Moliere with many dramatic types, and his contempt for lavish baroque spectacle of the kind that Louis XIV loved and on which Moliere wasted his talents. The ballet de cour and comedies-ballets are now regarded with far more interest and respect than was the case in 1930 (as indeed are the court masques that Ben Jonson and Inigo Jones created for James I). Both the delicious Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme and Le Malade Imaginaire are, after all, comedies-ballets - a category that a more flexible 21st-century idea of theatre can once again accommodate.
Ms. Scott provides valuable correctives here. The strength of her book (as might be expected from the author of The Commedia dell' Arte in Paris, 1990) lies less in its portrait of Moliere himself than in the densely researched and persuasive background against which she is able to situate him. This is made up of families and places (she is particularly good on the 13 years during which Moliere and his troupe wandered the French provinces before returning to Paris), while also including portraits of his enemies, as well as eminent friends such as Boileau, La Fontaine and Racine. She does not offer much in the way of commentary on the plays themselves. What she does do is arrestingly illuminate the complex world of theatre and court, both in Paris and elsewhere, that finally constitutes almost all that can really be known of Moliere's life.

What is/are the main difficulty(ies) in knowing about the life of Moliere according to the author?

Directions: Answer the question based on the following passage.

Among the considerable number of men dedicated to the task of keeping Louis XIV entertained, several met bizarre ends. In 1671 at Chantilly, the great chef Vatel, after providing the king and some 2,000 courtiers with three superb meals on the first day of their visit, killed himself on the next, when a consignment offish he had ordered failed to appear (it turned up shortly thereafter). Jean-Baptiste Lully, in charge of music for all the royal festivities, managed to stab himself in the foot with his conductor's baton while directing a performance of one of his own works in 1687; he died soon afterwards when gangrene set in.
Nothing, however, quite equals the death of Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, the self-styled sieur de Moliere. a man established by 1672 as actor/manager and chief playwright of la troupe du ropi, performing at the Palais Royal in Paris and much in demand at court. But might it not be a bit dangerous to counterfeit death? Moliere, as Argan, the hypochondriac protagonist of his last comedy, Le Malade Imaginaire, enquired, when about to do just that, during the play's fourth performance on February 17th, 1673. No, no, the maid Toinette reassured him, what danger could there be? But Moliere did, in fact, die: not actually on stage - though he finished Argan's part with considerable difficulty - but an hour or two later at home. Predictably, a strictly Catholic France where actors were excommunicated and refused burial in consecrated ground (though churchmen patronised the theatre and wrote plays themselves), the usual dour moral lessons were drawn.
The stage chair in which Moliere as Argan was stricken in earnest, not in jest, can still be seen on permanent display in the upper lobby of the Comedie Francaise - the theatre which, in effect, he founded. It is, apart from the plays themselves and their prefaces, almost the only tangible relic of a man much written about by friends and enemies during and immediately after his lifetime, who nevertheless remains in many ways mysterious, despite endlessly proliferating scholarly and critical research. Virginia Scott, author of the latest attempt at a biography, is well aware of the difficulties. No one can disentangle legend from fact, fiction from truth - not even in the brief life attached to the collected edition of Moliere's works produced by his associate La Grange in 1682, or in the 1705 biography by Grimmarest. Moliere himself left no letters, no diaries, no memoirs. None of the various houses in which he is said to have lived remains, nor do any of his personal possessions. Not only do his contemporaries provide ambiguous and conflicting reports, but the basic facts are wanting. Shakespeareans may complain about a certain paucity of information, but at least they know where their man was buried and whom he married. Molieristes do not.
Ms. Scott is engagingly candid about her biographical method. "My agenda is to express those intersections between myself and the past that I experience imaginatively...I order what I know or believe I know so as to create characters whom I choose to call Moliere and Madeleine - who could have made with some degree of probability the choices I believe the real Moliere and Madeleine to have made." So she is free to decide that Armande Bejart, the teenager Moliere married in 1662, was indeed the daughter of his former mistress Madeleine Bejart by the Comte de Modene, rather than her youngest sister. (But not, as some of his enemies suggested, also Moliere’s daughter.) As to where and when the respectable Jean-Baptiste Poquelin first met the distinctly bohemian Madeleine, and how he was drawn away from the solid family upholstery business into the theatre, she does not pretend to offer more than speculation. Like everyone who writes about Moliere, Ms. Scott combs the plays themselves for clues about his private life and comes up with suggestions that mayor may not be right. Most innovative of all, perhaps, is her hypothesis that Moliere's relationship with his young protégé Baron was homoerotic - though even that was hinted at by the more malicious of his contemporaries.
The last biography of Moliere published in English, John Palmer's Moliere (1930; reprinted in 1970), is still worth reading. To compare it, however, with Ms. Scott's is to realise how enormously attitudes have changed during the intervening years. Nervous even about Moliere's illicit relationship with Madeleine, Palmer could not bring himself to say more than that probably they had an affair. Over Baron's possibly sexual appeal to Moliere he maintained total silence. Also very much of its period was his slight regard for that improvised Italian theatre which provided Moliere with many dramatic types, and his contempt for lavish baroque spectacle of the kind that Louis XIV loved and on which Moliere wasted his talents. The ballet de cour and comedies-ballets are now regarded with far more interest and respect than was the case in 1930 (as indeed are the court masques that Ben Jonson and Inigo Jones created for James I). Both the delicious Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme and Le Malade Imaginaire are, after all, comedies-ballets - a category that a more flexible 21st-century idea of theatre can once again accommodate.
Ms. Scott provides valuable correctives here. The strength of her book (as might be expected from the author of The Commedia dell' Arte in Paris, 1990) lies less in its portrait of Moliere himself than in the densely researched and persuasive background against which she is able to situate him. This is made up of families and places (she is particularly good on the 13 years during which Moliere and his troupe wandered the French provinces before returning to Paris), while also including portraits of his enemies, as well as eminent friends such as Boileau, La Fontaine and Racine. She does not offer much in the way of commentary on the plays themselves. What she does do is arrestingly illuminate the complex world of theatre and court, both in Paris and elsewhere, that finally constitutes almost all that can really be known of Moliere's life.