CAT Questions | CAT Reading Comprehension

The question is from CAT Reading Comprehension. RC for CAT. RC Passages that appear in the verbal section of CAT test on the Reading ability of the candidate. Solve CAT RC Passages to get more practice and 2IIMs CAT questions bank provides you with CAT questions that can help you gear for CAT Exam .

Question 2: Which of the following can be characterized as the main idea of the passage?

1. There could have been many Homers, old and often sightless wandering reciters of heroic legends.
2. Attributing the composition of the Iliad and Odyssey to one Homer is erroneous.
3. Both Iliad and Odyssey were created without recourse to writing.
4. The Iliad and the Odyssey are of distinct literary types, physical structure and style.

Explanatory Answer

Method of solving this CAT Question from Reading Comprehension:

The main idea of the passage is that the Iliad and Odyssey were composed by two distinct individuals differing in temperament and artistic accomplishment; probably both called Homer, practising the same traditional craft of oral composition and recitation.

Statement a - There could have been many Homers, old and often sightless wandering reciters of heroic legends.

While the above statement is true, this is not the main idea of the passage. The passage focuses on the 2 great epics in Western literature, Iliad and Odyssey and asserts that they were composed by two distinct individuals.

Statement b - Attributing the composition of the Iliad and Odyssey to one Homer is erroneous.

The above is clearly what the passage has been written to substantiate. This is the main idea of the passage.

Statement c - Both Iliad and Odyssey were created without recourse to writing.

The passage given discusses and proves this point. However, the author’s intention in talking about this is to show that there was an “illiterate environment� in Greece at the time the epics were created, which explains why there is no historical record about the two different Homers who composed them.

Statement d - The Iliad and the Odyssey are of distinct literary types, physical structure and style.

Again, while the above is true and explained in the passage, it is one aspect of the author’s argument that the epics ascribed to Homer were likely to have been composed by two different individuals of different temperaments and artistic style.

The question is "Choose the Correct option "

Hence, the answer is B

Choice B is the correct answer.