From passage: "The main motive for piracy has always been a combination of need and greed. Why toil away as a starving peasant in the 16th century when a successful pirate made up to £4,000 on each raid? Anyone could turn to freebooting if the rewards were worth the risk." Step-by-step process: The author uses a rhetorical question -> presents an obvious "choice" -> highlights how piracy became attractive compared to legal work -> this creates irony (the opposite of what we'd expect - illegal work being better than honest work) The sentence structure "Why do X when you could do Y?" -> shows the author pointing out how backwards the situation was -> making readers see the ironic contrast

Elimination process: Students often confuse ironic vs facetious vs analytical. Here's how to tell them apart: 🔴 Option 1 -> wrong emotion -> indignant means angry/upset, but author isn't mad about pirates getting rich - just explaining why people chose piracy 🟢 Option 2 -> correct tone -> ironic means pointing out something backwards or opposite from normal - here it's ironic that illegal work paid better than honest work 🟠 Option 3 -> partly right but wrong tone -> author IS analyzing, but the specific sentence tone is ironic, not just logical/analytical 🟠 Option 4 -> tone confusion -> facetious means mocking/sarcastic, but author isn't making fun of peasants - they're seriously showing why piracy was attractive Key difference: Ironic = pointing out something backwards/unexpected. Facetious = making jokes/being sarcastic. The author seriously explains why people chose piracy by showing the ironic situation where crime paid better than honest work.

CAT (VARC) PYQs

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