Question:
To smell a rat
To smell a rat
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Associate “rat” with treachery in stories — spotting a “rat” means spotting betrayal.
Updated On: Aug 12, 2025
- To suspect a trick
- To detect a foul smell
- To behave like a rat
- To trust blindly
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The Correct Option is A
Solution and Explanation
“To smell a rat” means to sense something suspicious or deceitful.
It does not literally involve rodents — it’s about detecting dishonesty.
Hence, (a) is correct.
It does not literally involve rodents — it’s about detecting dishonesty.
Hence, (a) is correct.
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His subject-matter will be determined by the age he lives in — at least this is true in tumultuous, revolutionary ages like our own — but before he ever begins to write he will have acquired an emotional attitude from which he will never completely escape. It is his job to discipline his temperament, but if he escapes from his early influences altogether, he will have killed his impulse to write. I think there are four great motives for writing, at any rate for writing prose. They are: (i) Sheer egoism: Desire to seem clever, to be talked about, to be remembered after death, to get your own back on grown-ups who snubbed you in childhood; (ii) Aesthetic enthusiasm: Desire to share an experience which one feels is valuable and ought not to be missed (iii) Historical impulse: Desire to see things as they are, to find out true facts and store them up for the use of posterity (iv) Political purpose: Desire to push the world in a certain direction, to alter other people's idea of the kind of society that they should strive after.
[Extracted with edits from George Orwell's "Why I Write"]- CLAT - 2025
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