The following text is adapted from Kenneth Grahame's 1908 novel The Wind in the Willows. The Mole is dazed after briefly meeting a stranger while traveling with a friend.
[The] Mole stood still a moment, held in thought. As one wakened suddenly from a beautiful dream, who struggles to recall it, and can re-capture nothing but a dim sense of the beauty of it, the beauty! Till that, too, fades away in its turn.
As used in the text, what does the word "recall" most nearly mean?
Explanation
Context: The Mole, dazed after a brief encounter with a stranger, is compared to someone who wakes from a beautiful dream and tries to hold on to it.
Answer: B) Remember
Why? The simile defines the word through its own phrasing: the sleeper "struggles to recall it, and can re-capture nothing but a dim sense of the beauty." "Re-capture" and the fading impression show that recalling here means bringing an experience back to mind, and the struggle is to retain it before it slips away.
Traps:
- A) Overlook → means to ignore or miss, the opposite of the effortful struggling described.
- C) Deny → refusing to acknowledge the dream contradicts a sleeper who wants to keep hold of it.
- D) Begin → the dream has already ended; the passage is about retaining it, not starting it.