Why does the writer say the grandfather kept going to the harbour after his hands failed?

My grandfather kept his boat in the same corner of the harbour for forty years, and every morning he walked down to it whatever the weather. When the arthritis took his hands, he still went, sitting on an upturned crate with a flask of tea, watching the younger men prepare their nets. They teased him gently, calling him the harbourmaster, and he pretended to be annoyed. I did not understand then that the boat was not a vehicle but a kind of anchor, the one fixed point in a life that the sea had always taken away from him in small pieces. When he died, the crate was left where it was, and nobody liked to move it.

Answer and explanation

Correct answer: D. The boat gave him a fixed point in his life

  1. Step 1: The writer calls the boat an anchor. Step 2. It was the one fixed point in his life. Answer: it gave him a fixed point. Why not the others: these are not stated.

Practise more Reading for Understanding, Analysis and Evaluation.

Free questions with an explanation for every one, and full timed Scottish Highers mock tests.

Why does the writer say the grandfather… | Scottish Highers