DOST Junior Level Science Scholarship (JLSS) Practice Exam

This item tests your ability to read poetry as social commentary through vivid imagery. The image of roaches circulating in the cupboards of the rich uses pests as a symbol of hidden problems within luxury life. Cupboards house food and signs of comfort, so roaches there suggest that abundance can come with unnoticed flaws, discomfort, or moral blemishes that wealth doesn’t remove. The contrast between opulence and something as nasty as cockroaches highlights a critique of affluence and suggests that privilege doesn’t guarantee cleanliness, security, or moral order. The focus on the rich is deliberate because the imagery targets wealth-related spaces and tensions; imagining the roaches in the cupboards of the poor or in more everyday settings wouldn’t carry the same social commentary.