PASSAGE 38

I notice nowadays a little girl at home always playing the school-game in a corner of the verandah but never without a flat, wooden foot-rule in hand which she flourishes menacingly at the pupils assembled in her phantasmagoric classroom. On investigation I found that the cane being discredited, has yielded place to the foot-rule, especially in,’ Convent’ schools the flat-rule has the advantage over the primitive birch of mauling without marking (which could count as an achievement in torturing technique) and it also possesses the innocent appearance of a nonviolent pedagogic equipment. A modern educator naturally, has to adapt his ways to modern circumstances, and put away obsolete weapons. The flat-scale is employed only at the primary stage; at higher levels of education, torments to a young soul are devised in subtler forms progressively: admissions, textbooks and examinations are the triple weapons in the hands of an educator today.

1. What are the subtler forms of torture at higher level used progressively?
A) Getting admission into college is a torture
B) Getting into colleges, getting textbooks and facing exams
C) Putting away the obsolete weapons like canes
D) Using examinations as a means of torture

2. What must have prompted the little girl to flourish the rule menacingly at the pupils?
A) Her teacher must have told her to do that
B) Her teacher must have flourished the foot-rule in her classroom
C) The pupils assembled there must be noisy
D) The girl wants to frighten the pupils

3. What could be the investigation taken up by the writer?
A) Why she used a flat-rule instead of a cane.
B) Why was she having her class in the corner.
C) Why she was threatening the pupils assembled.
D) Why she was always playing the school game.

4. The cane is discredited because
A) the primitive birch can maul without marking
B) It is an achievement in torturing techniques
C) It has a menacing appearance and it cannot maul without marking
D) It is a non violent pedagogic equipment

5. What is the advanced torturing technique at the primary stage?
A) The flat foot-rule
B) Admissions and textbooks
C) Examinations
D) The primitive birch

6. Select the best title for the passage
A) Flat rule: The Instrument of Torture
B) Modern Education: The Little Girl
C) The Little Girl
D) The Imaginary World of Children

7. Select the meaning of the word phantasmagoric
A) Parting to ghosts B) Fantastic
C) Shan D) Imaginary

8. Select the statement which is false in the context of the passage:
A) Physical torture has been completely done away with.
B) In some Convent schools, beating is still done.
C) Flat-rule is a modern instrument of torture.
D) Seeking admission in schools/college is a torture.

9. Select the statement which is true in the context of the passage
A) Caning is an essential element of education.
B) Flat-rule has some advantages over the cane.
C) The little girl has never been to school.
D) The objective of examinations is only to torture children.

10. Pedagogic
A) Methodical
B) Pertaining to punishment
C) pertaining to the science of teaching
D) instrumental

Answer Key

Solution with explanation

1. Option ‘B’. SUBTLER = so slight as to be difficult to detect (जिसे आसानी से देखा ना जा सके)

2. Option ‘B’. MENANCINGLY = threateningly (डरावने ढंग से)

3. Option ‘A’. Read extract of the second sentence of the passage – On investigation I found that the cane being discredited, has yielded place to the foot-rule.

4. Option ‘C’

PRIMITIVE = If you describe something as primitive, you mean that it is very old-fashioned; e.g.

The primitive surgery of those days left him virtually deaf in one ear.

MAUL = to  physically attack and badly hurt a person or animal; e.g.

A jogger was mauled by a huge bear.

DISCRIEDIT = loosing importance

NOTE: THE CANE is not normally used to punish students these days as it leaves menacing marks on student’s body.

7. Option ‘D’. PHANTASMAGORIC = having a fantastic or deceptive appearance, as something in a  dream or created by the imagination. Hence only option ‘D’ is correct.

9. Option ‘B’. Extract of the second sentence – flat-rule has the advantage over the primitive birch of mauling without marking- is clear to understand why our answer will be option ‘B’.

THE BIRCH = an official punishment in the past, that involved hitting a person across the bottom with thin sticks. The thins sticks are also called the birch

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