Latest English “Comprehension Passage” Solved Exercise-2
Read the passage given below carefully and answer the questions that follow:
1. By the child is six or seven, she had all the essential avoidances well enough by heart to be trusted with the care of a younger child. And she also develops a number of simple techniques. She learns to weave firm square balls from palm leaves, to make pinwheels of palm leaves or frangipani blossoms, to climb a coconut tree by walking up the trunk on flexible little feet, to break open a coconut with one firm will-directed blow of a knife as long as she is tall, to play a number of group games and sing the songs which go with them, to tidy the house by picking up the litter on the stony floor, to bring water from the sea, to spread out the copra to dry and to help gather it in when rain threatens, to go to a neighbouring house and bring back a lighted faggot for the chief’s pipe or the cook- house fire.
2. But in the case of the little girls, all these tasks are merely supplementary to the main business of baby-tending. Very small boys also have some care of the younger children, but at eight or nine years of age they are usually relieved of it. Whatever rough edges have not been smoothed off by this responsibility for younger children are worn off by their contact with older boys. For little boys are admitted to interesting and important activities only so long as their behaviour is circumspect and helpful.
3. Where small girls are brusquely pushed aside, small boys will be patiently tolerated and they become adept at making themselves useful. The four or five little boys who all wish to assist at the important, business of helping a grown youth lasso reef eel, organize themselves into a highly efficient working team; one boy holds the bait, another holds an extra lasso, others poke eagerly about in holes in the reef looking for prey, while still another tucks the captured eels into his lavalava. The small girls, burdened on the reef, discouraged by the hostility of the small boys and the scorn of the older ones, have little opportunity for learning the more adventurous forms of work and play.
4. So while the little boys first undergo the chastening effects of baby-tending and then have many opportunities to learn effective cooperation under the supervision of older boys, the girl’s education is less comprehensive. They have a high standard of individual ‘responsibility, but the community provides them with no lessons in cooperation with one another. This is particularly apparent in the activities of found people: the boys organize quickly; the girls waste hours in bickering, innocent of any technique for quick and efficient cooperation.
(473 words)
Adapted from: Coming of Age in Samoa, Margaret Mead (1928)
On the basis of your understanding of the passage, answer the following questions by choosing the most appropriate option.
(a) The primary purpose of the passage with reference to the society under discussion is to:
(i) explain some differences in the upbringing of girls and boys
(ii) criticize the deficiencies in the education of girls
(iii) give a comprehensive account of a day in the life of an average found girl
(iv) delineate the role of found girls
(b) The list of techniques in paragraph one could best be described as
(i) household duties
(ii) rudimentary physical skills
(iii) important responsibilities
(iv) useful social skills
Ans. (a) (1) explain some differences in the upbringing of girls and boys.
(b) (iv) useful social skills.
2.2 Answer the following as briefly as possible:
(a) What is the prime responsibility of a girl child by the time she is six or seven?
(b) What simple techniques does she learn at this stage?
(c) What household chores is she responsible for?
(d) In what way is a boy’s life different?
(e) What qualities ensure that the boys move on to a higher responsibility?
(f) Why do girls have little opportunity for learning the more adventurous forms of work and play?
(g) In what way is the girls’ education less comprehensive?
(h) How is this apparent?
Ans. (a) Baby tending becomes the prime responsibility.
(b) Simple Techniques are: walking up the trunk on flexible little feet, making pinwheels from palm leaves and to play numbers of group games.
(c) She is responsible to bring water from the sea, to cook-house data fire, and to bring back a lighted faggot for the chief’s pipe.
(d) They are relieved of baby tending where they are eight or nine years of age. They are also given some more important and interesting activities.
(e) The boy’s helpful behaviour and circumspect ensure that they move on to a higher responsibility.
(Small girls are burdened with heavy babies or the care of little staggered who are too small to adventure on the reef. They are also discouraged by the hostility of the small boys and the scorn of the older ones.
(g) As the community provides girl’s with no lessons in cooperating with one another their education is less comprehensive. Though the girls have a high standards of individual responsibility.
(h) This is apparent because boys organize quickly, whereas, girls waste hours in bickering innocent of any technique for quick and efficient cooperation.
2.3 Find words from the passage which mean the same as the following:
(a) brusquely (Para 3)
(b) scorn (Para 3)
Ans.
(a) abruptly
(b) ridicule
