Reading Comprehension Questions and Answers

Direction for [ Question No: 241 To 241 ] :

Read the given passage and answer the questions that follow.

The joys of parents are secret, and so are their griefs and fears. They cannot utter the one, nor will they utter the other. Children sweeten labours, but they make misfortunes more bitter. They increase the cares of life, but they mitigate the remembrance of death. The perpetuity by generation is common to beasts; but memory, merit and noble works are proper to men. And surely a man shall see the noblest works and foundations have proceeded from childless men, which have sought to express the images of their minds, where those of their bodies have failed. So, the care of posterity is most in them that have no posterity. They that are the first raisers of their houses are most indulgent towards their children, beholding them as the continuance not only of their kind but of their work; and so, both children and creatures.

The difference in affection of parents towards their several children is many times unequal, and sometimes unworthy, especially in the mother. As Solomon saith, "A wise son rejoiceth the father, but an ungracious son shames the mother." A man shall see, where there is a house full of children, one or two of the eldest respected, and the youngest made wantons; but in the midst some that are as it were forgotten, who many times nevertheless prove the best.

Direction for [ Question No: 242 To 246 ] :

Read the given passage and answer the questions that follow.

Idleness so called, which does not consist in doing nothing, but in doing a great deal not recognised in the dogmatic formularies of the ruling class, has as good a right to state its position as industry itself. It is admitted that the presence of people who refuse to enter in the great handicap race for sixpenny pieces is at once an insult and a disenchantment for those who do. A fine fellow (as we see so many) takes his determination, votes for the sixpences, and in the emphatic Americanism, ‘goes for’ them. And while such an one is ploughing distressfully up the road, it is not hard to understand his resentment, when he perceives cool persons in the meadows by the wayside, lying with a handkerchief over their ears and a glass at their elbow. Alexander is touched in a very delicate place by the disregard of Diogenes. Where was the glory of having taken Rome for these tumultuous barbarians, who poured into the Senate house, and found the Fathers sitting silent and unmoved by their success? It is a sore thing to have laboured along and scaled the arduous hilltops, and when all is done, find humanity indifferent to your achievement. Hence physicists condemn the unphysical; financiers have only a superficial toleration for those who know little of stocks; literary persons despise the unlettered; and people of all pursuits combine to disparage those who have none.

Direction for [ Question No: 247 To 250 ] :

Read the given passage carefully and answer the questions that follow.

We today revel in the idea that we are living in a world of science and science can work wonders for us. It is evident that science has revolutionised modern life. What our forefathers, half a century ago, could not even dream of, we have that at our beck and call. Electricity is a wonder and what it is doing would have appeared to be a fairy tale for our forefathers. A button is pressed, the room gets flooded with light; the fan moves, the AC cools or warms the room, water is boiled or cooled, even frozen, eatables can be preserved for days. Human suffering has greatly been alleviated. Science has investigated into disease and found startling cures for them. Artificial limbs can be fitted into the bodies of the disabled, and even kidney and heart transplants are being performed. Machinery has eliminated human labour and made life more mechanical and less arduous. Means of communication – the fax, the email, the mobile smart phones – are really wonderful means given to us by science. Atomic energy that if put to use for peaceful purposes can work wonders. We have begun to feel beholden to science and the scientists.

But there is the other side of the picture too. Man has become a slave to the machines. Human labour has been minimised but that has led to a more luxurious living and less of physical activity. Mankind has begun suffering from such elements that life without the modern scientific gadgets is impossible. True, that all this has happened and which our hard-working forefathers never knew of; more and more use of machines has led to large scale unemployment. We are unnecessarily using chemicals for agriculture. The pesticides and germicides used in saving the crops are sending out such alarming signals as precariously depleting the ozone layer which protects Earth from the harmful radiation of the sun’s rays. The world is getting exposed to the situations of great alarm and danger. GMOs are good for some crops and not so for others. Wild varieties cannot be allowed to go extinct. Furthermore, atomic energy is being used for destructive purposes and the nuclear explosions are causing radiations which are fatal for mankind. Can we ever forget what happened to Nagasaki and Hiroshima in Japan during the World War II? Do we want to live under such further threats of large-scale devastation and destruction?

Therefore, what is necessary is that we imperatively use science as our slave – take the utmost advantage from it but do not permit it to become our master. We have to keep the ‘genie’ under our control, use it for the good of mankind; cure disease with its help, explore treasures of the earth through it; communicate with one another at the quickest pace but keep its dangerous uses under check. Let science remain our ‘slave’ and not allow it to become our master. Let science, like Aladdin’s ‘genie’, remain in Aladdin’s controlling power, not to overpower and become a menace to mankind.