Comprehension Questions and Answers

Answer: A

To understand nature one has to be passionate. The passage opens by saying that nature cannot be understood as a commodity or a resource and that it can only be understood in romance, which means with feeling and love for it. Being energetic, explorative or enthusiastic would suggest activity and curiosity about nature, but the passage stresses a romantic, aesthetic bond, so passion is the quality named. The other three options are close in tone but are not what the text asks for. Passion is the key word of the first paragraph, as the writer stresses understanding through romance.

Answer: D

The passage says that human life and society ought to be lived in continuity with nature, so the man-environment relationship is best expressed in living in continuity with nature. It warns against looking for the meaning of life in technological advances, which rules out the first option. Exploiting natural resources is the commodity view that the first lines reject, and exploring the unknown is not the relationship the author stresses. So the last option is correct.

Answer: C

Man-nature interaction is reflected through aesthetic experiences. The passage says that richer aesthetic experiences are possible in forest and field and that the beauties of wood and sky serve nobler wants. It sets this against the idea of nature as a commodity, so livelihood opportunities and resource use are not the way the passage describes the interaction. Because aesthetic experience is named in the text, none of the above is wrong, and the third option is the answer.

Answer: C

Nature is understood as the incarnation of a thought. In its last paragraph the passage quotes Emerson, who said nature is the incarnation of a thought and the world is mind precipitated. A commodity to be used and a resource to be exploited are the views the first sentence rejects. A gift of God is a religious idea that the passage does not use. The third option is therefore the correct reading of the text.

Answer: C

The paragraph highlights the power of the beauty of nature. It speaks of the beauties of wood and sky, the necessity of being beautiful under which every landscape lies, and a beauty that is reciprocal and ancillary to human character and intellectual life. The economic value of the environment is the commodity view that the passage opposes. Abundance of resources and life support are mentioned in passing, but the main stress falls on beauty.

Answer: D

The tone of the passage is philosophical. It reflects on the meaning of life, on the relation between humans and nature and on Emerson's idealism, and it draws on quotations rather than data. It is not analytical, since it does not break a problem into parts with evidence. It is not simply descriptive, because it argues a view, and it does not mainly prescribe what to do, though it says we ought to live in continuity with nature. So the philosophical tone is the best description.

Answer: C

The pair Higher Education with Economic stability is not correctly matched. In the passage, higher education leads to the expansion of scientific, technical and philosophical brain-power and a knowledge society, and to social awareness, not to economic stability.

The other pairs are in the passage: literacy is a tool of self-defence, basic education is a catalyst of social change, and technical education, specially among women, opens a window of opportunity.

Answer: A

People of low socio-economic status see education as the most promising chance of upward mobility for their children. The passage says this directly: disadvantaged groups perceive education as the promising route to upward mobility and equality.

Downward mobility is the opposite, and low dependency and empowerment are outcomes of technical education for women described elsewhere in the passage, not the benefit the disadvantaged groups perceive. The answer is upward mobility.

Answer: D

According to the passage, technical education among women opens a window of opportunity, combining high qualification with low dependency ratio, higher age at marriage, low fertility rates and greater women empowerment. So it leads to a higher age at marriage, low fertility and low dependency.

Better family care is not mentioned in the passage, so any option containing (iii) is wrong. The correct choice is (i), (ii) and (iv).

Answer: A

The passage says there is a dialectic relationship between educational progress and social change, reflected in the removal of inequalities based on class, caste, gender or region. Educational progress therefore leads to equality.

Equity, honesty and liberty do not appear in the passage as outcomes of educational progress, so they are wrong. The answer is equality.

Education changes the way people regard caste, class and gender, so greater access to it narrows gaps between groups over time, which the passage describes as the removal of inequalities.