COMPREHENSION TEST
linked together by amazingly sensitive, near-instantaneous              (2) a critical mind having insight into future.
communications. Human work will move out of the factory                 (3) a mind well-versed in cultural heritage.
and mass office into the community and the home. Ma-                    (4) a mind with firm principles of life.
chines will be synchronized, as some already are, to the
                                                                                           PASSAGE-II
billionth of a second; men will be de-synchronized. The
factory whistle will vanish. Even the clock, “the key ma-             A reason why people at school read books is to please
chine of the modern industrial age” as Lewis Mumford called     their teacher. The teacher has said that this, that, or the
it a generation ago, will lose some of its power over hu-       other is a good book, and that it is a sign of good taste to enjoy
mans, as distinct from purely technological affairs. Simul-     it. So a number of boys and girls, anxious to please their
taneously, the organisation needed to control technology        teacher, get the book and read it. Two or three of them may
shift from bureaucracy to Ad-hocracy, from permanence to        genuinely like it, for their own sake, and be grateful to the
transience, and from a concern with the present to a focus      teacher for putting it in their way. But many will not honestly
on the future.                                                  like it, or will persuade themselves that they like it. And that
                                                                does a great deal of harm. The people who cannot like the
     In such a world, the most valued attributes of the in-
                                                                book run the risk of two things happening to them; either
dustrial age become handicaps. The technology of tomor-
                                                                they are put off the idea of the book-let us suppose the book
row requires not millions of lightly lettered men, ready to
                                                                was David Copperfield-either they are put off the idea of clas-
work in unison at endlessly repetitive jobs, it requires not
                                                                sical novels, or they take a dislike to Dickens, and decide
men who take orders in unblinking fashion, aware that the
                                                                firmly never to waste their time on anything of the sort again;
price of bread is mechanical submission to authority, but
                                                                or they get a guilty conscience about the whole thing, they
men who can make critical judgments, who can weave their
                                                                feel that they do not like what they ought to like and that
way through novel environments, who are quick to spot
                                                                therefore there is something wrong with them.
new relationships in the rapidly changing reality. It requires
men who, in C.P. Snow’s compelling terms, “have the fu-               They are quite mistaken, of course. There is nothing
ture in their bones”.                                           wrong with them. The mistake has all been on the teacher’s
                                                                side. What has happened is that they have been shoved up
                  SOME IMPORTANT WORDS                          against a book before they were ready for it. It is like giving
  near-          : very immediate                               a young child food only suitable for an adult. Result : indi-
  instantaneous                                                 gestion, violent stomach-ache, and a rooted dislike of that
  synchronized : happened at the same time or moved at          article of food evermore.
                   the same speed as something.                                    SOME IMPORTANT WORDS
  bureaucracy: a system of government where the offi-            genunely        : truly ; in a sincere and honest way
                   cials are not elected.
                                                                 persuade        : to make somebody do something
  Adhocracy : a system with a lack of structure; oppo-
                                                                 a great deal of : lot of
                   site of bureaucracy.
                                                                 run the risk : to make possible a particular risk
  trausience : temporary.
                                                                 put off         : to make somebody dislike somebody/
  attributes : qualities.
                                                                                    something
  46. The technological system of tomorrow will be marked        guilty          : to feel that you have
       by                                                        conscience         done wrong
       (1) dehumanization.         (2) perfection.               shoved up : moved away
       (3) automation.             (4) unpredictability.         evermore : always
  47. The future man, according to this passage, must be          51. The passage is about what
        (1) most adaptative and intelligent.                            (1) we should do to make children read.
       (2) most capable of dealing with the changing reality.           (2) we should not do when we ask children to read.
       (3) more concerned with the present than the future.             (3) teachers should teach in the classroom.
       (4) trained and obedient.                                        (4) treatment is to be given for indigestion.
  48. Near-instantaneous communications may be re-                52. The writer says that teachers should
       garded as a symbol of
                                                                        (1) prevent children from reading any book.
       (1) anachronization.        (2) mischronization.
                                                                        (2) compel children to read moral stories.
       (3) desynchronization.      (4) synchronization.                 (3) stop compelling children to read books recom-
  49. If a person believes that the price of bread is me-                   mended by them.
       chanical submission to authority, he is
                                                                        (4) carefully supervise what children read.
       (1) a believer in devotion to duty.
                                                                  53. According to the author many boys and girls read
       (2) a believer in taking things for granted.                    books to
       (3) a believer in doing what he is told, right or wrong.         (1) win the favour of their teachers.
       (4) a believer in the honesty of machines.                       (2) spend money in a useful way.
  50. The type of society which the author has mentioned                (3) express their gratitude to their teachers.
       makes a plea for
                                                                        (4) show others that they are lovers of books.
       (1) a mind assimilative of modern scientific ideas.
                                                            SEE–909