Comprehension S CHAND

CSA_BWP Exclusive Notes Comprehension English (P & C)
COMPREHENSION
A comprehension exercise consists of a passage, upon which questions
are set to test the student's ability to understand the content of the given
text and to infer information and meanings from it.
Here are a few hints:-
1. Read the passage fairly quickly to get the general idea.
2. Read again, a little slowly, so as to know the details.
3. Study the questions thoroughly. Turn to the relevant portions of the
passage, read them again, and then rewrite them in your own words,
neatly and precisely
4. Use complete sentences.
5. If you are asked to give the meaning of any words or phrases, you
should express the idea as clearly as possible in your own words. Certain
words require the kind of definition that is given in a dictionary. Take
care to frame the definition in conformity with the part of speech.
Civil Servants Academy, Bahawalpur.

Campus: Street No.1, Goher Town, Opposite Commissioner Office, near Sadar Puli, Bahawalpur. Cell#: 0306-5049950, email: selectioncss@gmail.com .
Page 1
SPECIMEN
Read the passage below and then answer the questions which follow it.
It has been part of Nelson's prayer that the British fleet might be distinguished by
humanity in the victory which he expected. Setting an example himself, he twice gave
orders to cease firing upon the Redoubtable, supposing that she had struck because her great guns were
silent; for as she carried no flag, there was no means of instantly
ascertaining the fact. From this ship, which he had thus twice spared, he received his
death. A ball fired from her mizzen-top which, in the then situation of the two vessels
was not more than fifteen yards from that part of the deck where he was standing, struck the epaulette on
his left shoulder about a quarter after one, just in the heat of action. He fell upon his face on the spot
which was covered with his poor secretary's blood. Hardy who was a few steps from him turning round,
saw three men raising him up. “They have done for me at last Hardy !” said he. “I hope not !” cried
Hardy. “Yes,” he replied; “my backbone is shot through !” Yet even now not for a
moment losing his presence of mind, he observed as they were carrying him down the
ladder, that the tiller-ropes which had been shot away, were not yet replaced and ordered that new ones
should be roped immediately. Then that he might not be seen by the crew, he took out his handkerchief
and covered his face and his stars. Had he but concealed these badges of honor from the enemy, England
perhaps would not have had cause to receive with sorrow the news of the battle of Trafalgar. The cockpit
was crowded with wounded and dying men; over whose bodies he was with some difficulty conveyed,
and laid upon a pallet in the midshipmen's berth. It was soon perceived, upon examination, that the wound
was mortal. This, however, was concealed from all, except Captain Hardy, the chaplain, and the medical
attendants. He himself being certain, from the sensation in his back, and the gush of blood he felt
modestly within his breast, that no human care could avail him, insisted that the surgeon should leave him
and attend to
those to whom he might be useful.
Questions
1. What is meant by 'supposing that she had struck’?
2. How can Nelson be said to have been partly responsible for his own death?
3. What do you understand by the 'mizzen-top' ?
4. Why did Nelson insist that the surgeon should leave him and attend to others?
5. What qualities in Nelson's character are revealed by this passage?
Answers
1. 'Supposing that she had struck means 'thinking that the men in the ship had

Page 2
surrendered'.
2. Nelson ordered his men two times to cease firing on the Redoubtable.
From the same ship a ball was fired at him and brought about his death.
He was thus partly responsible for his death.
3. The 'mizzen-top' is the platform round the lower part of the mast nearest the stern.
4. Nelson was certain that it would be impossible to save his life. He, therefore, insisted
that the surgeon should leave him and attend to others.
5. His patriotism, his humanity and his powers of endurance are revealed by this passage.
EXERCISES
Read the passages carefully and answer briefly the questions appended below:-
EXERCISE 1
People talk of memorials to him in statues of bronze or marble or pillars and thus they
mock him and belie his message. What tribute shall we pay to him that he would have
appreciated ? He has shown us the way to live and the way to die and if we have not
understood that lesson, it would be better that we raised no memorial to him, for the only fit memorial is
to follow reverently in the path he showed us and to do our duty in life and in death.
He was a Hindu and an Indian, the greatest in many generations, and he was proud of
being a Hindu and an Indian, to-him India was dear, because she had represented
throughout the age's certain immutable truths. But though he was intensely religious and came to be
called the Father of the Nation which he had liberated, yet no narrow religious or national bonds confined
his spirit. And so he became the great internationalist, believing in the essential unity of man, the
underlying unity of all religions, and he needs of humanity, and more specially devoting himself to the
service of the poor, the distressed and the oppressed millions everywhere.
His death brought more tributes than have been paid at the passing of any other human
being in history. Perhaps what would have pleased him best was the spontaneous tributes that came from
the people of Pakistan. On the morrow of the tragedy, all of us forgot for a while the bitterness that had
crept in, the estrangement and conflict of these past months and Gandhi stood out as the beloved
champion and leader of the people of India, of India as it was before partition cut up this living nation.
What was his great power over the mind and heart of man due to ? Even we realize, that his dominating
passion was truth. That truth led him to proclaim without ceasing that good ends can never be attained by
evil methods, that the end itself is distorted if the method pursued is bad. That truth led him to confess
publicly whenever he thought he had made a mistake - Himalayan errors he called some of his own

Page 3
mistakes. That truth led him to fight evil and untruth wherever he found them, regardless of the
consequences.
That truth made the service of the poor and the dispossessed the passion of his life, for
where there is inequality and discrimination and suppression there is injustice and evil
and untruth. And thus he became the beloved of all those who have suffered from social
and political evils, and the great representative of humanity as it should be. Because of
that truth in him wherever he sat became a temple and where he trod was hallowed
ground.
-Jawaharlal Nehru
Questions
1. About whom is the passage written?
2. Why does Nehru make the difference about being a "Hindu" and an "Indian"? Is there
any difference really?
3. What great lesson did this great man show us for life?
4. Mention some of the virtues of "the great internationalist."
5. Nehru seems to suggest that his hero was "the beloved champion and leader of the
people of India" only before the partition of Pakistan and India.' Do you agree with that?
Explain.
6. What did "truth" mean to this great man ?
7. Give the meaning of the following : memorials, immutable; essential, estrangement,
spontaneous, discrimination, dominating, Himalayan.
EXERCISE 2
The Voice had to be listened to, not only on account of its form but for the matter
which it delivered. It gave a message to the country that it needed greatly. It brought to
the common people a realization of their duty to concern themselves with their affairs.
The common, people were made to take an interest in the manner in which they were
governed in the taxes they paid in the return they got from those taxes. This interest in
public affairs - politics as you may call it - was to be the concern no longer of the
highly educated few but of the many - the poor, the propertyless, the workingmen in
town and country. Politics was not to be the concern of a small aristocracy of intellect
property of the masses. And with the change in the subjects of politics that Voice
bought about also a change in the objects of polities'. Till then politics had busied itself
mainly with the machinery of Government towards making its personnel more and

Page 4
more native, with proposals for a better distribution of political power, with protests
against the sins of omission and of commission of the administration. This Voice
switched politics on to concern for the needs of the common people. The improvement
of the lot of the poor was to be the main concern of politics and the politician. The
improvement, especially of the lives of the people of the neglected villages, was to be
Placed before Governments and political organizations as the goal of all political en
devour. The raising of the standard of living of the people of the villages, the finding of
subsidiary occupations which would give the agricultural poor work for their enforced
leisure during the off season and an addition to (heir exiguous income, the improvement
of the housing of the poor, the sanitation, of the villages – these were to be the
objectives to be kept in view. In the towns, the slums and cherries were to receive especial
attention. There was especially a class of the poor for which that compassionate Voice
pleaded and protested. This was for the so-called depressed class, the outcastes of Hindu
society. The denial of elementary human rights to this class of people it considered the
greatest blot on Hindu society and history. It raised itself in passionate protest against the
age-old wrongs of this class and forced those that listened to it to endeavor to remove
the most outrageous of them like untouchability. It caused a revolution in Hindu religious
practice by having Hindu temples thrown open to these people. It made the care of them a
religious duty of the Hindus by re-naming them Harijans.
-Mr. Ruthnasami
Questions
1. Why had people to listen to "The Voice" of Mahatma Gandhi?
2. Why had people to take an interest in politics?
3. What was the change brought about in the objects of politics?
4. What improvements were made for the common man?
5. Explain:-
(a) Sins of omission and of commission of the administration.
(b) No longer the monopoly of the classes, but the property of the masses.
EXERCISE 3
The next ingredient is a very remarkable one: Good Temper. “Love is not easily
provoked”. Nothing could be more striking than to find this here. We are inclined to look
upon bad temper as a very harmless weakness. We speak of it as a mere infirmity of
nature, a family failing, a matter of temperament, not a thing to take into very serious

Page 5
account in estimating a man's character. And yet here, right in the heart of this analysis of
love, it finds a place; and the Bible again and again returns to condemn it as one of the
most destructive elements in human nature. The peculiarity of ill temper is that it is the
vice of the virtuous. It is often the one blot on an otherwise noble character. You know
men who are all but perfect, and women who would be entirely perfect, but for an easily
ruffled quick-tempered or "touchy" disposition. This compatibility of ill temper with high
moral character is one of the strangest and saddest problems of ethics. The truth is there
are two great classes of sins-sins of the Body, and sins of Disposition. The Prodigal son
may be taken as a type of the first, the Elder Brother of the second. Now society has no
doubt whatever as to which of these is the worse. Its brand falls, without a challenge,
upon the Prodigal. But are we right? We have no balance to weigh one another's sins, and
coarser and finer are but human words; but faults in the higher nature may be less venial
than those in the lower, and to the eye of Him who is Love, a sin against Love may seem
a hundred times more base. No form of vice, not worldliness, not greed of gold, not
drunkenness itself does more to un-Christianize society than evil temper. For embittering
life, for breaking up communities, for destroying the most sacred relationships, for
devastating homes, for withering up men and women, for taking the bloom off childhood;
in short for sheer gratuitous misery-producing power, this influence stands alone.
Jealousy, anger, pride, uncharity, cruelty, self-righteousness, touchiness, doggedness,
sullenness - in varying proportions these are the ingredients of all ill temper. Judge if such
sins of the disposition are not worse to live in. and for others to live with than sins of the
body. There is really no place in Heaven for a disposition like this. A man with such a
mood could only make Heaven miserable for all the people in it.
-Henry Druromond
Questions
1. What is the popular notion about “bad temper”?
2. How is bad temper “the vice of the virtuous”?
3. Which class of sins is worse, and why – since of the body, since of the disposition ?
4. Mention some evils of bad temper.
5. Why according to the author will there be no place in Heaven for bad tempered folk?
6. Find words from the passage which mean; breaking up; running; scandalizing; souring;
easily or quickly offended.
EXERCISE 4

Page 6
Yes, there were giants before the Jam Sahib (the great Indian cricketer, Kumar Shree
Ranjitsinhji, better known to the world of cricket as Ranji). And yet I think it is
undeniable that as a batsman the Indian will live as the supreme exponent of the
Englishman's game. The claim does not rest simply on his achievements although, judged
by them, the claim could be sustained. His season's average of 87 with a total of over
3,000 runs, is easily the high-water mark of English cricket. Thrice he has totaled over
3,000 runs and no one else has equaled that record. And is not his the astonishing
achievement of scoring two double centuries in a single match on a single day - not
against a feeble attack, but against Yorkshire, always the most resolute and resourceful of
bowling teams ?
But we do not judge a cricketer so much by the runs he gets as by the way he gets them.
"In literature as in finance," says Washington Irving, "much paper and much poverty may
co-exist." And in cricket too many runs and much dullness may be associated. If cricket
is menaced with creeping paralysis, it is because it is losing the spirit of joyous adventure
and becoming a mere instrument for compiling tables of averages. There are dull,
mechanic fellows who turn out runs with as little emotion as a machine turns out pins.
There is no color, no enthusiasm, no character in their play. Cricket is not an adventure
to them; it is a business. It was so with Shrewsbury. His technical perfection was
astonishing; but the soul of the game was wanting in him. There was no sunshine in his
play, no swift surprise or splendid unselfishness. And without these things without gaiety,
daring, and the spirit of sacrifice cricket is a dead thing. Now, the Jam Sahib has the root
of the matter in him. His play is as sunny as his face. He is not a miser hoarding up runs,
but a millionaire spending them, with a splendid yet judicious prodigality. It is as though
his pockets are bursting with runs that he wants to shower with his blessings upon the
expectant multitude. It is not difficult to believe that in his little kingdom Nawangar
where he has power of life and death in his hands he is extremely popular for it is obvious
that his pleasure is in giving pleasure.
-A.G. Gardiner
Questions
1. Correct the following statistics, if necessary:-
(a) His season's average of 87 with a total of over 3,000 runs is easily the high-water
mark of English cricket.
(b) Thrice he has totaled over 3,000 runs, and no one else has equaled that record.

Page 7
(c) He scored two double centuries in a single match on a single day.

2. "Many runs and much dullness may be .associated." Prove this.
3. Mention some reasons why cricket is losing its luster.
4. What gives cricket its "character"?
5. How should real cricket be played ?
6. Describe in your own words the secret of the Jam Sahib's wizardry with the bat.
7. Make a list of “do’s” and “don’ts” for a promising cricketer.
EXERCISE 5
Supposing you have to make a payment of Rs. 100, you can do so in rupee-coins; but it
would be cumbersome to pay in nickel or copper coins, because they are heavy to carry
and also because it takes much time to count them. The Government therefore permits
you to make the payment in rupee-notes. What are these rupee-notes really? They are a
kind of money, right enough, although they are made of paper instead of metal. You can
use them in just the same way that you use ordinary money. The reason why they are
made of paper and used is that they save the trouble of carrying metal coins about - of
course, paper is lighter than metal and they also save using silver and other metals when
they are scarce.
What makes these mere pieces of paper bear the value of the number of rupees that is
printed upon them? Why should a piece of paper, with “100” printed on it be worth
twenty times as much as a piece of paper with "five" printed on it - and also worth a
hundred times as much as a silver rupee-coin? The reason is that Government guarantees
that the piece of paper is worth the amount printed on it and promises to pay that amount
to anybody who wishes to exchange this paper for the rupee-coins. Also, if you think
about it you can easily realize that crores and crores more of rupee-coins would have to
be minted, if all paper-money were abolished.
Perhaps you may ask, "Then why not have paper money only ? Why use silver and nickel and copper at
all ?" The answer is - because money must as we have already said, be something so useful that everyone
wants. Also because the metals are the best form of money; and thirdly because it would be impossible to
print just the right amount of paper
money that would keep prices at their proper natural level. If any Government prints too
much paper money, then prices go up at once. The supply of money is increased and
therefore its value (in food, clothes, books, houses, land, tools and everything else) goes down.
You may think at first that it is queer to talk of having too much paper money and that

Page 8
money is so nice and useful that you cannot have too much of it. But if you think that, I
am afraid you are forgetting that money is only useful for what it will buy; so it is no
good at all having more money if there are no more things to buy with it. The more
money there is, the higher will be the prices of everything. The same thing happens with
rupee-coins as with paper money. But it is not likely to happen, for this reason : it is very
easy to print a great deal of paper money, but not at all easy to increase the amount of
rupee-coins. Silver has to be dug out of mines, and very difficult to get; so the amount
there is if it keeps very steady and changes very little. In fact that is one of the chief
reasons why it was chosen to make coins of.
-Ernest F. Row
Questions
1. Why does the Government allow payment to be made in paper notes?
2. What is more valuable, to have 100 rupee-coins in silver or a Rs. 100 note, in paper?
3. If metal is so cumbersome, why should we not have only paper money?
Why should we not print as much of it as possible?
4. What is the real use of money?
5. Why should the prices of commodities go up when there is plenty of paper money?
6. Why does the Government print only a certain number of paper notes, and not as many as it likes
arbitrarily?

Page 9

Comprehension S CHAND

Încărcat de

Informații document

Titlu original

Drepturi de autor

Formate disponibile

Partajați acest document

Partajați sau inserați document

Opțiuni de partajare

Vi se pare util acest document?

Este necorespunzător acest conținut?

Drepturi de autor:

Formate disponibile

Comprehension S CHAND

Încărcat de

Drepturi de autor:

Formate disponibile

CSA_BWP Exclusive Notes Comprehension English (P & C)

A comprehension exercise consists of a passage, upon which questions

text and to infer information and meanings from it.

Here are a few hints:-

1. Read the passage fairly quickly to get the general idea.

2. Read again, a little slowly, so as to know the details.

3. Study the questions thoroughly. Turn to the relevant portions of the

neatly and precisely

4. Use complete sentences.

words require the kind of definition that is given in a dictionary. Take

care to frame the definition in conformity with the part of speech.

Civil Servants Academy, Bahawalpur.

Civil Servants Academy, Bahawalpur.

Civil Servants Academy, Bahawalpur.

Civil Servants Academy, Bahawalpur.

Civil Servants Academy, Bahawalpur.

Civil Servants Academy, Bahawalpur.

Civil Servants Academy, Bahawalpur.

(c) He scored two double centuries in a single match on a single day.

Civil Servants Academy, Bahawalpur.

Civil Servants Academy, Bahawalpur.

S-ar putea să vă placă și