BA English Comprehension,how to attempt BA English comprehension

                           

 Comprehension Assessment.1

Our first human ancestors were a rare species. They lived under precarious conditions, exposes to rigorous of the weather, to the hostility of the wild beasts, and to the dangerous of famine that could be caused by the drought. They possessed no weapon, they probably had not mastered the use of fire and if they had language of any sort, it must have consisted of no more than a few cries. Their one weapon in the struggle for existence was intelligence and intelligence at first was very far from being so powerful a weapon as it has become. The biological usefulness of intelligence consists largely in the possibility of transmitting experience. An animal may learn from another animal what it actually sees done, but it cannot learn through narrative, a man, when he has acquired language, can do so and therefore the intelligence of each individual can become the property of the whole tribe and each generation can hand on to the next a multitude of skills which would be beyond the power of any animal species to transmit.

Questions:

1. Under what conditions did our ancestors live?

2. How would they possibly have expressed themselves?

3. What weapon did they use in their struggle for existence?

4. How can experience be transmitted without speech?

5. Suggest the suitable title of the passage?

6.  Make precis of the above passage.

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Comprehension.2

The man who is perpetually hesitating which of the two things he will do first, will do neither. The man who resolves but suffers his resolution to be changed by the first counter  suggestions of a friend  who fluctuates from opinion to opinion, from plan to plan and veers like a weather-cock to every point of the compass, with every breath of caprice that blows –can never accomplish anything great or useful. Instead of being progressive in anything, he will be at best stationary and more probably retrograde in all. It is only the man who first consults wisely, then resolves firmly and then executes his purpose with inflexible perseverance undismayed by those difficulties which daunt a weaker spirit that can advance to eminence in any time. Take your course wisely, but firmly and having taken it, hold upon it with heroic resolution and the Alps and Pyrenees will sink before you. Wavering and fickleness of the mind are not only signs of a weak personality but also symptom of inferiority complex. Taking a decision promptly and then sticking to it firmly may be the quality found rarely in the selected few but average human beings are quite capable of developing the habit of thinking deeply and wisely and then executing the plans efficiently. It can be achieved through guidance, will-power and psychological treatment.

Questions

i) What is the result of indecisiveness?

ii) Why should a man refrain from changing his plans after taking a firm decision?

iii) What are the conditions of successful accomplishment of a task?

iv) What do repeated change in plans show about a man s’ personality?

v) Suggest a suitable title for the passage?

vi) Make a précis of the above passage?

                                       

BA English Solved Comprehension

                                              BA English Comprehension.

Teaching is not confined to parents and professional teachers. Whenever there are beginners and experts, old and young, there is some kind of learning going on, and some sort of teaching. In every business and industry there are learners and teachers. Indeed, we are pupils and are teachers. Some of it is amusement; the rest is made up of learning and of teaching. Whether you are a doctor, enlarging your knowledge of certain types of illness or a house wife planning her work more effectively, whether you are a trade union official learning about economics or a typist learning about life on minimum wages, whether you are a young audience, a bus driver covering a new route or an author writing a new book, you are learning for yourself and teaching others.  Most people do not realize how much even of their private life is taken up with amateurish teaching and haphazard learning, and not many understand that most of us, as public being,  either learn or teach incessantly.

QUESTIONS

i) What is the writer s’ ideas of teaching?

ii) How does and individual live his life?

iii) Examples of what persons have been given by the writer?

iv) What do most of the people not realize?

v) Suggest a suitable title of the passage?

vi) Make précis of the above passage?

More Comprehensions

BA English Comprehension Assessment

Life is a big school, where we learn many new things every day. We suffer many misfortunes which teach us to discipline ourselves and follow a wise course of action. If we examine ourselves and search our thoughts, we find that we have many weaknesses and drawbacks. Our feelings are not true and sincere and our thoughts are not honourable and just. Our actions are false and dishonest. How can we blame others in such a case? Why should we not check ourselves in our wrong ways? Similarly, we can feel satisfied that others are also human beings and they have their own quota of faults and failures. The golden rule, therefore, is to cease lying and passing painful remarks on others. If we hear any backbiting or lose talk, we ought to turn deaf ear to it. If somebody asks us to do a wrong thing can desists from committing it with courage and apology. If we do anything wrong, we can repent and correct ourselves and keep away from it in future. Nobody asks us to do anything on pistol point. So, let us resolve to follow the right path-the path of those whom Allah Almighty has blesses and not of those whom His wrath has accursed. “Self-discipline, self –restraint and self-control” is the golden rule of life.

Questions:

1.     What is the golden rule of life?

2.     Why should we not blame others?

3.     How can we follow the right path?

4.     What is the real state of affairs today?

5.     Make a précis of the above passage.

                                 Comprehension Assessment

Some people are of the view that poverty is due to laziness, lack of hard work and stupidity and is therefore the fault of the poor themselves, even if these notion are true, we should still have a duty to the poor, for it is the duty of the wise, the strong, the industrious, and the virtuous to help the weak, the idle, the foolish and the vicious and should work to change their way of life. But it is not utterly true. For a modern civilization, a great deal of the terrible poverty that exists is not due to any fault of the poor themselves but to the organization of society, for which the poor are not responsible. 

Whether a man is born rich or poor is a matter of chance. Many of the rich have simply inherited their wealth, and have, in no way earned it, and many of the poor have in like manner inherited the poverty and have in no way deserved it. It is the duty of the government and the social NGOs to work for the welfare of the people.

Questions:

1.      What do some people think about poverty?

2.      What is the duty of the rich and the wise persons?

3.      What is the greatest cause of poverty in modern civilization?

4.      What can we do for the poor?

5.      Suggest a suitable title for the passage?

6.      Make a precis of the above passage?

                                     Comprehension.

Space travel is far the most expensive type of exploration ever under taken by the man. The vast expenditure of money and human efforts now being devoted to projects for putting man into space might well be applied to ends more practically useful and more conducive t human happiness. It is a strange world in which tens of millions of pounds are spent to give a man a ride round the earth at thousands of miles an hour, while beneath him in his orbit live millions for whom life is a daily struggle to win a few coins to buy their daily struggle. The money and efforts that o into the development and construction of a single type of space rocket would more than suffice to rid several countries of such scourges as malaria or typhoid fever, to name only two of diseases that medical science has conquered but which still persist in the world simply because not enough money and effort are devoted to the eradication. Why should the richer countries of the world be pouring their recourses into space when poverty and diseases on the earth are crying out of relief? One could a cynical answer to this question and assert that man s’ expensive adventures into space are merely the byproducts of the struggle between great powers for prestige and possible military advantage.

Questions

i.  Why is it a strange world?

ii.   Why do malaria and typhoid still exist in the world?

iii.  Why is man pouring his recourses into space?

iv.   Suggest a suitable title for the passage?

v.    Make a précis of the above passage?

Comprehension Passage

To be a good teacher, you need some of the gifts of a good actor. You must be able to hold the attention of and interest of your audience; you must be a clear speaker with a good pleasing voice and you must be able to act when you are teaching in order to make its meanings clear. Watch a good teacher, and you will see he does not sit motionless before his class; he Stands the whole time he is teaching; he walks about using his arms, hands and finger's to help him in his explanation and his face to express his feelings. Listen to him and you will hear the loudness, the quality and the musical note of his voice always changing according to what he is teaching. But the fact that a good teacher has some of the gifts of a good teacher does not mean that he will indeed be able to act on the-stage, for there are very important differences between the teacher s’ work and actor s’ work. The actor has to speak words which he has learnt by heart, he has to repeat certain dialogues which he has learnt earliest. Even his movements and the ways in which he uses his voice are usually fixed- before. The good teacher works in a different way because his audiences take an active part in his play. They ask questions, and if they do not understand something, they will say so. So the teacher has to suit his act to the need of his audience that is his class. I know many teachers who were fine actors in the class but were unable to take part in a stage play because their brains would not keep strictly to what another had written.

1.      What is the difference between a good teacher and a good actor?

2.      How can a good teacher be compared to good actor?

3.      How does a good teacher act?

4.      Who, according to you, is a good teacher?

5.      What is the role of teacher in nation building?

6.      Write a précis of above passage?

Comprehension Assessment

Honesty is the surest way to success. The day at last comes when the dishonest man repents in sorrow and suffering. But no man ever needs to repent of having been honest. Even when the honest man fails through lacking other qualities such as energy, economy, or system, his failure is not the grievous thing as it is to the dishonest man. He can always rejoice in the fact that he has never defrauded a fellow being. Even in his darkest hour, he finds response in a clear conscience. Ignorant men imagine that dishonesty is short-cut to prosperity. This is why they practise it. The dishonest man is morally short-sighted. He is like the drunkard who sees the immediate pleasure of his habit, but not the ultimate degradation. He sees the immediate effect of a dishonest act - a large profit - but not its ultimate outcome.

Questions:

i.     Why do honest men even fail sometimes?

ii.    Why is the dishonest man morally shortsighted?

iii.   Why do some people practise dishonesty in their dealings?

iv.    Make a précis of the above passage and suggest a suitable title for it.

Comprehension Assessment

The question, why we marry, is interesting and needs to be examined briefly. Marriage has social sanctity. It makes you respectable in the eyes of others. It is traditional to get married. Also, desire to perpetuate name on earth through our off springs exists in all of us. Again, the interest to possess, is strong in human beings. One also marries because an average celibate life is devoid of comfort and women. Then there are romantic illusions which surround marriage. One likes to imagine a beautiful obedient, loving wife untying one's shoelaces in the evening and saying sweet things under her breath. Of course, in actual life, it is nothing of that sort or, at least, not most of the time. As a married man, you find that you have financial worries. You are supposed to spend money on things you never knew even existed or were used by human beings. You realize that your wife is jealous and such realizations spring upon you with an absolutely clean conscience. Alas! One learns the truth but too late.

 Questions:

1.     What are the reasons for getting married?

2.     Write a note on some of the romantic illusion which -surround marriage?

3.     What are the disadvantages of getting married?

4.     Suggest a suitable title for the passage and make a précis.

5.     Explain the meaning of the following words:

            (i) Offspring (ii) Illusions (iii) Independence (iv) Jealous