question_answer

  Read the passage given below and answer the questions that follow.                                                                     (12) A bookshop is not something you find in every gali or mohalla these days. Books, which were once a staple diet for youngsters in their formative years, are fading out of their list of engagements. Ask any youngster which is the latest book he has read and he will be baffled. Apart from a few consistent readers, other just befool themselves with a best-seller's name or lament the curriculum load for justifying themselves, like this seventeen year old school goer who says, "I just read my physics book." Television has been blamed much for this calamitous situation, which is producing square faced people and bookless society. Furthermore, today's children are under pressure to be smart and popular, to succeed on a social level. Parties, dancing, dating and hanging out at places like Nirula's, Wimpys and Priya complex being early. Moreover, the computers, video games, internet, swimming lessons, cricketing and every youngster's passion for hour long tete-a-tete on telephone with friends eat up all their leisure time. A child who is constantly under pressure to live up to his parent's expectations, at times unreasonable, does not like to throw himself into another set of books after the laborious school work unless the child comes from a family of readers where intoxicating works of Shakespeare and Dickens are just a matter of pulling them out from the shelves. Many parents also believe that today's children have become aware and demand logical reasoning for everything. They can no longer be fooled by fairy tales or animal stories, as they have seen no fairies or animals except for those old tired ones in the city zoo. This has made them more interested in Shah Rukh Khan's dancing then a turtle talking to a rabbit or a frog becoming a prince. But a visit to the capital's leading bookstores presents quite a contrasting picture of the youngsters reading habits. These bookshops claim they are doing healthy business and have many regular buyers from this age group. Though works of Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, Jane Austen, Mark Twain no longer get with the teenagers, best-sellers from Daniel Steele, Sidney Sheldon, Jeffery Archer are in the list of all reading teens. Self-help books such as those on personality development or relationship management are also picked up by most.                                                     (a) Answer the following questions.                                                                                                                            (2 x 4 = 8) (i) Why are books losing their importance? (ii) Why do children don't want to read books? (iii) What kind of books are mostly read?                             (iv) What perspective do the bookshop owners offer? (b) Tick the correct option.                                                                                                                              (1 x 4 = 4) (i) ................ and .................. are taking up most of the leisure time of youngsters. (a) Computers, video games                       (b) Cartoons, food (c) Clothes, shoes                                            (d) Studies, books (ii) Parents believe that children demand (a) money                                                           (b) logical reasoning (c)food                                                 (d) clothes (iii) Bookshops claim of doing (a) healthy business                                       (b) low business (c) average business                                       (d) no business (iv) Teenagers like to read (a) classics                                                           (b) romance (c) detective fiction                                         (d) bestsellers

Answer:

  (a) (i) Books are losing their importance because youngsters these days have other means of entertainment to spend leisure time. Television, parties, dancing, hanging out, computers, video games, internet, etc. have taken the place of books. (ii) Children don't want to read books because there is already too much pressure on their minds to study and get good marks. They don't want to read any more books apart from those in their syllabus. (iii) Books like works of Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, Jane Austen, Mark Twain and other classics hold no interest for teenagers. They are more interested in reading bestsellers like Daniel Steele, Sidney Sheldon, Jeffery Archer, etc. Self-help books and those on personality development or relationship management are also popular. (iv) The bookshop owners claim that they are doing healthy business and have many regular buyers from this age group /.e., teenagers. Teenagers are mostly interested in reading bestsellers. (b) (i) (a) computers, video games (ii) (b) logical reasoning. (iii) (a) healthy business. (iv) (d) bestsellers.