question_answer

Direction: In the following questions, you have several brief passages with some questions following each passage. Read the passages carefully and choose the best answer to each question out of the four alternatives.

Passage - V

It is common knowledge that the root cause of our backwardness in most fields is illiteracy. Campaigns for the eradication of this drawback gathered momentum in the past four decades after independence. The results are, as expected, dramatic. However, while the percentage of literacy in India is going up, the number of illiterates has also been increasing, which is really incredible. Thus according to the 1991 census figures, there were 503 million illiterates in the country, 30 million more than in 1981. During the same period, the percentage of literacy went up from 34 to 39%. There is no need of any sophisticated technique to explain the cause of this paradox, as it is obviously the result of the rapid growth of population. The rapid growth of population has outpaced whatever little progress had been achieved in literacy. For instance, from 1971 to 1981, literacy increased at an annual average rate of 0.7%, while the country's population grew by 2.15% every year. In the following decade the average rate of annual increase in literacy was 0.95%, whereas the population grew by almost 2.85% every year during that decade. But population explosion is not entirely responsible for the growing number of illiterates. The apathy of most states in failing to tackle the problem of adult illiteracy is also partly to blame. Till now, they have shown little awareness of the magnitude of the problem. Moreover, follow-up measures to prevent neo-literates from relapsing into illiteracy are just as important as the initial adult literacy campaigns. In this case too, the State Education authorities are negligent. Not sufficient provision has been made for 'continued education'. This can be done by setting up more rural libraries, adult schools and correspondence courses.

Which of the following is true in the context at passage?

A) Continued education programmes are now adequate funded

B) All the State governments have now fully realised problem of illiteracy

C) Literacy campaigns in the pre-independence period were more fruitful than the later ones

D) Literacy campaign achieved desired results in the post-independence period