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.