Passage Reading and English Comprehension

By the time a child is six or seven she has all the essential avoidances well enough by heart to be trusted with the care of a younger child. And she also develops a number of simple techniques. She learns to weave firm square balls from palm leaves, to make pinwheels of palm leaves or frangipani blossoms, to climb a coconut tree by walking up the trunk on flexible little feet, to break open a coconut with one firm well-directed blow of a knife as long as she is tall, to play a number of group games and sing the songs which go with them, to tidy the house by picking up the litter on the stony floor, to bring water from the sea, to spread out the copra to dry and to help gather it in when rain threatens, to go to a neighboring house and bring back a lighted faggot for the chief's pipe or the cook-house fire.

But in the case of the little girls all these tasks are merely supplementary to the main business of baby-tending. Very small boys also have some care of the younger children, but at eight or nine years of age they are usually relieved of it. Whatever rough edges have not been smoothed off by this responsibility for younger children are worn off by their contact with older boys.

For little boys are admitted to interesting and important activities only so long as their behavior is circumspect and helpful. Where small girls are brusquely pushed aside, small boys will be patiently tolerated and they become adept at making themselves useful. The four or five little boys who all wish to assist at the important, business of helping a grown youth lasso reef eels, organize themselves into a highly efficient working team; one boy holds the bait, another holds an extra lasso, others poke eagerly about in holes in the reef looking for prey, while still another tucks the captured eels into his lavalava.

The small girls, burdened with heavy babies or the care of little staggerers who are too small to adventure on the reef, discouraged by the hostility of the small boys and the scorn of the older ones, have little opportunity for learning the more adventurous forms of work and play. So while the little boys first undergo the chastening effects of baby-tending and then have many opportunities to learn effective cooperation under the supervision of older boys, the girls' education is less comprehensive. They have a high standard of individual responsibility, but the community provides them with no lessons in cooperation with one another. This is particularly apparent in the activities of young people: the boys organize quickly; the girls waste hours in bickering, innocent of any technique for quick and efficient cooperation.

1191. The primary purpose of the passage with reference to the society under discussion is to

	(a) explain some differences in the upbringing of girls and boys
	(b) criticize the deficiencies in the education of girls
	(c) give a comprehensive account of a day in the life of an average young girl
	(d) delineate the role of young girls

1192. The word 'brusquely' most nearly means

	(a) quickly
	(b) gently
	(c) nonchalantly
	(d) abruptly

1193. The list of techniques in paragraph one could best be described as

	(a) household duties
	(b) rudimentary physical skills
	(c) important responsibilities
	(d) useful social skills

1194. It can be inferred that the 'high standard of individual responsibility' is

	(a) developed mainly through child-care duties
	(b) only present in girls
	(c) taught to the girl before she is entrusted with babies
	(d) actually counterproductive

1195. The expression 'innocent of' is best taken to mean

	(a) not guilty of
	(b) unskilled in
	(c) unsuited for
	(d) uninvolved in

1196. It can be inferred that in the community under discussion all of the following are important except

	(a) domestic handicrafts
	(b) well-defined social structure
	(c) fishing skills
	(d) formal education

1197. Which of the following if true would weaken the author's contention about 'lessons in cooperation'?

I Group games played by younger girls involve cooperation
II Girls can learn from watching boys cooperating
III Individual girls cooperate with their mothers in looking after babies

	(a) I only
	(b) II only
	(c) III only
	(d) I and II only

1198. Which of the following is the best description of the author's technique in handling her material?

	(a) Both description and interpretation of observations
	(b) Presentation of facts without comment
	(c) Description of evidence to support a theory
	(d) Generalization from a particular viewpoint. E. Close examination of preconceptions

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