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COMPREHENSION COMPETITIVE EXAM QUESTIONS
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Directions (Q. 1-10): Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions. Certain words/ phrases are given in bold to help you locate them while answering some of the questions.
Until the I 960s boys spent longer and went further in school than girls, and were more likely to graduate from university. Now, across the rich world and in a growing number of poor countries, the balance has tilted the other way. Policymakers who once fretted about girls’ lack of confidence in science now spend their time dangling couples of “Harry Potter” before surly boys. Sweden has commissioned research into its “boy crisis”. Australia has devised a reading programmed called “Boys, Blokes, Books & Bytes”. In just a couple of generations, one gender gap has closed, only for another to open up.
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The reversal is laid out in a report published on March 5th by the OECD, a Paris-based rich-country think-tank. Boys’ dominance just about endures in maths: at age 15 they are, on average, the equivalent of three months’ schooling ahead of girls. In science the results are fairly even. But in reading, where girls have been ahead for some time, agulfhas appeared. In all 64 countries and economies in the study, girls outperform boys. The average gap is equivalent to an extra year of schooling.
The OECD deems literacyto be the most important skill that it assesses, since further learning depends on it. Sure enough, teenage boys are 50% more likely than girls to fail to achieve basic proficiency in any of maths, reading and science. Youngsters in this group, with nothing to build on or shine at, are prone to drop out of school altogether.
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To see why boys and girls fare so differently in the classroom, first look at what they do outside it. The average 15-year old girl devotes five-and-a-half hours a week to homework, an hour more than the average boy, who spends more time playing video games and trawling the internet. Three-quarters of girls read for pleasure, compared with little more than half of boys. Reading rates are falling everywhere as screens draw eyes from pages, but boys are giving up faster. The OECD found that, among boys who do as much homework as the average girl, the gender gap in reading fell by nearly a quarter.
Once in the classroom, boys long to be out of it. They are twice as likely as girls to report that school is “waste ofanà more oSen turn upleap. ‘us as a teachers use to struggle to persuade girls that science is not only for men, the OECD now urges parents and policymakers to steer boys away from a version of masculinity that ignores academic achievement.
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Boys’ disdain for school might have been less irrational when there were plenty of jobs for uneducated men. But those days have long gone. It may be that a bit of swagger helps in math’s, where confidence plays a part in boys’ lead (though it sometimes extends to delusion: 12% of boys told the OECD that they are familiar with the mathematical concept of”subunctive scaling”, a red herring that fooled only 7% of girls). But their lack of self-discipline drives teachers crazy.
The OECD found that boys did much better in its anonymized tests than in teachers assessments. What is behind this discrimination? One possibility is that teacher mark up students who are polite, eager and stay out of fights, all attributes that are more common among girls. In some countries, academic points can even be docked for bad behavior.
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1. Choose the word/group of words which is most nearly the SAME in meaning as the word DRAW given in bold as used in the passage.
1) sketch
2) tie
3) raffle
4) represent
5) divert
2. According to the passage, what can be said about school education today?
1) Science education is deteriorating rapidly.
2) Online education can easily address its problems such as shortage of teaching staff.
3) It fosters rote learning instead of creative thinking.
4) The amount of homework for children is prohibitive.
5) Girls are doing better at school as compared to boys on some parameters.
3. Choose the word which is OPPOSITE in meaning of the word DOCKED given in bold as used in the passage.
l) raised
2) stopped
3) widened
4) flown
5) None of these
4. Which of the following is TRUE in the context of the passage?
1) Boys perform better than girls on subjective teacher assessments.
2) Efforts to improve representation of girls in education have had success.
3) By and large teachers are female and they
4) Education in rich countries needs to be subsidised to reduce dropout numbers.
5) None of the given statements is true in the context of the passage.
5. Choose the word which is OPPOSITE in meaning to the word DELUSION given in bold as used in the passage.
(1) Myth
(2) Superstition
(3) Precipitating
(4) Reality
(5) Familiarity
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6. Which of the following factors can have an impact on results of boys in school?
(A) Perceptions of teachers
(B) Societal attitude towards educational achievement of boys
(C) Overconfidence of male students
1) Only (A)
2) Only (B)
3) All (A), (B) & (C)
4) Only (A) & (C)
5) Only (A)& B)
7. What do the OECD statistics in the passage indicate?
1) School dropout rates among boys are higher in developing countries than in rich ones.
2) Despite the perception that girls are doing better than boys in school, the same is not true.
3) Today boys are m&e at risk than girls in terms of educational achievement in developed countries.
4) Enrolment of girls in schools has doubled while that of boys has fallen.
5) By and large teenagers have very low educational achievement in rich countries.
8. Choose the word/group of words which is most nearly the SAME in meaning as the word PRONE given in bold as used in the passage.
1) unconscious
2) flat
3) likely
4) lifeless
5) opinionated
9. Which 01 the following best describes the author’s opinion about the ‘boy crisis’?
1) It is not as much of a problem as it is made out to be.
2) Policymakers should address the issue of ‘uneducated’ boys as it will impact boys’ employment subsequently.
3) It can be addressed by implementing quotas at university level.
4) It is a rich-country phenomenon and can be easily addressed through increased funding for schools.
5) None of the given options
10. Which of the following is an appropriate title for the passage?
1) Finding the Glass Ceiling
2) Men Storming Up the Irony Tower
3) Pay and Job Flexibility
4) Attention! ANew Gender Gap
5) A Broken Safety Net
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ANSWERS:
1.5
2.5
3.1
4.2
5. 4
6.3
7.3
8.3
9.2
10.4
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