36th BCS English Written
Sub code: 003
Time: 4 hours; Full Marks: 200
Part-A
Everybody is talking about reconstruction. Most people, when asked what spiritual quality is aptly needed to rebuild-civilization, will reply ‘Love’. Men must love one another, they say; nations must do likewise, and then the series of cataclysms which is threatening to destroy us will be checked.
Respectfully but firmly, I disagree. Love is a great force in private life; it is indeed the greatest of all things; but love in public affairs does not work. It has been tried again and again: by the Christian civilization of the Middle Ages, and also by the French Revolution, a secular movement which reasserted the Brotherhood of man. And it has always failed. The idea that nations should love one another, or that- business concerns or marketing boards should love one another, or that a man in Portugal should love a man in Peru of whom he has never heard — it is absurd, unreal, dangerous. It leads us into perilous and vague sentimentalism. ‘Love’ is what is needed, we chant and then sit back and the world goes on as before. The fact is we can only love what we know personally. And we cannot know much. In public affairs, in the rebuilding of civilization, something much less dramatic and emotional is needed, namely, tolerance. Tolerance is a very dull virtue. It is boring. Unlike love, it has always had a bad press. It is negative. It merely means putting up with people, being able to stand things. No one has ever written an ode to tolerance, or raised a statue to her. Yet this is the quality which will be most needed after the war. This is the sound state of mind which we are earnestly looking for. This is the only force which will enable different races and classes and interests to settle down together to the work of reconstruction.
The world is very full of people-appallingly full; it has never been so full before, and they are all tumbling over each other. Most of these people one doesn’t know and some of them one doesn’t like: doesn’t like the colour of their skins, say, or the shapes of their noses, or the way blow them or don’t blow them or the way they talk, or their smell or their clothes, or their fondness for Jazz or their dislike of Jazz, and so on. Well, what is one to do? There are two solutions. One of them is the Nazi solution. If you don’t like people, kill them, segregate them and then strut up and down proclaiming that you are the salt of the earth. The other way is much less thrilling, but it is on the whole the way of democracies and I prefer it. If you don’t like people, put up with them as well as you can. Don’t try to love them: you can’t, you will only strain yourself. But try to tolerate them. On the basis of that tolerance, a civilized future may be built. Certainly I can see no other foundation for the post-war world.
1. Answer the questions below. Do not copy any sentence from the passage above. Write the answer
in your own sentences having your own wordings and phrasing: -30
a. What is the passage about?
b. What was traditionally believed to be the most powerful virtue needed for civilization??
c. Does the author hold the traditional view?
d. How does ‘love’ work for public life?
e. What is the most desired virtue for rebuilding civilization?
f. How does the writer describe tolerance?
g. What does the passage say about human relationship?
h. What according to the author, are the two solutions?
i. Which of the ways do the author like?
j. Give a title of the passage.
2. Guess the meaning of the following words/expressions contextual clues: (The wort are underlined
in the passage): -5
a. Perilous.
b. Chant
c. Appallingly
d. Segregate
e. Strain
3. Fill in the table by putting words in the empty cells according to their parts of speech: -5
| Noun | Verb | Adjective |
|---|---|---|
| a. Danger | × | |
| b. disagree | ||
| c. Brotherhood | ||
| d. Real | ||
| e. Democracy |
4. Join the sets of sentences into one sentence: -10
(a) Love is a great virtue in private life. Love does not work in public life.
(b) Tolerance is a desired virtue. It is not a mere talked about thing.
(c) Love is good for private life. Tolerance is good in public life.
(d) There are two solutions; one is a Nazi solution.
(e) The way is less thrilling. I like it.
5. Write a sentence with each of the following words/expressions. Copying of any sentence from the
passage must be avoided. -10
(a) Spiritual (b) threatening;
(c) absurd (d) Secular;
(e) assert (f) Sentimental;
(g) Dull (h) Settle down
(i) Fondness (u) The salt of the earth
6. Summarize the passage in own words in 100 words. -20
7. Write a feature to the editor of a renowned English Dally on “The growing importance of tolerance
in our social and national life."
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