English Exercises 003

SUMMARY

You are advised to spend about 50 minutes on this section.

Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions on it.

On global basis, no statistics are adequate to suggest the magnitude of the revolution in education today. In the United States Information Services libraries in the third world, about thirty million people annually use the facilities provided. The agency distributes eight million books every year. The Soviet Union also distributes over one hundred and fifty million books to developing countries all over the world. But together, these programmes do not come near to meeting the world demand .

Mere facts and figures cannot convey the human passion for learning. In the English speaking teaching programmes mounted for children in Latin ‘American countries, children

have been known to have sold the shoes off their feet to pay their way to classes. In Africa, a

tribal chief was turned away from enrolling in a class because there were no more chairs. The

following day, he and a contingent of his fellow chiefs were waiting outside the door, each

carrying own chair. 

This revolution is not limited to the developing world. In the United States, there are than fifty million students attending more than 185,000 public and private schools at all levels.

There are more students today in the United States than there were city residents only forty

years ago. We have entered an age in which education is not just a luxury which gives some

men an advantage over others. It has become a necessity without which a person is defenseless

in this complex industrialized society. Levels of education which were once regarded with

awe have now become common place. And jobs which once could be filled with possession

of strength and native intelligence now call for a college degree. We have truly entered the

century of the educated man.

It is a mistake, however , to confuse skill with education. A man who has been taught

only to hold a job has not been educated, he has only been trained. And the man who has merely

been trained is not fully qualified to take his place in a free society as a fully participating

team. An all-round education should equip the learner for any challenges he may encounter.

Education of course, is not something that is acquired just in college. It is a life-long

task and when I think of death, I think of it as the moment when the brain ceases to inquire and

expand.

QUESTIONS

[a] In FOUR sentences, ONE for each,

summarize the instances given by the writer to

show that education is spreading at a very rapid

rate.

[b] In TWO sentences, ONE for each, state the

reasons given by the writer to support the view

that education is changing fast.