Critical Reading

This critical reading tests your ability to understand a passage, and answer questions on the basis of what is stated and implied in the passage. You need to read the passage first so that you can identify the main idea of the passage, before you read a second time in detail.

1 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 5 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 10 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 neighbouring 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 15 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. 20 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 25 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, 30 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 35 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 40 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.

Adapted from: Coming of Age in Samoa, Margaret Mead (1928)

Read the fragment once to get an overview of the text (the gist) and find out what the author intends to convey.

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

a. show that young girls are trained to be useful to adults

b. explain some differences in the upbringing of girls and boys

c. criticize the lack in the education of girls

d. describe the role of young girls

e. give a comprehensive account of a day in the life of an average young girl

Read the fragment again and look at the details of the text

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

a. elementary physical skills

b. monotonous tasks

c. important responsibilities

d. household duties

e. useful social skills

It can be understood that the 'high standard of individual responsibility' (line 38) is

a. only present in girls

b. weakened as the girl grows older.

c. developed mainly through child-care duties

d. actually counterproductive

e. taught to the girl before she is entrusted with babies

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

a. fishing skills

b. division of labor

c. domestic handicrafts

d. well-defined social structure

e. formal education

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

a. Generalization from a particular viewpoint.

b. Description of evidence to support a theory.

c. Close examination of preconceptions.

d. Both description and interpretation of observations.

e. Presentation of facts without comment.