English Precis & Composition 2018

Write a précis of the following passage in about 120 words and also suggest a suitable title:

It is in the temperate countries of northern Europe that the beneficial effects of cold are most manifest. A cold climate seems to stimulate energy by acting as an obstacle. In the face of an insuperable obstacle our energies are numbed by despair; the total absence of obstacles, on the other hand leaves no room for the exercise and training of energy; but a struggle against difficulties that we have a fair hope of over-coming, calls into active operation all our powers. In like manner, while intense cold numbs human energies, and a hot climate affords little motive for exertion, moderate cold seems to have a bracing effect on the human race. In a moderately cold climate man is engaged in an arduous, but no hopeless struggles and with the inclemency of the weather. He has to build strong houses and procure thick clothes to keep himself warm. To supply fuel for his fires, he must hew down trees and dig coal out of the earth. In the open air, unless he moves quickly, he will suffer pain from the biting wind. Finally, in order to replenish the expenditure of bodily tissue caused by his necessary exertions, he has to procure for himself plenty of nourishing food.

Quite different is the lot of man in the tropics. In the neighbourhood of the equator there is little need of clothes or fire, and it is possible with perfect comfort and no danger to health, to pass the livelong day stretched out on the bare ground beneath the shade of a tree. A very little fruit or vegetable food is required to sustain life under such circumstances, and that little can be obtained without much exertion from the bounteous earth.

We may recognize must the same difference between ourselves at different seasons of the year, as there is between human nature in the tropics and in temperate climes. In hot weather we are generally languid and inclined to take life easily; but when the cold season comes, we find that we are more inclined to vigorous exertion of our minds and bodies.

Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions that follow:

The third great defect of our civilization is that it does not know what to do with its knowledge. Science has given us powers fit for the gods, yet we use them like small children. For example, we do not know how to manage our machines. Machines were made to be man's servants; yet he has grown so dependent on them that they are in a fair way to become his master. Already most men spend most of their lives looking after and waiting upon machines. And the machines are very stern masters. They must be fed with coal, and given petrol to drink, and oil to wash with, and they must be kept at the right temperature. And if they do not get their meals when they expect them, they grow sulky and refuse to work, or burst with rage, and blow up, and spread ruin and destruction all around them. So we have to wait upon them very attentively and do all that we can to keep them in a good temper. Already we find it difficult either to work or play without the machines, and a time may come when they will rule us altogether, just as we rule the animals.

And this brings me to the point at which I asked, “What do we do with all the time which the machines have saved for us, and the new energy they have given us?" On the whole, it must be admitted, we do very little. For the most part we use our time and energy to make more and better machines; but more and better machines will only give us still more time and still more energy, and what are we to do with them? The answer, I think, is that we should try to become mere civilized. For the machines themselves, and the power which the machines have given us, are not civilization but aids to civilization. But you will remember that we agreed at the beginning that being civilized meant making and linking beautiful things. Thinking freely, and living rightly and maintaining justice equally between man and man. Man has a better chance today to do these things than he ever had before; he has more time, more energy, less to fear and less to fight against. If he will give his time and energy which his machines have won for him to making more beautiful things, to finding out more and more about the universe, to removing the causes of quarrels between nations, to discovering how to prevent poverty, then I think our civilization would undoubtedly be the greater, as it would be the most lasing that there has ever been.

Explain the difference between the following word pairs (Any FIVE) by using each word in your own sentences:

Use ONLY FIVE of the following in sentences which illustrate their meaning: