Direction Read the passage carefully and answer the questions given at the end of the passage.
Die early or grow old there is no other alternative. And yet as Goethe said, “Age takes hold of us by surprise.” For himself each man is the sole, unique subject and we are often astonished when the common fate becomes our own-when we are struck by sickness, a shattered relationship or bereavement. Nevertheless we accept fortuitous accidents readily enough, making them part of our history, because they affect us as unique beings; but old age is the general fate and when it seizes upon our own personal life we are dumb founded. Old age is particularly difficult to assume because we have always regarded it as something alien, a foreign species. People often say. “So long as you feel young,
you are young.” This shows a complete misunderstanding of the complex truth of old age. Ageing is a biological phenomenon that may be detected by examination. Yet our private, inward experience does not tell us the number of our years, no fresh perception comes into being to show us the decline of age. Illness warns us of its presence and the organism defends itself; the exi;-tenee of the disease is more evident to the subject who undergoes it Than to those around him. Old age is more apparent to others than to the subject himself, it is a new state of biological equilibrium, and if the ageing individual adapts himself to it smoothly he does not notice the change. Even if the body does send us signals, they are ambiguous. The discomforts caused by age may sometimes be scarcely noticed or mentioned. We know that rheumatism or arthritis are caused by old age; yet we fail to see that they represent a new status. We remain what we were, with this rheumatism as something additional.
1. Die early or grow old means
(A) Y’u can escape old age by committing suicide
(B) Growing old ;s a universal phenomenon
(C) Growing old leads to ultimately death
2. Old age
(A) Is a gradual process
(B) Takes us by surprise
(C) Has specific warning signals
3. Most people find old age shocking because
(A) They consider it like an alien and are unwilling to accept it
(B) They do not prepare themselves to face the inevitable
(C) They have a complete misunderstanding of the cornpex truth of old age
4. Old age is different fr.. illness because
(A) unlike illness, there is not much awareness of old age
(B) Illness warns us of its presence but not old age
(C) It is a new state of biological equilibrium
5. A suitable title for this passage can be
(A) Grow Old With Me; For The Best Is Yet To Come
(B) Old Age -A Form Of Illness
(C) Oid Age Is A Universal Phenomenon
6. So long as you feel young. you are young’ means
(A) You can keep off old age by will power
(B) It is merely a myth. it does not hold water
(C) youth is a matter of the mind, the body has nothing to do with it
Solutions:
1.(B)
2.(B)
3.(A)
4.(B)
5.(C)
6.(C)
