Read the following passage and do the given activities:
Passage:
My second story is about love and loss. I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz (Steve Wozniak) and I started Apple when I was 20. In 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company. And then I got fired. It was devastating. But something slowly began to dawn on me – I still loved what I did. And so I decided to start over. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life. During the next five years, I started a company Next, another company named Pixar, and I fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar is now the world's most successful animation studio. Apple bought Next. I returned to Apple and the technology we developed at Next is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. The only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle.
Name the following with reference to the passage:
Show Hint
Solution and Explanation
Complete the following web diagram:
Complete the following web diagram:
Show Hint
Solution and Explanation
Step-by-Step Explanation:
The given web diagram is based on Steve Jobs' speech, where he shares key life lessons and themes from his second story. Based on the passage, we identify the missing information as follows:
\[\begin{array}{|c|c|} \hline \textbf{Main Idea} & \textbf{Supporting Details (from Passage)} \\ \hline \text{Advice given by Steve Jobs} & \text{1. "Keep looking, don't settle"} \\ & \text{2. "Love what you do"} \\ \hline \text{The theme of Jobs' second story} & \text{1. "Love and Loss"} \\ & \text{2. "Passion for work"} \\ \hline \end{array}\]
Step 1: Understanding "Advice given by Steve Jobs"
- The passage mentions that Jobs emphasizes the importance of persistence and passion in life.
- He says: "The only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle."
- This means that Jobs advises people to continue searching for their passion and to never settle for something they don't love.
Step 2: Understanding "The theme of Jobs' second story"
- Jobs' second story in the passage is about "Love and Loss."
- He narrates how he lost his job at Apple but later found new opportunities by starting Next and Pixar.
- His journey shows that failure can lead to new beginnings and that following one's passion for work is essential.
Final Answer: The completed web diagram should contain:
- "Keep looking, don't settle" and "Love what you do" under "Advice given by Steve Jobs".
- "Love and Loss" and "Passion for work" under "The theme of Jobs' second story".
Fill in the blanks choosing the correct phrases in their proper form from the bracket:
(to get fired, devastating, begin to dawn on)
(i) On committing persistent mistakes, the employee \(\underline{\hspace{3cm}}\) from his post.
(ii) When the teacher explained the solution of the problems in Maths, it \(\underline{\hspace{3cm}}\) the students that the problems were easy.
(to get fired, devastating, begin to dawn on)
(i) On committing persistent mistakes, the employee \(\underline{\hspace{3cm}}\) from his post.
(ii) When the teacher explained the solution of the problems in Maths, it \(\underline{\hspace{3cm}}\) the students that the problems were easy.
Show Hint
Example:
- He got fired (past tense).
- It began to dawn on him (past realization).
Solution and Explanation
Step 1: Understanding the given phrases
- To get fired: Means being dismissed from a job.
- Devastating: Means causing great emotional distress.
- Begin to dawn on: Means to start realizing something.
Step 2: Applying the correct phrase in (i)
- The sentence refers to an employee losing a job due to mistakes.
- The correct phrase is "got fired", as it is in the past tense.
Step 3: Applying the correct phrase in (ii)
- The sentence refers to students realizing something.
- The correct phrase is "began to dawn on", as it implies realization over time.
Do as directed:
(i) Identify the tense of the underlined verb:
If you haven't found yet, keep looking.
(ii) I found what I loved to do early in life.
(Identify the main and subordinate clause.)
Do as directed:
(i) Identify the tense of the underlined verb:
If you haven't found yet, keep looking.
(ii) I found what I loved to do early in life.
(Identify the main and subordinate clause.)
Show Hint
- Present Perfect Tense: Formed using "has/have" + past participle (e.g., I have seen, She has gone).
Clause Identification:
- A main clause can stand alone.
- A subordinate clause depends on the main clause to make sense.
Solution and Explanation
Step 1: Identifying the tense of "haven't found"
- The verb "haven't found" consists of "have" (auxiliary) + "found" (past participle).
- This structure is used in the present perfect tense, which indicates an action that started in the past but has relevance to the present.
Step 2: Identifying main and subordinate clauses
- Main clause: The part of the sentence that expresses a complete thought and can stand alone.
- Subordinate clause: The part of the sentence that depends on the main clause to complete its meaning.
Breaking down the sentence:
- Main clause: "I found" (complete idea).
- Subordinate clause: "what I loved to do early in life" (depends on the main clause).
'Failure is the key to success.' Explain in your own words.
Show Hint
Solution and Explanation
Step 1: Understanding the Meaning of the Quote
- The quote suggests that failure is not the opposite of success but a part of the journey to success.
- Every mistake teaches a lesson and helps a person grow stronger.
Step 2: Why Failure is Important
- Failure provides learning opportunities.
- It helps develop perseverance and resilience.
- It motivates individuals to work harder and improve.
Step 3: Real-Life Example
- Thomas Edison failed multiple times before inventing the light bulb.
- Walt Disney was once fired from a job for lacking creativity but later created Disney Studios.
- Steve Jobs was removed from Apple but later returned to make it one of the biggest tech companies.
Top Questions on Reading Comprehension
- Shown below are letters ‘e’ taken from four popular logos, arranged in a sequence. Which of the options is the correct sequence?
- UCEED - 2026
- English Language Comprehension
- Reading Comprehension
- Shown below are four options, each showing consecutive frames representing the movement of a pendulum of an old-style wall clock for an animation movie. Which is the correct option?
- UCEED - 2026
- English Language Comprehension
- Reading Comprehension
- Acrucial moderating factor in how people experience comparisons is self-esteem. Individuals with high self-esteem are more likely to interpret upward comparison as informative rather than threatening. They are more resilient in the face of others’ success and more likely to believe they can reach their own goals. In contrast, people with low self-esteem are more prone to interpret comparison as judgment, reinforcing negative self-views and triggering feelings of inadequacy.
This dynamic creates a self-reinforcing loop. People with high self-esteem are less vulnerable to upward comparison, which intensifies those doubts. Those with a secure sense of self are more likely to use comparison as a learning tool. The same external stimulus—a colleague’s achievements, a friend’s popularity—can have radically different effects depending on internal stability.
Self-esteem also influences how people choose their comparison targets. Research has found that individuals often engage in “selective comparison,” seeking out those who confirm their existing beliefs about themselves. This can become a subtle form of self-sabotage. Someone who feels unworthy may subconsciously seek out targets that reinforce that sense, perpetuating a narrative of inferiority. One of the most promising antidotes to social comparison is temporal comparison—evaluating oneself not against others, but against one’s own past. This method has been shown to increase motivation and satisfaction, especially when individuals can see concrete progress. Temporal comparison activates the same reward circuits as social comparison but avoids the threat systems associated with social ranking. It also reinforces agency: individuals focus on what they can control and improve rather than what others control. In therapeutic and coaching settings, temporal comparison is used to help clients build self-efficacy and track growth over time.
Moreover, people who focus on self-improvement rather than social dominance are less likely to fall into cycles of envy or self-pity. They can still use others as inspiration, but they do so without attaching their self-worth to the outcome. This is not to say they never compare—but that they focus on learning, rather than judgment. The most skilful approach to comparison may lie in eliminating it, but in reframing it as feedback. When we interpret comparison as information rather than a verdict, we can ask, “What can I learn from this?” This shift turns comparison into a growth tool. Teachers mentor their students, not as rivals. Psychologists emphasize that the key variable here is mindset.
A fixed mindset sees comparison as a threat. If someone else is better, it means we are worse. A growth mindset sees comparison as a map. If someone else has reached a certain level, it means the path exists. This reframing is not just a cognitive trick. It changes the emotional tone of comparison, making it more likely to inspire than to wound. Reframing also requires emotional regulation—the ability to notice an initial pang of envy or shame without reacting impulsively. With practice, individuals can learn to pause, reflect, and reinterpret their emotional responses. Over time, this builds resilience and self-trust, allowing comparison to become a learning tool rather than a cage.- XAT - 2026
- Verbal and Logical Ability
- Reading Comprehension
When people who are talking don’t share the same culture, knowledge, values, and assumptions, mutual understanding can be especially difficult. Such understanding is possible through the negotiation of meaning. To negotiate meaning with someone, you have to become aware of and respect both the differences in your backgrounds and when these differences are important. You need enough diversity of cultural and personal experience to be aware that divergent world views exist and what they might be like. You also need the flexibility in world view, and a generous tolerance for mistakes, as well as a talent for finding the right metaphor to communicate the relevant parts of unshared experiences or to highlight the shared experiences while demphasizing the others. Metaphorical imagination is a crucial skill in creating rapport and in communicating the nature of unshared experience. This skill consists, in large measure, of the ability to bend your world view and adjust the way you categorize your experiences. Problems of mutual understanding are not exotic; they arise in all extended conversations where understanding is important.
When it really counts, meaning is almost never communicated according to the CONDUIT metaphor, that is, where one person transmits a fixed, clear proposition to another by means of expressions in a common language, where both parties have all the relevant common knowledge, assumptions, values, etc. When the chips are down, meaning is negotiated: you slowly figure out what you have in common, what it is safe to talk about, how you can communicate unshared experience or create a shared vision. With enough flexibility in bending your world view and with luck and charity, you may achieve some mutual understanding.
Communication theories based on the CONDUIT metaphor turn from the pathetic to the evil when they are applied indiscriminately on a large scale, say, in government surveillance or computerized files. There, what is most crucial for real understanding is almost never included, and it is assumed that the words in the file have meaning in themselves—disembodied, objective, understandable meaning. When a society lives by the CONDUITmetaphor on a large scale, misunderstanding, persecution, and much worse are the likely products.- XAT - 2026
- Verbal and Logical Ability
- Reading Comprehension
Later, I realized that reviewing the history of nuclear physics served another purpose as well: It gave the lie to the naive belief that the physicists could have come together when nuclear fission was discovered (in Nazi Germany!) and agreed to keep the discovery a secret, thereby sparing humanity such a burden. No. Given the development of nuclear physics up to 1938, development that physicists throughout the world pursued in all innocence of any intention of finding the engine of a new weapon of mass destruction—only one of them, the remarkable Hungarian physicist Leo Szilard, took that possibility seriously—the discovery of nuclear fission was inevitable. To stop it, you would have had to stop physics. If German scientists hadn’t made the discovery when they did, French, American, Russian, Italian, or Danish scientists would have done so, almost certainly within days or weeks. They were all working at the same cutting edge, trying to understand the strange results of a simple experiment bombarding uranium with neutrons. Here was no Faustian bargain, as movie directors and other naifs still find it intellectually challenging to imagine. Here was no evil machinery that the noble scientists might hide from the problems and the generals. To the contrary, there was a high insight into how the world works, an energetic reaction, older than the earth, that science had finally devised the instruments and arrangements to coart forth. “Make it seem inevitable,” Louis Pasteur used to advise his students when they prepared to write up their discoveries. But it was. To wish that it might have been ignored or suppressed is barbarous. “Knowledge,” Niels Bohr once noted, “is itself the basis for civilization.” You cannot have the one without the other; the one depends upon the other. Nor can you have only benevolent knowledge; the scientific method doesn’t filter for benevolence. Knowledge has consequences, not always intended, not always comfortable, but always welcome. The earth revolves around the sun, not the sun around the earth. “It is a profound and necessary truth,” Robert Oppenheimer would say, “that the deep things in science are not found because they are useful; they are found because it was possible to find them.”
...Bohr proposed once that the goal of science is not universal truth. Rather, he argued, the modest but relentless goal of science is “the gradual removal of prejudices.” The discovery that the earth revolves around the sun has gradually removed the prejudice that the earth is the center of the universe. The discovery of microbes is gradually removing the prejudice that disease is a punishment from God. The discovery of evolution is gradually removing the prejudice that Homo sapiens is a separate and special creation.- XAT - 2026
- Verbal and Logical Ability
- Reading Comprehension
Questions Asked in Maharashtra Class X Board exam
- Pick out the infinitive from the following sentence :
He was asking to go for the concert.- Maharashtra Class X Board - 2025
- Grammar and Language Usage
- Out of the following which is a Pythagorean triplet ?
In the following figure \(\triangle\) ABC, B-D-C and BD = 7, BC = 20, then find \(\frac{A(\triangle ABD)}{A(\triangle ABC)}\).
- Maharashtra Class X Board - 2025
- Properties of Triangles
The radius of a circle with centre 'P' is 10 cm. If chord AB of the circle subtends a right angle at P, find area of minor sector by using the following activity. (\(\pi = 3.14\))
Activity :
r = 10 cm, \(\theta\) = 90\(^\circ\), \(\pi\) = 3.14.
A(P-AXB) = \(\frac{\theta}{360} \times \boxed{\phantom{\pi r^2}}\) = \(\frac{\boxed{\phantom{90}}}{360} \times 3.14 \times 10^2\) = \(\frac{1}{4} \times \boxed{\phantom{314}}\) <br>
A(P-AXB) = \(\boxed{\phantom{78.5}}\) sq. cm.
- Do as directed (Attempt any four). (1) Complete the following words by using correct letters:
br__ve
t__ach
box__r
fa__th- Maharashtra Class X Board - 2025
- Grammar and Language Usage