Ideals are a convenient escape, and the teacher who follows them is incapable of understanding his students and dealing with them intelligently; for him, the future ideal, the what should be, is far more important than the present child. The pursuit of an ideal excludes love, and without love no human problem can be solved. If the teacher is of the right kind, he will not depend on a method, but will study each individual pupil. In our relationship with children and young people, we are not dealing with mechanical devices that can be quickly repaired, but with living beings who are impressionable, volatile, sensitive, afraid, affectionate: and to deal with them, we have to have great understanding, the strength of patience and love. When we lack these, we look to quick and easy remedies and hope for marvellous and automatic results. If we are unaware, mechanical in our attitudes and actions, we fight shy of any demand upon us that is disturbing and that cannot be met by an automatic response, and this is one of our major difficulties in education.
(Extract with edits from "The right kind of Education" by J. Krishna Murti)
Which of the following currently reflects the intention of the author of this passage?
- The right kind of education for a child cannot be without love, care and understanding
- True education should be governed by a tendency to conform a child to our ideals
- The teacher should focus on how a child should be according to his/her methodology, hope, or expectation
- Parents and teachers should work together collectively to guide a child on what she/he should do as per their ambitions
The Correct Option is A
Approach Solution - 1
To determine the author's intention from the passage, we need to analyze the core message presented by the author, J. Krishnamurti. The passage discusses the nature of effective education and the role of love, care, and understanding in nurturing a child.
The author emphasizes that true education involves understanding a child as they are, rather than imposing our ideals upon them. He argues that enforcing ideals leads to conformity, fear, and conflict. Instead, love is emphasized as crucial; education without love leads to an inability to address human problems. Krishnamurti suggests that a teacher should not rely on fixed methodologies, but study each student individually.
The options provided are:
| The right kind of education for a child cannot be without love, care and understanding |
| True education should be governed by a tendency to conform a child to our ideals |
| The teacher should focus on how a child should be according to his/her methodology, hope, or expectation |
| Parents and teachers should work together collectively to guide a child on what she/he should do as per their ambitions |
After evaluating these options with respect to the passage content:
- The first option, "The right kind of education for a child cannot be without love, care and understanding," aligns most closely with the author's perspective. The author frequently mentions love as integral to understanding and educating the child properly.
- The second option contradicts the author's view as it promotes conformity to ideals, which the author criticizes.
- The third option suggests adherence to a fixed methodology, which the author argues against as it lacks understanding of the individual child.
- The fourth option involves fulfilling ambitions which may imply ideals and expectations, something the author discourages.
Thus, the option reflecting the author's intention is the first one: The right kind of education for a child cannot be without love, care and understanding.
Approach Solution -2
The passage emphasizes the importance of understanding children as they are, rather than imposing external ideals upon them. The author's primary intention is to highlight the necessity of love, care, and understanding in education. Here is the breakdown:
- Understanding Child's Nature: The author argues that education should focus on recognizing the child's current state rather than shaping them to fit preconceived ideals.
- Effects of Imposing Ideals: Imposing ideals encourages conformity, leading to fear and conflict within the child.
- The Role of Love: True education involves loving and understanding the child as they are, instead of fulfilling the ambitions of parents or teachers through them.
- Importance of Individual Attention: Each child should be studied individually, rather than applying standard methodologies.
- Implications for Teaching: Teachers should not rely on rigid methods but should approach each child with patience and sensitivity.
Based on these points, the correct option is:
- The right kind of education for a child cannot be without love, care and understanding
In light of the above passage, what will be the result of forcing a child to conform to the framework of an ideal?
- It will make the child an ideal child
- It will create confusion and fear in the child
- The child will get into a conflict
- Will discourage the child to conform to the ideal
The Correct Option is B
Approach Solution - 1
Approach Solution -2
According to the author, what should be the attitude of a right kind of teacher?
- They should not empathise with the students
- They should use modern and scientific methods of teaching
- They should focus on studying each student individually
- They should instill great ideals in the students
The Correct Option is C
Approach Solution - 1
Approach Solution -2
The comprehension passage emphasizes the need for a teacher to genuinely understand each student individually rather than imposing an ideal of what they should be. The author argues that a right kind of teacher will not rely solely on systematic methods or ideals, which can lead to conformity, fear, and internal conflict. Instead, the focus should be on understanding the child's unique tendencies, moods, and peculiarities through love and observation. The author criticizes the pursuit of ideals as being more about fulfilling our ambitions than caring for the child's actual needs. Teachers, therefore, should cultivate patience, understanding, and love, allowing them to adapt their approach to each student's individual characteristics.
This directly aligns with the correct answer: "They should focus on studying each student individually."
According to the passage, why do we look for quick and easy remedies and hope for marvellous and automatic results?
- Because children are impressionable, volatile, sensitive, and affectionate
- Because of major difficulties in education
- Because we lack intelligence and skills
- Because we lack understanding, patience and love
The Correct Option is A
Approach Solution - 1
The passage elucidates the nature of children and the dynamics involved in providing the right education. It articulates that children are "impressionable, volatile, sensitive, afraid, affectionate," and to effectively educate them requires understanding, patience, and love. When educators or parents lack these qualities, they resort to quick fixes and hope for automatic, miraculous results. The passage criticizes the imposition of ideals on children, suggesting that it is a lack of genuine love and understanding that leads to seeking such expedient solutions. Therefore, the answer to why we look for quick and easy remedies and expect marvellous, automatic outcomes is because "children are impressionable, volatile, sensitive, and affectionate." This characteristic makes dealing with them complex and challenging, making people lean towards simpler, immediate solutions when the necessary understanding and patience are absent.
Approach Solution -2
What does the passage highlight as the quality of a parent who really desires to understand his child?
- They look at their child through the prism of an ideal
- They observe and study the tendencies, moods, and peculiarities of the child
- They love their child to become someone great as per their ambitions
- They encourage the child to find out what she/he is and what she/he should be
The Correct Option is B
Approach Solution - 1
Approach Solution -2
What is the antonym for the word "volatile"?
- Stable
- Steady
- Constant
- All of the above
The Correct Option is D
Approach Solution - 1
- Stable: Indicates firmness and the ability to remain unchanged.
- Steady: Suggests constant and uniform behavior.
- Constant: Implies unchanged and consistent over time.
- All of the above: Includes all the above-mentioned options.
Approach Solution -2
The word "volatile" refers to something that is unstable, unpredictable, or liable to change suddenly. To find its antonym, we look for words that convey stability, reliability, and constancy. The options given, "Stable", "Steady", and "Constant", all fit these criteria as they represent the opposite of volatility: enduring, consistent, and firm. Hence, they are all antonyms of "volatile".
In the comprehension passage, the context emphasizes the need for understanding children who are described as "volatile" among other traits. It suggests that dealing with children requires understanding, patience, and love instead of quick fixes. This further supports why sensitivity and stability are essential attributes, aligning with the concept of opposing volatility.
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
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- 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 CLAT exam
- In a language laboratory, students were given an interesting puzzle involving the word "ELECTROCARDIOGRAPH." The teacher explained that such exercises not only test logical skills but also sharpen attention to detail. According to the challenge, the word had to undergo a series of transformations. First, the class was asked to take the first half of the letters, reverse their order and make the arrangement of letters look quite different from the original. Next, the students were told to identify the last but one letter of the original word and place it at the very beginning, a step that changed the opening appearance of the sequence completely. Finally, as a finishing touch, they had to add the letter 'S' at the end. Following these steps carefully would lead them to the correct transformed word, and only those who adhered to each condition in the exact order could solve the puzzle successfully. (150 words)
- CLAT - 2026
- Coding Decoding
On the night of October 12th, the "Sunburst Medallion" was stolen from the highly secured display case in the city museum. The theft occurred sometime between the museum closing at 10:00 PM and the night guard, Mr. Hemant, completing his final round at 1:00 AM. Three primary suspects were identified, all of whom had recently been dismissed from their museum positions: Anjali, the former curator; Bharat, the former security expert; and Chitra, the former exhibits designer.
Here are the established facts and their alibis:
- The security system logs show that the display case was opened using a specific five-digit code, which only Anjali and the museum director (who was out of the country) knew.
- Bharat's alibi is that he was at a distant relative's birthday party from 8:00 PM to 1:30 AM. Multiple independent witnesses confirmed his presence throughout the entire period.
- Chitra's alibi is that she was working late at a downtown graphic design studio. A time-stamped security camera from the studio's entrance shows her entering at 7:00 PM and exiting at 11:45 PM. The studio is a 20-minute drive from the museum.
- Mr. Hemant, the night guard, stated he checked the medallion at 10:30 PM, and it was still there.
Further investigation revealed that a small, distinctive silver button was found near the display case. Anjali is known to frequently wear a coat with similar unique silver buttons. The security expert, Bharat, had previously boasted that he could remotely disable a certain type of magnetic lock—the same type used on the medallion's case—without needing the code, though the log suggests the code was used. (269 words)
- CLAT - 2026
- Assertion and Reason
In a small town lived a close-knit family where every relation could be expressed through simple symbols. For instance, when they said \( A \times B \), it meant \( A \) is the father of \( B \), while \( A \div B \) meant \( A \) is the mother of \( B \). The younger ones were often introduced with \( A + B \), meaning \( A \) was the daughter of \( B \), and the bond of brotherhood was shown by \( A - B \) (A is brother of B).
One day, the children in the family turned these symbols into a playful code. Instead of introducing their parents and siblings in words, they spoke only in symbols. “Look,” giggled little Meena, “\( M + N \div O \)!” Everyone laughed, because they knew it meant Meena was the daughter of \( N \), and \( N \) was the mother of \( O \), making her \( O \)’s sister. What started as a code soon became a family game, making the bonds of father, mother, daughter, and brother not just relations, but symbols of love and togetherness. (165 words)
- CLAT - 2026
- Blood Relations
Four teams – Red (R), Blue (B), Green (G), and Yellow (Y) – are competing in the final four rounds of the Inter-School Science Olympiad, labeled Round A, Round B, Round C, and Round D. Each round consists of one match between two teams, and every team plays exactly two matches. No team plays the same opponent more than once.
The final schedule must adhere to the following rules:
- Rule 1 (Consecutive Play): The Green team (G) must play their two matches in consecutive rounds.
- Rule 2 (Fixed Appearance): The Yellow team (Y) must play in Round B.
- Rule 3 (Positional Constraint): The Red team (R) must play against the Blue team (B) in a round that is immediately before a round in which neither R nor B is playing.
- Rule 4 (Timing): The Blue team's (B) first match must occur in an earlier round than the Green team's (G) first match.
- Rule 5 (Opponent Link): The team that plays against the Red team (R) in the round that is not against the Blue team (B), is the same team that plays in Round D.
(193 words)
- CLAT - 2026
- Seating Arrangement
Health insurance plays a vital role in ensuring financial protection and access to quality healthcare. In India, however, the extent and nature of health insurance coverage vary significantly between urban and rural areas. While urban populations often have better access to organized insurance schemes, employer-provided coverage, and awareness about health policies, rural populations face challenges such as limited outreach of insurance schemes, inadequate infrastructure, and lower awareness levels. This urban-rural divide in health insurance coverage highlights the broader issue of healthcare inequality, making it essential to analyze the factors contributing to this gap and explore strategies for more inclusive health protection. A state-level health survey was conducted.
The survey covered 1,80,000 adults across urban and rural areas. Urban residents formed 55% of the sample (that is, 99,000 people) while rural residents made up 45% (that is, 81,000 people). In each area, coverage was classified under four heads – Public schemes, Private insurance, Employer-provided coverage, and Uninsured. In urban areas, Public coverage accounted for 28% of the urban population, Private for 22%, Employer for 18%, and the remaining 32% were Uninsured. In rural areas, where formal coverage is generally lower, Public coverage stood at 35%, Private at 10%, Employer at 8%, while 47% were Uninsured.
For this survey, “Insured” includes everyone covered by Public + Private + Employer schemes, and “Uninsured” indicates those with no coverage at all. Officials noted that public schemes remain the backbone of rural coverage, while employer and private plans are relatively more prevalent in urban centres. (250 words)
- CLAT - 2026
- Ratio and Proportion