Compiled & Edited by Aamir Mahar

COMPREHENSION PASSAGES
collected from CSS P&C Papers (2000-19)

CSS P&C Paper 2000

The vitality of any teaching, or historical movement, depends upon what it affirms
rather than upon what it affirms rather than upon what it denies, and its survival
and continued power will often mean that its positives are insufficiently regarded by
opposing schools. The grand positives of Bentham were benevolence and veracity:
the passion for the relief of man’s estate, and the passion for truth. Bent ham’s
multifarious activities, pursued without abatement to the end of a long life, wee
inspired by a "dominant and all-comprehensive desire for the amelioration of
human life"; they wee inspired, too, by the belief that he had found the key to all
moral truth. This institution, this custom, this code, this system of legislation-- does
it promotes human happiness? Then it is sound. This theory, this creed, this moral
teaching – does it rightly explain why virtue is admirable, or why duty is obligatory?
The limitation of Bentham can be gauged by his dismissal of all poetry (and most
religion) as "misrepresentation’; this is his negative side. But benevolence and
veracity are Supreme Values, and if it falls to one of the deniers to be their special
advocate, the believers must have long been drowsed. Bentham believes the Church
teaches children insincerity by making them affirm what they cannot possibly
understand or mean. They promise, for example, to fulfill the undertaking of their
god---parents, that they will "renounce the devil and all his works, the pomps and
vanity of this wicked world" etc. ‘The Devil" Bentham comments: "who or what is he,
and how is it that he is renounced?" Has the child happened to have any dealings
with him? Let the Archbishop of Canterbury tell us, and let him further explain how
his own "works" are distinguished from the aforesaid "Pomps and Vanity". What
king, what Lords Temporal or Spiritual, have ever renounced them? (Basil Willey)
Questions :
1. What does the writer mean by the following expressions?
Multifarious activities, amelioration of human Life, it is sound, be their
special advocate, Renounce the devil, drowsed, gauged, aforesaid.
2. On what grounds does Bentham believe that the Church?
3. What is Bentham’s philosophy based upon?
4. What according to the writer is Bentham’s limitation?
5. In what context has the Archbishop of Canterbury been quoted i.e. is he
praised or condemned?

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CSS P&C Paper 2001

Poetry is the language of imagination and the passions. It relates to whatever gives
immediate pleasure or pain to human min. it comes home to the bosoms and
business of men: for nothing but what comes home to them in the most general and
intelligible shape can be a subject of poetry. Poetry is the universal language which
the heart holds with nature and itself. He who has a contempt for poetry cannot
have much respect for himself or for anything else. Whatever there is a sense of
beauty, or power, or harmony, as in the motion of the waves of the sea, in the
growth of a flower, there is a poetry in its birth. If history is a grave study, poetry
may be said to be graver, its materials lie deeper, and are spread wider. History
treats, for the most part, cumbersome and unwieldy masses of things, the empty
cases in which the affairs of the world are packed, under the heads of intrigue or
war, in different states, and from century to century but there is no thought or
feeling that can have entered into the mind of man which he would be eager to
communicate to others, or they would listen to with delight, that is not a fit subject
for poetry. It is not a branch of authorship: it is “the stuff of which our life is made”.
The rest is mere oblivision, a dead letter, for all that is worth remembering gin life is
the poetry of it. Fear is Poetry, hope is poetry, love is poetry; hatred is poetry. Poetry
is that fine particle within us that expands, refines, raises our whole being; without
“man’s life is poor as beasts”. In fact, man is a poetical animal. The child is a poet
when he first plays hide and seek, or repeats the story of Jack the Giant Killer, the
shepherd – boy is a poet when he first crowns his mistress with a garland of flowers;
the countryman when he stops he stops to look at the rainbow; the miser when he
hugs his gold; the courtier when he builds his hope upon a smile; the vain, the
ambitious the proud, the choleric man, the hero and the coward, the beggar and
the king, all live in a world of their own making; and the poet does no more than
describe what all others think and act.

Questions :
1. In what sense is poetry the language of the imagination and the passion?
2. How is poetry the Universal Language of the heart?
3. What is the difference between history and poetry?
4. Explain the phrase: “Man is a poetical animal”.
5. What are some of the actions which Hazlitt calls poetry and its doers poet?
6. Explain the followings underlined expression in the passage.
(i) It relates to whatever gives immediate pleasure or pain to human heart
(ii) A sense of beauty, or power, or harmony.
(iii) Cumbersome and unwieldy masses of things.
(iv) It is the stuff of which our life is made.
(v) The poet does no more than describe what all others think and act.

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CSS P&C Paper 2002

There is indeed, something inexpressibly pleasing in the annual renovation of the
world and the new display of the treasures of nature. The darkness and cold of
winter with the naked deformity of every object, on which we turn our eyes, make
us rejoice at the succeeding season, as well for what we have escaped, as for what
we may enjoy. Every budding Flower, which a warm situation brings early to our
view, is considered by us a messenger to notify the approach of more joyous days.
The spring affords to a mind free from the disturbance of cares or passions almost
everything that our present state makes us capable of enjoying. The Variegated
Verdure of the fields and woods, the succession of grateful Odours, the Voice of
pleasure pouring out its notes on every side, with the gladness apparently conceived
by every animal from the growth of is food and the clemency of the weather, throw
over the whole earth an air of gaiety, significantly expressed by smile of nature.
(Samuel John Son)
Questions:
(1) Say how an early budding flower becomes a messenger of happy days?
(2) Who, according to the writer can make the best of the spring season?
(3) Why are all animals glad at the approach of spring?
(4) Suggest a title for the passage.

CSS P&C Paper 2003

My father was back in work within days of his return home. He had a spell in the
shipyard, where the last of the great Belfast liners, the CANBERRA, was under
construction, and then moved to an electronics firm in the east of the city. (These
were the days when computers were the size of small houses and were built by
sheet metal workers). A short time after he started in this job, one of his colleagues
was sacked for taking off time to get married. The workforce went on strike to get
the colleague reinstated. The dispute, dubbed the Honeymoon Strike, made the
Belfast papers. My mother told me not long ago that she and my father, with four
young sons, were hit so hard by that strike, that for years afterwards they were
financially speaking, running to stand still. I don't know how the strike ended, but
whether or not the colleague got his old job back, he was soon in another, better one.
I remember visiting.him and his wife when I was still quite young, in their new
bungalow in Belfast northern suburbs. I believe they left Belfast soon after the
Troubles began.
My father then was thirty-seven, the age I am today. My Hither and I are father
and son, which is to say we are close without knowing very much about one another.
We talk about events, rather than emotions. We keep from each other certain of our
hopes and fears and doubts. I have never for instance asked my father whether he
has dwelt on the direction his life might have taken if at certain moments he had
made certain other choices. Whatever, he found himself, with a million and a half of
his fellows, living in what was in all but name a civil war.As a grown up I try often
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to imagine what it must be like to be faced with such a situation. What, in the
previous course of your life, prepares your for arriving, as my father did, at the
scene of a bomb blast close to your brother's place of work and seeing what you
suppose, from the colour of the hair, to be your brother lying in the road, only to
find that you arc cradling the remains of a woman? (Glenn Patterson)
Questions :
1. From your reading of the passage what do you infer about the nature of the
'Troubles", the writer mentions.
2. What according to the writer were the working conditions in the Electronics
firm where his father worked?
3. Why was his father's colleague sacked?
4. How docs the writer show that as father and son they do not know much
about each other?
5. Explain the underlined words/phrases in the passage:
Made the Belfast papers, had a spell, dubbed, was sacked, hit hard.

CSS P&C Paper 2004

We look before and after, wrote Shelley, and pine for what is not. It is said that this
is what distinguishes us from the animals and that they, unlike us, live always for
and in the movement and have neither hopes nor regrets. Whether it is so or not I do
not know yet it is undoubtedly one of our distinguishing mental attributes: we are
actually conscious of our life in time and not merely of our life at the moment of
experiencing it. And as a result we find many grounds for melancholy and
foreboding. Some of us prostrate ourselves on the road way in Trafalgar Square or in
front of the American Embassy because we are fearful that our lives, or more
disinterestedly those of our descendants will be cut short by nuclear war. If only as"
squirrels or butterflies are supposed to do, we could let the future look after itself
and be content to enjoy the pleasures of the morning breakfast, the brisk walk to the
office through autumnal mist or winter fog, the mid-day sunshine that sometimes
floods through windows, the warm, peaceful winter evenings by the fireside at
home. Yet all occasions for contentment are so often spoiled for us, to a greater or
lesser degree by our individual temperaments, by this strange human capacity for
foreboding and regret - regret for things which we cannot undo and foreboding for
things which may never happen at all. Indeed were it not for the fact that over
breaking through our human obsessions with the tragedy of time, so enabling us to
enjoy at any rate some fleeting moments untroubled by vain yearning or
apprehension, our life would not be intolerable at all. As it is, we contrive,
everyone of us, to spoil it to a remarkable degree.
Questions
1. What is the difference between our life and the life of an animal?
2. What is the result of human anxiety?
3. How does the writer compare man to the butterflies and squirrels?
4. How does anxiety about future disturb our daily life?

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5. How can we make our life tolerable?

6. Explain the underlined words/phrases in the passage.
CSS P&C Paper 2005
My father loved all instruments that would instruct and fascinate. His place to keep
things was the drawer in the ‘library table’ where lying on top of his folder map was
a telescope with brass extensions, to find the moon and the Big Dripper after supper
in our front yard, and to keep appointments with eclipses. In the back of the drawer
you could find a magnifying glass, a kaleidoscope and a gyroscope kept in black
buckram box, which he would set dancing for us on a string pulled tight. He had
also supplied himself with an assortment of puzzles composed of metal rings and
intersecting links and keys chained together, impossible for the rest of us, however,
patiently shown, to take apart, he had an almost childlike love of the ingenious. In
time, a barometer was added to our dining room wall, but we didn’t really need it.
My father had the country boy’s accurate knowledge of the weather and its skies. He
went out and stood on our front steps first thing in the morning an took a good look
at it and a sniff. He was a pretty good weather prophet. He told us children what to
do if we were lost in a strange country. ‘Look for where the sky is brightest along the
horizon,’ he said. ‘That reflects the nearest river. Strike out for a rive and you will
find habitation’. Eventualities were much on his mind. In his care for us children he
cautioned us to take measures against such things as being struck by lightening. He
drew us all away from the windows during the severe electrical storms that are
common where we live. My mother stood apart, scoffing at caution as a character
failing. So I developed a strong meteorological sensibility. In years ahead when I
wrote stories, atmosphere took its influential role from the start. Commotion in the
weather and the inner feelings aroused by such a hovering disturbance emerged
connected in dramatic form.

Questions :
1. Why did the writer’s father spend time studying the skies ?
2. Why the writer thinks that there was no need of a barometer?
3. What does the bright horizon meant for the writer’s father ?
4. How did her father influence the writer in her later years ?
5. Explain the underlined words and phrases in the passage.

CSS P&C Paper 2006

“Elegant economy!” How naturally one fold back into the phraseology of Cranford!
There economy was always “elegant”, and money-spending always “Vulgar and
Ostentatoin;” a sort of sour grapeism which made up very peaceful and satisfied I
shall never forget the dismay felt when certain Captain Brown came to live at
Cranford, and openly spoke of his being poor __ not in a whisper to an intimate
friend, the doors and windows being previously closed, but in the public street! in a
loud military voice! alleging his poverty as a reason for not taking a particular house.
The ladies of Cranford were already moving over the invasion of their territories by

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a man and a gentleman. He was a half-pay captain, and had obtained some situation
on a neighbouring rail-road, which had been vehemently petitioned against by the
little town; and if in addition to his masculine gender, and his connection with the
obnoxious railroad, he was so brazen as to talk of his being poor __ why, then
indeed, he must be sent to Coventry. Death was as true and as common as poverty;
yet people never spoke about that loud on the streets. It was a word not to be
mentioned to ears polite. We had tacitly agreed to ignore that any with whom we
associated on terms of visiting equality could ever be prevented by poverty from
doing anything they wished. If we walked to or from a party, it was because the
weather was so fine, or the air so refreshing, not because sedan chairs were
expensive. If we wore prints instead of summer silks, it was because we preferred
a washing material; and so on, till we blinded ourselves to the vulgar fact that we
were, all of us, people of very moderate means.

Questions :
1. Give in thirty of your own words what we learn from this passage of
Captain Brown.
2. Why did the ladies of Cranford dislike the Captain.
3. What reasons were given by the ladies of Cranford for “not doing anything
that they wished”?
4. “Ears Polite”. How do you justify this construction?
5. What is the meaning and implication of the phrases?
(1) Sour-grapeism
(2) The invasion of their territories
(3) Sent to Coventry
(4) Tacitly agreed
(5) Elegant economy

CSS P&C Paper 2007

Strong section of industrials who still imagine that men can be mere machines and
are at their best as machines if they are mere machines are already menacing what
they call “useless” education. They deride the classics, and they are mildly
contemplatives of history, philosophy, and English. They want our educational
institutions, from the oldest universities to the youngest elementary schools, to
concentrate on business or the things that are patently useful in business. Technical
instruction is to be provided for adolescent artisans; book keeping and shorthand for
prospective clerks; and the cleverest we are to set to “business methods”, to modern
languages (which can be used in correspondence with foreign firms), and to science
(which can be applied to industry). French and German are the languages, not of
Montaigne and Gorthe, but of Schmidt Brothers, of Elberfeld and Dupont et Cie., of
Lyons. Chemistry and Physics are not explorations into the physical constitution of
the universe, but sources of new dyes, new electric light filaments, new means of
making things which can be sold cheap and fast to the Nigerian and the Chinese. For
Latin there is a Limited field so long as the druggists insist on retaining it in their
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prescriptions. Greek has no apparent use at all, unless it be as a source of syllables

for the hybrid names of patent medicines and metal polishes. The soul of man, the
spiritual basis of civilization- what gibberish is that?
Questions :
1. What kind of education does the writer deal with?
2. What kind of education does the writer favour? How do you know?
3. Where does the writer express most bitterly his feelings about the neglect
of the classics?
4. Explain as carefully as you can the full significance of the last sentence.
5. Explain the underlined words and phrases in the passage.

CSS P&C Paper 2008

These phenomena, however, are merely premonitions of a coming storm, which is
likely to sweep over the whole of India and the rest of Asia. This is the inevitable
outcome of a wholly political civilization, which has looked upon man as a thing to
be exploited and not as a personality to be developed and enlarged by purely
cultural forces. The people of Asia are bound to rise against the acquisitive economy
which the West have developed and imposed on the nations of the East. Asia cannot
comprehend modern Western capitalism with its undisciplined individualism. The
faith, which you represent, recognizes the worth of the individual, and disciplines
him to give away all to the service of God and man. Its possibilities are not yet
exhausted. It can still create a new world where the social rank of man is not
determined by his caste or colour or the amount of dividend he earns, but by the
kind of life he lives, where the poor tax the rich, where human society is founded
not on the equality of stomachs but on the equality of spirits, where an untouchable
can marry the daughter of the king, where private ownership is a trust and where
capital cannot be allowed to accumulate so as to dominate that real producer of
wealth. This superb idealism of your faith, however, needs emancipation from the
medieval fancies of theologians and logists? Spiritually, we are living in a prison
house of thoughts and emotions, which during the course of centuries we have
woven round ourselves. And be it further said to the shame of us—men of older
generation—that we have failed to equip the younger generation for the economic,
political and even religious crisis that the present age is likely to bring. The while
community needs a complete overhauling of its present mentality in order that it
may again become capable of feeling the urge of fresh desires and ideals. The Indian
Muslim has long ceased to explore the depths of his own inner life. The result is that
he has ceased to live in the full glow and colour of life, and is consequently in
danger of an unmanly compromise with force, which he is made to think he cannot
vanquish in open conflict. He who desires to change an unfavourable environment
must undergo a complete transformation of his inner being. God changes not the
condition of a people until they themselves take the initiative to change their
condition by constantly illuminating the zone of their daily activity in the light of a
definite ideal. Nothing can be achieved without a firm faith in the independence of
one’s own inner life. This faith alone keeps a people’s eye fixed on their goal and
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save them from perpetual vacillation. The lesson that past experiences has brought
to you must be taken to heart. Expect nothing form any side. Concentrate your
whole ego on yourself alone and ripen your clay into real manhood if you wish to
see your aspiration realized.
Questions :
1. What is the chief characteristic of the modern political civilization?
2. What are possibilities of our Faith, which can be of advantage to the world?
3. What is the chief danger confronting the superb idealism of our Faith?
4. Why is the Indian Muslim in danger of coming to an unmanly compromise
with the Forces opposing him?
5. What is necessary for an achievement?
6. Explain the expression as highlighted/under lined in the passage.
7. Suggest an appropriate title to the passage.

CSS P&C Paper 2009

It is in the very nature of the helicopter that its great versatility is found. To begin
with, the helicopter is the fulfillment of one of man’s earliest and most fantastic
dreams. The dream of flying – not just like a bird – but of flying as nothing else flies
or has ever flown. To be able to fly straight up and straight down – to fly forward or
back or sidewise, or to hover over and spot till the fuel supply is exhausted.
To see how the helicopter can do things that are not possible for the conventional
fixed-wing plane, let us first examine how a conventional plane “works.” It works
by its shape – by the shape of its wing, which deflects air when the plane is in
motion. That is possible because air has density and resistance. It reacts to force. The
wing is curved and set at an angle to catch the air and push it down; the air, resisting,
pushes against the under surface of the wing, giving it some of its lift. At the same
time the curved upper surface of the wing exerts suction, tending to create a lack of
air at the top of the wing. The air, again resisting, sucks back, and this gives the wing
about twice as much lift as the air pressure below the wing. This is what takes place
when the wing is pulled forward by propellers or pushed forward by jet blasts.
Without the motion the wing has no lift.
Questions:
1. Where is the great versatility of the helicopter found?
2. What is the dream of flying?
3. What does the wing of the conventional aircraft do?
4. What does the curved upper surface of the wing do?
5. What gives the wing twice as much lift?

CSS P&C Paper 2010

And still it moves. The words of Galileo, murmured when the tortures of the
inquisition had driven him to recant the Truth he knew, apply in a new way to our
world today. Sometimes, in the knowledge of all that has been discovered, all that

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has been done to make life on the planet happier and more worthy, we may be
tempted to settle down to enjoy our heritage. That would, indeed, be the betrayal of
our trust. These men and women of the past have given everything --- comfort, time,
treasure, peace of mind and body, life itself --- that we might live as we do. The
challenge to each one of us is to carry on their work for the sake of future
generations. The adventurous human mind must not falter. Still must we question
the old truths and work for the new ones. Still must we risk scorn, cynicism, neglect,
loneliness, poverty, persecution, if need be. We must shut our ears to the easy voice
which tells us that ‘human nature will never alter’ as an excuse for doing nothing to
make life more worthy. Thus will the course of the history of mankind go onward,
and the world we know move into a new splendour for those who are yet to be.
Questions:
1. What made Galileo recant the truth he knew?
2. What is the heritage being alluded to in the first paragraph?
3. What does the ‘betrayal of our trust’ imply?
4. Why do we need to question the old truths and work for the new ones?
5. Explain the words or expressions as highlighted/underlined in the passage.

CSS P&C Paper 2011

Knowledge is acquired when we succeed in fitting a new experience in the
system of concepts based upon our old experiences. Understanding comes when we
liberate ourselves from the old and so make possible a direct, unmediated contact
with the new, the mystery, moment by moment, of our existence. The new is the
given on every level of experience – given perceptions, given emotions and thoughts,
given states of unstructured awareness, given relationships with things and persons.
The old is our home-made system of ideas and word patterns. It is the stock of
finished articles fabricated out of the given mystery by memory and analytical
reasoning, by habit and automatic associations of accepted notions. Knowledge is
primarily a knowledge of these finished articles. Understanding is primarily direct
awareness of the raw material.
Knowledge is always in terms of concepts and can be passed on by means of
words or other symbols. Understanding is not conceptual and therefore cannot be
passed on. It is an immediate experience, and immediate experience can only be
talked about (very inadequately), never shared. Nobody can actually feel
another’s pain or grief, another’s love or joy, or hunger. And similarly no body can
experience another’s understanding of a given event or situation. There can, of
course, be knowledge of such an understanding, and this knowledge may be passed
on in speech or writing, or by means of other symbols. Such communicable
knowledge is useful as a reminder that there have been specific understandings in
the past, and that understanding is at all times possible. But we must always
remember that knowledge of understanding is not the same thing as the
understanding which is the raw material of that knowledge. It is as different from
understanding as the doctor’s prescription for pencitin is different from penicillin.

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Questions :
1. How is knowledge different from understanding?
2. Explain why understanding cannot be passed on.
3. Is the knowledge of understanding possible? If it is, how may it be passed on?
4. How does the author explain that knowledge of understanding is not the
same thing as the understanding?
5. How far do you agree with the author in his definitions of knowledge and
understanding? Give reasons for your answer.

CSS P&C Paper 2012

Human Beings feel afraid of death just as children feel afraid of darkness; and just as
children’s fear of darkness is increased by the stories which they have heard about
ghosts and thieves, human beings’ fear of death is increased by the stories which
they have heard about the agony of the dying man. If a human being regards death
as a kind of punishment for the sins he has committed and if he looks upon death as
a means of making an entry into another world, he is certainly taking a religious and
sacred view of death. But if a human being looks upon death as a law of nature and
then feels afraid of it, his attitude is one of cowardice. However, even in religious
meditation about death there is something a mixture of folly and superstition.
Monks have written books in which they have described the painful experience
which they underwent by inflicting physical tortures upon themselves as a form of
self-purification. Such books may lead one to think that, if the pain of even a finger
being squeezed or pressed is unbearable, the pains of death must be indescribably
agonizing. Such books thus increase a Man’s fear of death.
Seneca, a Roman Philosopher, expressed the view that the circumstances and
ceremonies of death frighten people more than death itself would do. A dying man
is heard uttering groans; his body is seen undergoing convulsions; his face appears
to be absolutely bloodless and pale; at his death his friends begin to weep and his
relations put on mourning clothes; various rituals are performed. All these facts
make death appear more horrible than it would be otherwise.
Questions :
1. What is the difference between human beings’ fear of death and children’s fear
of darkness?
2. What is a religious and sacred view of death?
3. What are the painful experiences described by the Monks in their books?
4. What are the views of Seneca about death?
5. What are the facts that make death appear more horrible than it would be
otherwise?

CSS P&C Paper 2013

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The civilization of China - as every one knows, is based upon the teaching of
Confucius who flourished five hundred years before Christ. Like the Greeks and
Romans, he did not think of human society as naturally progressive; on the contrary,
he believed that in remote antiquity rulers had been wise and the people had been
happy to a degree which the degenerate present could admire but hardly achieve.
This, of course, was a delusion. But the practical result was the Confucius, like other
teachers of antiquity, aimed at creating a stable society, maintaining a certain level of
excellence, but not always striving after new successes. In this he was more
successful than any other man who ever lived. His personality has been stamped on
Chinese Civilization from his day to our own. During his life time, the Chinese
occupied only a small part of present day China, and were divided into a number of
warring states. During the next three hundred years they established themselves
throughout what is now China proper, and founded an empire exceeding in
territory and population any other that existed until the last fifty years. In spite of
barbarian invasions, and occasional longer or shorter periods of Chaos and Civil
War, the Confucian system survived bringing with it art and literature and a
civilised way of life. A system which has had this extra ordinary power of survival
must have great merits, and certainly deserves our respect and consideration. It is
not a religion, as we understand the word, because it is not associated with the super
natural or with mystical beliefs. It is purely ethical system, but its ethics, unlike
those of Christianity, are not too exalted for ordinary men to practise. In essence
what Confucius teaches is something is very like the old-fashioned ideal of a
‘gentleman’ as it existed in the eighteenth century. One of his sayings will illustrate
this: ‘The true gentleman is never contentious………he courteously salutes his
opponents before taking up his position,……..so that even when competing he
remains a true gentleman’.
Questions:
1. Why do you think the author calls Confucius’ belief about the progress
of human society as a delusion?
2. How did Confucius’ thought affect China to develop into a stable and
‘Proper’ China?
3. Why does the author think that Confucian system deserves respect and
admiration?
4. Why does the author call Confucian system a purely ethical system and
not a religion?
5. Briefly argue whether you agree or disagree to Confucius’ ideal of a
gentleman.
CSS P&C Paper 2014
In the height of the Enlightenment, men influenced by the new political theories of
the era launched two of the largest revolutions in history. These two conflicts, on
two separate continents, were both initially successful in forming new forms of
government. And yet, the two conflicts, though merely a decade apart, had radically
different conclusions. How do two wars inspired by more or less the same ideals

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end up so completely different? Why was the American Revolution largely a success
and the French Revolution largely a failure? Historians have pointed to myriad
reasons—far too various to be listed here. However, the most frequently cited are
worth mentioning. For one, the American Revolution was far removed from the
Old World; that is, since it was on a different continent, other European nations did
not attempt to interfere with it. However, in the French Revolution, there were
immediate cries for war from neighboring nations. Early on, for instance, the ousted
king attempted to flee to neighboring Austria and the army waiting there. The
newly formed French Republic also warred with Belgium, and a conflict with Britain
loomed. Thus, the French had the burden not only of winning a revolution but
also defending it from outside. The Americans simply had to win a revolution.
Secondly, the American Revolution seemed to have a better chance for success from
the get-go, due to the fact that Americans already saw themselves as something
other than British subjects. Thus, there was already a uniquely American character,
so, there was not as loud a cry to preserve the British way of life. In France, several
thousands of people still supported the king, largely because the king was seen as an
essential part of French life. And when the king was first ousted and then killed,
some believed that character itself was corrupted. Remember, the Americans did not
oust a king or kill him—they merely separated from him.
Finally, there is a general agreement that the French were not as unified as the
Americans, who, for the most part, put aside their political differences until after
they had already formed a new nation. The French, despite their Tennis Court Oath,
could not do so. Infighting led to inner turmoil, civil war, and eventually the Reign
of Terror, in which political dissidents were executed in large numbers. Additionally,
the French people themselves were not unified. The nation had so much
stratification that it was impossible to unite all of them—the workers, the peasants,
the middle-class, the nobles, the clergy—into one cause. And the attempts to do so
under a new religion, the Divine Cult of Reason, certainly did not help. The
Americans, remember, never attempted to change the society at large; rather, they
merely attempted to change the government.

Questions:
1. Why and how did the Reign of Terror happen?
2. In what ways does the author suggest that the American Revolution was easier
to complete than the French Revolution?
3. Of the challenges mentioned facing the French revolutionaries, which do
you think had the greatest impact on their inability to complete a successful
revolution? Why?
4. Of the strengths mentioned aiding the American revolutionaries, which do
you think had the greatest impact on their ability to complete a successful
revolution? Why?

CSS P&C Paper 2015

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Experience has quite definitely shown that some reasons for holding a belief are
much more likely to be justified by the event than others. It might naturally be
supposed, for instance, that the best of all reasons for a belief was a strong
conviction of certainty accompanying the belief. Experience, however, shows that
this is not so, and that as a matter of fact, conviction by itself is more likely to
mislead than it is to guarantee truth. On the other hand, lack of assurance and
persistent hesitation to come to any belief whatever are an equally poor guarantee
that the few beliefs which are arrived at are sound. Experience also shows that
assertion, however long continued, although it is unfortunately with many people
an effective enough means of inducing belief, is not in any way a ground for holding
it. The method which has proved effective, as a matter of actual fact, in providing a
firm foundation for belief wherever it has been capable of application, is what is
usually called the scientific method. I firmly believe that the scientific method,
although slow and never claiming to lead to complete truth, is the only method
which in the long run will give satisfactory foundations for beliefs. It consists in
demanding facts as the only basis for conclusions, and in consistently and
continuously testing any conclusions which may have been reached, against the test
of new facts and, wherever possible, by the crucial test of experiment. It consists also
in full publication of the evidence on which conclusions are based, so that other
workers may be assisted in new researchers, or enabled to develop their own
interpretations and arrive at possibly very different conclusions.
There are, however, all sorts of occasions on which the scientific method is not
applicable. That method involves slow testing, frequent suspension of judgment,
restricted conclusions. The exigencies of everyday life, on the other hand,often make
it necessary to act on a hasty balancing of admittedly incomplete evidence, to take
immediate action, and to draw conclusions in advance of the evidence. It is also true
that such action will always be necessary, and necessary in respect of ever larger
issues; and this inspite of the fact that one of the most important trends of
civilization is to remove sphere after sphere of life out of the domain of such
intuitive judgment into the domain of rigid calculation based on science. It is here
that belief plays its most important role. When we cannot be certain, we must
proceed in part by faith—faith not only in the validity of our own capacity of
making judgments, but also in the existence of certain other realities, pre-eminently
moral and spiritual realities. It has been said that faith consists in acting always on
the nobler hypothesis; and though this definition is a trifle rhetorical, it embodies a
seed of real truth.
Answer briefly in your own words the following questions:
1. Give the meaning of the underlined phrases as they are used in the passage.
2. What justification does the author claim for his belief in the scientific method?
3. Do you gather from the passage that conclusions reached by the scientific
method should be considered final? Give reasons for your answer.
4. In what circumstances, according to the author, is it necessary to abandon the
scientific method?
5. How does the basis of intuitive judgment differ from that of scientific decision?
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CSS P&C Paper 2016

The New Year is the time for resolution. Mentally, at least most of us could compile
formidable lists of ‘do’s and ‘don’ts’. The same old favorites recur year in and year
out with the children, do a thousand and one job about the house, be nice to people
we don’t like, drive carefully, and take the dog for a walk every day. Past experience
has taught us that certain accomplishments are beyond attainment. If we remain
deep rooted liars, it is only because we have so often experienced the frustration that
results from failure. Most of us fail in our efforts at self-improvement because our
schemes are too ambitious and we never have time to carry them out. We also make
the fundamental error of announcing our resolution to everybody so that we look
even more foolish when we slip back into our bad old ways. Aware of these pitfalls,
this year I attempted to keep my resolution to myself. I limited myself to two modest
ambitions, to do physical exercise every morning and to read more in the evening.
An overnight party on New Year’s Eve provided me with a good excuse for not
carrying out either of these new resolutions on the first day of the year, but on the
second, I applied myself assiduously to the task.
The daily exercise lasted only eleven minutes and I proposed to do them early in the
morning before anyone had got up. The self-discipline required to drag myself out
of bed eleven minutes earlier than usual was considerable. Nevertheless, I managed
to creep down into the living room for two days before anyone found me out. After
jumping about in the carpet and twisted the human frame into uncomfortable
positions. I sat down at the breakfast table in an exhausted condition. It was this that
betrayed me. The next morning the whole family trooped into watch the
performance. That was really unsettling but I fended off the taunts and jibes of the
family good humoredly and soon everybody got used to the idea. However, my
enthusiasm waned, the time I spent at exercises gradually diminished. Little by little
the eleven minutes fell to zero. By January10th I was back to where I had started
from. I argued that if I spent less time exhausting myself at exercises in the morning.
I would keep my mind fresh for reading when I got home from work. Resisting the
hypnotizing effect of television, I sat in my room for a few evenings with my eyes
glued to a book. One night, however, feeling cold and lonely, I went downstairs and
sat in front of the television pretending to read. That proved to be my undoing, for I
soon got back to the old bad habit of dozing off in front of the screen. I still haven’t
given up my resolution to do more reading. In fact, I have just bought a book
entitled ‘How to Read a Thousand Words a Minute’. Perhaps it will solve my
problem, but I just have not had time to read it.
Answer briefly in your own words the following questions:

1. Why most of us fail in our efforts for self-improvement?

2. Why is it a basic mistake to announce our resolution to everybody?
3. Why did the writer not carry out his resolution on New Year’s Day?

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4. Find out the words in the above passage which convey the similar meaning
to the following:
(1) Intimidating (2) Peril (3) Dwindle (4) Repel (5) Barb

CSS P&C Paper 2017

Education ought to teach us how to be in love and what to be in love with. The great
things of history have been done by the great lovers, by the saints and men of
science, and artists, and the problem of civilization is to give every man a chance of
being a saint, a man of science, or an artist. But this problem cannot be attempted,
much less solved, unless men desire to be saints, men of science, and artists. And if
they are to desire that continuously and consciously they must be taught what it
means to be these. We think of the man of science or the artist, if not of the saint, as a
being with peculiar gifts, not as one who exercises, more precisely and incessantly
perhaps, activities which we all ought to exercise. It is a commonplace now that art
has ebbed away out of our ordinary life, out of all the things which we use, and that
it is practiced no longer by workmen but only by a few painters and sculptors. That
has happened because we no longer recognize the aesthetic activity of the spirit, so
common to all men. We do not know that when a man makes anything he ought to
make it beautiful for the sake of doing so, and that when a man buys anything he
ought to demand beauty in it, for the sake of beauty. We think of beauty if we think
of it at all as a mere source of pleasure, and therefore it means to us ornament,
added to things for which we can pay extra as we choose. But beauty is not an
ornament to life, or to the things made by man. It is an essential part of both. The
aesthetic activity, when it reveals itself in things made by men, reveals itself in
design, just as it reveals itself in the design of all natural things. It shapes objects as
the moral activity shapes actions, and we ought to recognize it in the objects and
value it, as we recognize and value moral activity in actions. And as actions empty
of the moral activity are distasteful to us, so should objects be that are empty of the
aesthetic activity. But this is not so with most of us. We do not value it; do not even
recognize it, or the lack of it, in the work of others. The artist, of whatever kind, is a
man so much aware of the beauty of the universe that he must impart the same
beauty to whatever he makes. He has exercised his aesthetic activity in the discovery
of the beauty in the universe before he exercises it in imparting beauty to that which
he makes. He has seen things in that relation in his own work, whatever it may be.
And just as he sees that relation for its own sake, so he produces it for its own sake
and satisfies the desire of his spirit in doing so. And we should value his work; we
should desire that relation in all things made by man, if we too have the habit of
seeing that relation in the universe, and if we knew that, when we see it, we are
exercising an activity of the spirit and satisfying a spiritual desire. And we should
also know that work without beauty means unsatisfied spiritual desire in the worker;
that it is waste of life and common evil and danger, like thought without truth, or
action without righteousness.
Questions:

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1. What has been lamented in the text?

2. What is the difference between ordinary man and an artist?
3. How can we make our lives beautiful and charming?
4. What does the writer actually mean when he says, “Beauty is not an
ornament to life”?
5. Do art and beauty affect our practical life and morals? Justify whether you
agree or disagree.

CSS P&C Paper 2018

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.
Questions:
1. Instead of making machines our servants the author says they have become
our masters. In what sense has this come about?
2. The use of machines has brought us more leisure and more energy. But
the author says that this has been a curse rather than a blessing. Why?
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3. What is the meaning of ‘civilization’? Do you agree with the author’s views?
4. ‘Making more beautiful things’ – what does this expression mean? Make
a list of the beautiful things that you would like to make and how you
would make them.
5. Mention some plans you may have to prevent poverty in the world.
Who would receive your most particular attention, and why?

CSS P&C Paper 2019

When I returned to the common the sun was setting. The crowd about the pit had
increased, and stood out black against the lemon yellow of the sky-a couple of
hundred people, perhaps. There were raised voices, and some sort of struggle
appeared to be going on about the pit. Strange imaginings passed through my mind.
As I drew nearer I heard Stent's voice: "Keep back! Keep back!" A boy came running
towards me. "It's movin'," he said to me as he passed; "it’s screwin' and screwin' out.
I don't like it. I'm goin' home, I am." I went on to the crowd. There were really, I
should think, two or three hundred people elbowing and jostling one another, the
one or two ladies there being by no means the least active. "He's fallen in the pit!"
cried someone. "Keep back!" said several. The crowd swayed a little, and I elbowed
my way through. Everyone seemed greatly excited. I heard a peculiar humming
sound from the pit. "I say!" said Ogilvy.

"Help keep these idiots back. We don't know what's in the confounded thing, you
know!" I saw a young man, a shop assistant in Woking I believe he was, standing on
the cylinder and trying to scramble out of the hole again. The crowd had pushed
him in. The end of the cylinder was being screwed out from within. Nearly two feet
of shining screw projected. Somebody blundered against me, and I narrowly missed
being pitched onto the top of the screw. I turned, and as I did so the screw must
have come out, for the lid of the cylinder fell upon the gravel with a ringing
concussion. I stuck my elbow into the person behind me, and turned my head
towards the Thing again. For a moment that circular cavity seemed perfectly black. I
had the sunset in my eyes. I think everyone expected to see a man emerge-possibly
something a little unlike us terrestrial men, but in all essentials a man. I know I did.
But, looking, I presently saw something stirring within the shadow: greyish billowy
movements, one above another, and then two luminous disks-like eyes. Then
something resembling a little grey snake, about the thickness of a walking stick,
coiled up out of the writhing middle, and wriggled in the air towards me-and then
another. A sudden chill came over me. There was a loud shriek from a woman
behind. I half turned, keeping my eyes fixed upon the cylinder still, from which
other tentacles were now projecting, and began pushing my way back from the edge
of the pit. I saw astonishment giving place to horror on the faces of the people about
me. I heard inarticulate exclamations on all sides. There was a general movement
backwards. I saw the shopman struggling still on the edge of the pit. I found myself
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alone, and saw the people on the other side of the pit running off, Stent among them.
I looked again at the cylinder and ungovernable terror gripped me. I stood petrified
and staring. A big greyish rounded bulk, the size, perhaps, of a bear, was rising
slowly and painfully out of the cylinder.

As it bulged up and caught the light, it glistened like wet leather. Two large
dark-coloured eyes were regarding me steadfastly. The mass that framed them, the
head of the thing, was rounded, and had, one might say, a face. There was a mouth
under the eyes, the lipless brim of which quivered and panted, and dropped saliva.
The whole creature heaved and pulsated convulsively. A lank tentacular appendage
gripped the edge of the cylinder, another swayed in the air. Those who have never
seen a living Martian can scarcely imagine the strange horror of its appearance. The
peculiar V-shaped mouth with its pointed upper lip, the absence of brow ridges, the
absence of a chin beneath the wedge like lower lip, the incessant quivering of this
mouth, the Gorgon groups of tentacles, the tumultuous breathing of the lungs in a
strange atmosphere, the evident heaviness and painfulness of movement due to the
greater gravitational energy of the earthabove all, the extraordinary intensity of the
immense eyes-were at once vital, intense, inhuman, crippled and monstrous. There
was something fungoid in the oily brown skin, something in the clumsy deliberation
of the tedious movements unspeakably nasty. Even at this first encounter, this first
glimpse, I was overcome with disgust and dread.

Questions:
1. What leads us to believe that this passage is from a science fiction story?
2. How was the crowd behaving?
3. Why did the mood of the crowd alter?
4. What was the narrator’s initial reaction to the “Thing”?
5. Why did the writer feel disgusted?

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