Term 1 Class 10 Controversial Unseen Passage Answer Key — Essayshout

Class 10 Term 1 Controversial Passage | Gender Stereotyping Passage | CBSE Dropped Unseen Passage Class 10 English | Women Disobedience and Discipline

Every year we come across the usual allegations of ‘lengthy’ or ‘tough’ question papers against CBSE. But, in the year 2021, something happened in the Term 1 class 10 English question paper that provoked the Opposition leaders to walk out of Lok Sabha in protest. Read on to find out what was wrong in the class 10 English passage. Class 10th controversial passage in JSK 1 series and its answer key with the reasons behind controversy are given in this article.

What was it that triggered an ire against CBSE on Twitter, Youtube and other social media platforms? The controversy was over an ‘unseen passage’ in the reading comprehension section. The unseen passage with multiple-choice questions talked about the change in the parenting style over the years. The conclusion to the passage was not at all acceptable in today’s world where we boast of gender equality.

Read the passage given below and answer the questions/complete the statement that follows by choosing the correct options from the given options. (attempt any 8)

Some teenagers live in a world of their own. Various causes can be found for this state of affairs but the first in importance is clearly the lack of parental authority in the home. This depended, more than a century ago, upon the convention of the husband being master in his own house. The wife gave him formal obedience, realising that upon this depended her authority, in turn, over the children.

She was likely to see much more of them and her own efforts to maintain discipline might thus be weakened by familiarity. It was always her best plan, therefore, to fall back on the authority of an absent husband, saying, ‘Your father has forbidden it,’ often with the inference that she herself would have been more indulgent. It was only by accepting her husband’s sway that she could gain obedience from the young. The decision might be hers but the unpopularity was his, the more easily borne in that he might not be there. To precepts about subordination she thus added the potent force of an example. Children and servants were in this way taught to know their place.

In the twentieth century, children became fewer and the feminist revolt was the result. With discipline no longer the chief problem, the pattern of the family life underwent a change. Granted a small number of children carefully spaced out, there might, it was thought, be time to reason with them. There might even be time to read books on child psychology. Father’s word had no longer the authority of holy writ and given the Bible itself was relegated to high shelf quite unsuitable for the young. Why should women accept their subordinate rule? Why indeed?

With some hesitation, their claim to equality was conceded. Among the intelligent, there would henceforth be an easier relationship, a more casual comradeship and co-operation with love to take the place of fear. Married women now retained their identity and some of them even pursued separate careers; and most men welcomed the change, readily dropping their role of an infallible tyrant in the home.

What people were slow to observe was that the emancipation of the wife destroyed the parent’s authority over the children. The mother did not exemplify the obedience upon which she still tried to insist. There was more room now for disagreement between the parents, enabling the child to appeal from one to the other, eventually ignoring both. In bringing the man down from his pedestal the wife and mother deprived herself, in fact, of the means of discipline.

Objectionable lines in the passage -
1. Children and servants were in this way taught to know their place.
2. What people were slow to observe was that the emancipation of the wife destroyed the parent’s authority over the children.
3. The mother did not exemplify the obedience upon which she still tried to insist.
4. In bringing the man down from his pedestal the wife and mother deprived herself, in fact, of the means of discipline.

To find Term 1 Controversial unseen passage questions and answers, visit the website.

Originally published at https://essayshout.com on December 19, 2021.