Read the Passage carefully and answer the questions that follow: If the vision…
2020
Read the Passage carefully and answer the questions that follow:
If the vision of the learner in the initial period was predominantly as an empty organism and in the next as an active organism, in the period that followed it was as a social organism. The beliefs regarding the nature of the learner in the first period drew heavily from the associationist view of the human being, in the second from the Gestalt and personalistic views; later they also drew from the emerging social psychological and group dynamic views.
The child as learner was envisioned as a social organism, and learning was perceived as occurring through interpersonal actions and reactions, each person in the classroom serving as a stimulus for every other person. It is hard to overemphasize the impact on the classroom of the "group climate" concepts and studies by Lewin and his associates beginning in the late 1930s, which were given added cogency by the ideological issues of World War II. Innumerable treatises, textbooks, and programs applied these ideas and findings to the classroom, and such terms as "authoritarian", "democratic", and "laissez-faire" became, for good or ill, integral parts of the educational vocabulary. Experimenters in the learning laboratory became concerned with such previously unheard-of matters as "interpersonal cohesion" and "small group processes", and teachers in the classroom with "sociometric structure" and "group dynamics".
Concomitant changes in the image of the ideal classroom could again be observed. If the child is primarily a social organism, then the objectives of his education should be primarily social in character. And if learning is a social or group process, then a circular or group-centred classroom where everyone faces everyone else (as once they had been forced to face only the teacher) is the most sensible and practical, even necessary, learning environment. And this indeed became a favourite image of the classroom.
Ques: The author of the passage is in favour of the idea of
- A.
Vertical learning
- B.
Laboratory learning
- C.
Circular learning
- D.
Teacher-focussed learning
Show answer & explanation
Correct answer: C
Concept
In a reading-comprehension passage, the view the author personally endorses is signalled by evaluative, approving language — words such as "most sensible", "practical", "necessary", or "favourite" attached to one idea. The correct answer is the option that the passage explicitly recommends, not merely one it describes or reports historically.
Application
Scan the closing paragraph, where the author states a preference. The passage builds from the premise that the child is a social organism and that learning is a social or group process, and then concludes that a "circular or group-centred classroom where everyone faces everyone else ... is the most sensible and practical, even necessary, learning environment", adding that "this indeed became a favourite image of the classroom."
The cluster of endorsing words — most sensible, practical, necessary, favourite — is attached to exactly one arrangement: the circular, everyone-faces-everyone classroom. That is the idea the author is in favour of, so the answer is "Circular learning".
Why the others do not fit
Vertical learning — never mentioned in the passage; it is an invented term with no textual support, so the author cannot be said to favour it.
Laboratory learning — the passage refers to the "learning laboratory" only as the place where experimenters studied interpersonal cohesion and small-group processes; it is described as a research setting, not recommended as the ideal classroom.
Teacher-focussed learning — this is the arrangement the author contrasts against and moves away from — the old set-up where students "had been forced to face only the teacher"; the passage favours replacing it, not adopting it.
Therefore the author is in favour of the circular, group-centred ("Circular learning") classroom.