Read the following passage carefully and answer Question. Initially, most…
2020
Read the following passage carefully and answer Question.
Initially, most children want to do well in school. But the student who has experienced consistent failure in the classroom tends to lower his own expectations concerning school success. He may direct his energy outside the classroom to athletics or youth gangs or to other areas where he can experience the satisfaction of success. The student who has been negatively evaluated in the classroom rationalizes that school is not important to him because he believes it is impossible for him to succeed there.
If a student is to continue to expect to do well in school, he needs to receive some positive evaluations for his academic performance. If an individual is to develop a positive concept of himself as a student, he needs to perform competently and to receive evaluations that interprets to be positive within his own frame of reference. When the student is perceived as a less competent learner, forces are set in motion that reduce the chances that his potential will be developed to its fullest extent in school. The other students and his teachers may come to view him as having less potential than he really has. The academic goals he sets for himself and those that are set for him by his well-intentioned teachers may not sufficiently challenge his true abilities. A student may divert his own personal resources to non-academic areas because he believes that success in academic subjects is not open to him. If he does not apply his maximum efforts to learning school subjects, he may fail to acquire some of the skills and knowledge he needs as a basis for further learning.
Ques: A student, who is consistently poor performer in the classroom, will
- A.
Strive hard to achieve his goals later.
- B.
Lower the image of the school in his eyes.
- C.
Aggressively compete with classmates outside the school.
- D.
Not expect much success in the school.
Show answer & explanation
Correct answer: D
Concept
In reading comprehension, the answer must be the option that the passage directly supports, not merely a statement that sounds reasonable. A self-fulfilling cycle is described: repeated negative evaluation lowers a learner's own expectation of success, which in turn reduces the effort and the outcomes that would have raised that expectation.
Applying it to the passage
The passage states that a student who has experienced consistent failure "tends to lower his own expectations concerning school success" and "rationalizes that school is not important to him because he believes it is impossible for him to succeed there." The question asks what such a consistently poor performer will do. The behaviour the passage attributes to him is precisely a reduced expectation of doing well at school.
Therefore the supported conclusion is that he will not expect much success in the school.
Contrasting the alternatives
Striving hard to achieve his goals later reverses the passage's claim: the student lowers, not raises, his effort and expectations, so this is unsupported.
Lowering the image of the school in his own eyes is a rationalisation the passage mentions in passing, but it describes his attitude toward the school rather than the expectation-of-success outcome the question targets.
Aggressively competing with classmates outside the school overstates the text: it says he may redirect energy to athletics or peer groups for a feeling of success, not that he competes aggressively with classmates.
Not expecting much success in the school restates the passage's central point that his own expectation of school success drops.