Given below is an unseen passage with Subjective Question Answers that you can read and practise answering for your pre-Board 2 exams. Click on ‘Show Answer’ to see the expert’s answers given to you. If you want to score a perfect score in Discursive Unseen Passage Questions, you should read at least 2 passages in a week.
Here, in this passage, you will get to know how the narrator benefitted herself from a new age therapy called ‘Bibliotherapy’.
Read the passage given below.
1. Several years ago, I was given, as a gift, a remote session with a bibliotherapist at the London headquarters of the School of Life. I have to admit that at first, I did not really like the idea of being given a reading ‘prescription’. I have generally preferred to mimic Virginia Woolf’s passionate commitment to serendipity in my personal reading discoveries, delighting not only in the books themselves but in the randomly meaningful nature of how I came upon them (on the bus after a break-up or in a backpackers’ hostel in Damascus). But the session was a gift, and I found myself unexpectedly enjoying the initial questionnaire about my reading habits that the bibliotherapist, Ella Berthoud had sent me.
2. We had some satisfying back-and-forths over email, and when she sent the final reading prescription, it was filled with gems, none of which I’d previously read-The Guide’ by R K Narayan, a lovely story about a man who starts his working life as a tourist guide at the train station in Malgudi, India but then goes through many other occupations before finding his unexpected destiny as a spiritual guide. She had picked it because she hoped it might leave me feeling ‘strangely enlightened’. ‘The Gospel’ According to Jesus Christ by Jose Saramago, ‘Henderson the Rain King’ by Saul Bellow, and Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse, were among other prescribed works of fiction, and some non-fiction, too, such as ‘The Case for God’ by Karen Armstrong and ‘Sum’ by the neuroscientist David Eagleman, a ‘short and wonderful book about possible afterlives.’
3. I worked my way through the books on the list over the next couple of years, at my own pace-interspersed with my own ‘discoveries’-I am fortunate enough to have my ability to withstand terrible grief untested. A book may be a stimulant or a sedative or an irritant or a soporific. The point is that it must do something to you and you want to know what it is. Today, bibliotherapy takes many different forms, from literature courses run for prison inmates to reading circles for elderly people suffering from dementia. Sometimes it can simply mean one-on-one or group sessions for lapsed readers who want to find their way back to an enjoyment of books.
4. For all avid and dedicated readers who have been self-medicating with great books their entire lives, it comes as no surprise that reading books can be good for your mental health and your relationships with others, but exactly, why and how is now becoming clearer, thanks to new research on reading’s effects on the brain. A 2011 study published in the Annual Review of Psychology, based on analysis of MRI brain scans of participants, showed that when people read about an experience, they display stimulation within the same neurological regions as when they go through that experience themselves.
Based on your understanding of the passage answer ANY EIGHT questions from the nine given below.
i. Why did the narrator not like the idea of a reading prescription initially?
Show Answer
Initially, she did not like the idea of a reading prescription because she preferred to discover reading books for herself.
ii State anyone trait of the writer that is evident from para two and provides a reason for your choice.
Show Answer
It is quite clear from the passage that she is a great book reader. She enthusiastically explores the reading list sent to her by the bibliotherapist and admits that the list was filled with gems.
OR
The 2nd para shows that the writer likes to read and she is greatly affected by books and tries to inculcate the knowledge in her own life.
iii How did the narrator react to the list of books given to her?
Show Answer
On seeing the list of books she admired the prescribed books. She felt that she had not read those books and they seemed interesting to her.
iv. Why did the narrator say that a book must do something to the reader?
Show Answer
The narrator believed that the books have some power to arouse certain feelings in the reader. So, a book must leave an impression or memory in the reader’s mind.
v. Rewrite the given sentence by replacing the underlying phrase with another one from para 2.
The budget discussion became an intense to-and-fro where neither side wanted to concede anything.
Show Answer
The budget discussion became an intense back and forth where neither side wanted to concede anything.
vi What does the use of the phrase ‘one-on-one sessions’ suggest in the context of a lapsed reader?
Show Answer
Personal or one on one sessions find a path back to the enjoyment of books to the people who had quit reading.
vii. Select a suitable phrase from para 1 to complete the following sentence appropriately. I ________________these novels in the storeroom, would you like to read them?
Show Answer
I came upon these novels in the storeroom, would you like to read them?
OR
I found myself unexpectedly enjoying these novels in the storeroom, would you like to read them?
viii. What was the narrator’s viewpoint behind Ella Berthoud’s choice of The Guide’ by R K Narayan for her?
Show Answer
The narrator thought that Ella Berthoud picked it because she hoped it might leave her feeling ‘strangely enlightened’.
ix. Analyse why does the narrator support bibliotherapy?
Show Answer
The narrator supports bibliotherapy because it helped her know about her own reading habits through the questionnaire sent by her therapist.
Miss Universe Harnaz Sandhu Unseen Passage
Unseen Passage with MCQ for Class 10, 2023
Handicraft Passage Subjective Answers
Case Based Unseen passage
Motivational CR Speech for College Election