The rule of the road means that in order that the liberties of all may be preserved, the liberties of everybody must be curtailed. When the policeman, say, at a road-crossing steps into the middle of the road and puts out his hand, he is the symbol not of tyranny but of liberty. You have submitted to a curtailment of private liberty in order that you may enjoy a social order which makes your liberty a reality. We have both liberties to preserve — our individual liberty and our social liberty. That is, we must have a judicious mixture of both. I shall not permit any authority to say that my child must go to this school or that, shall specialize in science or arts. These things are personal. But if I say that my child shall have no education at all, then society will firmly tell me that my child must have education whether I like it or not. The most suitable title of the passage would be
- (a)The Policeman at a Road Crossing
- (b)The Laws of the Road
- (c)Importance of Liberty
- (d)Education of Children
Correct — C, Importance of Liberty. Everything in the passage is put to one use: the rule of the road, the policeman's raised hand, the pairing of individual with social liberty and the schooling of a child are all illustrations of why liberty must be shared and therefore limited. A title has to cover the whole passage, and only this one does.
- (a)The Policeman at a Road Crossing — The policeman occupies a single sentence and appears only as a symbol. A title built on him would promise a passage about traffic duty.
- (b)The Laws of the Road — This takes the opening phrase literally. The passage never discusses traffic law, and it leaves the road behind once the point about liberty has been made.
- (d)Education of Children — Education is the closing example, brought in to test where private liberty ends. It is the last few lines, not the subject of the piece.
A title item, which is decided by coverage — the title must fit the whole passage, not its most memorable detail.
Three of the four options name something the passage actually contains, which is what makes them tempting. The test is not whether the words appear but whether they account for every paragraph. Run each candidate against the opening definition, the policeman, the two liberties and the closing argument about a child's education; only the one about liberty survives all four.
- A good title states the passage's subject, not one of its illustrations.
- The word 'liberty' or 'liberties' recurs through the passage, from the first sentence to the argument about education.
- The road and the policeman occupy the opening lines only, and the child's education the closing ones, so neither can stand for the whole.
- Picking the most vivid image in the passage as its title.
- Choosing a title that fits only the first or only the last few lines.
Asked as a title item in which every wrong option names a real detail of the passage that covers only part of it.
No directly related past PYQ was found.
- practice — not a real PYQ
A suitable title for a passage should
- (a)repeat the first sentence
- (b)cover the subject of the whole passage
- (c)name the most striking example in it
- (d)be as long as possible
Answer(b) cover the subject of the whole passage.
- practice — not a real PYQ
In this passage the example of the child's schooling is used to show
- (a)how schools should be chosen
- (b)where private liberty ends and social liberty begins
- (c)that education is expensive
- (d)that parents are usually careless
Answer(b) where private liberty ends and social liberty begins.