I am having a doubt with one of the questions from the given passage, please help.

Question

1. Do children really need such long summer breaks, was a question posed by some experts

recently. Apparently, such a long break disrupts their development and comes in the way of

their learning process. Let's get back to their books, is perhaps the expert view, if not in so

many words. One would have thought the children are doing too much during their vacations

and not too little, given the plethora of course, classes, camps and workshop involving

swimming, art, personality development, music, computers and the like that seem to cram their

calendar. Even the trips taken in the name of holidays seem laden with exotic destinations and

customised experience packed into a short period of time. We can do Europe in 10 days and

Australia in a week and come back armed with digital memories and overflowing suitcase.

Holidays are in some ways, no longer a break but an intensified search for experience not

normally encountered in everyday life.

Q. What qualities do children of today's world display during their summer vacations, as highlighted by the author in the first paragraph?

a. Talented yet distracted

b. Observational and alert

c. Laid back and relaxed

d. Hardworking and determined

In my opinion, it should be (a)

But my teacher's saying that option (d) is correct.

Answer 1

Hello 0825 2,

I can see why you thought option (a) was correct since children are/can be multitalented but get very distracted by their peers, social media, families, school, extracurricular activities, etc.

However, your teacher is correct that option (d) is correct because during the summertime, as indicated in the paragraph above, children of today tend to overwork themselves in order to stay busy and get ahead academically in preparation for the upcoming school year. And that makes themselves hardworking and determined, as indicated in option (d). There are plenty of examples of that thesis statement provided throughout the paragraph, namely here: "One would have thought the children are doing too much during their vacations and not too little, given the plethora of course, classes, camps and workshop involving swimming, art, personality development, music, computers and the like that seem to cram their calendar."

I hope this helps to answer your question! :)