18. Reading Skills Comprehension: Successful Business

SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS

 It is strange that, according to his position in life, an extravagant man is admired or despised. A successful businessman does nothing to increase his popularity by being careful with his money. He is expected to display his success, to have a smart car, an expensive life, and to be lavish with his hospitality. If he is not so, he is considered to mean, and his reputation in business may even suffer in consequence. The paradox remains that if he had not been careful with his money in the first place, he would never have achieved his present wealth.

 Among the low-income group, a different set of values exists. The young clerk, who makes his wife a present of a new dress when he hasn’t paid his house rent, is condemned as extravagant. Carefulness with money to the point of meanness is applauded as a virtue. Nothing in his life is considered more worthy than paying his bills. The ideal wife for such a man separates her housekeeping money into joyless little piles- so much for rent, for food, for the children’s shoes; she is able to face the milkman with equanimity every month, satisfied with her economizing ways, and never knows the guilt of buying something she can’t really afford.

As for myself, I fall into neither of these categories. If I have money to spare, I can be extravagant, but when, as is usually the case, I am hard up, then I am the meanest man imaginable.

 1. Which of the following would be the most suitable title for the passage?

 (a) Extravagance is always condemnable

(b) Extravagance leads to poverty

(c) Extravagance in the life of the rich and the poor

(d) Miserly habits of the poor

 2. In the opinion of the writer, a successful businessman

(a) should not bother about the popularity

 (b) is expected to have expensive tastes

 (c) is more popular if he appears to be doing nothing

(d) must be extravagant achieving success

3. The phrase ‘lavish with his hospitality’ in the third sentence of the first paragraph, signifies

 (a) considerateness in spending on guests and strangers

 (b) indifference in treating his friends and relatives

(c) miserliness in dealing with his friends

(d) extravagance in entertaining guests

4. The word ‘paradox’ in the last sentence of the first paragraph means

(a) statement based on the popular opinion

 (b) that which is contrary to received opinion

(c) statement based on facts

(d) that which brings out the inner meaning

5. It seems that low paid people should

 (a) feel guilty if they overspend

(b) borrow money to meet their essential needs

(c) not keep their creditors waiting

(d) not pay their bills promptly

 6. How does the housewife, described by the writer, feel when she saves money? She

(a) wishes she could sometimes be extravagant

 (b) is still troubled by a sense of guilt

(c) wishes life were less burdensome

 (d) is content to be so thrifty

7. The statement “she is able to face the milkman with equanimity” implies that

(a) she is not upset as she has been pay-in the milkman his dues regularly.

(b) she loses her nerve at the sight of the milkman who always demands his dues.

(c) she manages to keep cool as she has to pay the milkman only a month’s dues.

 (d) she remains composed and confident as she knows that she can handle the milkman tactfully.

 8. Which of the following is opposite in meaning to the word ‘applauded’ in the passage?

 (a) suppressed                        (b) cherished

(c) decried                               (d) humiliated

 9. We understand from the passage that

(a) thrift may lead to success.

 (b) wealthy people are invariably successful.

(c) all mean people are wealthy.

 (d) carefulness generally leads to failure.

10. As far as money is concerned, we get the impression that the writer

 (a) doesn’t often have any money to save ago would like to be considered extravagant

 (b) is never inclined to be extravagant

(c) is incapable of saving anything.

Answers:-

1. (c)                2. (b)

3. (d)               4. (b)

5. (a)               6. (d)

7. (a)               8. (c)

9. (b)               10. (a)

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