150] READING COMPREHENSION [GCSE PREVIOUS EXAMS-EGYPT 1984]

Society Between Two Poles Apart

 

Arab Republic of Egypt

Ministry of Education

General Secondary Education Certificate Examination, 1984

For Science and Arts Candidates

Special Course-English

Time Allowed: 3 Hours.

12. Read the following passage (text), then answer the questions:
We may view society as a spectrum with the innovators, the planners and the managers at one end, and the ill-educated and the drifters on the other. The majority of us come in somewhere between the two extremes. The planners and the managers are acutely aware of the possibilities of change; the drifters are those who find the world too much for them and accept, passively or resentfully, whatever comes along. The better educated a man is, the more likely it is he belongs to the planners rather than to the drifters, simply because he is able to understand and cope with the forces at work in society.
Man has very largely mastered his environment. He has gained control over immense forces of nature. He has transformed the world, but in so doing created fresh problems. All this is the work of the planners. They are always looking ahead to see what might happen ten or twenty years, hence they are ready to wait for the results of their labours; they have been trained to postpone immediate gratification for future benefits. In short, their approach to life is essentially rational.
What of the others? There are very many at the other end of the spectrum, whose conceptual thought has never developed sufficiently to enable them to deal rationally with their personal problems, much less to grasp the problems that beset mankind. They act impulsively rather than rationally. These people are hampered by an insufficient education and their native intelligence has remained underdeveloped. Hence, they have become bewildered, anxious and rebellious or apathetic.
Much of the teenage culture of today is supported by such insecure young people who are in revolt against adult society which, they feel, has rejected them. It is a widespread, international revolt, most apparent in the wealthier countries where material conditions are easiest, but where society seems uncertain of its own values. Teenage culture is in its rejection of established social conventions. Immediate gratification of desires is its aim: live for today, never mind tomorrow.
This philosophy is pretty immature and unrealistic; for there is always a tomorrow and always a day of reckoning. Those who become committed to such a culture join the drifters.
We are inescapably heirs to a technological society and it would be wrong to ignore the role of change in human affairs, so there is no reason for rejecting a rational approach to life. The importance of education is today greater than ever before. As society advances, it has less and less opportunities to offer the unskilled and the ill-educated.
All this leads us to debate this question: How far can we decide the course of our lives and our place on the spectrum? The answer will certainly affect the way we think and behave.
Questions:
1.   How far does education affect a person's place on the “spectrum”?
2.   What characterises the approach to life of the “planners” as opposed to that of the “drifters”?
3.   Why is the revolt of youth against adult society most apparent in wealthier countries?
4.   According to the passage (text), what is the philosophy of today's youth and what does the writer think of it?
5.   Why has an advanced society less and less opportunities to offer the unskilled and the ill-educated?