Direction: Read the passage carefully and answer the questions given below it. Certain words/ phrases have been given in bold to help you locate them while answering some of the questions.
PASSAGE
The villager has customarily been very conservative in his attitude and approach. He is reluctant to change his traditional way of thinking and doing things. His attitude, in many aspects, is : home-made is best. For instance, most cattle-farmers in the villages, prefer to feed their cows and buffaloes with a home-mix comprising local oil-seeds like mustard or cottonseed, pulses, jaggery, salt etc. It takes numerous visits, hard-convincing, daily trials and experience to convince the rural cattle farmer that compound feeds, scientifically formulated, improve the yields of milk, without any incremental costs. The age-old values and attitude towards caste, creed, woman, time and money take time to change. The villager has traditionally been a believer in the philosophy of ‘karma’ or ‘fate’. He has found it more convenient to blame his economic destitution, poor living conditions and straitened social status on ‘bhagya’, ‘karma’ or ‘fate’. The security that the villagers find in the ‘status quo’, acts as a disincentive to change and experiment, in the short run. Many of these antiquated attitudes, value-system and outlooks are changing, due to improved levels of awareness and education. However, the rate of change is sluggish. Attitudes fossilised over the centuries, do take time to change.
SOME IMPORTANT WORDS
(1) conservative (Adj.) : opposed to great/sudden social change
(2) reluctant (Adj.) : hesitating before doing something because you do not want to do it/because you are not sure that it is the right thing to do
(3) hard-convincing (Adj.) : difficult to make somebody believe that something is true
(4) convince (V.) : to make somebody believe that something is true
(5) incremental (Adj.) : increasing in regular amounts
(6) destitution (N.) : the fact of having no money, food and the other things necessary for life
(7) status quo (N.) : the situation as it is now, or as it was before a recent change
(8) disincentive (N.) : a thing that makes somebody less willing to do something
(9) antiquated (Adj.) : outdated
(10) sluggish (Adj.) : slow and apathetic
(11) fossilised (V.) : to become/make somebody/ something become, fixed and unable to change/ develop