Factual Passage: Attitude Problems | Class 11 English Grammar PDF Download

Read the following passage carefully:

1. Fear of failure is an attitude problem. All of us postpone things. We procrastinate. We rationalize. We make excuses. We foolishly believe that to be creative and to have a positive attitude and to simply do things, we have to have all kinds of preconditions.
2. You can find several excuses for waiting to be more creative. But scratch the surface of these smooth and logical rationalizations, and if you’re honest, you’ll see the face of a little demon, the fear of failure, hiding there.
3. Zig Ziglar reminds us that this is nothing but an attitude problem: “The future can be depressing or magnificent—it is not correlated to the present or the past, past failures or successes. It is only our attitude towards these failures or successes which determines our future.” You can change yourself by changing your attitude without fear of error.
4. Problems cause stress and stress reduces our effectiveness. So it is very logical that once we solve our problems, we should be able to increase our efficiency and effectiveness. Incidentally, we can’t eliminate problems unless we opt for the final exit—the very thought of this itself is stressful!
5. What causes our problems? Well, roughly speaking one third of our problems are there because we are alive and kicking; another one-third of our problems are created by ourselves; and the remaining one-third of our problems exist because of greed and ego.
6. When too many problems are causing you enormous stress and strain, do the following:
   • Think…there must be a better way to solve these problems. It helps to remember the crow and jug story! Recall similar stories and incidents.
   • Ask, ask, ask…from yourself and from others, how to do things in better ways. May be certain things should not be done at all or should be clubbed with other activities! Don’t forget that even stupid questions will get your intelligent and common sense answers.
   • Do it now! Start doing it. Don’t forget that the first step towards solving a problem is to begin. The first step is the most difficult one, but taking it will kill procrastination— a disease or a problem in itself.’ Do, not forget to priorities your problems first. Those which are “C” category jobs should be delegated to others, but do not forget to check and recheck till these get done.
7. There is always a silver lining in any gloomy situation, provided you starve the problems
8. and feed the opportunities. For every problem, there could be several solutions, and solutions point towards opportunities.
9. Apply the MISER concept to solve problems. MISER… where M stands for Merge, I for Improve, S for Simplify, E for Eliminate and R for Reduce. MISER is an excellent conceptual sieve that helps in reducing many problems to a very few ones.

A. Answer the following questions by choosing the most appropriate option:
Q.1. Most people procrastinate because_______
(a) they are not creative
(b) they adopt a wrong attitude
(c) they are too lazy to do anything
(d) they wait for better opportunity

Correct Answer is option (b)
they adopt a wrong attitude

Q.2. Our effectiveness gets reduced as _______
(a) problems multiply
(b) depressing time is painful
(c) stress is caused by problems
(d) problems dishearten us

Correct Answer is option (c)
stress is caused by problems

Q.3. The best way to tackle a problem is_______
(a) to defer it for sometime
(b) to seek help of a friend
(c) to think of an easy solution
(d) to begin at once

Correct Answer is option (d)
to begin at once

Q.4. Our future is determined by_______
(a) past failure
(b) success in the present
(c) efforts in future
(d) attitude towards past failures or success

Correct Answer is option (d)
attitude towards past failures or success.

Q.5. We can’t eliminate problems because_______
(a) we are alive and kicking
(b) we are inactive
(c) we are afraid of final exit
(d) we postpone actions

Correct Answer is option (a)
we are alive and kicking

Q.6. The word ‘procrastinate’ in para 1 means_______
(a) obtain with difficulty
(b) natural tendency to do something bad
(c) delay or postpone action
(d) start a court case

Correct Answer is option (c)
delay or postpone action

B. Answer the following questions in brief:
Q.7. How does our effectiveness get reduce?

Our effectiveness gets reduce by problems which cause stress.

Q.8. What is the best way to tackle the problem?

The best way to tackle the problem is to begin at once with positive thinking.

Q.9. Write the meaning similar to
(a) Delay or postpone action (para 4)
(b) Very large (para 6)

(a) Procrastination
(b) Enormous

Q.10. Can we eliminate problems? If not why?

We can’t eliminate problems because we are alive and kicking and sometimes our greed and ego also promote problems.

Q.11. Which saying has been used in passage for being optimist?

‘There is always a silver lining in any gloomy situation’ gives a lesson of optimism.