Read the passage and answer the questions given below it.
Kabir has known about his history project for three weeks. It is due on Monday. On Saturday afternoon he clears his desk, sorts his books by colour and watches a video on how to stop procrastinating. By evening he feels oddly pleased with himself, as though something has been done.
His parents call this laziness. Psychologists who study delay tend to disagree. A lazy person is content to do nothing, and Kabir is anything but content: the project nags at him all weekend. What he is dodging is not effort so much as a feeling, the dull dread of a blank page and the fear that his work will not be good enough. Turning away from the task lifts that feeling at once. Seen this way, procrastination is less a failure of time management than a clumsy attempt to manage mood.
The trick works because the brain is a poor judge of time. A reward on offer now looms large, while the same reward a week away seems faint, and a cost due on Monday hardly feels real on Saturday. Economists call this present bias. To Saturday’s Kabir, the Kabir who will be gluing pictures to a chart at midnight on Sunday is almost a stranger, and his troubles feel like someone else’s.
None of this makes the habit harmless. Delay is a palliative: the relief lasts an hour or two, and the dread comes back, usually larger. Scolding oneself often backfires, since guilt is just one more unpleasant feeling to run from. Making the first step very small tends to work better.
On Sunday afternoon Kabir opens a blank file. He types a title, deletes it, and types it again.
Which of the following statements are NOT true according to the passage?
(A) Kabir keeps worrying about his project even while he avoids working on it.
(B) The writer suggests that blaming oneself for a delay can lead to further delay.
(C) A cost that lies in the future feels larger to the brain than one that must be paid at once.
(D) Kabir starts writing his project on Saturday evening, soon after watching the video.
Choose the correct answer from the options given below:
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 4
The correct answer is Option (4) → (C) and (D) only
The question asks for the statements that are NOT true.
(A) Kabir keeps worrying about his project even while he avoids working on it. — True.
- The passage says “the project nags at him all weekend”.
(B) The writer suggests that blaming oneself for a delay can lead to further delay. — True.
- Scolding oneself “often backfires”, because guilt is “one more unpleasant feeling to run from”.
(C) A cost that lies in the future feels larger to the brain than one that must be paid at once. — Not true.
- The passage says the opposite: a cost due on Monday “hardly feels real on Saturday”.
(D) Kabir starts writing his project on Saturday evening, soon after watching the video. — Not true.
- On Saturday evening he only feels pleased.
- He opens a blank file on “Sunday afternoon”.