Read the passage and answer the questions given below it.
The school bus in our colony leaves at 7:10 am, so my cousin Tanvi, who is fifteen, sets her alarm for 5:45. Most mornings she sleeps through it. Her mother calls this laziness. The biology of adolescence suggests something less moral and more mechanical.
Every body keeps time with an inner clock, and one of its signals is melatonin, a hormone that tells the brain that night has come. In the teenage years, the evening release of melatonin begins later than it did in childhood, often by an hour or more. A fourteen-year-old lying awake at midnight is frequently not defying anyone. Her brain has simply not yet been told that it is time to sleep. The alarm, however, does not move. The loss is taken from the last hours of the night, when much of our dreaming sleep happens.
The effects are quiet, which is partly why they are ignored. A drowsy student does not faint in the assembly. She reads the same paragraph three times, snaps at her younger brother and reaches for a second biscuit. Anyone who has taught a first-period class knows the peculiar torpor of a room full of fifteen-year-olds at ten to eight.
Some schools, mostly abroad, have tried starting later, sometimes by as little as forty-five minutes. The reports are cautiously encouraging: fewer heads on desks, somewhat better attendance. The objections are practical, and not foolish. Buses must be rescheduled. Parents leave for offices that open at fixed hours. Evening tuitions get pushed later still, which rather defeats the purpose.
Tanvi’s school has not changed anything. She has stopped arguing with her mother, though, and now leaves her phone in the kitchen after ten. It is a small truce with a clock she never chose to set.
The word ‘torpor’, as used in the passage, means:
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 3
The correct answer is Option (3) → a heavy, sleepy slowness of body and mind
Torpor means a heavy, sleepy state in which the body and mind are slow and dull.
- The writer speaks of the torpor of a room of fifteen-year-olds at ten to eight. These students have lost the last hours of their sleep.
- The same paragraph shows a drowsy student who reads one paragraph three times. The room is slow and half asleep. Example: After the heavy wedding lunch, the guests sank into a happy torpor on the sofas.
Why the Other Options are Incorrect?
Option 1: a nervous restlessness before the day’s work — Incorrect. Opposite meaning: Restlessness is being unable to keep still. Torpor is a heavy, slow state. Example: The restlessness in the hall grew as the results were about to be read out.
Option 2: a sullen refusal to take part in the lesson — Incorrect. Wrong meaning: This is the meaning of defiance. The students in the passage are sleepy, not defiant. Example: In open defiance of the rule, he wore his cap in class.
Option 4: a calm and peaceful stillness — Incorrect. Wrong meaning: This is the meaning of serenity. A room in torpor is still, but it is dull and sleepy, not peaceful. Example: The serenity of the lake at dawn calmed us all.