Read the passage and answer the questions given below it.
The first bicycles reached India in the late nineteenth century. They came in with British officials and missionaries, and with a few rich Indians. Almost all of them were imported, and the price was far beyond what a farmer could pay. In a village, a bicycle was a novelty. Children ran behind it, and old men broke off their talk to stare at a man sitting high on two thin wheels.
This began to change after independence, when Indian factories started making bicycles in large numbers. Ludhiana in Punjab became the best-known centre. Firms such as Hero grew there from small units into big makers. As prices came down, the machine moved from the officer’s veranda to the farmer’s courtyard.
What it brought was distance. A milkman could now reach the town before his milk turned sour. A postman could cover several villages in a day. A small trader could tie a sack to the carrier and try a weekly market that had once been out of reach.
For children, and for girls most of all, the change went deeper. The nearest high school was often in another village, too far to walk, and many parents did not want their daughters on long, lonely roads. When state governments began to give bicycles to schoolgirls, as Bihar did from 2006, many more girls joined high school. On many rural roads today, the morning traffic is a line of girls in school uniform, riding two or three abreast, bags in the front basket.
The passage suggests that many village girls did not go on to high school because
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 4
The correct answer is Option (4) → the school was too far away to reach safely on foot
The last paragraph points to distance as the problem.
- The nearest high school was often in another village, “too far to walk”.
- Many parents did not want their daughters on “long, lonely roads”. So walking there did not feel safe.
- Once girls got bicycles, “many more girls joined high school”. This shows that the distance had been keeping them away.
Why the Other Options are Incorrect?
Option 1: they had to share the family bicycle with their brothers — Incorrect. Not mentioned: The passage says nothing about brothers or a shared bicycle.
Option 2: their parents felt that schooling after Class 8 was of no use — Incorrect. Wrong reason: The parents’ worry was the long, lonely road, not the value of school.
Option 3: the roads to other villages were too rough for bicycles — Incorrect. Contradicted: Girls now ride these roads to school “two or three abreast”, which means side by side.