Read the passage and answer the questions given below it.
Long before places had numbers, a letter in India travelled on foot. Under the Mughals, and in kingdoms before them, runners carried the dak in relays. Each man ran his own stretch and handed the bag on. Many carried a spear, and bells that jangled as they ran. No runner needed to know where a letter would end up. He needed only the road to the next village.
That small fact explains a good deal about the post. It has never needed one person to understand the whole map, only each person to know the next step. For most of its history, the hard part was the last step. Indian addresses were descriptions rather than coordinates: the house behind the Hanuman temple, the second lane after the flour mill. A letter addressed like that arrived because some postman remembered which Gupta family had moved and which lane had been renamed.
The PIN code, introduced on 15 August 1972, tried to take some of that memory out of human heads. Its six digits narrow a destination in stages, from a broad region of the country down to a single delivery post office. A sorter in a distant city no longer had to know the town. He had only to read a number. There is nothing glamorous about this workaday invention, though it quietly moves mail across one of the largest postal networks in the world.
Yet the number did not finish the job. It brings the letter to the right post office, and there its work stops. From that counter to the door, India still writes “near the old water tank”, and the post still sends someone who knows where the tank used to be.
Which of the following statements are NOT true according to the passage?
(A) Each dak runner carried a letter along the whole route to the place it was meant for.
(B) The six digits of a PIN code narrow a destination down in stages, ending at a single delivery post office.
(C) A letter with the correct PIN code is guided by the number alone right up to the door of the house.
(D) A sorter using the PIN code still has to know the town to which a letter is going.
Choose the correct answer from the options given below:
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 3
The correct answer is Option (3) → (A), (C) and (D) only
The question asks for the statements that are NOT true.
(A) Each dak runner carried a letter along the whole route to the place it was meant for. — Not true.
- The runners worked “in relays”.
- Each man ran his own stretch and “handed the bag on”.
(B) The six digits of a PIN code narrow a destination down in stages, ending at a single delivery post office. — True.
- The passage says the digits go “from a broad region of the country down to a single delivery post office”.
(C) A letter with the correct PIN code is guided by the number alone right up to the door of the house. — Not true.
- The number brings the letter to the post office, “and there its work stops”.
(D) A sorter using the PIN code still has to know the town to which a letter is going. — Not true.
- The passage says a sorter “no longer had to know the town”.