Read the passage and answer the questions given below it.
The homework diary is the thinnest book in a Class 3 bag, and in my twelve years of teaching it has caused more trouble than all the others put together. Every evening it carries home a worksheet, a page of sums, sometimes a project on the solar system that no eight-year-old could finish alone. Every morning it comes back with the answers filled in, often in handwriting that is clearly not the child’s.
So I understand the schools that have dropped homework for their junior classes. Children of seven or eight already spend six hours a day at school. Research on homework for young children is mixed, and most of the gains seem to come later, in the senior classes. A tired child copying sums at nine at night is not learning arithmetic. Much of what we send home only keeps the pencil moving.
Yet I would not stop it altogether. Some things grow only with a little practice every day, and reading is the clearest of them. A child who reads aloud for ten minutes each evening comes back after the winter break a different reader. For children whose homes have few books, the school bag may be the only place a story comes from.
What needs to go is the heap of worksheets, not the habit. This year my class takes home one short task a night, and on Fridays nothing at all. Last Friday a boy asked if he could take a storybook home anyway. I let him, and did not write it in the diary.
Which of the following best expresses the central argument of the passage?
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 2
The correct answer is Option (2) → Young children need far less homework, but a small daily task such as reading is still worth keeping.
The writer, a Class 3 teacher, takes a middle path on homework.
- First the writer agrees with the schools that dropped homework. Much of it “only keeps the pencil moving”.
- Then comes the turn: “Yet I would not stop it altogether.” Reading needs “a little practice every day”.
- The writer sums up: “What needs to go is the heap of worksheets, not the habit.” So less homework, but a small daily task stays.
Why the Other Options are Incorrect?
Option 1: Homework in primary school tires children without teaching them much, so schools are right to drop it. — Incorrect. Contradicted: The writer understands these schools but says, “I would not stop it altogether.”
Option 3: Reading at home does more for young children than any lesson they are taught in the classroom. — Incorrect. Overstated: The writer calls reading the clearest case for daily practice. The passage never compares it with classroom lessons.
Option 4: So much homework is now done by adults that teachers cannot judge what a young child has learnt. — Incorrect. Too narrow: The handwriting that is “not the child’s” is one detail in the first paragraph. It is not the main point of the passage.