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 writer’s attitude towards starting school later can best be described as:
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 4
The correct answer is Option (4) → Guarded hope, balanced by a fair awareness of the practical hurdles
The writer is hopeful about a later start but careful not to claim too much.
- The reports are called “cautiously encouraging”: fewer heads on desks, “somewhat” better attendance. This is guarded hope, which means hope held back with care.
- The writer calls the objections “practical, and not foolish” and lists them: buses, office hours and evening tuitions. These are the hurdles, or difficulties.
Why the Other Options are Incorrect?
Option 1: Unreserved enthusiasm for a change that the writer believes every school must make at once — Incorrect. Overstated: Unreserved means without any doubt. The writer calls the results only “cautiously encouraging”. Example: The new coach had the unreserved support of the team.
Option 2: Scornful dismissal of an idea that the writer finds unworkable in Indian conditions — Incorrect. Contradicted: Scornful means showing that one thinks something is worthless. The writer reports the good results of a later start and never calls it unworkable. Example: She gave a scornful laugh at the silly excuse.
Option 3: Detached indifference, since the writer does not think sleep affects schoolwork — Incorrect. Contradicted: Indifference means not caring either way. The writer shows how lost sleep hurts a student, who reads the same paragraph three times. Example: His indifference to the match surprised his cricket-mad friends.