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.
The writer’s plan of ‘one short task a night, and on Fridays nothing at all’ implies that the writer believes
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 3
The correct answer is Option (3) → a little regular practice can help children without wearing them out
The plan joins the two halves of the writer’s view.
- “One short task a night” keeps the daily habit. The writer says some things grow “only with a little practice every day”.
- The task is short, and Fridays are free. This answers the worry about “a tired child” working late.
- So the writer believes small, regular practice helps without wearing children out. To wear out means to make very tired.
Why the Other Options are Incorrect?
Option 1: young children learn more on the days when they are given no homework — Incorrect. Overstated: The free Friday gives children a break. The writer never says they learn more on that day.
Option 2: a short task is easier for a teacher to check than a long one — Incorrect. Not mentioned: The writer never speaks of the teacher’s own work in checking.
Option 4: parents will stop doing their children’s homework if the tasks are short — Incorrect. Not mentioned: The adult handwriting is a problem in the first paragraph. But the passage does not link the new plan to it.