Cause of failure number one, is the habit of quitting when the going gets hard. No matter who you are or how skilled you may be in your occupation, there will be times when the going gets hard and unpleasant circumstances will overtake you. If you yield easily to these obstacles, you may as well write yourself off as far as becoming a great success is concerned. But, assuming that you will follow the success rules when you meet with opposition of any nature, instead of quitting, you will turn on more willpower, stoke the fires of a stronger faith in your own ability, and make up your mind that come what may you will not sell yourself short. Do that and you will soon succeed.
I had one of the greatest insights of my life when Thomas A. Edison told me how he reacted to failure when he was trying to perfect the incandescent electric lamp. Before he found the solution to his problem he tried more than ten thousand different ideas, every one of which was a failure. Just think of that, a man keeping on despite ten thousand failures with faith unshaken, and at long last being crowned with victory. One failure is sufficient to make the average person quit. Perhaps this is why there are so many average persons and there was only one Thomas A. Edison.
Match the words in List I with their meanings in List II
| LIST I | LIST II |
| A. Yield | I. to give up |
| B. Quitting | II. hindrance |
| C. Incandescent | III. surrender |
| D. Obstacles | IV. bright |
Choose the correct answer from the options given below:
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 2
The correct answer is Option (2) → A-III, B-I, C-IV, D-II
| List-I | List-II | Explanation | Example |
|---|---|---|---|
| (A) Yield | (III) surrender | To yield is to give way under pressure, to surrender. The passage warns against yielding easily to obstacles. | The rebels finally yielded to the army. |
| (B) Quitting | (I) to give up | Quitting is giving up or stopping an effort. The passage calls it "cause of failure number one". | She is not quitting the race, however tired she feels. |
| (C) Incandescent | (IV) bright | Incandescent means glowing brightly with heat. Edison's incandescent lamp gives light from a glowing filament. | The incandescent metal glowed in the furnace. |
| (D) Obstacles | (II) hindrance | An obstacle is something that blocks the way or makes progress difficult, a hindrance. | Lack of money was the biggest obstacle to his studies. |
| Also asked in CUET (UG): yield – 03-06-2025 Slot 1 incandescent – 14-05-2026 Slot 1 hindrance – 19-06-2023 Slot 2, 13-06-2023 Slot 3 |