Short Passages Comprehension - XVII

Please study carefully the comprehension given below. The passages is followed by a set of questions choose the best answer to each question.

A great deal of the world’s work is neither producing material things nor altering the things that Nature produces, but doing services of one sort or another. Thoughtless people are apt to think a brickmaker more of a producer than a clergyman. When a village carpenter makes a gate to keep cattle out of a field of wheat, he has something solid in his hand which he can claim for his own until the farmer pays him for it. But when a village boy makes as noise to keep the birds off he has nothings to show, though the noise is just as necessary as the gate.
The postman does not make anything—the policeman does not make anything—the doctor makes pills sometimes; but that is not his real business, which is to tell you when you ought to take pills and what pills to take, unless indeed he has the good sense to tell you not take them at all and you have the good sense to believe him, when he is giving you good advice instead of bad. The lawyer does not make anything substantial—they are all in service.

Ques 1. Thoughtless people think a brickmaker more of a producer than a clergyman because more of a producer than a clergyman because :
(a) a clergyman is an idler
(b) a brickmaker produces something solid which he can keep with him till he gets its price
(c) a brickmaker, being physically stronger than a clergyman, can naturally produce more
(d) he cannot understand the philosophical lectures of the clergyman

Ques 2. According to the author of the passage, a large number of persons :
(a) are producing material things
(b) are altering the things that nature produces
(c) are doing nothing in particular
(d) offer services

Ques 3. The writer thinks that :
(a) both the doctor and the patient are sensible when one makes pills and the other buys them
(b) the doctor is sensible and the patient is insensible
(c) the doctor is insensible and the patient is insensible.
(d) both the doctor and the patient make sense when one offers and the other receives a service.

Ques 4. The writer’s description of the doctor’s business :
(a) strengthens the main argument of the passage because the doctor’s business is to make pills
(b) is irrelevant to the main argument of the passage
(c) weakens the main argument of the passage
(d) illustrates the difference between producing something and offering a service

Answers :
(1) (b), (2) (d), (3) (d), (4) (d).