CTET Sep 2014 paper 02 Unseen Passage in English previous year questions with answers
Read the passage given below and answer the questions that follow by selecting the most appropriate option.
Archaeology is the scientific study of the human past. It is means whereby we are able to extend our knowledge of human history beyond the limits of written records. In India, written history goes back many millennia and throughout the world, inscriptions on stone and clay tablets are only a few millennia old. Such records encompass only a small fraction of the human story. Archaeology gives us access to the entire spectrum of human experience, spanning several million years in Africa. This enormous time depth offers the potential to study long-term cultural processes and the opportunity to learn the lessons of countless cultures.
Recovering this knowledge may prove vital to our own survival. Even if the lessons learned do not turn out to have such an immediate and practical value, filling in the blank pages of India’s and the world’s history is an intrinsically worthwhile endeavour. Moreover, historical archaeology can supplement or clarify the knowledge gleaned from more traditional histories. Finally, by increasing our understanding and appreciation of the achievements of ancient cultures, archaeology can provide a significant boost to heritage tourism.
Although I argue that archaeology could save the world – or atleast our civilization’s precarious hold on it, I freely confess that I did not become an archaeologist to save the world, not to make money. In face, I chose to become an archaeologist because I was fascinated by the wonders of the past and the prospect of making new discoveries that would shed light on how we came to be what we are seemed to me to be a noble thing, to which I could dedicate my life’s work.