Unseen Comprehension Passages

Unseen Comprehension Passages  Set I – [04]

Read the passage and answer the questions that follow.

Is your television a robot? What about the washing machine? And your car? Look around your house. According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, a robot is ‘any automatically appearance or perform functions in a human like manner?

But are robots really a new invention? Many ancient myths include artificial people, such as the mechanical servants built by the Greek god Hephaestus, the clay golem of Jewish legend and clay giants of Norse legend. In the third century, in ancient China, a mechanical engineer, Yan Shi presented the Chinese Emperor with a life-size, human-shaped mechanical figure made of leather, wood and artificial organs. In the fifth century, Greek mathematician Archytas of Tarentum, a pal of Plato, built a mechanical bird driven by a jet of steam or compressed air. It is considered to be history’s first robot.

The word ‘Robot’ originates from the Czech word robota, meaning ‘drudgery’. In 1921, robots first appeared in a play where the machine rise up and kill their creators, leaving a lone survivor. The first real robot was made in 1961. It was a giant arm called Uni-mate and was used to help make cars. The first death due to a robot occurred in 1981, when a robotic arm crushed a Japanese factory  worker.

These days, robots are used widely in industries and by the army. In some cases, the use of robots has resulted in unemployment and in some cases it has helped to reduce the number of casualties. Robots are also used for exploration purposes. For example, they are used to explore dangerous place like volcanoes. They are even sent to space to survey Mars and the moon.

So, robots are very useful to man as they help in performing day-to-day mundane activities. Since the instructions are already built-in, they make no mistakes. They don’t get tired and never complain unless they have been programmed to. But they should be used wisely else they may cause more harm than help.

1. Choose the title for the passage:

1. Robots
2. Myths about Robots
3. Robot Revolution
4. History of Robots

2. According to the passage, robots are used to _________.

1. Make cars
2. Make cars and survey space
3. Make cars, explore volcanoes and survey space
4. Explore volcanoes, kill people and survey space

3. The first robot was made in _____________.

1. 1921
2. The third century
3. The fifth century
4. 1961

4. According to the passage, what does ‘invention’ mean?

1. Discovery
2. Innovation
3. FindDetection

5. Find a word that means ‘death’ in the passage.

1. Kill
2. Casualties
3. Crushed
4. Survivor