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Question Numbers: 51-55
Directions: Read the passage and answer the questions that follow.
Cambridge was my metaphor for England and it was strange that when I left, it had become altogether something else because I had met Stephen Hawking there. It was on a walking tour through Cambridge that the guide mentioned Stephen Hawking, "poor man, who is quite disabled now, though he is a worthy successor to Isaac Newton, whose chair he has at the university." And I started, because I had quite forgotten that this most brilliant and completely paralyzed astrophysicist, (scholar of astrophysics — a branch of physics dealing with stars, planets, etc.) the author of 'A Brief History of Time', one of the biggest best-sellers ever, lived here. When the walking tour was done, I rushed to a phone booth and, almost tearing the cord so it could reach me outside, phoned Stephen Hawking’s house. There was his assistant on the line and I told him I had come in a wheelchair from India (perhaps he thought I had propelled myself all the way) to write about my travels in Britain. I had to see Professor Hawking — even ten minutes would do. “Half an hour,” he said. “From three-thirty to four.” And suddenly I felt weak all over. Growing up disabled, you get fed up with people asking you to be brave as if you have a courage account on which you are too lazy to draw a cheque. The only thing that makes you stronger is seeing somebody like you, achieving something huge. Then you know how much is possible and you reach out further than you ever thought you could. “I haven’t been brave,” said his disembodied computer-voice, the next afternoon. “I’ve had no choice.” Surely, I wanted to say, living creatively with the reality of his disintegrating body was a choice? But I kept quiet because I felt guilty every time I spoke to him, forcing him to respond. There he was, tapping at the little switch in his hand, trying to find the words on his computer with the only bit of movement left to him, his long, pale fingers. Every so often, his eyes would shut in frustrated exhaustion. And sitting opposite him I could feel his anguish, the mind buoyant with thoughts that came out in frozen phrases and sentences stiff as corpses.
Directions: Read the passage and answer the questions that follow.
Cambridge was my metaphor for England and it was strange that when I left, it had become altogether something else because I had met Stephen Hawking there. It was on a walking tour through Cambridge that the guide mentioned Stephen Hawking, "poor man, who is quite disabled now, though he is a worthy successor to Isaac Newton, whose chair he has at the university." And I started, because I had quite forgotten that this most brilliant and completely paralyzed astrophysicist, (scholar of astrophysics — a branch of physics dealing with stars, planets, etc.) the author of 'A Brief History of Time', one of the biggest best-sellers ever, lived here. When the walking tour was done, I rushed to a phone booth and, almost tearing the cord so it could reach me outside, phoned Stephen Hawking’s house. There was his assistant on the line and I told him I had come in a wheelchair from India (perhaps he thought I had propelled myself all the way) to write about my travels in Britain. I had to see Professor Hawking — even ten minutes would do. “Half an hour,” he said. “From three-thirty to four.” And suddenly I felt weak all over. Growing up disabled, you get fed up with people asking you to be brave as if you have a courage account on which you are too lazy to draw a cheque. The only thing that makes you stronger is seeing somebody like you, achieving something huge. Then you know how much is possible and you reach out further than you ever thought you could. “I haven’t been brave,” said his disembodied computer-voice, the next afternoon. “I’ve had no choice.” Surely, I wanted to say, living creatively with the reality of his disintegrating body was a choice? But I kept quiet because I felt guilty every time I spoke to him, forcing him to respond. There he was, tapping at the little switch in his hand, trying to find the words on his computer with the only bit of movement left to him, his long, pale fingers. Every so often, his eyes would shut in frustrated exhaustion. And sitting opposite him I could feel his anguish, the mind buoyant with thoughts that came out in frozen phrases and sentences stiff as corpses.
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