The idea that human health can be solved by “nature” has been around for as long as we have regarded ourselves as a species apart from other living things. It truly arrived in Britain with the Romantics, for whom prosperity enabled a more reflective and worshipful relationship with the landscape that others had to toil in for a living. The popularisation of nature’s healing power peaked after the industrial revolution, when later Victorians were beset by fears of the all-conquering machine. Fresh air, exercise and healthful hobbies, from collecting butterflies to finding fossils, were prescribed in much the same way as GPs today are experimenting with “prescribing nature” to patients. As the climate and extinction crisis quickens, so there is a rush for a literary cure. In Britain it began with Richard Mabey’s Nature Cure in 2005. In many of the most popular recent examples of nature writing, other species and wild places have played a healing role. “It’s wonderful when it occurs; people in distress find that encounters with the natural world do restore them,” says Maybe. But two things concern him about the concept of a nature cure. “I’m worried that it’s become mooted as a kind of panacea – green Prozac.”
1. Which of the following is true based on the given passage?
(a) Nature writing uses the natural world as a healing factor.
(b) Nature is for the rich.
(c) The working class sees nature as a machine.
(d) Nature and laughter are the best healers in today’s world.
2. Which factor made nature essential for the health of humans?
(a) Recognition of nature’s value beyond toil and sweat.
(b) Understanding that nature is a proponent of class struggle.
(c) Recognizing human beings as distinct life forms.
(d) Using the power of nature in literature.
3. Which of the following observations from the passage can be used to show that technology is harmful for us?
(a) Nature as the healer became popular with industrialization.
(b) Victorians were afraid of machines.
(c) Nature is more useful than medicines like Prozac.
(d) Technology exists at the cost of nature.
4. Which of the following can be inferred from the given passage?
(a) It is problematic to hail nature as a cure for every ailment.
(b) Looking for fossils was pursued as a hobby once.
(c) Neither (a) or (b)
(d) Both (a) and (b)
5. The Romantics were:
(a) speaking in favour of the workers.
(b) spiritualists in the natural tradition.
(c) prosperous artists.
(d) landscape artists.
1. Ans. (a) In the passage it is stated that, ‘In many of the most popular recent examples of nature writing, other species and wild places have played a healing role.’ The other options cannot be verified from the given passage.
2. Ans. (d) The passage starts with stating that, ‘The idea that human health can be solved by “nature” has been around for as long as we have regarded ourselves as a species apart from other living things’. Thus, option (c) is the correct choice.
3. Ans. (a) Option b is incorrect since it talks of just one ethnic group belonging to a particular time period. Option (a) on the other hand species how the entire process of industrialization – which ensured that technology became an integral part of our life – made people resort to nature.
4. Ans. (d) Both the options can be inferred from the given passage.
5. Ans. (c) In the passage it is mentioned that, ‘It truly arrived in Britain with the Romantics, for whom prosperity enabled . . .’ The other options cannot be surmised from the given passage.
