Why railways standardised time — Aptitude Question
Why railways standardised time: Railways were the first industry to require a single national time. Answer and worked solution on CodeKairo.
- Topic: Reading Comprehension
- Section: Verbal Ability
- Difficulty: Medium
- Time target: 90 seconds
Question
Railways were the first industry to require a single national time. Before them, every town kept its own clock by the sun, and a difference of a few minutes between neighbouring places troubled nobody. A timetable made those minutes intolerable. Within a generation, the railway companies had imposed a standard time across whole countries — not because anyone had argued for it, but because the trains could not run without it.
What is the main point of the passage?
Options
- Railways standardised time out of practical necessity rather than by argument.
- Towns resisted the introduction of standard time.
- Sundials were inaccurate before the railway age.
- Timetables were invented before the railways.
Show the answer and the worked solution
Correct answer: A. Railways standardised time out of practical necessity rather than by argument.
Worked solution
- The passage says standard time was imposed 'not because anyone had argued for it, but because the trains could not run without it'.
- That is exactly the first option.
- The passage never mentions resistance, sundial accuracy, or the invention of timetables before railways.
Answer: Railways standardised time out of practical necessity rather than by argument.
The idea
When a passage ends with an explicit 'not because ... but because', that sentence usually carries the main idea.
Shortcut. Strike every option that states something the passage never discusses — resistance, sundial accuracy, early timetables; the one left carries the whole argument.
Common trap. "Towns resisted the introduction of standard time." — the word 'imposed' suggests opposition, but the passage says only that nobody argued for it, not that anyone fought it.