Fiction · Level 4 · 152 words

Two Rules Of The Workshop

Original passage © Studio AM, written for Fluency.

Herr Bruns had two rules. A clock that runs fast is worse than a clock that has stopped, and the second rule was that the first rule applied to people as well.

His apprentice, Liesl, disliked the second rule until the winter she rushed a repair for an impatient customer. The clock kept good time for three days and then failed in a way that cost four times the original work. A stopped clock announces its failure, Bruns told her afterward; a fast clock hides its failure inside a plausible answer, and the owner arranges a whole day around that answer before discovering the error.

Liesl thought about this far longer than she expected to. The lesson was not really about clocks. It was about the difference between being wrong and being wrong convincingly, and she came to believe that the second was the more expensive condition, in workshops and everywhere else.

Comprehension questions

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4 questions
1. What is the passage mainly about?

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C. Hidden, believable errors cost more than obvious ones
The clock is an example. The closing paragraph states the real subject: being wrong convincingly is the more expensive condition.

2. What happened after Liesl rushed the repair?

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A. The clock kept good time for three days, then failed expensively
The text says it kept good time for three days and then failed in a way that cost four times the original work.

3. According to Bruns, why is a fast clock worse than a stopped one?

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D. People arrange a whole day around a wrong time without knowing it
A stopped clock shows its failure at once. A fast clock gives a believable time, so the damage spreads before anyone notices.

4. In this passage, plausible means

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B. easy to believe
The fast clock hides its failure inside an answer that looks reasonable, so plausible means believable, not true.

Source: Written for Fluency. Original passage © Studio AM, written for Fluency.