Time Without Clocks
Lexile: 1020 | Grade: 8
Passage
Imagine living in a world with no clocks, no calendars, and no alarms. Before modern technology, people didn’t rely on precise timekeeping to structure their days. Yet, they still organized life, work, and community events using natural cues—like the position of the sun, the changing of the seasons, or even the behavior of animals.
For thousands of years, farmers watched the sky to know when to plant and harvest. Sailors followed the stars to cross vast oceans. Some Indigenous communities used the blooming of certain plants or the migration of birds to signal changes in the year. In these systems, time was not measured in hours and minutes, but in patterns and cycles.
The invention of mechanical clocks in the 14th century began to change everything. Time became something that could be broken into equal parts, regardless of season or sunlight. Cities started ringing bells to mark hours, factories later ran on schedules, and eventually society became tightly organized around the clock.
But even today, time isn’t experienced the same way by everyone. In some cultures, time is flexible—arriving 'late' to a gathering may not be seen as disrespectful but simply normal. In others, time is treated as a commodity: something to 'save,' 'spend,' or 'waste.'
As technology continues to shape how we track time—down to the second—some researchers are asking if our obsession with precision is costing us something: the ability to feel time as a rhythm, not just a number. When every moment is scheduled, do we lose something ancient—our natural sense of flow, of pause, of presence?
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Questions
Q1: What central idea does the passage develop about how humans relate to time?
- A. People have always needed clocks to survive.
- B. Modern timekeeping has replaced our natural sense of time.
- C. All cultures experience time in the same way.
- D. Time cannot be measured accurately without modern tools.
Q2: Why does the author mention Indigenous communities and sailors?
- A. To show how ancient tools were better than clocks
- B. To describe groups who rejected modern society
- C. To illustrate how people used natural patterns to understand time
- D. To argue that clocks were unnecessary throughout history
Q3: What does the author mean by 'time is treated as a commodity'?
- A. Time can be bought and sold at stores.
- B. Some people consider time to be part of the economy, like money.
- C. Time is more valuable than any physical object.
- D. Only rich people control how time is used.
Q4: What abstract idea is suggested in the final paragraph?
- A. We should stop using clocks completely.
- B. Being on time is always better than being late.
- C. Our deep connection to natural rhythms may be fading in modern life.
- D. Time is too complex for anyone to understand fully.
Q5: What is the author’s likely purpose for writing this passage?
- A. To convince people to throw away their clocks
- B. To describe how clocks work in different parts of the world
- C. To explore how human understanding of time has changed over history
- D. To argue that ancient societies had no concept of time
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Answers & Reasoning
Q1: What central idea does the passage develop about how humans relate to time?
✅ Correct Answer: B
💡 Reasoning: The passage explains how older societies relied on nature to understand time, while modern societies depend on precise timekeeping, possibly at the cost of intuition and rhythm.
Q2: Why does the author mention Indigenous communities and sailors?
✅ Correct Answer: C
💡 Reasoning: The examples show how people once used natural cues instead of clocks to manage life, supporting the contrast between natural and mechanical timekeeping.
Q3: What does the author mean by 'time is treated as a commodity'?
✅ Correct Answer: B
💡 Reasoning: By saying time is 'spent' or 'saved,' the author is suggesting that some cultures treat time like a limited resource, similar to money.
Q4: What abstract idea is suggested in the final paragraph?
✅ Correct Answer: C
💡 Reasoning: The author raises the idea that constant scheduling may distance people from their instinctive, natural sense of time and presence.
Q5: What is the author’s likely purpose for writing this passage?
✅ Correct Answer: C
💡 Reasoning: The passage traces how humans have shifted from natural to mechanical timekeeping and explores how this affects culture and perception.
Printable Comprehension Practice
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