Social Science (087) — AI-generated practice question

Rashsundari Debi (Bengal):
Rashsundari Debi lived in an orthodox household in East Bengal where women were not expected to be literate. She secretly learnt to read in the privacy of her kitchen and later wrote her autobiography Amar Jiban (published 1876) — the first full-length autobiography in the Bengali language. Her writing revealed the inner life of a confined woman and proved that women could produce serious literature, not merely consume it.

Tarabai Shinde / Pandita Ramabai (Maharashtra):
In the 1880s, Tarabai Shinde and Pandita Ramabai wrote with passionate anger about the miserable lives of upper-caste Hindu women, especially widows. Their writing gave a voice to women's suffering and demanded social reform.

Significance of the act itself: Each of these women, by writing and publishing, broke the social norm that confined women to silence. Their authorship demonstrated women's intellectual capacity and challenged conservative beliefs that education would corrupt or endanger women.

Source: Chapter 5 — Women and Print, section 8.1

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• The examiner expects two named women from different regions — choose any two from the passage (Rashsundari Debi from Bengal, Tarabai Shinde or Pandita Ramabai from Maharashtra, Kailashbashini Debi from Bengal, Begum Rokeya from Bengal). Mixing regions scores better.
• Always cover both what they wrote about (content) and what their writing represented (symbolic/social significance) — the question explicitly asks for both.
• Specific details like the title Amar Jiban and "first full-length Bengali autobiography" are high-value facts examiners reward.
• Keep to ~110–120 words; do not pad with general history of women's education.