Reading Comprehension (Vol. - I)

READING
COMPREHENSION
(Vol.-I)
This book is a part of set, not be sold separately.

Introduction
An entire section in the CAT, and most MBA Entrance question papers in devoted
to Reading Comprehension. Despite the conventional wisdom of speed-reading,
comprehension does not imply reading at great speed. It is not advisable to increase
the number of attempts at the cost of killing accuracy, simply because no one can
afford to suffer too many negative marks in an examination where each mark echoes
a do or die situation. Most students find it difficult to tackle topics that are diverse
from the field they are in or are comfortable with. A good way to begin the seemingly
easy but later-on-dauntingly-awesome task of tackling comprehension passages is
to read newspaper editorials.
Questions are based on the facts actually presented in the passage and not on
general knowledge. Besides the facts mentioned in the passage, words and their
implications are of paramount importance. What this means is that one has to read
the lines, as well as between them, carefully, for certain question types test the
reader’s skill at comprehending the implication of a sentence, a word, or, at times,
a thought that seems to run like a thread through the passage.
Questions will be based mainly on:
1. The main idea of the text.
Which of the following is the main point of the passage?
The primary purpose of the passage is to.
The author is primarily concerned with...
Which of the following titles is most appropriate for the passage?
Which of the following titles best describes the passage?
We have to first of all locate the CENTRAL IDEA of the passage. This is often
established in the very first paragraph or at times, the concluding 2-3 lines of
the last paragraph.
2. The implied idea.
The passage of implies that...
The author uses the phrase ‘...’ to mean...
It can be inferred from the passage that.
Which of the following can be inferred from the passage.
3. Specific details.
The author mentions which of the following?
According to the author...
The author provides information that would answer which of the
following questions?
According to the passage...
4. Tone.
Here, a sense of language plays a major role. Tone is the manifestation
in the author’s use of words and syntax.
5. The logical structure of the passage.
The author develops the passage primarily by.....
The author mentions.... in order to ...
Which of the following best explains why the author introduces
6. Application questions.
With which of the following statements is the author most likely to agree?
The passage is most probably taken from .....
Contents
1. TEST - 1 ... 7 - 18
2. TEST - 2 ... 19 - 30
3. TEST - 3 ... 31 - 43
4. TEST - 4 ... 44 - 57
5. TEST - 5 ... 58 - 74
6. TEST - 6 ... 75 - 87
7. TEST - 7 ... 88 - 97
8. TEST - 8 ... 98 - 113
9. TEST - 9 ... 114 - 125
10. TEST - 10 ... 126 - 138
Answers ... 139 - 143
READING COMPREHENSION
TEST – 1
DIRECTIONS: Each passage is followed by questions. Read the passage and
choose the best answer for each question. Each question in first three passages
carries one marks each. Each questions in fourth passage carries 1/2 marks each.
Time : 25 Min.
PASSAGE – I
“The right to be left alone.” For many this phrase, made famous by Louis
Brandeis, an American Supreme Court justice, captures the essence of a
notoriously slippery, but crucial concept. Drawing the boundaries of privacy has
always been tricky. Most people have long accepted the need to provide some
information about themselves in order to vote, work, shop, pursue a business,
socialise or even borrow a library book. But exercising control over who knows
what about you has also come to be seen as an essential feature of a civilised
society.
But all of these benefits, like better medical care and crime prevention come
with one obvious drawback - an ever-widening trail of electronic data. Because
the cost of storing and analysing the data is also plummeting, almost any action
will leave a near-permanent record. However ingeniously information-processing
technology is used, what seems certain is that threats to traditional notions of privacy
will proliferate.
1. As understood from the passage, threat to one’s privacy with the advent of
computers and information technology is
(1) expected and has to be dealt with in a mature way.
(2) taking its toll on pubic confidence over governments’ rules and procedures.
(3) becoming bigger with every passing day.
(4) only but natural due to boundary less-global market.
2. According to the author the concept of privacy is:
(1) a well defined concept in our society
(2) captures the essence of living in contemporary times
(3) fairly ambiguous and at the same time an important concept
(4) a bundle of secondary data.
3. The author says one of the following:
(1) In today’s world of information technology and computerisation, the term
privacy, as we know it, will come under a threat.
(2) Surveillance within predetermined limits is acceptable to all people.
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(3) Inspite of government’s reassurance, there is always a threat of misusing

consumers’ confidential information.
(4) No matter what the rules and regulations say, privacy can never be
guaranteed and enjoyed for sure.
4. The tone of the passage is:
(1) informative (2) analytical
(3) critical (4) appreciative
5. The greatest threat to privacy comes from
(1) the intrusive paparazzi.
(2) the inquisitiveness of public towards the private life of public figures.
(3) the routinely recorded business data which might get hijacked by various
other entities.
(4) the extensive use of internet.
6. Brandeis, during his time, worried about
(1) the impact of technological change.
(2) the intrusive nature of media.
(3) the fall out of technological advances.
(4) the consequences of the absence of governmental support during the war
against nosy media.
PASSAGE – II
Despite all the problems and qualifications, Anglo-American criticism rests on the
presumption that there definitely is a female tradition, buried like hidden treasure
in literary history - Showalter uses a different simile and compares feminist literary
tradition to the lost continent of Atlantis rising from the sea - and that the task of
the feminist critic is to dig it out, brush it down and exhibit it. As we have already
seen from Weedon’s and Jacobus’s pieces, critics influenced by French
deconstructive and psychoanalytical theories are not quite so sure that such an
entity exists. Viviane Forrester contends that we cannot know what women are.
The feminine is that which has been repressed; and women’s vision - in Forrester’s
case with regard to film - is only evident in ‘what you don’t see,’ what is absent.
While Anglo-American critics are looking for women in history, French women
writers, Elaine Marks tells us, are: ‘looking for women in the unconscious, which
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is to say in their own language.’ “Cherchez la femme” might be one of their implied
mottoes; where repression is, she is’.
Thus, although we may uncover a whole list of forgotten novels by women or films
with female directors, feminists of this school are unwilling to see that as necessarily
a female tradition. They want to put the questions that Shoshana Felman asks. Are
these novelists and directors speaking as women or are they ‘speaking the language
of men’? Can they be said to be speaking as women simply because they are born
female? For instance, do the female Prime Ministers and Presidents of recent history
speak as women or are they, regrettably, ventriloquist dummies for the male voice?
Felman’s questions raise a further issue echoed in Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s
work. The problem is not only who is speaking and how is she speaking but to
whom is she speaking and on behalf of whom is she speaking. Following Derrida’s
double focus, Spivak stresses:’ not merely who am I? but who is the other woman?
How am I naming her? How does she name me?’. Such questioning relates directly
to the problems of constructing a female tradition we looked at earlier. The
possibility for some feminists to speak, without awareness, from a highly privileged
position must result, in part, from not asking, at its deepest level, the question,
‘Who am I?’; the neglect of the non-white, or working-class, or lesbian perspectives
must relate to the failure to ask, ‘To whom am I speaking?’; and the tendency to
universalise, to make claims on behalf of all women, must mean that Felman’s
anxiety about women as, ‘the silent and subordinate object’ that is ‘spoken for,’
has not been fully heeded. Spivak extends the context of this argument further
beyond our own countries to the women of the ‘third world’. How are academic
‘first world’ feminists and illiterate Indian women to speak together with
understanding, without patronage, without exploitation, with a full recognition of
both community and diversity?
If Miller evokes Medusa as her mythological figure, both Gates and Spivak turn to
Janus. Looking two ways, they want to know both the other language and their
own, the colonised. Neither rejects out of hand the historical approach and textual
analysis of the Anglo-American critics and it is this perspective that Todd reviews
in the final extract. Concerned about deconstruction’s dismantling of history ‘before
a “woman’s history” has been described,’ Todd offers an understanding of feminist
literary tradition which is both aware of new critical insights and insistent that
women do have a literary past.
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7. The passage is most probably taken from...

(1) a newspaper. (2) a literary journal.
(3) a history of feminist criticism. (4) a feminist manifesto.
8. Which of the following, according to the author invoking Showalter, is not
one of the tasks of feminist literary criticism?
(1) Dig out a female tradition in literature.
(2) Create a whole new genre of feminist literature.
(3) Brush down and isolate a tradition of feminist literature.
(4) Display the tradition for the world to appreciate.
9. Which of the following groups are not sure that a separate tradition of feminine
literature exists?
1. Anglo-American school.
2. French deconstructive theories.
3. French psychoanalytical theories.
(1) 1 only. (2) Both 1 and 2.
(3) 1, 2 and 3. (4) 3 and 2 both.
10. What is the main difference between the Anglo-American and French schools
of feminist riticism?
(1) The Anglo-American school wants women to be completely independent
while the French school wants women to find their place working within
the preexisting paradigm.
(2) The Anglo-American school searches for women in history while the French
feminists search for women-on the unconscious.
(3) The Americans search for women in the unconscious while the French
school of feminist literary criticism looks for women in history.
(4) None of the above.
11. It may be inferred from the passage that Gayatri Chakravarty Spivak...
(1) belongs to the French school of criticism.
(2) belongs to the American school of criticism.
(3) is a follower of Shoshana Felman.
(4) is basically an Indian.
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12. Which of the following has not been pointed out as a possible demerit of the
Feminist theories?
(1) The neglect of non-white and working class perspectives.
(2) The overemphasis on sexual repression in women.
(3) The neglect of lesbian points of view.
(4) The tendency to universalise claims of women of one class.
PASSAGE – III
Steven Spielberg’s E.T., the Extra-Terrestrial, is one of the most beautiful fantasy-
adventure movies ever made- a sublimely witty and inventive fable that goes so
deep into the special alertness, loyalty, and ardour of children that it makes you see
things you had forgotten or blotted out and feel things you were embarrassed to
feel. Watching it, children will be in heaven, adults, I think, will be moved by how
funny, even hip, innocence can be. You may wonder how so commercial a work
can be innocent, but Spielberg has pulled it off. He has used his fabulous technique
and boundless savvy to create the ecstasy of first responses, when friendship, danger,
the physical world itself strike the child as awesome, revealatory. It’s a
Wordworthian science-fiction movie.
After the frantic aridities of 1941 and the entertaining but soulless high jinks of
Raiders of the Lost Ark, the director has returned to the beatific mood of Close
Encounters of the Third Kind. The new movie is a heart-wrenching elaboration of
that moment at the end of Close Encounters when the awkward little creature moves
down the runway of its spaceship in a column of overpowering light and raises its
palms in greeting. The premises of E.T. is simple. Accidentally left behind by
outer-space visitors, a smallish, green-brown creature, brilliant but physically
vulnerable, takes refuge in the bedroom of a ten-year old boy in the California
suburbs. The boy, Elliott (Henry Thomas), aided by his big brother, Michael (Robert
Macnaughton), and his gravely beautiful little sister, Gertie (Drew Barrymore),
secretly cares for the extraterrestrial (E.T. for short) as if it were a peculiarly
intelligent wild animal- feeding it, protecting it from shadowy scientific authorities,
and finally helping it in its quest to return home, where it must go if it is to survive.
In outline, the plot may seem familiar, since there are many echoes in it of such
classic animal-and-child stories as The Black Stallion and The Yearling, as well as
a large infusion of Peter Pan. But Spielberg and screenwriter Melissa Mathison
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(who worked on the script of The Black Stallion) have worked out the story with
astounding moment-by-moment physical and emotional detail: Even such
spellbinders as J. M. Barrie, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, and Disney himself might
have been impressed. It’s been years since I’ve been caught up in the emotions of
a movie.
Nearly everyone has had the experience of lying on the grass on a clear night,
looking up at the sky and feeling not only amazement but also a sense of anticipation,
the conviction that something overwhelming was about to happen. Spielberg is the
master of this hushed, awed mood of imminence, and he always delivers what he
has promised. Spielberg makes physical beauty dramatically exciting; he has a
kinetic sense of detail. His characteristic visual style (Allen Daviau is the
cinematographer here) depends on a stealthily moving camera and shafts of dazzling
white light against darkness-light as power and intelligence.
The opening of E.T. is both majestic and witty- a true Spielberg combination.
Having landed in a dark forest of redwoods and firs, the outer-space creatures
quietly explore, taking specimens, talking to one another in their strange, snuffling
language. The details are exquisite: Long brown fingers delicately uproot a plant;
immense redwoods in parallel columns, seen from the creatures, point of view,
stretch endlessly upward; in the valley below, a flat California valley community
glistens and hums in the night. As a group of men-scientists probably, looking for
the spaceship drive up violently in their cars and trucks, Spielberg holds the aliens’
point of view, keeping the camera low, in the bushes. We never see the men’s
faces; the scientists are embodied by the light-first headlights, then superpowered
flashlights moving around in the dark like tracer bullets. One little gremlin, tearing
through the bushes, emits a panicked noise somewhere between a squeal and a
honk, and gets left aground as the spaceship takes off.
From the beginning, then, we are plunged into an entirely physical, almost visceral
experience of the story, accomplished without obvious scare tactics. All the
excitement is fully earned- it is dramatized from the inside, as experience, and not
felt merely as the usual cinematic assault on the senses. Spielberg charges every
scene with eccentric movement, but nothing is rushed or forced. When Elliott lures
the gremlin into his house, Spielberg finally unveils his incomparable toy. This
lifelike brown rubber thing is the finest creation of Carlo Rambaldi, who also
constructed the 1976 King Kong and the earlier Spielberg extraterrestrials. Squat,
a waddler with homy feet, it has long arms that touch the ground, a long neck that
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extends in moments of panic. Rambaldi has made it comical-looking, slightly

grotesque, but not frightening: He has given it beautiful liquid eyes that dilate with
emotion. And Spielberg has given it a personality-grave, tender, quietly sad, and
utterly benevolent. A dignified, rather conservative man of feeling (one can imagine
E.T. as editor of The New Yorker), it pulsates and makes sympathetic noises-
murmurs and groans-when other people are hurt. In Elliott’s robe, it moves off to
the kitchen, looking like an elderly visiting uncle who stayed through the winter.
In the past, most directors have made aliens threatening, even terrifying. Spielberg’s
gentler conception, in which the extraterrestrials find us alien, is infinitely more
fun. When little Gertie sees E.T. in her brother’s bedroom, she screams “Eek!” and
E.T. screams back, neck craning, long fingers held up in protest against this small
blond thing with pink yarn in her hair. For Gertie, E.T. is a part of the world of toys
and dolls and magical bedtime stories, and she quickly accepts it, dressing it up in
a blond wig and bracelets, chattering away at it as it follows her around the kitchen.
Tiny Drew Barrymore (John’s granddaughter) is a very positive child with a natural
gravity that becomes increasingly comical. Spielberg performs miracles with her
and with Henry Thomas, whose arched eyebrows give him a look of devilish
intelligence.
13. The passage seems to be most probably an extract from:
(1) personal revelations (2) personal diary
(3) cine catalogue (4) newspaper review
14. An appropriate theme for the passage could be:
(1) The Genius that is Spielberg
(2) Extraterrestrials in a dim light
(3) E.T. - a bit apart from extraterrestrials
(4) E.T. - a marvellously different movie Spielberg
15. The characteristic Spielberg mix has been described as:
(1) grand and emotional (2) that of wit and majesty
(3) touching yet entertaining (4) irrelevant to the passage
16. The author wants to say that:
(1) Spielberg has had his share of junk and crap.
(2) everyone amongst us has a particular corner of special alertness where
E.T. touches us.
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(3) E.T. was a creation that would have been appreciated by heart by all the
existing and earlier geniuses of the field.
(4) all of us have something inside us that we have suppressed as it were an
extraterrestrial.
17. According to the passage which of the following is not false?
(1) E.T. is as simple as the editor of New York Times.
(2) E.T. makes us feel itself in a second-hand manner.
(3) E.T. can become the editor-in-chief of the New York Times .
(4) E.T. makes us feel itself in a first-hand experience.
18. E.T. differs from other alien movies in all ways, except
(1) most movies portray aliens as terrifying.
(2) in E.T., extraterrestials are viewed is as aliens.
(3) obvious scare tactics are not used in E.T.
(4) E.T. has a unique plot.
19. The author says the story of the movie is similar to those written by:
(1) J M Barrie
(2) Maryorie Kinnan Rarolings, Disney
(3) If Wordsworth were to write a science fiction story
(4) All of the above
PASSAGE – IV
India has a huge public enterprise sector. It consists of nearly 1,050 public
enterprises – some 250 central public enterprises and about 800 state public
enterprises. Total investment in the Central PSEs at the end of 2001–02 added up
to Rs 1,358.71 billion, up from Rs. 211.02 billion at the end of 1980–81. Although
detailed information on state public enterprises is not available, they also account
for substantial investments.
But public enterprises (PEs), both central and state, are immensely inefficient. The
PE’s deficits have added to the country’s current large stock of domestic and external
public debt which, in turn, has given rise to massive liabilities on account of interest
payments.
Privatisation can be of major help in reducing India’s public sector deficit. The
proceeds from the sale of PEs can be used to finance the public sector deficit or, in
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case the proceeds exceed the deficit, to reduce the outstanding public debt, both
domestic and external. The proceeds from the sale of PEs should be treated as a
financing (below the line) item, not as a receipt (above the line) item. A major
advantage of such a treatment is that it eliminates all possible incentives to reduce
a given public sector deficit with no, or relatively small, fiscal correction. And this
will reduce the burden of interest payments and the deficit.
With the public enterprise sector regarded as a sacred cow in the political arena,
the selling had to be performed in a manner that appeared to be totally harmless.
This explains why only a fraction of the equity was sold, and that too almost wholly
to public financial institutions, with the Unit Trust of India alone, for example,
accounting for 74.4 percent of the total sales in 2001-02. So much so that even the
minimum reserve prices for the shares that were sold were fixed on the basis of the
recommendations of financial institutions in the public sector. Despite all these
precautions, the government of India has been severely criticised, both within and
outside Parliament, with the major criticism being that the actual amount realised
from the sale of shares has been substantially lower than that could have been
realised by going in for the best value method.
In my view, the whole thing does not add up to much. The government of India’s
intention was not to privatise. Its intention simply was to raise resources by selling
the equity in question to other public entities under its administrative control, treat
the resources so raised as a receipt (above the line) item, not as a financing (below
the line) item, and thereby claim to have reduced its deficit. Therefore, the question
of the government having suffered a major loss does not arise. All that the
government’s scheme has done is that it has changed the intra–public sector holdings
of financial assets, with the result that rather than the government of India borrowing
money to finance its deficit, it is the public financial institutions which have ended
up raising the resources in order to finance the acquisition of the concerned PE’s
equity.
This incidentally shows how the International Monetary Fund’s laxity has distorted
the government of India’s behaviour; by agreeing to a conceptually absurd definition
of the deficit, it has created incentives for the government of India not to push
ahead with necessary tax and expenditure reforms and instead has allowed it to go
in for gimmicks such as selling the Central PE’s equity to other public entities in
order to reduce its deficit which, in turn, given the substantial transaction costs
involved, has added to wasteful public spending in the country.
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Two things can be said about the privatisation moves in India. First, privatisation
in India appears to be a public finance–driven phenomenon. Thus, Allwyn Nissan
Limited (ANL), which incurred losses in all the years since its inception in 1984,
had to be privatised in 1988 when the government of Andhra Pradesh (GOAP),
which controlled and managed the ANL, before its privatisation, could not afford
to provide a budgetary support of even Rs. 50 million for its revival. Similar is the
case with other state Governments. And second, it appears that privatisation has
contributed to gains on the efficiency front. The market share of ANL, now known
as Mahindra Nissan Allwyn Limited, in the fiercely competitive light commercial
vehicle market which was 17 percent before privatisation rose to 25 per cent at the
end of 2000–01; it made an entry into the export market and improved its status
from being a loss–making company to a net profit–making one in 2000–01;
reflecting the good performance, its share price rose from Rs 7 (par value: Rs 10)
before privatisation to a high of Rs 25 during 2000–01.
Of the privatisation moves that have been initiated in India so far, some have either
been given up or are currently in progress. But assets of the public enterprises that
have been privatised do not add up to even 1 per cent of the total assets of India’s
PE sector. And the explanation probably lies in one or the other or in a combination
of the following obstacles to privatisation in India: structure of incentives that
India’s politicians face; and labour unions.
Access to the PEs’ resources helps politicians in getting reelected. This can happen
in a variety of ways. First, PEs can be used to create and provide jobs, at wages
and salaries higher than the market rates, to those who directly or indirectly help a
politician in his or her reelection. This explains the phenomena of gross overstaffing
and inefficiency in PEs. Second, PEs can be used as parking places for selected
members of a rival group within a political party, or for such other people whose
support may be critical for the continued survival of, say, a chief minister.
Finally, PEs can also be milched through leakages in, say, their spendings under
various heads, both current and capital. Thus, plant and machinery may be acquired
at inflated prices, with at least a part of the differences (between the market prices
and the actual price charged) directly or indirectly accruing to a politician.
Given the above state of affairs, no wonder most politicians oppose privatisation
of PEs’ especially now when, thanks to the economic reforms some of the
opportunities for rent–seeking that the politicians used to thrive on, have
disappeared.
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The labour unions’ opposition has been a major factor responsible for the failure or
the slowing down of privatisation efforts in India. The Scooters India Limited (SIL)
is a case in point. The SIL, which was put up for sale in 1988, was lucky to find a
buyer in Bajaj Auto Limited (BAL), but the sale could not go through because of
the opposition of the SIL’s 3,125 employees to the proposed scheme of privatisation
which involved retrenchment of 1,625 employees. “The real problem”, as Rahul
Bajaj, BAL’s Chairman, put it, “is the labour. If in even one case the government
closes down a unit because employees oppose privatisation, then the problem will
be partly solved, as people will see that saving half the jobs is better than having
none.” Bajaj is right. Closure does help. But the government of India has not
heeded to Bajaj’s advice and has instead allowed SIL to continue to incur huge
losses.
But things have now begun to change. Pressures for privatisation are building up.
And given these pressures, the obstacles to privatisation may start wearing down.
20. Which is true as per the passage?
(1) The Indian Public Sector enterprises have a proven track record of always
performing well when faced by the threat of a closure.
(2) The Central PEs are, to some extent, more profitable than the State PEs.
(3) Rahul Bajaj had decided to put up the equity of the recently acquired
company for sale.
21. Which is false as per the passage?
(1) Public enterprises in India, both central and state, are liabilities and not
real assets.
(2) The PEs deficits have added to the country’s debt.
(3) The public debt has produced huge liabilities as interest payments.
22. The author is least likely to agree with the statement that :
(1) public sector in India is considered to be of the utmost importance.
(2) the government’s moves to privatise the public sector have been largely
dictated by the financial institutions.
(3) the role of politicians in the privatisation process of the PEs has been very
disheartening.
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23. As far as the circumspect stand of the government regarding the PEs is
concerned:
(1) it has paid off handsomely.
(2) it could not save the goverment from the spectre of inflationary expectations.
(3) it could not help the government generate enough foreign exchange.
(4) it was not able to avoid the severe criticism from several quarters.
24. From the passage, it can be deduced that the author’s stand vis -a-vis the major
international financial institutions is that :
(1) they have damaged a potentially strong revival case for India.
(2) they can be of no use to India as they comprise vested interests.
(3) their laxity has distorted government of India’s behaviour.
(4) India should never rely on them.
25. The process of the PEs equity being sold to other public companies is viewed
by the author as :
(1) a highly commendable step
(2) uneconomical
(3) an attack on their public nature
(4) a damaging step
26. Which of the following is true, as per the passage?
(1) The prices of shares of companies going public always rise.
(2) Allwyn Nissan Ltd. was revived through a combined private–public
package deal.
(3) There are several hitches in the way of a private company going public.
27. All of the following are reasons for “obstacles to privatisation in India,” except:
(1) easy access for the politicians to the PE’s resources.
(2) gross over–staffing leading to uneconomical functioning.
(3) avoidable delays in the major revival packages.
(4) strong labour union resistance.
28. The author closes the passage with a note of :
(1) sustained pressure (2) logical optimism
(3) prudent skepticism (4) circumspect derision
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TEST – 2
Time : 25 Min.
PASSAGE – I
We all know something about our conscious mind. At least we can make certain
presumptions about our consciousness. Consciousness for most of us is the
fact of the awareness of our thinking, feeling, and doing. Although, the reactions
to the stimuli may differ from person to person, or even in the same person
from time to time, the fact that everyone is capable of reacting is taken as a sign of
consciousness. These conscious acts are sometimes termed as conscious mind.
Similarly, certain acts are performed reflexively or without conscious awareness.
For instance, mind goes on thinking bad thoughts despite attempts to control
them. From where do such thoughts as of anger, lust, jealousy, hatred, and
even desire to harm others, come? Same is the case with good or noble thoughts.
Selflessness predominates in some persons to the extent that these persons give up
everything and start working for the welfare of the world. From where do such
thoughts arise? They arise from the subconscious mind. Subconscious mind is
the sum total of our past experiences. What we feel, think, or do forms the basis
of our experience. These experiences are stored in the form of subtle impressions in
our subconscious mind. These impressions interact with one another and give birth to
tendencies. We become prone to react in a particular way to a particular situation
or stimulus depending upon the tendencies in our subconscious mind. The
resultant of these tendencies determines our character. Depending on the
strength and nature of their character, people respond to the same stimuli or the
situation in differing ways.
Let us explain the concept with one example. The hot summer dries up
everything, including the weeds, in a farm, and the field appears barren.
Apparently there is nothing but black soil. Soon the rains soak the land and the
imbedded seeds sprout up and fill the field with unwanted weeds again. The
farmer never desired to have them, but when certain conditions were fulfilled the
weeds came to life. The rain water, the weather, and the seeds were sufficient to
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cause the weed to appear above the ground. However, the weed did not come
with rain-water or from sky, or somewhere else; the weed was always present in
the seed form in the soil itself! Same is the case with us.
What about free will? Can we not choose the way we react to a given condition or
circumstance? Yes, we can choose; but the will is not absolutely free. The will,
by which I make choices, behaves in accordance with my character, that sum
total of all past deeds, thoughts, and feelings: the impressions not only from the
present life, but also the whole record of many past lives that the subconscious mind
carries.
Then is there no way out? There is. It is to follow the ‘psychology of spiritual
science’. We have to empty the mind of all unwanted subconscious impressions
and tendencies. It is an almost impossible task; almost but not totally impossible.
It is possible to change the contents of mind (just as it is possible to sow
groundnut seed so as to start replacing the weed). And as we have seen that the
conscious experiences get stored up as subconscious impressions, we have to control
and handle both conscious and subconscious mind. Our actions, thoughts, and
feelings should be such that the subconscious mind is cleansed of its dirty contents.
Suppose you have the problem of cleaning a dirty ink bottle that is fastened to
the table. You can’t pick it up and empty the ink out. What will you do? You
pour clean water in the bottle, and the ink and the dirt will come out. You keep
pouring in the clean water until all the ink and the dirt have been washed out and the
bottle contains nothing but clean water. In the same way, although it is not
possible to empty the mind by throwing out the contents of consciousness and
making it blank; what one can do is to keep pouring clean water of pure thoughts
of God, divinity, spirituality; virtues like love, selflessness, altruism, etc., into
the mind until all the dirt of past impressions spills out. During spilling out of
this dirt, our character may appear miserable and suspect, but that is natural
during the cleansing operation. The dirt of hundreds of past births may take
quite some time to clear. Therefore, patience and perseverance are essential.
One may feel dejected and depressed, and therefore, a Teacher, and Holy
company is necessary. Sympathetic friends and attachment to a spiritual group
are helpful.
Purer the mind, better is the reflection of Divine/Truth therein. And to the
degree the impressions on the mind are reduced, to that extent purer it becomes.
Restlessness of mind and the number of desires are directly related. Therefore, we
have to reduce and control our desires. But this may create vacuum. And hence, it is
better to desire for Grace of God, or for ability to discriminate and to have dispassion.
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1. The metaphorical implication of the germination of weeds includes:

(1) Soil is the subconscious mind where certain impressions get imprinted.
(2) Imbedded seeds are the subtle impressions that are unknown tendencies
operating at the subconscious level.
(3) The sprouting of seeds represents the activation of long forgotten
impressions in the human mind upon the fulfilment of certain conditions.
(4) All the above.
2. A teacher or holy company becomes necessary
(1) to help us wash off the bad impressions of our past births.
(2) to tell us that patience and perseverance will definitely pay in our quest to
energise our subconscious mind.
(3) to pull us out of dumps and encourage us to continue cleansing our minds
of maleficent impressions.
(4) to help us mould our intentions thereby our character too.
3. According to the passage, we can control the way we react to a given stimulus
by
(1) consciously avoiding the circumstances that create negative impressions.
(2) exercising discrimination while filtering in pure thoughts.
(3) trying to cleanse our subconscious mind of unwanted impressions on it.
(4) exercising direct control over our conscious as well as unconscious minds.
4. Which of the following statements can be supported by the content of the
passage?
(1) All our reflex actions arise from our subconscious mind.
(2) Our ability to respond to a stimulus is considered a sign of consciousness.
(3) A person who benefits from a particular action, will always strive to perform
that action.
(4) An individual’s response to a stimulus varies depending upon that person’s
state of mind.
5. The author in the passage explicitly differentiates between
(1) the roles played by conscious and subconscious minds.
(2) the consequences of harbouring pure and impure thoughts.
(3) the influences of present and past experiences.
(4) the characteristic features that take one nearer to or away from God.
21
PASSAGE – II
Many illustrious visitors came to the studio at this time: Melba, Leopold Godowsky
and Paderewski, Nijinsky and Pavlova. Paderewski had great charm, but there was
something bourgeois about him, an over-emphasis of dignity. He was impressive
with his long hair, severe, slanting moustache and the small tuft of hair under his
lower lip, which I thought revealed some form of mystic vanity. At his recitals,
with house lights lowered and the atmosphere sombre and awesome when he was
about to sit on the piano stool, I always felt someone should pull it from under him.
During the war I met him at the Ritz Hotel in New York and greeted him
enthusiastically, asking if he were there to give a concert. With pontifical solemnity
he replied: “I do not give concerts when I am in the service of my country.”
Paderewski became Prime Minister of Foland, but I felt like Clemenceau, who
said to him during a conference of the ill-fated Versailles Treaty: ‘How is it that a
gifted artist like you should stoop so low as to become a politician?’
On the other hand Leopold Godowsky, a greater pianist, was simple and humorous,
a small man with a smiling, round face. After his concert in Los Angeles he rented
a house there, and I visited him quite frequently. On Sundays I was privileged to
listen to him practising and to witness the extraordinary felicity and technique of
his exceptionally small hands.
Nijinsky, with members of the Russian Ballet, also came to the studio. He was a
serious man, beautiful-looking, with high cheekbones and sad eyes, who gave the
impression of a monk dressed in civilian clothes. We were shooting The Cure. He
sat behind the camera, watching me at work on a scene which I though was funny,
but he never smiled. Although the other onlookers laughed, Nijinsky sat looking
sadder and sadder. Before leaving he came and shook hands, and in his hollow
voice said how much he enjoyed my work and asked if he could come again. ‘Of
course,’ I said. For two more days he sat lugubriously watching me. On the last day
I told the cameraman not to put film in the camera, knowing Nijinsky’s doleful
presence would ruin my attempts to be funny. Nevertheless, at the end of each day
he would compliment me. ‘Your comedy is balletique-you are a dancer,’ he said. I
had not yet seen the Russian Ballet, or any other ballet for that matter. But at the
end of the week I was invited to attend the matinee. At the theatre Diaghilev, a
member of the Russian Ballet, greeted me - a most vital and enthusiastic man. He
apologised for not having the programme he thought I would most enjoy. ‘Too bad
22
it isn’t L’Apres-midi d’un Faune,’ he said. ‘I think you would have liked it.’ Then
quickly he turned to his manager. ‘Tell Nijinsky we’ll put on the Faune after the
interval for Chariot.’
The first ballet was Scheherazade. My reaction was more or less negative. There
was too much acting and too little dancing, and the music of Rimsky-Korsakov
was repetitive, I thought. But the next was a pas de deux with Nijinsky. The moment
he appeared I was electrified. I have seen few geniuses in the world, and Nijinsky
was one of them. He was hypnotic, godlike, his sombreness suggesting moods of
other worlds; every movement was poetry, every leap a flight into strange fancy.
6. It may be inferred from the passage that the author...
(1) is an actor.
(2) is himself a great artiste.
(3) is a journalist.
(4) Not enough information in the passage to say for sure.
7. Which of the following statements is not true?
(1) Paderewski is a pianist. (2) Clemenceau is a pianist.
(3) Godowsky is a pianist. (4) Nijinsky is a dancer.
8. The author’s attitude towards Paderewski may be described as...
(1) amused exasperation. (2) lugubrious surveyal.
(3) biting scorn. (4) tolerant adulation.
9. The tone of the passage may be said to be...
(1) reminiscent (2) anecdotal
(3) Both (1) and (2) (4) Neither (1) nor (2)
10. Who among the following did not work with Nijinsky?
(1) Rimsky. (2) Dighaliev.
(3) Scheherazade. (4) Korsakov.
11. It may be inferred from the passage that Ninjinsky and the author...
(1) tolerated each other (2) were great friends.
(3) admired each other (4) were arty people.
12. The word ‘pontifical,’ in the context of the passage means...
(1) bird-like. (2) statue-like.
(3) devil-like. (4) priest-like.
23
PASSAGE – III
Thus, at the extreme left stand the Marxists, whose prediction of the ultimate
undoing of our system is little changed from the days of Karl Marx himself- Their
prophecy we know; their persuasion is that we should line up on the side of
history, as they see it. It is not a blueprint of the future which the Marxists try to sell
us, but a sense of historical participation, of joining the winning team, of riding on
the “wave of the future.” If Russia or China were not there as an object lesson in
applied Marxism, their urgings might be a more formidable competitor for our belief.
As things now stand, the rigours which are the price of rapid collectivist growth
have an appeal only to the most miserable peoples in the world - those who have
never known anything but a beggar’s lot. Perhaps our task is to understand with
genuine compassion, the hard choice that history has enjoined on the poor - and to
attempt in every way to facilitate their escape from poverty. To the right of the
Marxists are the socialists. Many of them are Marxian in their prognosis of
capitalism’s end, but they are not Marxian in their prediction of things to come. The
Marxists extol the inevitability of history; the socialists extol the idea of liberty
inherent in social change. The Marxists are not so much interested in What Comes
Next - but this is the very heart and essence of the socialist persuaders. Whether
the society of the future is to be centralized or built on old-fashioned guilds;
whether it is to be entirely planned, or only partially so; the extent to which the
consumer should have a voice, and the extent to which the producer should be
heard-these are the burning questions of socialism - but not of communism. While
the Marxists hold out the prospect of blindly and trustingly enlisting oneself with
the inexorable process of history, the socialists ask us to join them in shaping
history as they wish it.
Next on the spectrum of prophecy and persuasion are the advocates of managed
capitalism. Unlike the socialists, they do not believe that capitalism must disappear,
and unlike the socialists they do not want to displace the institution of private
ownership with public ownership. Their central philosophy is something else again:
they feel that capitalism can be maintained if we intervene sufficiently to make it
viable. Left to itself, they say capitalism may run off the rails - if not its economic
rails, then its moral rails. Given a strong policy of guidance, it can continue to
prosper. Hence we are asked to ensure our futures with a strong pillar of government
investment, with active enforcement of anti-monopoly laws, with the encouragement
24
of public activity as well as private. This road to the future lies in making capitalism
work - rather than in relying on its inner stability.
Not so, say the next group of public counsellors, the protagonists of the Right-of-
Centre. Capitalism can work only in an atmosphere of hands-off. While liberal
aims may be commendable, the liberal means are incompatible with the essence of
a market economy itself. Leave the system alone and it will fare well; try to patch
it up and you will only succeed in hopelessly paralyzing it.
It is some such spectrum of prophecy and persuasion that we face.
As we listen to the debates which now surround us - and which will command our
attention as long as our society survives - we can recognize the voices of the past.
Adam Smith still speaks to us from the platform to the Right; Karl Marx seeks to
enroll us in the legions of the Left. We can distinguish the voice if John Stuart Mill
in the words of the socialists, and that of John Maynard Keynes in the arguments
of the liberal capitalist reformers The analytical insight of Ricardo, the gloomy
presentiments of Malthus, the vision of the more utopian Utopians, the complacency
of the Victorians, the disquietude of the underworld, the shrewd skepticism of
Veblen - they are all there.
13. Proceeding from Left to Right on the economic spectrum, one would find
(1) Marx - Smith - Mill - Keynes (2) Mill - Keynes - Marx - Smith
(3) Smith - Mill - Keynes - Marx (4) Marx - Mill - Keynes - Smith
14. The founder of Marxism is
(1) Karl Marx (2) John Stuart Mill
(3) Thomas Malthus (4) None of the above
15. Which of the following is true, according to the author?
(1) Socialists and Marxist think alike.
(2) Socialists are like Marxist in their prognosis of capitalism’s end.
(3) Capitalism want to displace the institution of public ownership
(4) Capitalism claims that there should not be government interference in
market economy.
16. Advocates of managed capitalism, differing from socialists, believe that
(1) private ownership should not be displaced by public ownership.
(2) the government should not get involved at all in industry.
(3) the government should own all industries
(4) the capitalist economy must disappear.
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17. The existence of Russia and China has made Marxism

(1) a more formidable competitor of our system.
(2) a system with appeal to all nations of the world.
(3) the dominant economic philosophy in North America.
(4) a system with appeal only to the poorest peoples of the world.
18. Favouring capitalism with the qualification that monopolies should be carefully
supervised are the
(1) socialists (2) rightists
(3) managed capitalism advocates (4) What Comes Next advocates
19. The Marxists believe in
(1) the encouragement of public, as well as private activity
(2) liberty inherent in social change
(3) a strong pillar of government investment
(4) the inevitability of history
20. According to the author, socialists believe in
(1) riding on the “wave of the future”
(2) rapid collectivist growth
(3) shaping history
(4) the inevitability of history
21. The “Right of Centre” advocates believe
(1) in patching up the market.
(2) in putting capitalism back on the tracks.
(3) that managed capitalism can succeed.
(4) that liberal means are incompatible with the essence of a market economy.
22. The author classifies John Stuart Mill among the
(1) socialists (2) Marxists
(3) capitalist reformers (4) free market advocates
PASSAGE – IV
“Love thy neighbour as thyself” said Jesus two thousand years ago. As love
begets love, your neighbour is bound to reciprocate. Loving relationship with your
neighbour can bring immense joy and excitement to your day to day life. A neighbour
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is always at hand to help you in time of need. In the highly mobile social life of
today, your relations and friends are rarely located near your place of residence. In
unforeseen circumstances of a sickness or accident, you get immediate help and
assistance from your neighbour. His readiness to help you spares you the anxiety
of contacting your relations and waiting for their response. A good neighbour is a
great support and a major convenience in modern life.
Although desirability of loving your neighbour is not denied by any right thinking
person, human psychology militates against the idea of selfless love for your
neighbour. On the contrary, ordinary human being is generally jealous of his
neighbour. If the neighbour is much better off than he is, he suffers from pangs of
envy. If the neighbour is a man without means, he feels contemptuous of him and
does not like to socialise with him. If the neighbour acquires a superior brand of
car, the sight of his own old car grieves him no end. If the neighbour’s wife happens
to be fair and glamorous, his own wife seems plainer and unattractive. Depraved
as it may appear, but it is a fact nonetheless that failure or poor performance of
neighbour’s son gives him a secret satisfaction that his own son has been doing
much better in studies.
Whatever may be the psychological obstructions in the way of developing good
relationship with one’s neighbour, its practical utility is unquestionable. I remember
an old incident very vividly when our neighbour’s wife rendered invaluable service
to our family. My 9 year old sister was at that time running high fever. I along with
my father and mother had to go out to a club to participate in the golden jubilee
wedding anniversary of my maternal grandparents. It was not possible for us either
to be absent in the function or to leave my sister unattended. Our neighbour’s wife
saw through our dilemma and offered to attend upon my sister for 3-4 hours till we
returned from the club. This incident is still fresh in my memory. That lady has
since become an intimate family friend and is a permanent fixture in all our social
functions.
Good neighbourly relations are generally based on enlightened self interest. Every
family has its weakness and quota of problems. Understanding neighbours can
contribute a great deal in facilitating smooth conduct of your day-to-day affairs.
The worsening law and order situation in metropolitan areas has enhanced the
desirability of closer and stronger neighbourly relations. If somebody has to lockup
his house and go out of town for a few days, nobody can better ensure the security
of his house than a considerate neighbour. In many areas of Delhi, neighbours
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have agreed upon a roaster of performing watchman’s duties to guard against

thefts and robberies.
Relationship with neighbours does not always remain rosy. Occasionally, disputes
arise between neighbours on trivial issues which poison the relations. Quarrels
between children sometimes flow over to the adults too who instead of making
light of the quarrels, impart serious dimensions to them thus vitiating the good
neighbourly feelings. Not unoften, adolescent boys and girls develop tender and
loving relationship which is not always approved by their parents. Souring of
relationship may degenerate into total stoppage of normal courtesy between
neighbours. Maintaining good neighbourly relations requires a lot of tact, patience,
foresight and tolerance. One can bear a patch of bad feelings with one’s relations
but with neighbours it becomes very trying and unbearable.
Neighbours constitute the first school for learning social manners and developing
social virtues. Extent of social interaction you want to develop with your neighbour
is mostly a matter of free choice: Tolerance and consideration for others are the
basic attitudes which make social interaction possible. Your neighbours may not
share your views on political or social issues. Still you have to listen to them with
an open mind and try your best not to annoy them by hurting their feelings. If you
are able to develop good neighbourly relations, it is almost certain that you will
not find it difficult to adjust with your class fellows in schools or with your colleagues
in the office.
Neighbours play an important role in the character formation of children. As they
interact with very matter of fact neighbours who show no indulgence to their pranks,
they develop social virtues of tact and restraint. They also learn how to win favours
by a show of pleasant manners. They develop life long relationship with neighbours.
Not only they win reliable friends, they also find uncles and aunts among neighbours
who often prove to be more loving and understanding than one’s real uncles and
aunts. It is because of developing affectionate relationships in the neighbourhood
that children feel miserable when they have to shift out to other cities on account
of transfer of their parents.
Good neighbours add spice to your life. They not only enliven your hours of
leisure with their lively company, they can come to your aid and share your labour
whenever you have to organise a family function, a birth day or a marriage ceremony.
Your popularity among neighbours is really tested when there is a death in the
family. Neighbours participate untiringly in making funeral arrangements. They
stand by you throughout the period of mourning, offering loving care and
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assistance in going through the daily routines. The social reputation of man can be
judged by the size of the funeral procession of his father or grandfather.
23. Which of the following is the characteristic of a good neighbour, as the passage
makes out?
(1) Keeping abreast of the happenings and goings-on in the neighhour’s family.
(2) A good neighbour is of timely and valuable help in moments of adversity.
(3) Neighbours help in removing envy and creating healthy feelings.
(4) Neighbours help in spreading religion and moral education.
24. All of the following are true with respect to the passage, except that :
(1) relationship with neighbours does not always remain rosy.
(2) human psychology militates against the idea of selfless love for one’s
neighbour.
(3) good neighbours add spice to your life.
(4) neighbours test a person’s patience and tolerance.
25. As per the passage, character of children are formed by the neighbours through:
(1) development of social virtues like tact and restraint.
(2) development of an open mind and the habit of listening.
(3) an abstinence from hurting and causing annoyance.
(4) All of the above.
26. A patch of bad feelings with neighbours is very trying and unbearable. The
passage ascribes this to :
(1) disputes on trivial issues.
(2) the disapproving relationship developed between the adolescent boys and
girls.
(3) grown-ups making a big issue out of quarrels of children.
27. Which of the following negates what the author has to contend in the passage?
(1) Good neighbourly relations are mainly based on enlightened self-interest.
(2) A good neighbour is a great support and a major convenience in modern
life.
(3) Neighbours create feelings of envy, and animosity and give birth to
complexes.
(4) Neighbours through their watchfulness help in the security against thefts,
in the absence of the person.
29
28. The central idea of the passage is that :

(1) neighbours cause nuisance and disrupt the privacy of a person.
(2) neighbours cannot be a substitute for blood relatives.
(3) loving relationship with the neighbour brings immense joy and enjoyment
in one’s daily lie.
(4) neighbour help in making funeral arrangements.
29. The passage has been handled in a manner which is :
(1) objective (2) biased.
(3) personal (4) psychological.
30. The passage can be classified as :
(1) an autobiography. (2) an essay.
(3) a narration (4) description.
31. A suitable title for the passage could be :
(1) Neighbours - Far From Being Relatives.
(2) Nuisance Value Contributed By Neighbours.
(3) Neighbours- The Only Nearby Relative.
(4) Neighbours In Perspective Of Modern Times.
32. The passage is an excerpt from :
(1) a general article, highlighting the beauty and joy establishing a relationship
with neighbours.
(2) a chapter on ‘Social Behaviour’, in a book on Sociology.
(3) a series of dos and don’ts regarding civic behaviour towards members of
society.
30
TEST – 3
Time : 25 Min.
PASSAGE – I
While his professional work is primarily in elementary particle physics, Steven
Weinberg became widely known to the general public with the publication of a
book on cosmology, The First Three Minutes, (1977), which presented a lucid and
fascinating story of the early development of the universe with style and elegance.
His new book, Facing Up: Science and Its Cultural Adversaries, which consists
of a collection of twenty-three equally well-written essays, documents the personal
commitment of the author to promoting and defending his scientific views. Weinberg
captures the interest of his readers by combining balanced judgments and modest
claims about current scientific theory with a passionate defense of reductionism.
While Weinberg defends reductionism, he is careful to distinguish it both from
what he calls “positivism,” which he understands to be a narrow empiricism, and
from “petty reductionism,” which seeks to reduce everything to elementary particles.
The reductionism Weinberg advocates is the program of reductive explanation of
physical phenomena by recourse to even more fundamental and simple laws that
are supposed to account for the unity of the universe. He shows that this was already
Newton’s vision and continued to be the driving force behind the great theories of
the last century, those of General Relativity and the standard quantum field theory.
Going further, he predicts that such reductionism will one day produce a “final”
theory that can account for the unity of the universe.
Up to this point, Weinberg’s defense of reductionism makes considerable sense.
Yet the question remains as to whether explanation by laws provides the only or
the ultimate explanation for the unity of the universe. The concept of law involves
abstraction from particularities, but those particularities have to be taken into
consideration when those laws are applied to the course of natural events. With
regard to the history of the universe, Weinberg himself speaks of “historical
contingencies” in the history of the solar system and in the development of life. He
also acknowledges the idea of an “emergence” of forms of higher organization
31
from increasingly complicated systems. But doesn’t that suggest that the unity of
the universe is finally a unity of history, which is different from the generality of
laws? And history is always a sequence of contingent events, regardless of the
laws that may prevail within the flow of those events. Perhaps, then, the modesty
of the scientist might properly be applied to his larger project of subsuming the
universe as a whole under a universal concept of law. Such a modest approach
might have to give up the quest for the ultimate and most comprehensive description
of the nature of the universe. But it would make room for some additional,
philosophical reflection on the reality of nature.
One of the most important contributions of Weinberg’s book is his ongoing argument
against the “social constructionists” who question the truth claims of science. This
is an issue of very general importance, far beyond the philosophy of science. With
every assertive sentence, we raise truth claims that cannot be reduced to social
conventions. Science is only a particularly obvious case. Weinberg acknowledges
the influence of social and cultural conditions in the history of science. But these
influences do not weaken the truth claims of scientific theories. The same is true of
any other truth claims we raise in everyday life or in other fields of culture. The
“realism” of science, which Weinberg advocates, might serve as an example and
antidote against the excesses of postmodernism.
The “cultural adversaries” of science to whom ‘Weinberg refers in his title are
those social constructionists who tend to relativize the truth claims of scientific
theories. But even ‘worse than these academic theorists would be an alliance between
the “antiscientific intelligentsia inside the universities” and “the enormous force
of religious belief.” Here, apparently, he has in mind the religious fundamentalism
of the creationists. But could such an alliance pose a real threat to the cultural
acceptance of science? Is not science pampered by the political establishment in
Western societies like no other intellectual discipline? Among the general public,
scientists are highly regarded, and most religious people share in that positive
appreciation of science, since they do not believe that science and religion are
opposed to one another.
While in the course of modern history there have been occasions when science
has opposed religious teaching as well as other traditional ways of looking at the
world, the most creative scientists have far more often been motivated by religious
inspiration. Moreover, Christian theologians and churchmen have frequently and
gratefully received the new perspectives offered by scientific discoveries. This is
true even in the case of Darwinism, which was one of a number of evolutionary
32
theories proposed, in, the nineteenth century, many of which arose from religious
reflection. At the present moment, when the number of institutions that seek to
foster dialogue between religion and science continues to grow, most religious
people view science as a positive pursuit that at the deepest level harmonizes with
their faith.
In fact, such a positive attitude is arguably easier to maintain at the present moment
than it was in earlier centuries, since Big Bang cosmology removes the apparent
contradiction between the biblical doctrine of creation and the belief in a temporal
and spatial infinity of the world that had been taken for granted during two centuries
of scientific exploration. Of course, the assumption of an origin of the universe at
some finite point in the past does not “prove” the biblical doctrine of creation, but
it is “consonant” with it, to invoke the useful term of Ernan McMullin.
The same applies to the idea of God as creator. Weinberg takes a skeptical position
on this matter, and some of his arguments are not without plausibility. He dealt
with this issue more extensively in his earlier book Dreams of a Final Theory
(1993), in which he devoted an entire chapter to “the question of God.” Even a
Christian theologian can share Weinberg’s reservations concerning the stronger
versions of the anthropic principle and the related idea of a “designer God.” The
idea of a designer sounds rather anthropomorphic, and it is often presented in
forms that are hardly consonant with God’s infinity and eternity. In the Bible, the
contingency of finite reality of each event and even of the world as a whole, including
the element of order within it, is far more important in expressing its dependence
upon God the creator.
Weinberg has little to say on this issue, which is decisive for those who maintain
the rationality of belief in a creator God. The element of design enters the picture
only as an implication that follows from the act of creation and God’s ongoing
relation to the universe as a whole—a whole within which every part has its proper
place. Of course, such a view culminates in the problems of theodicy, and here the
Christian has to join Weinberg in affirming that all of our knowledge is
approximation, even our theology. Not until the eschatological consummation of
history will we know even as we are known by God.
1. How does Weinberg bolster the truth claims being advocated by the emerging
scientific theories?
(1) By making balanced judgements about current scientific theory.
(2) By countering the arguments of the group that raises questions on the truth
claims of science.
33
(3) By proposing a few radical theories that would silence critics of the truth
claims of science.
(4) None of these.
2. Which of the following is true of Weinberg’s concept of reductionism?
(1) It is akin to narrow empiricism.
(2) It reduces everything to elementary particles.
(3) It uses fundamentally complex laws to illustrates the unity of our universe.
(4) It uses laws that explain the unity of the universe.
3. Which of the following is true regarding Weinberg?
I. Weinberg is sceptical of the existence of God and deals with this issue in
his book “Dreams of a Final Theory”
II. Weinberg has little to say regarding the issue which is critical to those who
believe in a “creator” God.
III. Weinberg believes that the alliance of the anti-science group from the
universities and groups with strong religious moorings would be potentially
less destructive than the ‘Social constructionists’.
(1) Only I (2) Only II
(3) Only I and II (4) I, II and III
4. The slackening of the belief by scientists of the existence of a law which governs
the universe would lead to
(1) philosophical cogitation on the reality of nature.
(2) abandonment of the holy grail of reductionism, which could one day
produce a final theory that would account for the unity of the universe.
(3) a moral victory for the social constructionists and disgrace for the scientific
community.
(4) Both (1) and (2).
5. Which of the following could be responsible for most religious people viewing
science positively?
(1) The partial resolution of the dichotomous and convergent views held by
scientists and religious groups.
(2) The proposing of the Big Bang theory.
(3) The influence of the advances of modern science which has led to a
significant improvement in the quality of life.
(4) At least two of the above.
34
6. Which of the following is definitely true in the context of the passage?

(1) None of the truly creative scientists have been motivated by religious
beliefs.
(2) Darwinism, though apparently conflicting with religious beliefs, has been
accepted by many Christian theologians.
(3) Most religious people are opposed to science as they feel that it has
negatively affected the spiritual evolution of humans.
(4) Darwinism was motivated by religious inspiration.
PASSAGE – II
In an effort to explain the anomaly of the poet in a society dedicated to the tangible
and the materialistic, Shakespeare wrote, “The lunatic, the lover, and the poet are
of imagination all compact.” Today, four centuries later, the role of the poet has
been all but lost in the tumultuous assault of disco, rock, and blaring television. A
great poet must have acute sensitivity, penetrating insight, power of language and
a great audience. Since poetry is communication, an act of creation shared with the
reader, it is vital that the reader be able to receive this offering with understanding.
While poetry may be virtually indefinable, it is unmistakable. Edgar Allan Poe
wrote that poetry is “the rhythmical creation of beauty.” Samuel Taylor Coleridge,
differentiation prose from poetry, described the former as “words in their best
order” and the latter as “the best words in their best order.” Poetry makes us see
the world afresh,” wrote T.S.Eliot, “and may make us from time to time a little
more aware of the deeper, unnamed feeling to which we rarely penetrate.”
Even the story poems of Rudyard Kipling and Walter de la Mare present heightened
dramatic impact through insistent rhymes, forceful phrasing, and illuminated human
insight. Humorous or melodramatic narrative poems stir our imagination and
provoke our questions. Is the rider who “kept his word” symbolic? Does Danny
Deever exemplify the dehumanisation of war? Why did Richard Cory go home
and “put a bullet through his head”? Simple though some of the subjects may be,
the deliberate repetitions, condensed language, hammering rhymes, force us to
react through our senses with a depth of feeling unconsciously evoked.
Poetry is not a thing set apart from life, a metier which can be appreciated only by
a select coterie. From the pulsing of nature, of our life’s blood, from man’s primitive
chants and rhythmic rituals to the poetic journalism of Homer and Beowulf, we are
35
stirred and enriched by poetry. The conversational rhythms of Rober Frost speak
to us as much about the richness of language as do the exquisite lyrics of Herrick
and Burns. The “wine - dark sea” of the ancient Greek classic remains as vivid a
picture as its progeny, our “star-spangled banner,” as we transcend time with great
poems.
Starting from “emotion recollected in tranquillity,” the poet reaches out to us with
intensity, imagination, and beauty.
7. The author suggests that our appreciation of, and reaction to poetry is connected
with
(1) unformulated feeling which defy definition
(2) the natural rhythms of our bodies and of the world around us
(3) the simplicity of the subjects with which poets deal
(4) the intensity of our imaginative recollection emotion
8. The statement that is neither expressed nor implied in the passage is
(1) poetry puts us in touch with feeling that we seldom are aware of otherwise
(2) without receptive audience, the act of poetic creation is incomplete
(3) the imagery of modern poetry stems from the same rich tradition as the
poetry of the past, and is as vivid
(4) story poems, though have heightened dramatic impact through their insistent
rhythms, do not strike as deep emotional chords as lyric poems do
9. The meaning of the Shakespearean quotation in the first sentence is most nearly
expressed by which of the following?
(1) Lunatics, lovers, and poets enter into agreements with one another
(2) By and large, it is hard to tell the lunatics and lovers from the poets
(3) The imagination of the lunatic is very similar to that of the lover and the
poet
(4) The lunatic, the lover, and the poet are really one and the same
10. According to the passage, poetry
(1) can be appreciated only by the select few
(2) is unmistakable but quite definable
(3) is inextricably bound up with everything in our lives, from man’s primitive
chants to the Homeric epics
(4) is “words in their best order”
36
11. All of the following define poetry, according to the passage except
(1) rhythmical creation of beauty
(2) simple, humorous, or dramatic
(3) makes us see the world afresh
(4) heightened dramatic impact through insistent rhythms
PASSAGE – III
When a businessman is an amateur, he plays cautious and is always willing to
please. The purpose is very clear. He wants to make the most profits and he gives
attention to every detail which can affect his business. But no sooner than the
business turns into a roaring success, he forgets to be courteous and humble. This
is not expected of a professional, who is a specialist in his profession. A professional
is expected to give human relations more importance above anything else. But
professional men make the same mistake.
Several years ago, I walked into the office of a well-known nose and throat specialist
in Patna. Before he even looked at my tonsils, he asked me what my business was.
He wasn’t interested in the size of my tonsils. He was interested in the size of my
exchequer. His chief concern was not in how much he could help me. His chief
concern was in how much he could get out of me. The result was he got nothing. I
walked out of his office with contempt for his lack of character.
The world is full of people like that; grabbing, self-seeking. So, the rare individual
who unselfishly tries to serve others has an enormous advantage. He has little
competition. Owen D. Young said, “The man who can put himself in the place of
other men, who can understand the workings of their minds, need never worry
about what the future has in store for him.”
12. The professional nose and throat specialist asked the author
(1) what his trouble was (2) what his business was
(3) what his name was (4) what his intention was
13. The chief concern of the specialist lay
(1) in the nature of the author’s illness
(2) in how much he-could help the author
(3) in how much he could get out of the author
(4) in how quickly he could cure the author’s malady
37
14. The author walked out of the specialist’s office

(1) with respect for his professional competence
(2) with admiration for the professional’s straightforwardness
(3) with a feeling of indifference towards the professional
(4) with a feeling of contempt towards the specialist
15. The world is indeed full of people who are
(1) kind and helpful
(2) selfish and short-sighted
(3) full of the spirit of cooperation
(4) Ill-tempered
16. Owen D. Young said that the man who is
(1) honest always gets success
(2) selfless reaches the top of his profession
(3) greedy fails miserably in life
(4) able to think from the point of view of others need not have any worry.
17. The phrase “grabbing, self-seeking” means:
(1) cruel and vicious (2) selfish and possessive
(3) blunt and arrogant (4) proud and assertive
18. What is the advantage that an unselfish individual has?
(1) He is lost in a crowd of selfish people.
(2) He is not very impractical.
(3) He faces much competition in the world.
(4) As he does not face much competition, he can rest assured about his
future.
19. According to the author,
(1) Amateurs are better businessmen than professionals
(2) professionals give more importance to human relations than anything else
(3) The world is full of selfish people
(4) Unselfish people are at a disadvantage in this selfish world
38
PASSAGE – IV
The trend of increasing farm subsidies started when the pro-farm lobby came
to power in 1977. Since the early 1980s, it has become a political weapon to become
popular and to win elections. Some examples are: NTR’s two rupee per kilo rice
scheme, free power to farmers by Tamil Nadu government under Jayalalitha, and
‘loan-melas’ of late 1980s. The latest to join the club is the new Punjab government,
which has decided to provide free electricity for tubewells and free canal water for
irrigation to farmers.
The danger is, other states may also use this weapon now, and that could prove
disastrous for the country. The policy of increasing subsidies is bad both for economy
and politics. Because, agricultural subsidies have reached fiscally unsustainable
levels. Budgeted subsidy like that on fertilisers at the central level, and nonbudgeted
irrigation and power subsidies at the state levels, and credit subsidies through the
banking system have distorted relative prices within agriculture. An interesting
development from mid-1980s is that as a proportion of the total nonplan budget,
food and fertiliser subsidies have shot up from a mere 8.7 per cent in ’83-84 to a
whopping 58.5 percent in the latest budget.
Food subsidy increased by almost 40 percent in real terms from ’90-91 till date.
But the proportion of this subsidy financing food distributions and income transfers
declined from 70 percent to less than 40 percent. This shows that a significant part
of the food subsidy bill goes to finance bufferstock operations and to support
producer prices. Input subsidies in agriculture can be broadly classified under four
heads of: fertiliser, irrigation, power and credit. But estimating these subsidies is a
complicated task. One way of measuring subsidy would be to take the difference
between suppliers costs and the revenues they receive from farmers. A conservative
estimate of total input subsidies for the period 1980-2002 shows the subsidies rose
from about 51 percent of the planned expenditure on agriculture (Centre and states
together) in early ’80s to about 142 percent by early 2002.
Put differently, subsidies had been higher than the plan expenditure for agriculture
in recent years. In absolute terms, the total input subsidy increased from around Rs
15 bn in ’80-81 to Rs 141 bn till date. Thus the fiscal burden of subsidies cannot be
overstated. The increasing subsidies have been ‘crowding out’ public investment
in agriculture.
39
According to World Bank estimates, during the ’80s agricultural subsidies increased
three times faster than expenditure which promote productivity growth, and the
former now dominate public spending. Thus around 40 percent of total spending
on agriculture was absorbed by subsidies. The share of productivity enhancing
expenditure in the total agricultural expenditure declines from 60 per cent in
’81-82 to 38 percent in till date.
According to the approach paper for the Ninth Plan, ‘the country has been blessed
with good agricultural seasons during the Eighth Plan, but its agricultural potential
has not been nurtured. Investments in the agricultural sector, particularly towards
creation of irrigation potential has fallen short of targets. The strain on the
agricultural economy is now beginning to show. The percentage of short fall in
irrigation capacity expansion during the Eighth Plan will be one of the highest
during any five year plan.’
So, there is a need for increasing public investment in agriculture. Apart from
fiscal unsustainability, the increasing subsidies have adverse environmental
consequences.
As is known, increased subsidy for urea has led to its indiscriminate use. The
present NPK (nitrogen:phosphate:potash) ratio is 8.5 : 2.5 : 1 (the ideal ratio being
4 : 2 : 1) which is destroying soil quality. The government is planning to raise urea
price by 10 per cent but this may not be enough to control the indiscriminate use of
urea.
In the case of surface and ground water, the subsidies have led to over-exploitation,
raising concerns about the long term sustainability of agricultural production.
Inappropriate pricing of water, and high seepage losses from poor operations and
maintenance of canal networks are mainly responsible for soil degradation and
water quality deterioration. Subsidised power, at a flat rate, to private tubewells
has also led to the over-exploitation of ground water resources.
During the initial, adoptive stages of a new technology in agriculture, some of
these subsidies may be justified. Over time it was found the richer states and irrigated
areas, crops, and sometimes farmers, captured a disproportionately high share of
the major input subsidy programmes for fertiliser, power and irrigation.
However, elimination of subsidies may hurt the small and marginal farmers (who
do not have marketable surplus) and landless labourers. There is a need to have
effective antipoverty programmes to help the poor. The experience of Andhra
Pradesh in agricultural subsidies (food, power, irrigation) shows such subsidies
40
make not only bad economics but bad politics as well. As food subsidies became
unsustainable, the Chandrababu Naidu government had to increase the price of
subsidised rice from Rs 2 to Rs 3.50 a kg. Thanks to the populist policies, the
Andhra Pradesh government has totally neglected infrastructure. Sometimes the
government does not have money to pay salaries.
The weapon of agricultural subsidy may give short term political gains but it would
not give sustainable political gain. In other words, bad economics may become
good politics in the very short run but it would become bad politics in the medium
term.
One solution for the problem of rising subsidies and declining investment is to
restructure public expenditure in agriculture in favour of productivity augmenting
activities. This is done by reducing current expenditure like subsidies.
A study by the Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Mumbai,
concludes that it is better to subsidise investment in irrigation rather than the use of
current inputs, and that a policy package involving trade liberalisation, input subsidy
removal, extra investments in irrigation and targeted rationing promotes growth
and improves welfare of the poor both in rural and urban areas.
Thus, there is scope even in the shortrun for better utilisation of the resources that
are now being spent on input subsidies in a politically feasible manner. Two benefits
accrue from the transfer of subsidies to investment. One, distortions in input subsides
can be eliminated and input prices brought in line with real costs. Two, it would
encourage agricultural growth through higher public investment. Private investment
may also increase faster.
However, transfer of subsides to investment may not be easy. For example, even if
credit subsidies are removed, the saved amount would not be directly transferable
to public investment. But, reduction of fertiliser, water and, power subsidies can
be directed towards investment in agriculture. More studies are needed in this
respect.
In any case the policy of giving free power and irrigation has to stop.
20. A suitable title for the passage would be :
(1) Indian farming and international subsidies.
(2) Subsiding agricultural subsidies.
(3) Subsidies and political stunts.
(4) Farming and subsidizing outputs.
41
21. In early ’80s total input subsidies were :

(1) 68%. (2) 51%.
(3) 19%. (4) 42%.
22. The productivity enhancing expenditure is :
(1) 38% of total spendings.
(2) 42% of total spendings.
(3) 38% of total agricultural expenditure.
(4) 42% of G.D.P.
23. One solution suggested to reduce rising subsidies is :
(1) to restructure private expenditure in agriculture.
(2) to reduce past expenditure like subsidies.
(3) to restructure public expenditure in agriculture.
(4) the better utilisation of agricultural resources.
24. Subsidized power to private tubewells has led to the over-exploitation of ground
water. This subsidized power is :
(1) at a flat rate. (2) at a nominal rate.
(3) at a moderate rate. (4) at an affordable rate.
25. Elimination of subsidies may hurt the small and marginal farmers. The solution
for this aspect is that :
(1) the subsidy formula should be applicable to needy farmers only.
(2) the marginal farmers will sell their output at higher rates to the government.
(3) we should start effective poverty alleviation programmes.
26. The 9th plan says that :
(1) we are moving on the right track as far as subsidies go.
(2) the country’s agricultural potential has not been developed.
(3) both (1) and (2)
(4) the strain of agricultural economy will become apparent in a few years.
42
27. The author seems to be :

(1) a member of the virulent anti-farmer lobby.
(2) opposed to a merger of politics with agriculture.
(3) both (1) and (2).
(4) an environmentalist.
28. The passage has been dealt with in a manner which is :
(1) biased (2) inadequate
(3) balanced (4) questionable.
29. The one liner which represents the contents of the passage could be :
(1) Transfer of subsidies is infeasible in the Indian perspective.
(2) The policy of giving free power and irrigation should stop.
(3) Agricultural subsidy is a sure way for alleviation of poverty and elevation
towards self sufficiency.
(4) Public investment in agriculture is a far-fetched idea and is not practical in
reality.
43
TEST – 4
Time : 25 Min.
PASSAGE – I
In order to predict how the universe should have started off, one needs laws that
hold at the beginning of time. If the classical theory of general relativity was correct,
the singularity theorems show that the beginning of time would have been a point
of infinite density and infinite curvature of space-time. All the known laws of
science would break down at such a point. One might suppose that there were new
laws that held at singularities, but it would be very difficult even to formulate such
laws at such badly behaved points, and we would have no guide from observations as
to what those laws might be. However, what the singularity theorems really indicate
is that the gravitational field becomes so strong that quantum gravitational
effects become important: classical theory is no longer a good description of
the universe. So one has to use a quantum theory of gravity to discuss the very
early stages of the universe. It is possible in the quantum theory for the ordinary laws
of science to hold everywhere, including at the beginning of time: it is not
necessary to postulate new laws for singularities, because there need not be any
singularities in the quantum theory.
We don’t yet have a complete and consistent theory that combines quantum
mechanics and gravity. However, we are fairly certain of some features that such a
unified theory should have. One is that it should incorporate Feynman’s proposal
to formulate quantum theory in terms of a sum over histories. In this approach, a
particle does not have just a single history, as it would in a classical theory.
Instead, it is supposed to follow every possible path in space-time, and with
each of these histories there are associated a couple of numbers, one representing
the size of a wave and the other representing its position in the cycle (its phase).
The probability that the particle, say, passes through some particular point is
found by adding up the waves associated with every possible history that passes
through that point. When one actually tries to perform these sums, however,
44
one runs into severe technical problems. The only way around these is the
following peculiar prescription: One must add up the waves for particle histories
that are not in the “real” time that you and I experience but take place in what is
called imaginary time. Imaginary time may sound like science fiction but it is in
fact a well-defined mathematical concept. If we take any ordinary (or “real”)
number and multiply it by itself, the result is a positive number, (for example,
2 times 2 is 4, but so is -2 times -2.) There are, however, special numbers
(called imaginary) that give negative numbers when multiplied by themselves.
They are denoted by ‘i’. ‘i’ when multiplied with itself gives -1, 2i multiplied by
itself gives -4 and so on. To avoid the technical difficulties with Feynman’s
sum over histories, one must use imaginary time. That is to say, for the purpose of
the calculation, one must measure time using imaginary numbers rather than real ones.
This has an interesting effect on space-time: the distinction between time and space
disappears completely. A space-time in which events have imaginary values of
the time coordinate is said to be Euclidean, after the ancient Greek Euclid,
who founded the study of geometry of two-dimensional surfaces. What we
now call Euclidean space-time is very similar except that it has four dimensions
instead of two. In Euclidean space-time, there is no difference between the time
directions and directions in space. On the other hand, in real space-time, in which
events are labelled by ordinary, real values of the time coordinate, it is easy to tell
the difference - the time direction at all points lies within the light cone, and
space directions lie outside. In any case, as far as every day quantum mechanics
is concerned, we may regard our use of imaginary time and Euclidean space-
time as merely a mathematical device to calculate answers about real space-time.
A second feature that we believe must be part of any ultimate theory is Einstein’s
idea that the gravitational field is represented by curved space-time: particles try to
follow the nearest thing to a straight path in a curved space, but because space-
time is not flat, their paths appear to be bent, as if by a gravitational field.
When we apply Feynman’s sum over histories to Einstein’s view of gravity, the
analogue of the history of a particle is now a complete curved space-time that
represents the history of the whole universe. To avoid the technical difficulties
in actually performing the sum over histories, these curved space-times must be
taken to be Euclidean. That is, time is imaginary and is indistinguishable from
directions in space. To calculate the probability of finding a real space-time with some
45
certain property, such as looking the same at every point and in every direction,
one adds up the waves associated with all the histories that have that property.
In the classical theory of general relativity, there are many different possible curved
space-times, each corresponding to a different initial state of the universe. If we
knew the initial state of our universe, we would know its entire history. Similarly,
in the quantum theory of gravity, there are many different possible quantum states for
the universe. Again, if we knew how the Euclidean curved space-times in the sum over
histories behaved at early times, we would know the quantum state of the universe.
In the classical theory of gravity, which is based on real space-time, there are only
two possible ways the universe can behave: either it has existed for an infinite
time, or else it had a beginning of a singularity at some finite time in the past. In the
quantum theory of gravity, on the other hand, a third possibility arises. Because one
is using Euclidean space-times, in which the time direction is on the same footing
as directions in space, it is possible for space-time to be finite in extent and yet
have no singularities that formed a boundary or edge. Space-time would be
like the surface of the earth, only with two more dimensions. The surface of
the earth is finite in extent but it doesn’t have a boundary or edge: if you sail
off into the sunset, you don’t fall off the edge or run into a singularity.
1. Which of the following statements about the beginning of the time is not true as
per the classical theory of general relativity?
(1) It was a point of infinite density.
(2) All the known laws of science would fail.
(3) It was a point of infinite curvature of time.
(4) The gravitational field would be very strong.
2. The reason why the quantum theory can be applied to understand the very early
stages of the universe is
(1) the classical theory has been proved to be incapable of explaining all the
phenomena that usually lead to the formation of a new entity.
(2) in the wake of the greater gravitational force exhibited by a singularity, the
resulting phenomena go beyond the scope of the classical theory.
(3) the rudimentary forces that participated in the birth of the universe cannot
be understood using the classical theory alone.
(4) this theory does not believe in the existence of any singularity.
46
3. Which of the following is relevant to the term ‘histories’ as known from the
passage?
(1) A singularity has many histories as per classical theory.
(2) Each history represents a unique wave.
(3) A particle may have more than one history according to quantum theory.
(4) Each history of a particle may have more than two components as per
Feynman.
4. The use of imaginary numbers to represent time on an axis in space-time
coordinates can probably lead to
(1) the summing up of imaginary histories of particles.
(2) the concept of negative time.
(3) the reduction in technical difficulties of adding up histories of particles.
(4) the removal of the time dimension from space.
5. Which of the following statements about Euclidean space-time is true?
(1) Time direction at all points lies within the light cone.
(2) Time direction is at right angles to space directions.
(3) It has four dimensions.
(4) Space directions lie outside time directions.
6. Paths of particles in curved space-time
(1) are, in reality, closer to being straight.
(2) are distorted by gravitational force of a singularity.
(3) are bent because of the Euclidean space-time concept.
(4) cannot be useful in summing up their histories.
7. According to the passage, we do not have
(1) any idea about the vital features that make up a unified theory.
(2) a single theory that effectively combines quantum mechanics and gravity.
(3) the necessary technology or theory that can accurately predict the initial
state of our universe.
(4) the experimental proof to accept Feynman’s proposal to be flawless.
47
8. “Space-time would be like the surface of the earth”. If the statement were true,
then, according to classical theory,
(1) the earth would be in the form of a loop.
(2) the earth would end at some point.
(3) the earth would be like a hollow cylinder.
(4) the earth would not exist at all.
9. In the context of Euclidean space-time, ‘If you sail into the sunset, you don’t
fall off the edge’ because
(1) the surface of the earth is infinite.
(2) the earth does not have a boundary.
(3) time direction is on the same footing as direction in space.
(4) two more directions are added to Euclidean space-time.
PASSAGE – II
The Great American metaphysician Chuck Jones discerned some years ago that
the universe operates in sequences of violent Newtonian reciprocities. Jones
dramatised his ideas in the famous Wile E. Coyote - Road Runner Dynamic; The
cartoon character Coyote sets in motion giant boulder A, which whistlingly descends
into a canyon to strike lever B, catapulting giant boulder C into orbit... and so on.
Jones work is a bridge that carries Isaac Newton across into Chaos Theory. And
now Jones is vindicated: we see that some 16 million years ago, the slapstick asteroid
A slammed into planet B (Mars the fourth rock from the sun), dislodging spud-size
meteorite C, which spitballed through space and whammed into planet D (Earth).
Betimes, the alien microspud wakes up in the Antarctic and assumes the shape of
an outlandishly hot idea, E (LIFE ON MARS!!!), which pinballs hectically through
Earthling media, knocking vases off the mantelpiece, toppling assumptions, causing
tabloid amazement and theological consternation.’ More vindication: Jones
anticipated last week’s news by suggesting long ago that life on Mars takes the
form of a supercilious ass who wants to disintegrate Earth with his: “lludium pew-
36 Explosive Space Modulator” because Earth obstructs his view of Venus.
Earthkind’s hero, Bugs Bunny, snuffs out Marvin the Martian’s modulator fuse
and saves the world, a feat that, theologians agree, must rank slightly ahead of
Daffy Duck’s space exploration in quest of “Aludium Phosdex, the shaving-cream
atom.”
48
The mind resists reducing cosmogony to cartoons. On the other hand, what could
be more in the spirit of Coyote and Road Runner than the Big Bang? Science
instructs us that the universe is made of beer suds, or of string. Time bends like a
pretzel and vanishes into a black hole. What if the universe is the hysterically
funny work of a trickster-comic? When humans confront the unknown, they may,
at one extreme, resort to humour, or, at the other extreme, to theology. Both impulses
(one disciplined, the other not) are forms of speculation, and both may be, in
different ways, profound. Anarchic humour tends to inherit the universe when
theology falls apart. The humour is either a refreshing relief or a prelude to despair.
The wandering piece of Mars reminds everyone of cartoons and fantasies that the
Red Planet has always stimulated; among other things, it has brought radio talk
shows alive with the voices of vindicated UFO spotters, the Mars rock being their
Rosetta stone, the key that unlocks the mystery. But does the rock threaten the
centuries-long assumptions and designs of theology?
Most of the world’s faiths are content to enlarge the franchise and embrace the
possibility: if life exists on Mars, or anywhere else in the universe, God put it
there. “In my Father’s house are many mansions.” Humankind has been living in
one small room. Interesting questions do arise among Christians. For example: If
life exists on other worlds, is it intelligent life? Mars’ fugitive microbial traces are
a long, long way from the ensoulment that distinguishes humankind. If creatures
on other planets have souls, are they fallen in the Christian sense? Or are they an
unfallen, sinless race? If fallen, does the earthly incarnation and sacrifice of Christ
redeem all extraterrestrials as well? Or will - must - Christ redeem each planet’s
souls separately by taking an incarnation in their form? C.S. Lewis worried about
these questions years ago, and quoted poet Alice Meynell’s Christ in the Universe:”...
in the eternities/ Doubtless we shall compare together, hear/ A million alien Gospels,
in what guise/ He trod the Pleiades, the Lyre, the Bear.”
The possibility that life exists elsewhere is of course a bow to the incorrigible
human sense of self-importance. People accustomed to thinking of themselves as
significant - masters of the universe to whom God made all else in creation subsidiary
- might be demoted to distant cousins tenant-farming on their speck of dust.
Sentimentalists have clung to the thought that life gives meaning to a barren,
indifferent universe. What if life-surprise! - turns out to be a miracle almost infinitely
replicated across the universe? Is its meaning thereby infinitely augmented, or is it
instead reduced to a commonplace, as the miracle of human flight became ordinary?
49
The moment, of course, is far off. As early as the 18th century, British scholar
Richard Bentley pursued the argument that God’s omnipotence and glory might
require many planets arenas, for their display. Comedy might reconcile with theology
along the same line of thought, by suggesting that perhaps God is a performer who
created intelligent life because he needs an audience. “Good evening, ladies and
germs,” begins the Voice across the deep. “I know you’re, out there. I can hear you
breathing.”
10. The tone of the passage may be called...
(1) humorous and whimsical. (2) timorous and funny.
(3) ingenuous and articulate. (4) solipsistic and aphoristic.
11. According to the passage, why was “liudium pew-36 Explosive Space
Modulator” to be used?
(1) To disintegrate Earth because Earth obstructed Mars’ view of Venus.
(2) To disintegrate Mars because Mars threatened to blow Earth up.
(3) To slam an asteriod into Earth in retaliation for Earth obstructing Mars’
view of Venus.
(4) To act as conveyance for the first manned trip to Mars.
12. Which of the following is a fictional character?
(1) Bugs Bunny. (2) Willie E. Coyote.
(3) Marvin. (4) All of them.
13. According to the passage, what does the human mind do when confronted by
the unknown?
(1) They become humorous. (2) They become religious.
(3) Neither (1) nor (2). (4) Both (1) and (2).
14. What do you think is the main idea of the passage?
(1) Life on Mars.
(2) The effect of Mars on comic literature.
(3) Life on Mars and its reactions on people.
(4) A funny view of reports of life on Mars.
15. Which of the following is not a question arising from a Christian perspective,
as far as life on Mars is concerned?
(1) Will Christ redeem extra-terrestials as well?
(2) Are. Martians as moral and rational as Earth people?
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(3) Are Martians pure and sinless?

(4) Will Christ have to take a Martian incarnation to redeem them?
16. Who is most probably the “the Voice across the deep?”
(1) Extra-terrestials. (2) God.
(3) Probably both. (4) Not enough information in passage.
17. The last three lines of the passage introduces the theory that...
(1) God is egoistic.
(2) God is omnipotent.
(3) God is unimportant.
(4) God did not create the whole universe.
PASSAGE – III
When the going gets tough, the tough gets going, goes the old adage. But merchant
bankers are putting a different spin on that saying. They say when the going gets
tough, the smarter switch to other businesses. Indeed, the slump in the primary
markets is forcing many merchant bankers to opt out of the business. The primary
market boom in the early 1990s attracted hundreds of players with big dreams and
small pockets. Not so, any longer. Now, faced with dwindling income and rising
overheads, merchant bankers are getting out of the business. For example, the
number of merchant bankers has come down from 1,167 on March 31 1997 to 641
on March 31 1998-a whopping decline of 526 players.
The reasons are not far to seek. Merchant banks although permitted to engage in
other allied activities such as advisory services, have long relied heavily on public
issues. And when the primary markets slumped, they were caught on the wrong
foot. According to Delhi-based Prime Database, the amount raised from primary
markets has slumped from Rs. 13,443 crore in 1993-94 to Rs. 2,885 crore in 1997-
98. Even more alarming is the fall in the number of issues. The number of issues
have come down from 1,428 in 1995-96 to 62 in 1997-98. “Water is seeking its
own level, with primary markets showing no signs of revival, merchant bankers
are rethinking their game plan” says an official with a foreign brokerage firm. So
far, only 67 players out of a total of 641 have sought to renew their licences.
But there is more to the closures than what meets the eye. True, a majority of the
500-s odd merchant banking firms have shut their shops due to lack of business.
For example, the licences of the likes of Premium International Finance and Synergy
51
Credit Corporation were cancelled for non-payment of fees. But, it is also true that
some of them have had to leave the business for violating SEBI’s regulations.
According to SEBI records, the market regulator scrutinized the books of as many
as 475 merchant bankers in 1997-98. While 139 merchant banks are being
investigated for defaulting on their underwriting commitments, 47 firms are being
probed for failing to submit details of their employees. Among the prominent
category-l merchant bank licences cancelled by SEBI for not providing details of
their employees are Mudra Ispat and Raunaq Finance. An additional 113 firms are
being scrutinized for other violations. ITC Classic and Prudential Capital were
asked to shut down operations for violating section 11-B of the SEBI Act.
Some, however, lost their licences in a weird way; due to sheer oversight. Centurion
Bank, the private sector bank holding a category - II merchant banking licence, is
an example of those losing licences due to sheer oversight. Says managing director
Ashish Sen: “The bank had a license from SEBI for bankers to the issue. It is
through oversight that the bank forgot to renew the merchant banking licence. We
are in the process of renewing it.”
But the worst is yet to come. If the primary market continues to be in a slump, then
the casualities may rise. And only the fittest among the current crop of merchant
bankers will survive. Says Dil Vikas Finance, president, R. Balakrishnan: “Merchant
bankers cannot function in isolation and only those players who are able to render
complementary facilities like arranging bridge finance at a short notice will thrive.”
Already I-Sec is laying increasing thrust on debt markets while SBI Caps is placing
more emphasis on advisory services. DSP Merrill Lynch is another player which
has made a successful foray into debt markets. Now, DSP is one of the leading
players in the private placement of debt market. In the longer run, Balakrishnan
points out that merchant banks who do not have the backing of a bank or a foreign
partner will face a tougher time.
A.R. Barwe, the managing director to SBI Capital Markets says that the key to
survival lies in managing quality issues- may it be debt or equity. “Only those
merchant bankers who protect investor’s interests by taking up quality issues will
survive,” he says. Most merchant bankers are already paying a heavy price for
doing otherwise. Now, the rest hopefully will learn their lesson.
18. Merchant bankers are quitting the business primarily because of
(1) the primary market boom
(2) the primary market slump
(3) increased government regulation
(4) increased overseas competition
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19. The number of merchant bankers has come down to

(1) 1167 (2) 641
(3) 526 (4) 1284
20. The percentage of merchant bankers wishing to renew their licences is only
about
(1) 10 (2) 20
(3) 1 (4) 30
21. Merchant banks which lost their licenses for not providing details of their
employees included all except
(1) Mudra ispat (2) Usha Kiran Finance
(3) Raunaq Finance (4) Prudential Capital
22. ITC Classic violated the
(1) RBI Act
(2) Merchant Banking (Regulatory) Act
(3) SEBI Act.
(4) Ministry of Finance Regulations
23. All these steps are being taken to overcome losses due to primary market slump,
except-
(1) providing complementary services like bridge finance
(2) placing emphasis on advisory services
(3) managing more public issues
(4) tapping debt markets
24. Centurion Bank lost its licence because
(1) it forgot to renew the licence
(2) it violated the SEBI regulations
(3) it failed to pay the fees
(4) it defaulted on its underwriting commitments
25. The survival strategies suggested for the merchant bankers involve
(1) shutting down of businesses (2) protecting investor’s interests
(3) violating SEBI’s regulations (4) None of these
26. the given passage reflects a tone that can be best described as
(1) biased (2) optimistic
(3) pessimistic (4) objective
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PASSAGE – IV
The root of all intolerance, the spirit of conformity, remains; and not until that
is destroyed, will envy, hatred and all uncharitableness, with their attendant
hypocrisies, be destroyed too. Whether it would be religious conformity, political
conformity, moral conformity or social conformity, the spirit is the same: all kinds
agree in this one point, of hostility to individual character. Individual character, if
it exists at all, can rarely declare itself openly while there is a standard of conformity
raised by the indolent minded many and guarded by opinion which, though
composed individually of the weakest, yet takes up collectively a mass which is
not to be resisted with impunity.
What is called the opinion of society is a phantom power, yet as is often the case
with phantoms, of more force over the minds of the unthinking than all the flesh
and blood arguments which can be brought to bear against it. It is a combination of
the many weak, against the few strong; an association of the mentally listless to
punish any manifestation of mental independence. The remedy is, to make all strong
enough to stand alone; and whoever has once known the pleasure of self dependence,
will be in no danger of relapsing into subservience. Let people once suspect that
their leader is a phantom, the next step will be, to cease to be led, and each mind
guide itself by the light of as much knowledge as it can acquire for itself by means
of unbiased experience. We have always been an aristocracy-ridden people, which
may account for our being so peculiarly a propriety-ridden people. The aim of our
life seems to be, not our own happiness, or the happiness of others unless it happens
to come in as an accident of our great endeavour to attain some standard of right or
duty erected by some or other of the sets into which society is divided like a net-to
catch gudgeons. Who are the people who talk most about doing their duty? Always
those who could give no intelligible theory of duty? What are called people of
principle, are often the most unprincipled people in the world, if by principle is
meant, accordance of the individual’s conduct with the individual’s self-formed
opinion. Grant this to be the definition of principle, then, eccentricity should be
prima facie evidence for the existence of principle. So far from this being the case,
‘it is odd’, therefore ‘it is wrong’ is the feeling of society; while they, whom it
distinguishes par excellence as people of principle, are almost invariably the slaves
of some dicta or other. They have been taught to think, and accustomed to think, so
and so right-others think so and so right-therefore it must be right. This is the logic
54
of the world’s good sort of people; and if their right should prove indisputably
wrong, they can but plead those good intentions which make a most slippery
pavement.
To all such we would say, think for yourself, and act for yourself, but whether you
have strength to do either, attempt not to impede, much less to resent the genuine
expression of others. Were the spirit of toleration abroad, the name of toleration
would be unknown. The same implies the existence of its opposites. Toleration
cannot even rank with those strangely named qualities a ‘negative virtue’. In order
to be conscious that we tolerate, there must remain some vestige of intolerance:
not to be charitable is to be uncharitable. To tolerate is to abstain from unjust
interference. Now, alas, its spirit is not even comprehended by many, the education
for its opposite, which most of us receive becomes if ever it be attained, a
praiseworthy faculty, instead of an unconscious and almost intuitive state. ‘Truth
must not be spoken at all times’ is the vulgar maxim. We would have the Truth, and
if possible all the Truth, certainly nothing but the Truth said and acted universally.
But we should never lose sight of the important fact that what is truth to one mind
is often not truth to another. No human being ever did or ever will comprehend the
whole mind of any other human being. It would perhaps not be possible to find two
minds accustomed to think for themselves, whose thoughts on any identical subject
should take in their expression the same form of words. Who shall say that the very
same order of ideas is conveyed to another mind, by those words which to him
perfectly represent his thought? It is probable that innumerable shades of variety,
modify the conception of every expression of thought. To an honest mind what a
lesson of tolerance is included in this knowledge.
There seems to be this great distinction between physical and moral science: that
while the degree of perfection which the first has attained is marked by the
progressive completeness and exactness of its rules, that of the latter is in the state
most favourable to, and most showing healthfulness as it advances beyond all
classification except on the widest, and most universal principles. The science of
morals should rather be called an art: to do something towards its improvement is
in the power of every one, for every one may at least show truly their own page in
the volume of human history, and be willing to allow that no two pages of it are
alike.
The spirit of Emulation in childhood and of competition in manhood are the sources
of selfishness and misery. They are a part of the conformity plan, making each
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person’s idea of goodness and happiness a thing of comparison with some received
mode of being good and happy. But this is not the proper Creed of Society, for
Society abhors individual character. It asks the sacrifice of body, heart and mind.
This is the summary of its cardinal virtues: would that such Virtues were as nearly
extinct as the dignitaries who are their namesakes.
At this present time, the subject of social morals is in a state of most lamentable
neglect. It is a subject so deeply interesting to all, yet so beset by prejudice, that
the mere approach to it is difficult, if not dangerous. Yet we firmly believe that
many years will not pass before the clearest intellects of the time will expound,
and the multitude have wisdom to receive reverently, the exposition of the great
moral paradoxes with which Society is hammed in on all sides. Meanwhile they do
something who have courage to declare the evil they see.
27. Which of the following best concurs with the author’s viewpoint, as stated in
the passage?
(1) The subject of social morals, though interesting, is so beset by prejudice.
(2) Society likes and patronises individual character.
(3) What is truth to one mind is truth to another.
(4) Selfishness and misery are not part of the conformity plan.
28. As per the passage, the sources of selfishness and misery are :
(1) the unlimited greed and ambition.
(2) lack of faith in God and religion.
(3) spirit of emulation in childhood and competition in manhood.
(4) changing values and perceptions of men in society.
29. According to the passage, which of the following is false?
(1) The people of principle are often the most unprincipled people in the world.
(2) Physical science is distinct from moral science.
(3) The subject of social morals is in a deplorable state.
30. As per the passage, the root of intolerance is :
(1) racial discrimination, often transgressing all limits.
(2) business rivalry, given the intense competition of today.
(3) the spirit conformity - be it religious, moral, political or social.
(4) the past experience, the memory of which is bitter and painful.
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31. Which of the following is true with respect to ‘society’, as expressed in the
passage?
(1) It abhors individual character.
(2) It demands the sacrifice of body, heart and mind.
(3) It does not encourage free quest and enquiry.
(4) All except (3).
32. All of the following are false, as per the passage, except that :
(1) the science of morals is an art, as to do something towards its improvement
is in the power of every one.
(2) the subject of social morals is boring with many of its concepts having
become outdated.
(3) opinion of the society is the combination of the many strong against a few
weak.
(4) physical science is indistinct from moral science.
33. A suitable title for the passage is :
(1) Social Morals In Its Lowest Ebb.
(2) Science Of Morals Is An Art.
(3) Spirit Of Conformity- Root Cause Of Intolerance.
(4) Truth Must Be Spoken At All Times.
34. The passage is handled in a manner which is :
(1) religious. (2) reasoning.
(3) rigorous. (4) rhetoric.
35. The passage relates to the field of :
(1) theology. (2) philosophy
(3) behavioural ethics. (4) physical science.
36. The author winds up the passage with :
(1) serious misgivings.
(2) unbounded optimism.
(3) reconciliatory thoughts, keeping the fingers crossed, hoping for better times
to come.
(4) unfounded cynicism.
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TEST – 5
Time : 25 Min.
PASSAGE – I
Philosophy has its roots in man’s practical needs. If a system of thought cannot
justify fundamental human instincts and interpret the deeper spirit of religion, it
cannot meet with general acceptance. The speculations of philosophers which do not
comfort us in our stress and suffering are mere intellectual diversion and not serious
thinking. The Absolute of Samkara, rigid, motionless, and totally lacking in initiative
or influence, cannot call forth our worship. Like the Taj Mahal, which is unconscious
of the admiration it arouses, the Absolute remains indifferent to the fear and love
of its worshippers, and for all those who regard the goal of religion as the goal of
philosophy - to know God is to know the real -Samkara’s view seems to be a finished
example of learned error. They feel that it is as unsatisfactory to natural instincts
as to trained intelligence. The world is said to be an appearance and God a
bloodless Absolute dark with the excess of light. The obvious fact of experience
that, when weak and erring human beings call from the depths, the helping hand
of grace is stretched out from the unknown, is ignored. Samkara does not deal
justly with the living sense of companionship, which the devotees have in their difficult
lives. He declares that to save oneself is to lose oneself in the sea of the unknown.
Personal values are subordinated to impersonal ones, but the theist protests
that truth, beauty and goodness have no reality as self-existent abstractions.
An experience that is not owned by a subject is a contradiction in terms. Truth,
beauty and perfection speak to us of a primal mind in whose experience they
are eternally realized. God himself is the highest reality as well as supreme
value. Moreover, the innermost being of God is not solely the realisation of
eternal truth or the enjoyment of perfect beauty, but is perfect love, which
expends itself for others. The value of the finite world to the Spirit of the
universe lies in the spirits to whom has given the capacity to make himself in
his own image. The spirits themselves possess a value in the sight of God, and not
merely their degrees of intelligence or virtue, abstractly considered, which they
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happen to realise. It follows that they are not made simply to be broken up and cast
aside.
Ramanuja concentrates his attention on the relation of the world to God, and argues
that God is indeed real and independent: but the souls of the world are real also,
though their reality is utterly dependent on that of God. He believes in a spiritual
principle at the basis of the world, which is not treated as an illusion. He insists on
the continued individual existence of the released souls. Though the world of matter
and the individual souls have a real existence of their own, still neither of them
is essentially the same as Brahman. For, while Brahman is eternally free from
all imperfection, matter is unconscious, and the individual souls are subject to
ignorance and suffering. Yet they all form a unity, since matter and souls have
existence only as the body of Brahman, i.e. they can exist and be what they are
simply because Brahman is their soul and controlling power. Apart from Brahman,
they are nothing. The individual soul and inanimate nature are essentially
different from Him, though they have no existence or purpose to serve apart
from Him or His service. So Ramanuja’s theory is an ‘advaita’ or non-dualism,
though with a qualification (visesa), viz. that it admits plurality, since the
supreme spirit subsists in a plurality of forms as souls and matter. It is therefore
called Visistadvaita or qualified non-dualism.
In ethics also there was a protest against the intellectualism favoured by the followers
of Samkara and the ritualism of the Mimamsakas. Even as early as the age of the
Rig-Veda we find that gods were sometimes entreated by prayer and at others
compelled by ritual. The sacrificial cult had always to contend with the devotional
worship of the Supreme through symbols, originally in groves and later in temples. In
the sacrificial religion of the Vedas, the priest who officiates is more important
than the deity. But the dative case offers no solace to the aching heart. Kumarika,
moreover, the Brahmin architect who tried to build a stable society out of the
chaotic conditions left by the disintegration of Buddhism, sought to strengthen
the Brahmanical cult by laying the foundations of caste solid and strong in a
system wherein only the three upper classes were allowed to perform sacrifices,
while the people at large were left to their own devotional cults. Hence the reaction
against the Mimamsakas led to the development of the theistic religions of
Vaisnavism, Saivism and Saktaism, which laid little stress on considerations
of caste, race or social status. As children of the common father or mother, we
are all on the same footing. All men, high or low, are equally precious to the parental
heart.
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1. The statement that can be attributed to Samkara is:

(1) The Absolute is rigid, motionless and appears to be inanimate.
(2) Religion is more of an affair of the head than that of the will or the heart.
(3) Abstractions like truth, beauty and goodness have independent existence.
(4) God extends His helping hand to His disciples who are in trouble.
2. According to Ramanuja’s theory,
(1) the individual soul and nature have the Brahman as their soul and
controlling power.
(2) soul and matter are considered to be the different manifestations of God.
(3) soul and matter are there to serve their master, the Supreme spirit.
(4) all the above three statements are true.
3. The architect, Kumarika,
(1) and his principles, though meant for fortifying the Brahminical cult, led to
the desertification of that society.
(2) stressed on caste as the criterion for performing sacrifices.
(3) devised a system that helped worshippers realise God through ritualism.
(4) is a Mimamsaka.
4. The author’s criticism of Samkara’s philosophy is that it
(1) is an impractical concept.
(2) does not offer solace to the aggrieved devotees.
(3) fails to recognise man to be a part of the Brahman.
(4) does not address the root causes behind aberrations in man’s behaviour.
5. According to theists, features like truth, beauty and goodness
(1) need to be experienced in order to be realized.
(2) are the attributes of God.
(3) define our personal values.
(4) bestow value on to the spirits of the world.
6. Identify the pair that has a wrong adjective qualifying the main word.
(1) The Brahman - perfect (2) Matter - unconscious
(3) Universe - inanimate (4) Souls - ignorant
7. The word, ‘dative’ in the context of the passage refers to
(1) the priest. (2) the ritual.
(3) the sacrificial religion. (4) the God.
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8. The religions like Vaishnansm, Sainism and Saketaism

(1) followed the principles put forth in the Vedas.
(2) provided an answer to the ritualism of Mimamsakas.
(3) were considered to be the religions of the privileged in society.
(4) were seen to provide spiritual solace to the agitated minds irrespective of
their religious background.
PASSAGE – II
Some of the accidental shortcomings of the scientific method are of particular
importance at present. Thus, there is little doubt that, in contradistinction to the
relatively matured stage of physics, chemistry, astronomy, and to the rapid advance
of biology, the scientific method has yielded so far comparatively poor results in
the social sciences and the humanities. The lag in the science is apparent from the
largely controversial state of expert opinion in respect of the bulk of the relevant
problems and also from the disappointingly small predictive and controlling power
of the available theories. However the point is that the present relative backwardness
of the science of man is due to an accidental, not to an inherent limitation of the
scientific method. This follows from the very fact that the method has by no means
been entirely unsuccessful in the science of man. An impressive number of relevant
facts has been mustered by carefully planned and controlled observation, e.g. in
sociology. In quite a few cases, especially in psychology, general laws adequately
supported by observational evidence and providing for fairly accurate prediction
of future phenomena have been established. Practical success in applying theories
even to complicated cases are also undeniable. For example, the subtle concepts
of the Keynesian theory have been successfully applied in societies with formidable
economic structures. These achievements, even if by no means comparable to those
of natural sciences, show nevertheless that the scientific method is not intrinsically
inapplicable to social and humanistic problems and that the relative backwardness
of the science of man is due to an accidental failure of the scientific method to
yield results as satisfactory as those obtained in other fields.
9. The main idea of the passage is
(1) scientific method has its shortcomings
(2) scientific method has not given satisfactory results in social sciences
(3) scientific method is applicable to science only
(4) None of these
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10. The most appropriate title for the passage is

(1) Shortcomings of Scientific Method
(2) Application of Scientific Method
(3) Scientific Method and Man
(4) Science and Human Happiness
11. The passage suggests that
(1) science is limited in its scope
(2) science should play a role in social sciences
(3) social sciences need some different methods
(4) None of these
12. The approach of the writer is
(1) academic (2) practical
(3) analytical (4) theoretical
PASSAGE – III
Performance feedback, especially negative feedback, is an illuminating area in which
to study indirection. Our culture stresses clarity in communication. The reality of
most declining performance situations, however, is that they are messy and often
fraught with uncertainty, imperfection and ambiguity. There is, in effect, a disparity
between cultural expectations and messy reality; bosses are often forced prematurely
to extremes, either providing direct feedback (which raises the risk of
demoralization) or, alternatively, avoiding the problem sufficiently until the weight
of evidence accumulates and “justices” confrontation.
When a subordinate begins to perform unsatisfactorily, it usually comes as a dawning
awareness that most of us initially ignore.” People problems” are troublesome,
and it is often difficult to separate inadequacy from the extenuating circumstances.
The manager’s first reaction is to hope that as the subordinate gains experience,
the hitches in his performance will remedy themselves. If difficulties persist, a
stop-go process begins - confronting the subordinate’s blunders, followed by efforts
to restore his confidence. Feedback to subordinates is seldom smooth and
continuous; it tends to come in pulses at the spur of adverse events. And, throughout,
the messiness increases. Eventually, if the situation does not correct itself, the
manager may contemplate more serious sanctions - such as a transfer or dismissal.
62
He must weigh whether he is being fair, and whether he has considered all
alternatives. Ultimately, he must consider how to do what needs to be done so as
not to make a bad situation worse. As noted earlier, cultural values ritualizing the
“macho test” of direct action, notably the experience of firing someone at least
once, encourage us to buck up and deal with these problems. And we do.
Nonetheless, very few managers look forward to dealing with “messy” declining
performance situations. Anger, dominance, pride, betrayal, jealousy, defensiveness
-almost all of the more primitive human emotions - have the potential for being
triggered in these encounters. Studies of Americans who have lost their jobs reveal
that in two-thirds of the cases they were caught off guard. The “punishments” (or
absence of rewards) they had received along the way either had been so oblique as
to be misinterpreted or had been obliterated by their own defences. Typically, the
earliest manifestations of negative feedback were pointed questions asked by the
boss-or suggestions-which the subordinate could interpret in a variety of ways.
Subsequent punishments were mere acts of omission, such as exclusion from
meetings or withdrawal of positive strokes. Thereafter, the seemingly “foolproof
recourses of lower than average wage increases or bonuses and less good
performance ratings were applied. But all along the way these often had been
qualified by excuses calculated to soften the punch: “This was only your first year
on the job.” You had a lot of personal problems on your mind”. And so on.
Most reward systems get inflated over time: “outstanding” is used instead of “good”,
“average” comes to carry pejorative overtones. Yet, grade inflation is rarely
examined for its root cause. Grade inflation doesn’t result from cosmic forces or
just because language and performance scales are imprecise. It occurs because it is
easier to be nice. For this reason, nearly all grading systems periodically need to
be dismantled and started afresh, usually to reinvigorate them and to restore meaning
to the grading terminology.
Once parallel meanings of words are allowed to coexist, a boss can check “average,”
meaning unsatisfactory, and the subordinate can read “average” to mean average.
This exacerbates the ambiguity of one’s “rewards”. As a general rule, wage increases
and performance reviews are not as clear signals as one might expect. Employees,
particularly professionals, rarely compare notes in sufficient detail to be certain of
their relative standing among their associates.
To be sure, the sterner forms of “feedback” are less subject to misinterpretation -
the task forces from the controller’s office, “consultants” brought in to look into
63
one’s problem areas. But even these expedients are often billed as “part of a general
study” or “resources to provide assistance”. A boss’ occasional outburst of anger
or feistiness in reviewing a project likewise can be perceived as his “having a bad
day”. In short, punishment is more vague than is supposed; employees in trouble
frequently misinterpret the signals; what they construe as random noise may in
truth be sirens of danger.
Bruce had been serving as section head at the Bank of America for over a year. His
performance appraisals had been outstanding and his relations with his superiors
solid - although he sometimes found them hard to read. Early in September a staff
specialist in the credit approval area had asked a suspicious question: “So you
really think this loan is a sound risk in the face of recession economy?” Bruce’s
answer was “Yes,” and the credit analyst did not dispute it. But the question was
unusual, and Bruce took note of this fact. A week later, Bruce’s boss suggested that
he and the credit specialist “get together” to discuss another loan that Bruce was
proposing. Again, there was nothing threatening in the suggestion - but there was
an apparent breach of etiquette. The staff credit analyst had always taken his
questions directly to Bruce rather than involving Bruce’s boss, and he assumed his
boss’ suggestion indicated that the credit specialist had spoken to the boss. With
two incidents in a short time frame, Bruce chose to act. He set about to correct any
credibility problems he might have by doing more thorough homework. He caught
his problem in time. But the story illustrates the subtle nature of feedback”.
How can we resolve the apparent contradiction between our tendency to be too
clear about some things and not clear enough about others? It appears that some
people swing from one extreme to another, although most of us have a clear
preference for one end of the spectrum. Our own experience suggests that those
who are “too” clear nearly all of the time, and those who are “too” unclear most of
the time, have a preference for their way of behaving rooted in personality rather
than in socialization or culture. Both seem to us to have significant problems vis-
a-vis power - one overstating what he fears he really doesn’t have enough of, the
other under using what he fears he has too much of. When “bad guys” snap, they
often implode: When “nice guys” crack, they often explode. Simple-minded as
these generalizations have to be, they suggest that too many American managers
have trouble, in Rollo May’s phrase, “being lovingly powerful, and powerfully
loving”. Instead, we emphasize one or the other, power or love, and are less able to
deal with the complexity of organizational life as a result.
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The moral of the story is this: The inherent preferences of organizations are clarity,
certainty, and perfection. The inherent nature of human relationships involves
ambiguity, uncertainty, and imperfection. How one honors, balances, and integrates
the needs of both is the real trick of management.
Our earlier example of Kemper revealed an astute handling of a similar situation.
While he was not dealing with a performance feedback situation directly, the
potential was there to pass judgement on the black cabin cleaners or the errant
supervisor. But Kemper did not want to undermine the integrity of the organization
- its chain of command, its existing procedures, in short, its existing clear policies
for handling such things. Yet, Kemper did not ignore as testified by his actions,
that vagueness was inherent in the situation too. He recognized that existing policies
weren’t 100 per cent sufficient, and that more policies piled on top wouldn’t make
the ambiguity go away. He lived with both.
So did Bruce. Bruce might have sought clarity (or his loan supervisor might have
imposed it) and the result might have been onerous. Bruce’s ability to read between
the lines is a skill that many managers, American as well as Japanese, employ each
day. We infer what is going on and act before a minor irritant explodes into a full-
blown problem.
Many aspects of a company’s reward system are quite unclear. When feedback is
really clear and bad, it’s usually too late. The most crucial feedback comes at a
time when the reviewer is still ambivalent; this is the time when there is still
manoeuring room to turn the situation around. But, it is precisely at this juncture
that the boss finds himself in double jeopardy. In the service of fairness, he tries to
couch his comments in a positive and constructive way, risking that his concerns
may not be heard clearly. The alternative is to be more blunt and accentuate the
negative - at the risk of frightening and demoralizing the subordinate.
From the subordinate’s point of view, a convenient scape-goat is to fault vagueness
and insist on “clearer feedback”. But most managers know that subordinates want
it direct when it’s positive, and not when it’s negative, until it’s too late and then
they wish they had heard the bad news earlier and blame the boss for being unclear.
The alternative for subordinates is simply to be aware of the inherent in
definitiveness in relationships and to train themselves to be more artful at living
with it by searching for cues.
Bruce’s ability to make timely use of the “warning signs” required finely tuned
perceptual powers. And organizational justice being what it is, even though the
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boss is technically responsible for feedback, the subordinate almost always loses
if he fails to read the signals, however unclear. The trap for our younger people is
that there is little in their education or in our management culture that prepares
them to cope with these nuances of the reward and punishment system, which
often determine success or failure. For years in school they get promoted every
twelve months for anything better than dreadful work, and their feedback is frequent,
explicit, and generally well understood in that context. Our culture does not make
much of subtlety; we do not place a lot of emphasis on listener sensitivity to capture
implied meanings. But, while we extol clarity, most of those who excel in
organizations, both Japanese and American, are masters at reading the subtle signals.
13. The author suggests that negative performance feedback is an illuminating area
in which to study indirection because;
(1) the reality of most declining performance situation is that they are messy
(2) there is a disparity between cultural expectations and messy reality
(3) most subordinates want feedback when it is positive and not when it is
negative
(4) Both a & b. .
14. According to the author, it is difficult to give negative feedback because
(1) it is often difficult to separate inadequacies from extenuating circumstances.
(2) primitive human emotions have the potential of being triggered in these
encounters.
(3) Both a & b
(4) Neither a nor b
15. The author blame the eventual inadequacy of any grading system to
(1) inflation of reward systems (2) the need to be nice
(3) Both a & b (4) Neither a nor b
16. According to the author, a lovingly powerful guy will normally
(1) impode (2) explode
(3) both a & b (4) Neither a nor b
17. Which of the following does the author blame for failing to get timely “warning
signs” in a work place? :
(1) The evaluation and promotion systems in schools
(2) The reluctance of bosses to give clear feedback
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(3) People’s inability to read subtle messages

18. What was an apparent breach of etiquette that the credit specialist committed
?
(1) He asked Bruce’s boss to ask Bruce to have a meeting with him.
(2) He had spoken to Bruce’s boss directly.
(3) He was going to have a meeting with Bruc.
19. In the study quoted, how many Americans who had been fired from the jobs
had been caught unawares:
(1) one-half (2) one-third
(3) two out of every three (4) None of the above
20. The subordinate’s response to a negative feedback is that of
(1) an escapist (2) a critic
(3) a sceptic (4) a learner
21. Performance feedback fails to make maximum impact due to
(1) inability of receptor to comprehend subtleties of communication
(2) lack of listener’s sensitivity to capture implied meanings
(3) lack of inherent indefinitiveness in relationships
(4) All of these
22. The given passage is an extract from
(1) an HR consultant’s guide to improve performance
(2) a chapter on performance feedback
(3) carrots and sticks
(4) Any of these
PASSAGE – IV
That there is a direct connection between employee health and the stresses
and strains imposed on the individual by the pressures of increasing competition in
business and organisational life, is so well established as to be a truism. Obvious
though it might seem in retrospect, for most of the century just ended, Frederick
Taylor’s mechanistic models formed much of management thinking. They dealt
with the life in the work-place as though it stood on its own with little reference to
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the human, organic factors of emotional states or family life. Essentially, people
were thought to be a plentiful, easily replaceable, relatively inexpensive “resource”
- to be purchased and employed by the industrial organisation. As Henry Ford
observed, he wished he could get just a pair of hands from the worker, rather than
the whole person with all the attendant messiness! People of the worker category
tended to be referred to as skilled “hands”. The idiom reflects the mindset. The
relationship between the state of well-being or even health of the employee and his
productivity received little or no notice.
In contrast, a study conducted among 2000 managers in the U.K. last year and
published in Management Today, draws attention to what they call “stress drain”.
One in three managers surveyed complained of some extreme effects of work-
related dysfunction, such as loss of sleep, impotency and high blood pressure,
often with some heart-related problems. In a significant minority of cases, the job
related stress has led to marital breakdowns.
Well-being is neither entirely a mental state nor merely a physical phenomenon,
but a composite of both. Does it however mean that one cannot tackle them
separately? This is a difficult problem for the medical profession all over the world.
The paradox lies in the fact that the distinction between the mind and the body is
not natural but man-made (or should we say, mind-made!). Put it another way, we
make the distinction conceptually, but it can be argued that it is not real.
The lack of “disease” however, does not amount to health or a sense of well-being.
This first and fundamental point in the traditional Indian wisdom of Ayurveda is
being increasingly acknowledged all over the world. Deepak Chopra, a Boston-
based Indian doctor and author of a number of bestsellers has brought millions to
this point of view. For him, holistic medicine must take into account the
intelligence that every cell in our body already comes endowed with when we
are born. “You can never become healthy by swallowing medicines” is how a
famous Professor of Ayurveda put it during a discussion I had with him recently.
So how does present day Indian society deal with this growing crisis, is a
question that arises naturally. Can we take refuge in the traditional assumption
that the quality of family support and personal life are better overall in India,
even if there is less affluence overall than in the so-called “advanced”
economies?
Since about 1991, some of us have sensed that this is not so true any longer. For
many, one of the less spoken of effects of the new liberalised economic regime
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must be the increased stress in everyday life. Consider the multiple forces, career
and societal, at work and their effects. Increasing workload at the office is an
almost universal feature in our lives. Businesses everywhere are spurred on by
competition. Here it is augmented by a race for a share in the growth opportunity
offered by a burgeoning industrial economy.
In this article we look at this issue from the point of view of the modern, urban
“salaryman” as the Japanese refer to him. The business world sees well-being as a
by-product of a sense of personal achievement especially of the kind that carries
with it some public reward, if not acclaim. It rewards and praises a high energy
level, high level of activity and “busyness” as well as speed. Some psychologists
describe the A type executive, as one who is perpetually in a hurry, short of time
and on a short fuse, full of ambition and restless energy. We must all know of
someone of our friends, who is constantly on the go, living on adrenaline and
putting in 70-hour weeks, of not only ceaseless motion but also the ever- present
mental pressure of competing with other executives similar to himself. So much is
the accent on work that even holidays and breaks must be regulated and planned,
without the much needed spontaneity and ease that relaxation demands. The hard
working executive, especially in the West but increasingly in India as well, takes
even his exercise in short sharp bursts. The choices could be lunchtime jogging or
a hectic game of squash, or better still, working out in an indoor all- weather
gymnasium provided thoughtfully in the basement of the office block itself!
The issue today simply stated is this: organisations the world over, increasingly
recognise that individual motivation and personal effectiveness alone are the major
forces contributing to results of the organisation. At the same time, the radical
change in the nature of work and careers merely reinforce the importance of allowing
free play of initiative, creativity and self determination, all of which means a letting
go of the command and control model of hierarchical governance. Tapping into
individual creativity and peak performance dictate that greater flexibility in routines.
The employee has to be more secure and at ease at work, whereas the situation
both within and outside seems to do precisely the opposite.
How are we to marry the two demands happily? This is an unresolved dilemma in
organisational life. This is neither peculiar to nor confined to the commercial and
business world.
The emergence of the knowledge based industries and the post industrial revolution
are mega-trends now almost fully played out in the advanced economies, but will
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no doubt do so elsewhere too. The emphasis everywhere is on learning as an

integral function of the organisation. Thus the search is on for the magic recipes
that would make the employee willingly exert himself to excel. He must want to go
the extra mile for the benefit of the employer, continuing to innovate and develop
his expertise - all to keep the corporation competitive in the market place.
Enlightened leaders of companies have begun to see that it is a rare human being
who can match this demand out of voluntary altruism! Keeping people happily
engaged at work therefore, is clearly no longer a romantic ideal of “soft hearted”
human relations, but makes hard headed commercial sense. After all why should a
highly qualified young person want to sweat it out for someone else to become a
billionaire, if he too can make a few millions for himself elsewhere? This is the
implicit issue that drives the more recent developments in people management
policies and practices of high technology industries. Employee stock options are
meant to give the young software specialist the meaning and purpose to do his
utmost to make the company thrive. It is also an incentive for him to stay with the
employer. Employee turnover is endemic in sunrise industries where the supply of
competent people is chronically chasing demand. Frequent job changes in one’s
twenties are a sign of ambition, success and drive and not instability or fickle
loyalties.
Still, we are only just at the beginning of a discontinuous change. I believe
management practice has to go much further. It must realise that working hard and
long hours, commuting long distances and the pressures of deadlines can only be
partly compensated by money or perquisites or even titles. In the end (and this will
be reached sooner than later) executive burn out is a reality in one’s thirties. And
that takes a heavy toll of well-being not just of the wage earner but all the family.
One can now see why the European culture in particular, emphasises family holidays,
privacy, sport and recreation on weekends and personal time for hobbies.
Here in India, it is the exceptional individual who plays a serious game or goes out
on a wilderness walk, beyond the age of forty. At management seminars, when
asked to introduce themselves mentioning hobbies and games played, over two-
thirds say, “watching cricket on TV and music”! Static and sedentary habits, both.
This can hardly be conducive to well-being.
Often the sensitive and thoughtful young manager on a rising career graph finds it
difficult, if not positively embarrassing, to admit to facing this dilemma of being
sensible versus successful. Doing so would carry with it a not so flattering
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connotation. Others might write him off as what Maggie Thatcher would have
described as “wet”. He could be consigned to the scrap heap as one who could not
quite hack it, or being not quite up to it. Yet, if we look around our own immediate
vicinity, we are bound to find examples of more illnesses related to the strains of
coping with an intolerable extra amount of work, less leisure and greater pressures
of all kinds.
The medical profession of course exhorts us on all sides on the utter criticality of
the right kind of food in time, rest, exercise and relaxation. No magazine is complete
without advice on how to remain active, aggressive and competitive and yet stay
sane. I submit that this is a hoax we are playing on ourselves. One cannot hope to
deliberately nurture insecurity by career-threatening situations and still expect the
individual to cope.
Taking time off whenever the pressure cooker appears almost ready to explode
and diving for cover is no solution. The emphasis must be consistently and equally
on the workplace as well as at home. Furthermore, the work schedule should be
varied enough to give some relief from the inevitable jaded feelings which thus
arise with greater frequency. Lowered effectiveness and declining satisfaction with
work is the inevitable result of not doing so.
An often ignored element in feeling a lowered sense of well-being is the damage
caused by pettiness, jealousy and political and ego clashes. These could wreak
havoc as great as cancer - and indeed cause it! Deeply concerned thinkers both in
the West and here are now recommending a need to “find one’s own centre”, to
anchor oneself through a meditative practice. This could result in a more realistic
appreciation of what one is, one’s place in Nature and creation and how to be true
to oneself rather than lose oneself in the hype of others’ images about oneself. A
high achiever and hero role is great while the dream lasts, but it is only a dream.
Here the traditionalist advice is to seek solace from lofty thoughts from a religious
book such as the Gita. The author’s experience is that this is too often adopted
mechanically, almost like another therapy. The root cause lies in our enshrining
and worshipping the false gods, of careerism, one-upmanship and self-
aggrandisement. It is futile to cling to these till one turns 50 years of age, indeed
extol their virtues as the only way of “getting along” in this world and then turn to
religion as a last resort. There is something inherently contradictory and wrong in
this. Only a broken and fragmented human being can be a “street fighter” and
ruthlessly competitive to the extent of being amoral in the office or factory - but
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expect 20 minutes of meditation to wash off the sins of the day at home. The two
behaviours are inherently untenable in the same person without extraordinary self
deception!
What we need instead is to openly admit that one cannot have “all this and heaven
too”. By all I mean the pleasures of prestige, power, adulation and “winning the
race”. These come with a price tag. And the tag is seen in drinking bouts, inexplicable
pride and blindness to one’s faults, hubris and an inability to relate to people
authentically. We have only to search our own memories honestly to recognise this
profile in senior officers, politicians, industrialists, top managers who make
headlines these days. Most of them are not particularly likeable as people, and
many are so ill at ease when not surrounded by the trappings of power that they try
desperately to cling on to some office or title long after official retirement is passed.
Such people can be seen among the senior managers and bureaucrats immediately
on retirement. They are typically very free with advice to the young on the lofty
values they should live by. This is a sure sign of lack of real emotional and mental
health!
Many authors can be quoted in support of the new developing interest in holistic
living and working in this rapidly degenerating environment. Suffice it to say that
all of them point out the futility of trying to “solve” this situation as if it were yet
another mechanistic problem in managing.
As Dr. S. K. Chakraborty of IIM, Calcutta says, how can we hope to manage
anything else if we cannot manage ourselves? What kind of a manager is he who
lives in a watertight compartment at work with a set of values and behaviour
completely separate from - and even contradictory to - those he really wishes to
practice in his personal life? Whether one comes at it through a deep understanding
of our roots in Vedantic philosophy or reflection and self awareness, the key to a
full sense of living wholly and well is to emerge from the dreamlike make-believe
world of combative achievement and become finally wide awake, to return home
and live in contact with the here and now.
23. In the past century workers were :
(1) treated like machines. (2) treated like slaves.
(3) treated like humans. (4) None of the above
24. Which of these is not among the major effects of stress induced by work?
(1) Marital breakdowns (2) Impotency
(3) High blood pressure (4) Heart problems
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25. Ayurveda prescribes a holistic approach to health. Can this be inferred from the
pasage?
(1) Yes (2) No
(3) Certainly not (4) Uncertain
26. Which of the following is most unlikely to be false?
(1) Modern economy has generated technology to provide comfort and stress-
free living to the people.
(2) The voice of Indian medicine is still to be heard in the west.
(3) Almost all divorces in the west are a result of work-induced stress.
27. The author cautions executives about :
(1) Mid-life crisis. (2) Burn-outs.
(3) Psychic Fits. (4) All of the above.
28. The author has highlighted the concept of security in increasing the efficiency
of the employee.
(1) Yes (2) No
(3) Irrelevant (4) Uncertain
29. The author lists which of the following as desirable qualities in a organization?
(1) Initiative (2) Creativity
(3) Self determination (4) All of the above
30. Which is not an advice given by the author?
(1) Employees should know how to handle stress.
(2) The organisations should decrease the working hours to a minimum.
(3) Promotions in the company should be time bound, not performance related.
(4) Both 2 & 3.
31. The many suggestions made in the passage towards solving the dilemma of the
executives does not include :
(1) discovering the inner self.
(2) letting the pressure cooker cool off just before it is about to burst.
(3) developing interest in holistic living and working.
(4) remaining aloof from the trappings of power.
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32. The following doesn’t affect the sense of well-being adversely :

(1) pettiness, jealousy and ego clashes.
(2) stress at the workplace.
(3) careerism, one-upmanship and self aggrandisement.
(4) rapid career advancements.
33. The point that the author emphasizes through the passage is :
(1) all work and no play makes working executives dull and unhealthy.
(2) for well being the executives need to take to holistic living and working.
(3) traditional therapies and meditation are the only means to find ease and
comfort in the degenerating world.
(4) executives need to concentrate on health to increase productivity at work.
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TEST – 6
Time : 25 Min.
PASSAGE – I
As liberal democracy is becoming so widespread, we might expect it to be
working in a highly successful way. Yet democracy is in some difficulty almost
everywhere. This ‘aspect’ is puzzling: on the one hand, democracy is spreading
across the globe, yet, on the other, in mature democratic societies with long-
standing democratic institutions there are high levels of disillusionment with
democratic processes. Democracy is in trouble in the main countries of its
origin - in Britain, Europe and the US, for example, surveys show that
increasing proportions of people are dissatisfied with the political system, or
express indifference towards it. Why are many unhappy with the very political
system that seems to be sweeping all before it across the world? The answers,
curiously, are bound up with the factors that have helped spread democracy
- the impact of new communications technologies and the globalizing of
social life.
As the American sociologist Daniel Bell has observed, national government
has become ‘too small to respond to the big questions’, such as the influence
of global economic competition or the destruction of the world’s environment;
but it has become ‘too big to deal with the small question’, issues that affect
particular cities or regions. Governments have little power, for instance, over
the activities of giant business corporations, the main actors in the global
economy. A US corporation may decide to shut down its production plants in
Britain and set up a new factory in Mexico instead, in order to lower costs
and compete more effectively with other corporations. The result is that
thousands of British workers lose their jobs. They are likely to want the
government to do something, but national governments are unable to control
processes bound up with the world economy.
Citizens in many democracies have little trust in their elected representatives
and conclude that national politics has a diminishing impact on their lives.
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There is a growing cynicism about politicians who make claims about their
ability to foresee or control global issues that are occurring at levels beyond
that of the nation-state. Many citizens realize that politicians are largely
helpless in influencing global shifts and therefore view proclamations of
success with great suspicion. Public opinion polls in many Western countries
reveal that politicians have a serious image problem! A growing number of
citizens regard them as self-interested and not committed to issues of concern
to the electorate.
Some evidence for this conclusion comes from the results of two recent cohort
studies. According to ‘ the surveys, political attitudes among young and middle-
aged Britons are characterized by cynicism more than any other factor. Among the
1970 cohort, 44 per cent believed that politicians were in politics for their own
benefit. Thirty per cent of those born in 1958 agreed that it is largely irrelevant
which political party is in power because there is little direct benefit for average
citizens. The surveys revealed that political cynicism is more pronounced among
those with no educations qualifications.
At the same time that the power of governments has shrunk in relation to global
issues, political authorities have also become more remote from the lives of most
citizens. Many citizens resent the fact that decisions affecting their lives are made
by distant ‘power brokers’ - party officials, interest groups, lobbyists and
bureaucratic officials. At the same time, they may come to believe that the
government is unable to deal with important local issues such as crime and
homelessness. The result is that faith in government has dropped substantially.
This in turn affects people’s willingness to participate in the political process.
The effects of the ‘open information age’ are felt not only in authoritarian states
but in democracies as well. We live in a world in which citizens and government
have access to virtually the same information. Even democratic governments have
long depended on certain ‘undemocratic’ ways of operating - from corruption to
cronyism to back-room deals and old boys’ networks - that are now exposed more
readily and frequently thanks to advances in information technology. Certain
processes which used to remain invisible are now rendered visible, provoking
resentment and disillusion among the democratic electorate. Increasingly, ‘old ways’
of getting things done are being undermined and existing political structures can
no longer be taken for granted.
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Some observers today lament that citizens in democratic states have become
apathetic and are losing interest in the political process. It is true that rates of
voting have dropped in recent decades and that membership in the main political
parties has also been on the decline. Yet it is a mistake to suggest that people are
uninterested and have lost faith in democracy itself. Opinion polls show that an
overwhelming majority of residents in democratic countries cite democracy as
their preferred form of government. Furthermore, there are signs that interest in
politics is actually on the rise, but is simply being channelled into directions other
than orthodox party politics. Membership in civic groups and associations is growing
and activists are devoting their energies to new social movements focused around
single issues such as the environment, animal rights, trade policy and nuclear non-
proliferation.
What, then, is the fate of democracy in an age when democratic governance seems
ill-equipped to deal with the flow of events? Some observers suggest that there is
little to be done, that government cannot hope to control the rapid changes occurring
around us, and that the most prudent course of action is to reduce the role of
government and allow market forces to guide the way. Such an approach is suspect,
however. In our runaway world we are in need of more, not less government. Yet
effective governing in our present era demands a deepening of democracy, at the
level of the nation-state as well as above and below it.
1. The decreasing rate of voting in a democratic setup suggests the fact that
(1) voters are smart enough to realise the rhetorical nature of the contestants’
election manifestos.
(2) people prefer to support organisations that mostly have a single social
problem as their agenda.
(3) citizens are losing faith in the electoral process.
(4) people are not sympathetic towards the prevailing problems of their society.
2. A suitable title for the passage could be
(1) The Paradox of Democracy.
(2) The New Challenges Facing Democracy.
(3) The End of Democracy?
(4) Democracy and The Global Electronic Economy.
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3. In the case of a democracy, the surveys mentioned in the passage indicate one
of the following pronouncements.
(1) A person’s age will influence the level of disillusionment felt by him.
(2) The more educated the voter, the lesser the scepticism about the motives
of politicians.
(3) Politics no longer entails the implementation of ethics.
(4) People do not consider politicians to be paragons of virtues like selflessness
and commitment.
4. The author’s stance regarding the fate of democracy, in view of the changes
sweeping across countries is
(1) we need to be mute bystanders and let democracy be reshaped by these
changes.
(2) there should be greater state intervention to influence the way these events
affect democracy.
(3) let capitalist interests take over the democratic principles.
(4) governments should adopt an authoritarian approach to the problems raised
by the people under democratic governance.
5. The reasons put forward in the passage for the disenchantment of many people
with democracy are
(1) the information explosion by way of new information technologies.
(2) the relatively easier accessibility to information that helps people assess
the activities of the government.
(3) the multicultural influence on the nature of a country’s culture.
(4) the growing influence of activities which were hitherto not global in
occurence.
(1) Only 1 and 2 (2) Only 3 and 4
(3) Only 1, 2 and 4 (4) All four statements
PASSAGE – II
Freedom, ‘that terrible word inscribed on the chariot of the storm’, is the motivating
principle of all revolutions. Without it, justice seems inconceivable to the rebel’s
mind. There comes a time, however, when justice demands the suspension of
freedom. The terror, on a grand or small scale, makes its appearance to consummate
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the revolution. Every act of rebellion expresses a nostalgia for innocence and an
appeal to the essence of being. But, one day, nostalgia takes up arms and assumes
the responsibility of total guilt; in other words, adopts murder and violence. The
servile rebellions, the regicide revolutions, and the twentieth-century revolutions
had thus, consciously, accepted a burden of guilt which increased in proportion to
the degree of liberation they proposed to introduce. This contradiction, which has
become only too obvious prevents our contemporary revolutionaries from displaying
that aspect of happiness and optimism which shone forth from the faces and the
speeches of the members of the Constituent Assembly in 1789. Is this contradiction
inevitable? Does it characterise or betray the value of rebellion? These questions
are bound to arise about revolution as they are bound to arise about metaphysical
rebellion. Actually, revolution is only the logical consequence of metaphysical
rebellion, and we shall discover, in our analysis of the revolutionary movement,
the same desperate and bloody effort to affirm the dignity of man in defiance of the
things that deny its existence. The revolutionary spirit thus undertakes the defence
of that part of man which refuses to submit. In other words, it tries to assure him
his crown in the realm of time, and, rejecting God, it tries history with an apparently
inevitable logic.
In theory, the word revolution retains the meaning that it has in astronomy. It is a
movement which describes a complete circle, which leads from one form of
government to another after a total transition. A change of regulations concerning
property without a corresponding change of government is not a revolution, but a
reform. There is no kind of economic revolution, whether its methods are violent
or pacific, which is not, at the same time, manifestly political. Revolution can
already be distinguished, in this way, from rebellion. The warning given to Louis
XVI: ‘no, sire, this is not a rebellion, it is a revolution’ accents the essential
difference. It means precisely that ‘it is the absolute certainty of a new form of
government’. Rebellion is, by nature, limited in scope. It is no more than incoherent
pronouncement. Revolution, on the contrary, originates in the realm of ideas.
Specifically, it is the injection of ideas into historic experience while rebellion is
only the movement which leads from individual experience into the realm of ideas.
While even the collective history of a movement of rebellion is always that of a
fruitless struggle with facts, of an obscure protest which involves neither methods
nor reasons, a revolution is an attempt to shape actions to ideas, to fit the world
into a theoretic frame. That is why rebellion kills men while revolution destroys
both men and principles.
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6. According to the passage, every rebellion expresses...

(1) nostalgia. (2) anger.
(3) idealism. (4) a childish mind.
7. What, according to the passage, prevents contemporary rebels from feeling
happy and optimistic?
(1) The knowledge that they are also guilty of misdeeds.
(2) The fact that they adopt murder and violence as tools of rebellion.
(3) Both (1) and (2).
(4) Neither (1) nor (2).
8. According to the passage, revolution is..
(1) the breaking of existing societal conditions.
(2) the overthrow of the corrupt governments.
(3) basically a mental thing.
(4) the natural Consequence of metaphysical rebellion.
9. Why has the author equated revolution with astronomy?
(1) Because both are substantially based on imagination.
(2) Because revolution also, like in astronomy describes a full circle.
(3) Because in both man tries to reach the level of the stars.
(4) Because astronomy also caused a revolution in the scientific world.
PASSAGE – III
Consider these contrasts. Natural products obtained from what Nature no longer
needs - peels, shells, barks, flowers and leaves. Artificial substances that harm and
exploit the environment. Subdued colours and smooth fabrics that lie gently on the
skin in a tropical climate. Stark colours and synthetic textiles that reflect the mood
of another culture and lifestyle.
When we can surround ourselves with beautiful hues from Nature’s garden and
clothe ourselves in natural fibres, why do we go in for blistering synthetics? When
we can sink ourselves in soft tones of dusty pink muted brown and pale yellow,
why do we turn instead to unrelieved black and navy blue?
When we can nestle among patterns that reflect the lushness of outdoor landscape
blooms, buds, creepers, tendrils, and singing birds - why do we choose plain drab
cloth? When we have such an astonishing range of handmade material and such a
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rich tradition of weaves, prints and dyes, why do we opt instead for impersonal
mill-made material? Why do we turn our backs on such beauty and block our
minds to the stories of skill, imagination and aesthetics that each handmade,
vegetable dyed piece of fabric tells?
There seem to have few answers to these questions as we hurtle into a new age.
Blinded by the Western influence, we rush headlong into a McDonald and Yves St,
Laurcent culture, discarding a beautiful tradition that has endured for centuries.
Strange that a nation which once enjoyed the monopoly in textile trade and was
renowned for its natural dyed fabrics now goes in for coal tar dyes discarded as
harmful by the west. For vegetable dyes are the colors of India. The deep red of the
cherry, the yellow of the turmeric, the lovely green of the henna leaves and the
deep blue of the indigo are among the hues that jostle for attention on this colour
palette.
India’s expertise in vegetable dyes dates back to ancient times. Using mordants to
hold fast the dye or resists to selectively prevent them from touching the cloth,
were printed bales of whisper-soft textiles. These were sought after in many
countries of the world.
The remnants of madder dyed fabric, wrapped on a silver vase, found in Harappa
tell us of the antiquity of the mordant process of dyeing in our country. The
Arthashastra of Kautilya refers to dyes and their uses and the Ajanta paintings
show evidence of printed costume. Even in the millennium before Christ, Indian
textiles were known in Egypt. Block printed resist-dyed fabric from India dating
back to the 8th century was discovered at Central Asia. From the 15th to the 19th
centuries block printed resist-dyed textiles from Gujarat and the Deccan adorned
Europeans and their homes. A flourishing trade in vegetable dyed textiles existed
between the Golconda region and Qutab Shahi Persia for centuries. Though Persians
too had knowledge of vegetable dyeing a great deal of Indian printed material was
exported to the country. The Persian trade reciprocally widened the Indian colour
card.
The discovery of synthetic dyes in the west in the 19th century dealt a massive
blow to the Indian textile industry. When chemical blue displaced natural indigo, it
destroyed an entire way of life. Villages of indigo growers starved and were wiped
out of existence as the British stopped importing natural indigo. Gandhiji intervened
to help them, leading to an important chapter of the Freedom Movement.
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The process of making chemical dyes was less elaborate than that of vegetable
dyes which was time consuming and depended on sunlight and huge amounts of
water. Chemical dyes were also considered “more durable”. This led to the decline
of vegetable dyes. Once used widely all over the subcontinent, now there are only
pockets where pure vegetable dyed fabrics are made and some areas where vegetable
dyes are used in conjunction with chemical dyes.
But there has been a revival of interest in vegetable dyes in recent times. The
resurgence began when after Independence the Government of India through its
handicraft boards initiated training programmes for craftsmen. Kamaladevi
Chattopadhyay played a leading role in its revival. In recent times, there has been
a fresh upsurge of interest. The “back to nature” movement has refocused interest
in vegetable dyes both in the west and within the country. Chemical dyes have led
to environmental degradation, whole rivers have been polluted with clear life-
giving waters turning toxic and murky.
Workers handling chemical dyes have been afflicted with respiratory problems.
Chemical dyed clothes are harmful to the skin and can cause allergies.
Vegetable dyed fabrics are of three categories-yarn dyed in natural colours and
woven; material block-printed with natural dyes and Kalamkari where the “Kalam”
or pen is used to draw beautiful designs on the cloth. Today, the most popular
vegetable dyed fabrics are from Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh. Rajasthan,
Gujarat and Orissa.
While Srikalahasti in Andhra Pradesh is famous for Kalamkari, Machilipatnam is
known for its fine vegetable dyed block-printed textiles. Bagh in Madhya Pradesh,
Bagru and Sanganer in Rajasthan also make beautiful, block-printed fabrics.
Government efforts gave a fillip to the art of vegetable dyeing. It also received a
boost as individuals and non-government organizations turned their attention to it.
“Much before it became a fashion, we began doing research in vegetable dyes”
says Shakuntala Ramani, chairperson of the Crafts Education and Research Centre
of Kalakshetra. Recently, the institution has opened a new sales unit. “There is not
much demand within the country because awareness is lacking. It is sought after
only by a sophisticated few. The other want maintenance free fabrics in bright
colours. We are often asked: Can’t you make the same thing with chemical dyes?”
But vegetable dyes are mellow and lovely, even the fading is a graceful and an
even process. “The background runs and the colours show up; westerners in the
past actually thought it was magic as the colours got brighter with each wash.”
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The fabrics are not difficult to care for, says Shakuntala. They can be washed at
home and dried in sunlight. If detergents and dry cleaning are avoided, they will
last for years.
Those involved in promoting craft say, government initiates training programmes
but does not follow it to its logical conclusion by providing marketing facilities.
As a result the craftsman hawking their exquisite and painstakingly made Kalamakari
pieces from door to door for throwaway prices is still a heart-rending scene in
Chennai and other places.
10. According to the passage peels, shells, barks, twigs, etc. are
(1) natural products (2) natural wastes
(3) bi-products (4) synthetic products
11. What type of dye is coal tar dye
(1) Chemical (2) Natural
(3) Synthetic (4) Vegetable
12. What chemicals hold the vegetable dye to the cloth
(1) Modifiers (2) Mordant
(3) Adsorbent (4) Absorbent
13. According to the passage, which of the following statement is true
(1) Vegetable dyes are called colours of India.
(2) Ajanta paintings refer to dyes and their uses.
(3) Vegetable dyed textiles were not famous during Qutub shahi Persia.
14. The 2nd paragraph of the passage focuses on
(1) the beauty of nature
(2) the importance of synthetic products
(3) the beauty of natural products
(4) None of the above
15. The common ailments among the workers handling chemical dyes are
(1) respiratory (2) allergy
(3) skin infections (4) All the above
16. The Indian state which is famous for Kalamkari is
(1) Uttar Pradesh (2) Orissa
(3) Andhra Pradesh (4) Tamil Nadu
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17. According to the passage, which statement is true?

(1) Detergents increase the longevity of clothes.
(2) Orissa is famous for block-printed fabrics.
(3) Persians knew of dyes before Indians did.
(4) Synthetic dyes were discovered in the 19th century.
18. The “government efforts” extended to the art of vegetable dyeing includes
I. promotion of the craft.
II. conducting training programmes.
III. providing marketing facilities.
IV. facilitating exports.
(1) I, II and III (2) only I and II
(3) only Hand III (4) All of these
19. According to general perceptions, which of the following are the grounds on
which vegetable dyeing loses out to chemical dyeing.
I. The processing of chemical dyes is less elaborate.
II. Chemical dyes are more durable.
III. Vegetable dyes lead to environmental degradation.
IV. Processing of vegetable dyes leads to water-pollution.
(1) All of the above (2) I and IV only
(3) l and II only (4) II and IV only
PASSAGE – IV
I was saved from sin when I was going on thirteen. But not really saved. It
happened like this. There was a big revival at my Auntie Reed’s church. Every
night for weeks there had been much preaching, singing, praying, and shouting,
and some very hardened sinners had been brought to Christ, and the membership
of the church had grown by leaps and bounds. Then just before the revival ended,
they held a special meeting for children, “to bring the young lambs to the fold.”
My aunt spoke of it for days ahead. That night I was escorted the front row and
placed on the mourners’ bench with all the other young sinners, who had not yet
been brought to Jesus.
My aunt told me that when you were saved you saw a light, and something happened
to you inside! And Jesus came into your life! And God was with you from then on!
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She said you could see and hear and feel Jesus in your soul. I believed her. I had
heard a great many old people say the same thing and it seemed to me they ought
to know. So I sat there calmly in the hot, crowded church, waiting for Jesus to
come to me.
The preacher preached a wonderful rhythmical sermon, all moans and shouts and
lonely cries and dire pictures of hell, and then he sang a song about the ninety and
nine safe in the fold, but one little lamb was left out in the cold. Then he said:
“Won’t you come? Won’t you come to Jesus? Young lambs, won’t you come?”
And he held out his arms to all us young sinners there on the mourners’ bench. And
the little girls cried. And some of them jumped up and went to Jesus right away.
But most of us just sat there.
A great many old people came and knelt around us and prayed, old women with
jet-black faces and braided hair, old men with workgnarled hands. And the church
sang a song about the lower lights are burning, some poor sinners to be saved. And
the whole building rocked with prayer and song.
Still I kept waiting to see Jesus. Finally all the young people had gone to the altar
and were saved, but one boy and me. He was a rounder’s son named Westley.
Westley and I were surrounded by sisters and deacons praying. It was very hot in
the church, and getting late now. Finally Westley said to me in a whisper: “God
damn! I’m tired of sitting here. Let’s get up and be saved.” So he got up and was
saved.
Then I was left all alone on the mourner’s bench. My aunt came and knelt at my
knees and cried, while prayers and song swirled all round me in the little church.
The whole congregation prayed for me alone, in a mighty wail of moans and voices.
And I kept waiting serenely for Jesus, waiting, waiting-but he didn’t come. I wanted
to see him, but nothing happened to me. Nothing! I wanted something to happen to
me, but nothing happened.
I hear the songs and the minister saying: “Why don’t you come? My dear child,
why don’t you come to Jesus? Jesus is waiting for you. He wants you. Why don’t
you come? Sister Reed, what is this child’s name?” “Langston,” my aunt sobbed.
“Langston, why don’t you come? Why don’t you come and be saved? Oh, Lamb of
God! Why don’t you come?”
Now it was really getting late. I began to be ashamed of myself, holding everything
up so long. I began to wonder what God thought about Westley, who certainly
hadn’t seen Jesus either, but who was now sitting proudly on the platform, swinging
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his knickerbockered legs and grinning down at me, surrounded by deacons and
old women on their knees praying. God had not struck Westley dead for taking his
name in vain or for lying in the temple. So I decided that maybe to save further
trouble, I’d better lie, too, and say that Jesus had come, and get up and be saved.
So I got up. Suddenly the whole room broke into a sea of shouting, as they saw me
rise. Waves of rejoicing swept the place. Women leaped in the air. My aunt threw
her arms around me. The minister took me by the hand and led me to the platform.
When things quieted down, in a hushed silence, punctuated by a few ecstatic
“Amens,” all the new young lambs were blessed in the name of God. Then joyous
singing filled the room.
That night, for the last time in my life but one-for I was a big boy twelve years old-
I cried. I cried, in bed alone, and couldn’t stop. I buried my head under the quilts,
but my aunt heard me. She woke up and told my uncle I was crying because the
Holy Ghost had come into my life, and because I had seen Jesus. But I was really
crying because I couldn’t bear to tell her that I had lied, that I had deceived
everybody in the church, that I hadn’t seen Jesus, and that now I didn’t believe
there was a Jesus any more, since he didn’t come to help me.
20. All of the following are false with respect to the passage, except that :
(1) the ritual of being saved from sin was a genuine one.
(2) the ritual of being saved from sin was man-made and did not have a good
basis.
(3) Jesus had really come and saved the author.
(4) the crying of the author in the night was owing to the joy of having seen the
Lord.
21. What was the final condition of the author, as made out by passage?
(1) It was that of triumph for having deceived everyone.
(2) It was that of uncontrollable joy of having seen Jesus.
(3) It was that of regret and remorse for having told a lie and committed a
wrong act.
(4) It was that of fear of God’s wrath and punishment.
22. The practice of ‘being saved from sin’, as made out by the passage, was
essentially :
(1) religious with only the devouts participating.
(2) social with interaction and mixup of one and all.
(3) superstitious and did not have a reasonable basis.
(4) necessary for one to purge all sins and attain Godhood.
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23. The passage comes out with :

(1) the unshakeable belief that deliverance from sin takes place in a holy place,
like the Church.
(2) the hold of the minister on the devotees.
(3) no fear of sin and the practice of seeking deliverance turning out to be a
dry affair.
24. The passage ends up on a note of :
(1) hope (2) despair.
(3) cynicism (4) faith.
25. The passage has been handled in a manner which is :
(1) critical (2) idolatory.
(3) eulogising. (4) devotional.
(1) Ask And You Shall Be Given.
(2) Repentance Cleans All Sins.
(3) Superstitions And Blind Beliefs–A Curse.
(4) Church–A Place For Purification.
27. The passage is at best an extract from :
(1) the childhood memoirs of a person.
(2) the confessions of a sinner.
(3) a book on religious practices and their significance.
(4) the experiences of a devotee coming face to face with divinity.
28. The passage relates to :
(1) philosophy. (2) religion.
(3) legal practices. (4) church orthodoxy.
29. The apt conclusion derivable from the passage is that :
(1) the minister of the church has a final say.
(2) people ought to be more circumspect and not believe the rituals blindly.
(3) the might of Divinity can be forced to be felt in dry, routinal religious
practices.
(4) God has designated the authorities in a church and people should listen
them and obey their instructions.
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TEST – 7
Time : 25 Min.
PASSAGE – I
The rise of non-profit groups of varying sizes, ranging from low-key, empty-
till, mom-and-pop outfits to media-savvy, cash-plush, lawyer-infested razzle-
dazzle juggernauts, for all kinds of public-interest causes reflects an
accentuation of the altruistic activism directed at charitable and social reform
causes that is hardly new in many societies. The million NGOs in India as of a
few years ago are the inheritors of activism that included individuals and groups
that sought reforms in archaic religious traditions. They also benefit from a civic
consciousness that was aroused by the non-violent movement for India’s freedom
that led to large numbers of dedicated Indians marching in the streets, some
braving the lathi charges, others going underground, and many turning to
working in the villages for rural uplift once independence arrived in 1947.
Notable among those who devoted themselves to social progress were the
members of the Servants of India Society, founded almost a century ago in
1905. Having returned from exceptional academic success at English
universities such as Oxford and Cambridge, they accepted educational positions
at a pittance over a lifetime to further the cause of higher education.
Yet another striking example of altruism comes from the state of Gujarat, from
which Gandhi came and whose altruistic traditions he inherited and exploited.
A great controversy erupted over the plans to dam the Narmada River in Gujarat
(and two other states), a project that involved the construction of thirty major dams
and three thousand smaller ones. Many activists objected to the dam project
and to the damage it would inflict on the communities living on the lands to be
submerged. Although it was not correct for the activists to argue that resettlement
was being ignored, the agitation served to focus extra attention on this important
aspect of the construction of these dams. In October 2000 the supreme court of
India, after six years of agitation and delays, declared itself satisfied with the
final resettlement plans and gave the green light to the dam project.
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Interestingly, however, modern activism in India, and indeed elsewhere, reflects

two other defining and decisive factors, one technological, the other educational.
The chroniclers of globalisation, chief among them the ‘New York Times’
columnist Thomas Friedman, have noted how modern communications
technology such as the Internet has enabled NGOs to coalesce quickly into
effective movements within and across nations. But this still does not answer
the question of why NGOs seeking public good should be springing up in the
first place. Surely one answer has to be the unprecedented growth of female
education.
I recall sitting down to lunch in the early 1960s with the planner Pitambar Pant
on the lawn of his home, in the mild sun of the vanishing Indian winter in the
month of January, when the flowering shrubs that are the pride of the
bureaucratic bungalows axe pregnant with signs of new life. I had started
teaching in Delhi University, having just left Pant’s planning office, and noticed
that women students seemed to outweigh the men in my classes. This was
symptomatic of the growing numbers of women going for higher education. Pant
and I wondered where they would all go. We thought they would be doctors,
bureaucrats, politicians, lawyers, scientists, and much else. But we did not
think that, animated by altruism while also informed and equipped to pursue it
by their education, they would become both leaders and followers in the immense
tide of NGOs now seeking to change Indian society in progressive directions.
So we find that the mantle of social activism in India, long worn mostly by men, has
now fallen on the shoulders mostly of women. The ecofeminist Vandana Shiva is
the most prominent in the Western media, but she is just one of a multitude.
Indeed, doing good has become so much the thing to do in India that where the
parents of a young man once might have bid for a bride by offering riches or a
green card for, immigration into the United States through marriage, the joke today
on the Indian subcontinent is that they must offer the bride her own NGO! This
fits in with the pattern I observe in the United States. Interact here with the
environmental, human rights, and other NGOs, and I often do, and mostly you run
into dedicated and impassioned women. Alice Tepper Marlin of Social
Accountability International, Sidney Jones of Human Rights Watch, and Lori
Wallach of Public Citizen are only the more visible among the many women who
now, if I may mix metaphors, man the barricades in these battles.
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1. One of the reasons behind the birth and spread of NGOs in modern India is
(1) the revolutionary technological advances like internet etc.
(2) the fancy taken to the new wave of social consciousness.
(3) the rising levels of literacy among women.
(4) the pioneering work done by Gandhi.
2. One can safely assume that
(l) the name NGO is the rechristening of an already existing principle of social
service.
(2) India’s struggle for freedom is the starting point of our civic consciousness.
(3) the state of Gujarat is at the forefront of social altruism.
(4) social issues differ with time and the level of societal development.
3. Modern technology, like internet, helped the NGOs across the globe
(1) to become involved in issues in different parts of the world.
(2) transform into power centres capable of influencing government decisions.
(3) gain critical mass and thereby more power to be able to effect social reform.
(4) transcend national, cultural and linguistic barriers across countries and gel
into a single force.
4. The author applauds the NGOs for.
(1) their efforts to help countries like India move in the forward direction.
(2) taking up social causes and finding solutions for the problems that can
effect societal interests.
(3) their wholehearted and devoted service.
(4) taking up all the above.
PASSAGE – II
The question whether law and liberty are antithetical or friendly to each other has
baffled the scholars for a long time. Diametrically opposite views have been
expressed on this issue. On the one hand the Idealists hold that the State is an
embodiment of reason justice and its laws promote and strengthen individual liberty.
Laws not only protect the rights and liberties of the people but also provide
conditions for the development of human faculties. The state by enacting laws for
compulsory education, regulation of working hours etc. tries to protect and promote
the interests of the children and weaker sections. No doubt, the state is a useful
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institution and aims at general welfare, but it would be wrong to categorically state
that all laws promote individual liberty. If the laws are enacted by the ruling class
strengthening its own position, such laws shall certainly lead to curtailment of
liberty and may even result in a type of bondage. Usually the laws made by the
despotic rulers curtail human liberty and blind obedience to such laws is suicidal
for human development.
According to the other views expressed by the Individualists and Anarchists, the
law and the liberty are antithesis to each other. Each law puts certain restrictions
on individual liberty and the more of one leads to the less of the other. In other
words they assert that law and liberty are always in inverse ratio. The individualists
consider the state as a ‘necessary evil’.
It is necessary because of the selfish nature of man and the existence of crime. But
it is nonetheless an evil because every action of the state implies a restriction on
the liberty of the individual. The Anarchists go a step further and assert that the
state is ‘an unnecessary evil’. They consider the state as a positive instrument of
oppression and want to do away with it at the earliest. They believe that the
individual shall be able to enjoy real liberty only when the state disappears.
The view of the Individualists and Anarchists seem to be incorrect in so far as they
take liberty in absolute terms and envisage the absence of all restrains on the conduct
of the individual. Actually the laws are enacted to regulate the social behaviour of
the people and they invariably impose certain restraints in the larger interest of the
society. In the absence of such laws or restraints liberty would mean merely the
liberty of the strong and give rise to chaos and disorder. As liberty is meant for all
the sections of society, restrictions are essential for its enjoyment by all.
Thus both views are not fully correct. We cannot say for certain that all laws promote
liberty, as we cannot say that all laws curtail liberty. In fact much depends on the
nature and the contents of the laws. Generally, the laws made by democratic bodies
promote liberty because the elected representatives of the people give due
consideration to the wishes and interests of the people while enacting these laws.
In a modern welfare state, the government has to enact a large number of laws with
a view to provide facilities for the maximum development of the members of society.
With a view to provide equal facilities to all the sections, it has to impose certain
restraints on the liberty of the stronger people. In the absence of such restraints or
regulations, the liberty will be the exclusive prerogative of the strong, and the
liberty of the weak will be fully dependent on the will of the strong., Viewed in this
sense, law promotes liberty.
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5. The view with which Idealists are not likely to agree is

(1) Many of the laws enacted by the state are not useful for the citizens
(2) The children and weaker sections have to be protected through laws which
may seem to curtail individual liberty
(3) Since a state is an embodiment of reason and justice, a citizen must implicitly
obey the laws made by it.
(4) Laws provide conditions for the promotion of human faculties.
6. Which two groups of people are nearest in agreement in regard to the need of
the state?
(1) Idealists and Individualists (2) Idealists and Anarchists
(3) Individualists and Anarchists (4) The author and the Anarchists
7. In this passage, the author is trying to
(1) widen the gap between the views of various groups
(2) reconcile the views of various groups
(3) distort the views of various groups
(4) argue for the abolition of the state
8. The individualists consider the state a ‘necessary’ evil because
(1) it protects them against Anarchists
(2) it provides jobs to many
(3) it provides compulsory education
(4) man is basically selfish and, if unchecked, is likely to indulge in crimes.
9. The author justifies laws because they
(1) protect the minority rich against crimes by the majority poor
(2) are made by democratic bodies
(3) generally protect the weak against the strong
(4) result in a type of bondage
10. The laws of the modern society are mainly intended to
(1) regulate international trade
(2) protect the interests of the rich
(3) provide conditions for the development of the citizens
(4) curtail individuals liberties
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11. Which of the following laws will the author not support?
(1) compulsory hanging of a murderer
(2) law fixing minimum age of factory workers
(3) detention of a person who lectures against a Prime Minister
(4) compelling parents to send their children to school
12. The passage has most probably been taken from
(1) a campaign speech in an election
(2) a book review
(3) a book on political theory
(4) a book on economics and law
PASSAGE – III
Long considered an intensely subjective and deeply personal experience, dreams
are slowly opening out to research methodology and in the process spilling the
secrets of consciousness, volition and the nature of imaginary worlds. At the absolute
cutting edge of dream research today lies the study of an elusive and unusual type
of dream called a ‘lucid dream’. Simply put, a lucid dream is a dream in which one
knows, at the time of the dream, that one is dreaming and that one can then control
the course of the dream. Although only a small percentage of people have lucid
dreams, there are now methods available which can induce such dreams in people.
Keath Hearne of the University of Hull and Stephen LaBerge of Stanford University,
California, realized that if a person (who was conscious that he or she was dreaming)
could somehow communicate to the outside world, it would open a whole new
process of dialogue between the conscious and the unconscious. Heame exploited
the fact that in dream sleep the eyes move. He thought perhaps a lucid dreamer
could signal by moving the eyes in a predetermined pattern and, in 1980, succeeded
in making a volunteer move his eyes left and right eight times in succession. From
there it was a simple step to use the movements in Morse Code to make whole
sentences. One of the next steps envisaged is to link the Morse signals to a speech
synthesizer for a real conversation to take place.
What can we expect to get out of all this ? For one thing, there is a great debate
going on at present about the nature of dreaming that could possibly be resolved.
An older school still clings to the Freudian viewpoint of dreams being
representations of unconscious wish-fulfilment symbolism while another newer
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one maintains they are nothing more than random electrochemical bursts which
the brain then does its best to put into some sort of coherent scenario as visual
imagery. If a person could talk about what he or she is seeing while it is happening,
dream interpretation could finally take place with the dreamer participating in
realtime.
On the other hand, investigators could try to stimulate various areas of the brain
through electrodes to see what, if any, effect it has on the content of dreams while
getting simultaneous feedback from the dreamer.
This could lend support to their theory. For both sides, though, research right now
looks like a dream come true.
13. The author is unlikely to agree with any of the following except:
(1) dream research is chiefly developing strategies for research into the eye
movement.
(2) research shows that the dreamer can be made to simultaneously participate
in the real world.
(3) visual imagery and its relation with Morse code is indeed very complex.
14. The most important aspect of dream research is the way it has made :
(1) its link of subconscious with the unconscious
(2) it link of the conscious with the unconscious
(3) its relationship of volition with the Morse code
15. According to the passage, the Freudian concept of dreams :
(1) has now been antiquated
(2) relies heavily on the unfulfilled part of the unconscious
(3) relies heavily on the wishful thinking of the subconscious
(4) both (1) and (2)
16. The concept of ‘lucid dreamer’ has been highlighted in the passage because:
(1) it shows a way of analysing dreams simultaneously with the real world.
(2) lucid dreamers are a typical class of dreamers.
(3) dream research required the help of non-lucid dreamers.
(4) real dreamers and lucid dreamers are closely related.
17. The tone of the author can be best described as
(1) informative (2) critical
(3) disillusioned (4) argumentative
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18. “Dreams is a subconscious state of mind”. The author will

(1) agree (2) disagree
(3) agree partially (4) cannot be inferred form the passage.
PASSAGE – IV
Working with his good friend and later benefactor Friedrich Engels, Karl Marx
described how capitalist systems would be destroyed. From his perspective, all
history was a sequence of class strife, with class identities based on economic
relationships. In the words of the Communist Manifesto, “The history of all existing
society is the history of class struggles, freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian,
lord and serf, guildmaster and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed.”
Capitalist systems, Marx claimed, followed the same pattern; only the class identities
were changed. In this case, the oppressors-the capitalists- owned the means of
production, and the oppressed-the proletariat-were their modern-day serfs. The
“natural” antagonism between these two classes arose out of the capitalist’s
unrelenting quest for profits and the attendant desire to pay workers as little as
possible. This continued exploitation would eventually drive the working class to
revolt and would come to an end with a “spontaneous” revolution.
Once the capitalists were sent packing (if they were so fortunate), the working
class itself, the proletariat, would take over the means of production. There would
be no more class strife, because there would be only one class, with everyone
sharing equally in access to the means of production and the output it yielded. The
abolition of private property would mean that nobody would have any means of
exploiting anybody else. The motivating principles of the communism Marx
envisioned would be “from each according to his ability, to each according to his
need.” In that idealized society, there would be no central authority-no state-because
the only function of a state was to express and pursue the interests of the dominant
class. Since only one class would exist, in Marx’s vision, no state would be necessary.
Marx was not very specific about exactly how a classless, stateless, communist
society and economy would function. His immediate concern was with the
continuing exploitation of the working class, the widespread poverty, sickness,
and degradation that he himself had experienced in the early stages of the Industrial
Revolution. Marx died some twenty-five years before the first successful communist
revolution, and before he was able to complete Das Kapital, his voluminous study
of the way capitalist systems functioned.
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Although he concentrated on the internal flaws of capitalism and the awakening of

working-class interests, Marx also provided some sketches of the kind of society
that would follow the revolution. He foresaw that a central government (the state)
would be required for some time to give direction to the new society. The proletariat
would not be prepared to embrace fully the basic tenets of communism, nor would
it have the technical expertise required to organize the means of production. In the
interim period, a central authority, a socialist state, would have to solidify class
consciousness, reorganize property and production rights, expand output, and plan
the transition to a truly communist society. As society moved along in that direction,
the state would become increasingly unnecessary and would gradually wither away.
19. All of the following are false with respect to the passage, except that :
(1) Marx was very specific about how a classless, stateless, communist society
and economy would function.
(2) the workers were lazy and shirked work, hence their oppression at the
hands of their masters.
(3) in the idealized society, only a central authority would function for
administrative purposes.
(4) continued exploitation of the working class would result in a revolution.
20. As per the passage, Karl Marx :
(1) opposed the exploitation of the workers.
(2) opposed the insincerity of the workers.
(3) supported the profit motives of the capitalists.
(4) supported the idea of state protecting the interests of the dominant class.
21. According to the passage, the existence of the state was :
(1) necessary to ensure the smoothness of the administration.
(2) not needed as only one class would exist.
(3) possible by the continuing patronage given by the wealthy class.
(4) needed to appease the workers
22. As per the passage, the capitalists are those who :
(1) owned means of production but always had the interests of the workers in
mind.
(2) strived for more profits that were shared equally among the workers.
(3) paid workers as little as possible, pocketing all the profits for themselves.
(4) were helpless to do anything for the workers, as the law of the land
constrained them from doing so.
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23. The motivating principle envisioned by Marx, as expressed in the passage,

was :
(1) that hard work pays.
(2) to fight for one’s rights.
(3) as per the maxim, ‘to each according to his need, not according to his,
ability’.
(4) to create good sense in the dominant class, so that they work for the
betterment of the underprivileged.
24. The immediate concern of Marx, according to the passage, was :
(1) for the establishment of classless and a stateless society.
(2) to eradicate widespread poverty, sickness and degradation.
(3) to make the people aware of the interest of the working class.
(4) All except (1).
25. As per the passage, the future society envisioned by Marx would be :
(1) that of the proletariat.
(2) that of the capitalists.
(3) that of the socialist state, a central authority, for the interim period till the
proletariat takes over.
26. The author has handled the passage in a manner which is :
(1) fictitious. (2) inferential.
(3) questioning. (4) instigating.
27. A suitable title for the passage could be :
(1) Visions And Prophecies Of Karl Marx.
(2) Workers’ Exploitation Is Their Own Doing.
(3) Profit– The Life Force Of The Capitalists.
(4) Communism Is A Cause For The Ills Of The State.
28. The passage is about :
(1) ideology. (2) history.
(3) sociology. (4) business.
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TEST – 8
Time : 25 Min.
PASSAGE – I
“I cannot think of anything more civilised than spending a summer in Wien
(Vienna)”, remarked a friend when I mentioned that I was to go there on a short
scholarship to work in the Institute of Jungendlieratur. The city has been described
frequently as the cultural capital of Europe having once enjoyed the eminence of
being the Imperial capital of the Austro-Hungarian empire. Today Wien, a beautiful
city of parks and gardens, retains something of its former consequence. Situated
at the far end of the Alps, it commands the Ostaubahn to Budapest and Prague. “At
the end of Landstrasse,” as Metternich once observed “Asia itself begins.” Triesterstrasse
will take you, if you persevere, direct to Dalmatia. The Ringstrasse which seems to
have lent its name generously to a whole genre of Viennese art and thought,
circles this city. As the Gothic, Baroque, Grecian buildings rise one after another,
the viewer’s vision lingers over the whole ensemble to finally rest on the magnificent
State Opera House dominating the skyline. Not far away, always within one’s reach of
vision, is the spire of St.Stephen standing in the middle of the city as a mighty
landmark for the unwary visitor dazed by the convolutions of the Ringstrasse. It is
not easy to lose your way in Wien, my friend in the Institute assured me, as you can
always identify St. Stephen’s spire or the dome of the Opera House and find
your bearings. Besides, everyone understands English, if you stop to interrupt their
sing song German they are most helpful in giving directions.
This green city of spacious flowery gardens (more than half of the city comprises
of gardens) can be traversed in the gay yellow-green “hop-on-hop-off’ buses
which give good value for money. The Danube passes a mile or two from the
Ringstrasse crossed by strategic bridges, commanded by castles and as we pass
the magnificent Attic Parliament, university buildings and the palace of the
Hapsburgs-The Hofburg, we are quite overcome by their architectural
magnificence. The famous “Maria Theresa Platz” has a tremendous aura about
the place, says a sensitive Viennese woman and admits she feels a spiritual upliftment
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by merely sitting beside the statue of this empress flanked by the museums of art
history and natural history. It seems that Franz Joseph, the last of the great Hapsburgs,
considered to be the Mao of 19th Century Austria, has left behind permanently, his
strong convictions on hierarchy.
Though this is a capital of a republic, there are still remnants of imperial grandeur
attached not only to the buildings but also in the carriage of people and places. The
Imperial Lipizzaner horses cantering round their palatial riding school to stately
music, is a show which is a must on every tourist’s itinerary. Romantics still
love to wallow in the tragic story of Crown Prince Rudolf and his 18-year-old
mistress Marie Vetsera, the little Baroness who died apparently in a suicide
pact in the country house of Mayerlining in 1889. It seems this city feeds upon its
past which is a sustaining diet indeed, together with the chocolate cake and apricot
dumplings washed down by the much talked of young wine or their aromatic
coffee. A Viennese socialite recalled in one of our visits to a renowned coffee
house, Landtmann. “Viennese coffee is so inimitable that they shipped it once
to New York along with water in order to serve with the authentic flavour”. As
for the young wine harvested in September and ready for the table in December,
it is savoured in all the garden restaurants, perhaps under the shade of an old
chestnut tree comfortably lolling against the trestle tables, rubbing shoulders
with poets, students and teachers.
Freud’s house in Berggasse is maintained as a shrine for having been the starting
point for the flowering of the Viennese genius; the surge of styles, ideas and
mannerisms which orchestrated the collapse of the Hapsburgs. No lyric joy of
liberation seems to have inspired the new artistic forms by which the architects, the
artists and the painters and the composers rebelled against the old order of things. The
temple of their revolution was the art gallery called the Secession House built
by the architect Josef Olbrich in 1898 and still as good as new. With its dome of
gilded laurel leaves, it looks like a mausoleum and was opened by the Emperor.
Music is an integral part of the Viennese spiritual makeup. The people seem to
have an almost possessive relationship with great musicians - Beethoven, Mozart,
Haydn. The grave of Beethoven in the Grove of Honour at the central cemetery is a
place of pilgrimage. The stadtpark has a gilded statue of Strauss which has by now
become a kind of symbol of their love for music. I cannot resist quoting an elderly lady
with a keen ear for music who said, “Only a Viennese lady can sit still while a Strauss
waltz is played”. As we see the selling queues day after day for the performances at
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the Opera House one can vaguely understand this distinctively Viennese
passion for music. The cheapest standing tickets are the best way to enjoy a
performance, the Institute Director assured me; “only then you get the real fee! of
a performance” and it is true that the artists seek the approval of the standing
ticket holders whose discerning taste is proverbial. After which I stopped feeling
envious of the so called prestigious dress circle connoisseurs and was happy with
my modestly priced tickets in the balcony. Rossini’s opera drew a tremendous applause
but the greatest crowd puller is of course still Mozart. At the folks theatre, Gigi was
playing a spectacular production. Although one kept thinking nostalgically of
Maurice Chevalier, the cast did their best and the cause of true love won us over
eventually despite the fact it was acted out in German.
Walking up the crumbling gravel path outside the magnificent Belvedere Palace
or the stately Schounbrunn or merely strolling in the sunshine outside Karlslkirche
(one of Vienna’s spectacular Baroque churches with a dome like St. Peter’s) or
the famous Vienna woods which is said to have inspired so many artists, one
gets to feel the pulse of this city. School children gorging on chocolate doughnuts
early in the morning, weekend traffic moving towards the mineral springs at Baden
or old spinsters walking their canine or feline companions in the afternoon sun
... do they all portend a changing sense of values in the family life and home?
Divorces are common and getting more frequent than in the last decade and
children in dire need of love and affection find consolation in chocolates and pastries.
A friend confided that her idea of a peaceful weekend was to spend it in a
farmhouse without electricity. She felt that drawing water from a well was a
salubrious exercise and enjoys the rustic ambience of a primitive farm house as a
brief respite from the maddening crowd. Many like to soak themselves in the cool
mineral waters of the spas in Bad Neurlingen or Baden, raising their eyebrows at
the adjoining heated pool which has become passe. Adults are obsessively
conscious of fitness despite the temptations of the fabled Viennese pastries.
Aromatherapy, Yoga and Reiki are in but then they can hardly makeup for the
yawning vacuum one can perceive in the changing lifestyles of the urban
population losing out on familial bonding. It is a malaise fast spreading in all consumerist
societies and our own is eager to keep pace helped no doubt by the ubiquitous
media propagating western value systems. For the moment it is enough to forget
the tentacles of this malaise and enjoy the wafting strains of “Vienna Blood”
and nibble a Mozart Klugen at. St.Stephen’s square. The big wheel of the Prater
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funfair moves with gentle deliberation reminding us that prince’s palaces and
the glories of the past still linger in an intangible manner in the city’s facade -
the double-headed eagle of the Dual monarchy and the single-headed eagle of the
Austrian republic. A city of imposing structures, it continues to interest the epicure,
the art historian as well as the cultural dilettante who pauses to take a sample of the
riches of the past served amidst the realities of the present.
1. This passage seems to have been written more along the lines of
(1) a travelogue.
(2) an article on a place.
(3) the introduction to a book on a place.
(4) a memoir.
2. The friend of the author of this passage likes to unwind
(1) listening to the wafting strains of Beethoven.
(2) away from the hectic pace of urban life.
(3) by spending some time in the Opera House.
(4) in the cool mineral waters of the spas in Bad Neurlingen.
3. The passage describes Wien as
(1) quite a beautiful city.
(2) the academic capital of Europe.
(3) a city that has many gardens and parks.
(4) Both (1) and (3).
4. The city that the passage talks about
(1) is the capital of a republic.
(2) still retains the marks of grandeur.
(3) has magnificent carriages and people.
(4) has all of the above features.
5. According to the passage, the architectural ideas of the Viennese
(1) have become the mark of their antiquity.
(2) no longer enjoy their earlier reputation.
(3) were revolutionary in nature.
(4) have been followed by many other countries.
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6. The people in Vienna are

(1) obsessed with familial bonding.
(2) very conscious about physical fitness.
(3) fond of theatres.
(4) gentle and intelligent.
7. ‘The realities of the present’ do not include
(1) Aromatherapy, Yoga and Reiki.
(2) the eager acceptance of Western values by the Viennese.
(3) increasing incidence of divorce.
(4) the Gothic, Baroque and Grecian buildings.
8. At the Opera House, the author bought tickets for the balcony because
(1) there, one is supposed to get the real feel of the performance.
(2) the artists seem to value the appreciation of this section.
(3) only connoisseurs of music are admitted to the dress circle.
(4) of reasons not stated in the passage.
PASSAGE – II
According to Hobbes, man is by nature selfish. Accordingly, he paints a very
pessimistic picture of the state of nature. He says it was a state of war: “a war of all
against all”. There was no notion of right and wrong, justice and injustice. Force
and fraud were the cardinal virtues in the state of nature. Man in the state of nature
lived in continual fear and danger of violent death. As Hobbes puts it, the life in the
state of nature was “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short”. With a view to escape
the horror and anarchy of the state of nature, the people entered into a social contract.
While concluding the contract, every man said t6 every other man “I authorise and
give up my right of governing myself to this man, or to his assembly of men, on
this condition, that though give up thy right to him, and authorise all his actions in
like manner. This done, the multitude so united in one man is called a
Commonwealth”.
As a result of this contract, the state came into existence. All the individuals
surrendered their rights to a particular person or group of persons who became the
sovereign. It may be noted that the sovereign was not a party to the contract but
emerged out of the contract. The people surrendered all their powers to the sovereign
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unconditionally and could not withdraw them. In other words the individual did
not have any right to revolt against the sovereign.
Locke’s picture of state of nature is quite different from the one painted by Hobbes.
Locke says that man is not essentially selfish and his actions are guided by reason.
Therefore, in the state of nature, people lived peacefully and co-operated with
each other. They were governed by the law of nature, a law based on reason and
morality. They also enjoyed natural rights like right to life, liberty and property.
However due to lack of an impartial authority which could punish those who violated
the natural law, people faced much inconvenience. Therefor, they decided to create
the state through a contract. According to’ Locke, each person transferred to the
community the right to enforce the law of nature. The community in its turn entered
into another contract with the ruler which is known as governmental contact. As
per this contract the government was obliged to carry out the laws of nature and
protect the natural rights of the people. If the ruler failed to carry out his part of
contract, the people could legitimately remove him because the sovereignty
ultimately resided in the people.
Rousseau’s Theory of Social Contract combines the theories of Hobbes and Locke.
He tried to harmonies the absolute power of the sovereign with the freedom of the
individual. Rousseau paints quite an attractive picture of the state of nature. He
says men lived a free, healthy and honest life in the state of nature. The resources
of nature were sufficient to meet the demands of all. There was no clash amongst
members of the society because the institutions of family and private property did
not exist. In short, in the state of nature, people lived like noble savages. But with
the rise of the institution of private property, inequality and other allied evils made
their appearance. To overcome these, the people were obliged to conclude the
contract. According to Rousseau the contract was concluded by the individuals in
their individual capacity on the one hand and the community as a whole on the
other. Thus every individual surrendered all his rights to the community. To quote
Rousseau, “each of us puts in common his person and all his powers under the
supreme direction of the General Will; and in our corporate capacity we receive
each member as an indivisible part of the whole. In making a surrender of his
power, the individual was not a loser, because “each individual, by giving himself
to no one; and since there is not member over whom you do not acquire the same
right that you give him over yourself, you gain the equivalent of all you lose, and
greater force to preserve what you have”.
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Rousseau, thus, laid the foundations of popular sovereignty as absolute, but insists
that sovereignty belongs to the people. In short, Rousseau’s sovereign is Hobbes’
Leviathan with its head chopped off.
9. One of the difference between the theories of Hobbes and Locke relates to
(1) the relationship of an individual with his family
(2) the relationship of an individual with his neighbours
(3) the right of an individual to press for the removal of his ruler
(4) the existence of a superior person in the group who could be entrusted
with rulership
10. The sovereign, according to Hobbes,
(1) entered into a contract with the individuals to protect them
(2) was not a party to the contract between different individuals forming the
state
(3) was to be elected collectively by the people
(4) could be removed from his leadership if the individuals so desired
11. That the ultimate sovereignty rests with the people and not with the leader is
the view of
(1) Hobbes and Locke (2) Locke and Rousseau
(3) Hobbes and Rousseau (4) Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau
12. According to Locke, the responsibility of the state is to
(1) enforce natural laws only
(2) protect its citizens from aggression form neighbouring states
(3) enforce natural law and guard the natural rights of the individual
(4) protect the people from violent animals
13. One of the natural rights, according to Locke, is
(1) to elect their ruler (2) to remove their ruler
(3) to be guided by reason (4) the right to liberty
14. Rousseau strongly believed that, in the state of nature,
(1) men lived harmoniously with their families
(2) everyone could get sufficient food
(3) the need was felt for a superior authority to maintain order
(4) individuals parcelled off land among themselves and lived in peace.
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15. Rousseau called early men ‘noble savages’ because

(1) each of them could have a large extent of land for himself
(2) they were not dressed but were peaceful
(3) they were noble because they led a honest life but were savage-like because
they did not have families
(4) they fought peacefully with their rulers.
16. According to whose theory was the individual not a net loser of his rights during
the development of the state?
(1) Hobbes and Rousseau (2) Locke and Rousseau
(3) Rousseau alone (4) Locke, Hobbes and Rousseau
PASSAGE – III
The writer who deals with a sexual theme is always in clanger of being accused, by
those who think that such themes should not be mentioned, of an undue obsession
with his subject. It is thought that he would not risk the censure of prudish and
prurient persons unless his interest in the subject were out of all proportion to its
importance. This view, however, is only taken in the case of those who advocate
changes in the conventional ethic. Those who stimulate the appeals to harry
prostitutes and those who secure legislation nominally against the White Slave
Traffic, but really against voluntary and decent extra-marital relations; those who
denounce women for short skirts and lipsticks; and those who spy upon sea beaches
in the hopes of discovering inadequate bathing costumes, are none of them supposed
to be the victims of a sexual obsession! Yet in fact they probably suffer much more
in this way than do writers who advocate greater sexual freedom. Fierce morality
is generally a reaction against lustful emotions, and the man who gives expression
to it is generally filled with indecent thoughts- thoughts which are rendered indecent,
not by the mere fact that they have a sexual content, but by the fact that morality
had incapacitated the thinker from thinking cleanly and wholesomely on this topic.
I am quite in agreement with the Church in thinking that obsession with sexual
topics is an evil, but I am not in agreement with the Church as to the best methods
of avoiding this evil. It is notorious that St. Anthony was more obsessed by sex
than the most extreme voluptuary who ever lived; I will not adduce more recent
examples for fear of giving offence. Sex is a natural need, like food and drink. We
blame the gormandizer and the dipsomaniac, because in the case of each an interest
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which has a certain legitimate place in life has usurped too large a share of his
thoughts and emotions. But we do not blame a man for a normal and healthy
enjoyment of a reasonable quantity of food. Ascetics, it is true, have done so, and
have considered that a man should cut down his nutriment to the lowest point
compatible with survival, but this view is not now common, and may be ignored.
The puritans, in their determination to avoid the pleasures of sex became somewhat
more conscious than people had been before of the pleasures of the table. As a
seventeenth-century critic of puritanism says;
Would you enjoy gay nights and pleasant dinners ?
Then must you board with saints and bed with sinners.
It would seem, therefore, that the Puritans did not succeed in subduing the purely
Corporeal part of our human nature, since what they took away from sex they
added to gluttony. Gluttony is regarded by the Catholic Church as one of the seven
deadly sins, and those who practise it are placed by Dante in one of the deeper
circles of hell; but it is a somewhat vague sin, since it is hard to say where legitimate
interest in food ceases and guilt begins to be incurred. Is it wicked to eat anything
that is not nourishing? If so, with every salted almond we risk damnation. Such
views, however, are out of date. We all know a glutton when we see one, and
although he may be somewhat despised, he is not severely reprobated. In spite of
this fact, undue obsession with food is rare among those who have never suffered
want. Most people eat their meals and then think about other things until the next
meal. Those, on the other hand, who, having adopted an ascetic philosophy, have
deprived themselves of all but the minimum of food, become obsessed by visions
of banquets and dreams of demons bearing luscious fruits. And marooned Antarctic
explorers, reduced to a diet of whale’s blubber, spend their days planning the dinner
they will have at the Carlton when they get home.
Such facts suggest that, if sex is not to be an obsession, it should be regarded by
the moralists as food has come to be regarded, and not as food was regarded by the
hermits of the The baid. Sex is a natural human need like food and drink. It is true
that men can survive without it, whereas they cannot survive without food and
drink, but from a psychological standpoint the desire for sex is precisely analogous
to the desire for food and drink. It is enormously enhanced by abstinence, and
temporarily allayed by satisfaction. While it is urgent, it shuts out the rest of the
world from the mental purview. All other interests fade for the moment, and actions
may be performed which will subsequently appear insane to the man who has been
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guilty of them. Moreover, as in the case of food and drink, the desire is enormously
stimulated by prohibition. I have known children refuse apples at breakfast and go
straight out into the orchard and steal them, although the breakfast apples were
ripe and the stolen apples unripe. I do not think it can be denied that the desire for
alcohol among well-to-do Americans is much stronger than it was twenty years
ago. In like manner, Christian teaching and Christian authority have immensely
stimulated interest in sex. The generation which first ceases to believe in the
conventional teaching is bound, therefore, to indulge in sexual freedom to a degree
far beyond what is to be expected of those whose views on sex are unaffected by
superstitious teaching, whether positively or negatively. Nothing but freedom will
prevent undue obsession with sex, but even freedom will not have this effect unless
it has become habitual and has been associated with a wise education as regards
sexual matters. I wish to repeat, however, as emphatically in America, where I find
it particularly pronounced among the sterner moralists, who display it markedly
by their readiness to believe falsehoods concerning those whom they regard as
their opponents. The glutton, the voluptuary, and the ascetic are all self-absorbed
persons whose horizon is limited by their own desires, either by way of satisfaction
or by way of renunciation. A man who is healthy in mind and body will not have
his interests thus concentrated upon himself. He will look into the world and find
in it objects that seem to him worthy of his attention. Absorption in self is not, as
some have supposed, the natural condition of unregenerate man. It is a disease
brought on, almost always, by some thwarting of natural impulses. The voluptuary
who gloats over thoughts of sexual gratification is in general the result of some
kind of deprivation, just as the man who hoards food is usually a man who has
lived through a famine or a period of destitution. Healthy, outward-looking men
and women are not to be produced by the thwarting of natural impulse, but by the
equal and balanced development of all the impulses essential to a happy life.
I am not suggesting that there should be no morality and no self-restraint in regard
to sex, any more than in regard to food. In regard to food we have restraints of
three kinds, those of law, those of health. We regard it as wrong to steal food, to
take more than our share at a common meal, and to eat in ways that are likely to
make us ill. Restraints of a similar kind are essential where sex is concerned, but in
this case they are much more complex and involve much more self-control.
Moreover, since one human being ought not to have property in another, the analogue
of stealing is not adultery, but rape, which obviously must be forbidden by law.
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The questions that arise in regard to health are concerned almost entirely with
venereal disease, a subject which we have already touched upon in connection
with prostitution. Clearly, the diminution of professional prostitution is the best
way, apart from medicine, of dealing with this evil, and diminution of professional
prostitution can be best effected by that greater freedom among young people
which has been growing up in recent years.
17. The author is most likely to agree with the idea that:
(1) indecent thoughts are a reaction to puritanism.
(2) prohibition acts as the great cure for perjury.
(3) guilt is the sole remedy for sexual aggression.
(4) the ‘theory of survival’ propounded by Ascetics is uncommon.
18. Theme of the passage is :
(1) Sex is one of the several basic necessities of human life and should be
treated likewise.
(2) Sexual freedom is a must for a sane and morally healthy society.
(3) Sex is a unique requirement of life which demands the iron claws of law.
(4) Puritanical attitudes towards sex can be damaging.
19. The author is least likely to agree with the idea that:
(1) moralists, through their actions, basically give vent to their lustful ambitions.
(2) gluttony is a precisely definable sin unlike sex.
(3) desire for sex grows enormously under restraint and abstinence.
(4) satisfaction as well as renunciation are both self-aggrandizing by nature.
20. The author, while advocating sexual freedom, does hint towards a caveat when
he says that:
(1) moral values are a must to prevent veneral diseases
(2) sex education is a must.
(3) religion must be separated from sex.
(4) educational institutes should create awareness.
21. The author feels that:
(1) obsession with sexual topics is not an evil.
(2) sex should be freely practised without inhibitions.
(3) sex is very different from the normal desires.
(4) None of these.
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22. Dante must have been a :

(1) priest (2) puritan
(3) liberal thinker (4) moral authority
23. Being an ascetic :
(1) is the greatest virtue of all
(2) is no guarantee against lustful thoughts
(3) is a desirable social goal
(4) is no guarantee against waste
24. The best title for this passage would be:
(1) Sex and Desires (2) Sex and Human Values
(3) Human, values and Religion (4) Sex : Fun or Fear ?
25. For an equal and balanced development of impulses
(1) thwarting of natural impulses aggravates cravings and proves detrimental.
(2) issues of morality must not be ignored.
(3) adequate amount of self restraint is essential.
(4) All of these.
26. The author is least likely to be ...
(1) a modern man with liberal ideas
(2) a sex maniac
(3) an iconoclast
(4) Cannot be determined
27. Which of the following does not logically follow puritan : sex
(1) teetotaler: alcohol (2) misanthrope: people
(3) agnostic: God (4) None of these
PASSAGE – IV
I wish I could say that doing something about what matters most is just as
simple as following the outlined principles. Unfortunately, you’ll still need to find
ways to deal with unwanted telephone callers, folks who poke their heads into
your office to share the latest gossip, and the unplanned-for emergencies at work,
home, and elsewhere. There may still be times when even your new and clearer
personal vision of who you are will not be sufficient to motivate you to do something
about what matters most.
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An interesting phenomenon takes place in most people’s lives when they decide to
accomplish something important. The decision may be little or big: to go back to
school, to change jobs, or to accomplish some big task at work. After making those
decisions, we often experience a battle with what I call our demons. It’s almost
as if little devils sit on our shoulders and speak words of discouragement and
defeatism into our ears. These demons seem to dispense all the reasons for
your not doing what you’ve just decided to do.
There was a time when I had gained some weight that I didn’t want, and I decided
to lose it. At first I got pretty motivated about it: “Gee, I’ve got to lose twenty-five
pounds, and I’m really going to do this.” But within nanoseconds after making that
decision came the demons: There’s no way you’re going to lose that weight. You
have to exercise, and you hate exercise. These inner voices tried to convince me
that I couldn’t do it. We have to deal with these kinds of inner demons throughout
our lives, and if we’re going to whip them, we must not allow them to be successful
in their quest to stop or derail us.
The most effective tool I have discovered in whipping the demons is to have regular
victories in my life every single day. When you do something right, take a moment
and savor the feeling. Even a little victory does wonders for your confidence and
motivation. Make a conscious effort to successfully complete some task each day
related to something that really matters to you. That’ll help keep the demons at
bay. There are many types of diseases that afflict the human body, and we spend
millions and perhaps billions of dollars trying to find cures. But there is one disease
of epidemic proportions in our society on which we spend little or no money or
effort-the crippling disease called fear of failure.
When my oldest son was a junior in high school, he competed for and won a
position on the basketball team. He was very excited about being able to play for
his high school. In the first part of the season I noted some interesting behavior
during his games. When he shot a ball and missed, he didn’t shoot for the rest of
the game. If he ran into one of the opposing team players, he backed off. He stopped
being aggressive and stopped going after the ball. This pattern was repeated off
the basketball court. If he got bad grades in school, he became very difficult to be
around and turned inward; he even got ugly on occasion because of my reaction to
his grades.
Being a concerned parent, I confronted him on one occasion and asked him why he
stopped shooting, why he backed off when he ran into one of the opposing players,
why he got so ugly when he got bad grades. I didn’t get my answer immediately.
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We talked about it for some time, but finally, in a moment of total openness, he
mentioned that he was deathly afraid of failing. A big red flag went up when I
heard him say that, and I said, “I think we finally found the root cause of the
problem. You have a belief that failure is bad. Where did you get an idea like that?
In a trembling voice he said, “Dad, you don’t know anything about failure.”
Surprised, I said, “What do you mean I don’t know anything about failure?” He
responded, “Come on, Dad. You have this big company. All these people work for
you. What do you know about failure?” This exchange was followed by my
describing to my son the failures that I had experienced in my life, and we resolved
together that there was really nothing wrong with failure. It was part of the learning
process, and the point was to get back on course after messing up.
One of the biggest things that keeps people from achieving what matters most to
them is this kind of fear. Suppose I really identify what matters most to me. Then
I’ll have to come face to face with what I’m not doing about what matters most to
me, and I may see that as failure and I don’t want to fail. I don’t want to go through
the ugly feelings that failure can sometimes bring. Therefore, I won’t take the time
to sit down and go through any of this stuff because knowing what matters most to
me is going to open up the possibility of failing. Fear like that can extinguish the
human spirit. Don’t let it immobilize you in your quest to do something about the
things that matter most to you.
When we ended our conversation about failure that day, my son and I decided that
there was a better and truer principle that he could believe in failure is part of
growth and that is how we learn. Armed with that principle, my son was a completely
different basketball player. There were games when I thought he was too aggressive.
He lost his surliness about getting bad grades. His failures were now learning
experiences. Closely related to the fear of failure is the fear of change: Maybe I’m
not totally happy, but at least I’m comfortable. If I do all these things this book
talks about, my life might have to change, pushing me out of my comfort zone and
sending me into unknown territory.
In his wonderfully motivating book ‘Release Your Brakes’, James Newman talks
about comfort zones, those places and conditions we gravitate to by the paths of
least resistance, usually by default. Leaving our comfort zones can be difficult
unless, as Newman counsels, we realize that doing so can be an adventure, a
rejuvenating and exhilarating experience. If we can consider leaving comfort zones
as adventures, then we won’t be afraid to fail and can understand that we might fail
many times before we eventually succeed. Thomas Edison failed a number of times
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before he achieved some of his most important inventions, including the electric
lightbulb. Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa struck out more times than they ever
hit home runs, but a person never hits a home run without taking a very healthy
swing at the ball. And today no one remembers Babe Ruth’s strikeouts. Remember,
failing is nothing more than a lesson for the next and greater battle.
There is a wonderful story about a very successful entrepreneur who was asked
why he was so successful. His response was “Good decisions.” The second question
was “Well, how do you make good decisions?” The response: “Experience.” And
then the final question: “How do you get experience?” And the response: “Bad
decisions.” That’s a wonderful treatise on how we grow. We learn by our experience.
We learn by mistakes. We learn by failing. We learn by attempting something.
Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t, but we find the better way. Do
whatever it takes to get the fear of failure out of your system. Failure is a marvelous,
magnificent blessing that teaches us how to grow. The processes and principles
we’ve talked about are powerful and proven tools that will help you identify what
you want to do and how to do it. Over the past two decades these concepts have
made a major difference in my personal effectiveness and self-esteem. I’ve also
seen them at work in the lives of thousands I have taught. They can do the same for
you if you use them to live in accordance with what matters most in your life.
28. Which of the following would best agree with the author’s contention, as
conveyed bythe passage?
(1) Fear motivates a person to perform still better.
(2) Fear prevents people from failing and is responsible for their success.
(3) Fear of failure is not warranted and should be got rid of.
(4) Fear is a desirable feeling, for it keeps people on check.
29. Which of the following is not a representation of the contents of the passage?
(1) Life should comprise daily regular victories over the ‘demons’.
(2) Nobody really desires to fail and go through the ugly feelings.
(3) Failing is nothing more than a lesson for the next and greater battle.
(4) Failure shatters and destroys a person.
30. All of the following are false, with respect to the passage, except that :
(1) fear of failure should not be cultivated but should be removed.
(2) failure stifles the confidence of a person.
(3) failure makes a person run away from challenges.
(4) failure makes a believer an unbeliever.
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31. The main theme of the passage is that :

(1) hard work is the key to success and happiness.
(2) failure is a magnificent blessing which teaches one how to grow.
(3) failure is a prime cause of demotivation and demoralisation.
(4) luck plays an important role in shaping the destiny of a person.
32. As per the passage, Newman feels that leaving the comfort zone is :
(1) difficult and foolish.
(2) is adventurous and thrilling if one accepts ‘failure’ in the proper spirit.
(3) nothing to worry about as man learns to adapt favourably with the
environment.
33. In the passage the author has expressed :
(1) apprehensions. (2) cynicism.
(2) positive thinking. (4) Utopian ideas.
(1) Failure – A Stopping Stone To Success.
(2) Suicides Are Attributed To Sense Of Failure.
(3) Nothing Succeeds Like Success.
(4) Failure Is A Good Teacher.
(1) descriptive. (2) motivational.
(3) idealistic. (4) impractical.
36. The passage is most likely an extract from :
(1) the chapter on a book on improving the mindset and attitude towards
changes in life.
(2) an article containing tips on how to succeed.
(3) a description of the feeling of elation on being successful.
(4) musings on reasons of failure.
37. A conclusion drawn from the passage is that :
(1) fear of failure removes complacency in a person.
(2) fear of failure is necessary for one to value success.
(3) failure is the growth factor as one learns from it and grows.
(4) the loss of faith and hope is believed to arise from failure.
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TEST – 9
Time : 25 Min.
PASSAGE – I
Does a passion to create drive the human species, making us utterly different
from all other living things with which we share the planet? Or do our capacities
for novelty, great and small, link smoothly to those in other species, so that
human creativity is really a variant on a theme repeated countless times in the
history of life? Are we to understand ourselves as expressing a “regional dialect”
for innovation - unique and special in its own way to be sure, but nonetheless a
restyling of universal evolutionary stratagems? Stressing descent with modification,
Darwinism seems to say that we are both special and mundane. Is this a fact of
human evolution or a fact of evolution’s inability to explain humanity? Just
partially humbled by our place in the Earth’s teeming pattern of life, Darwinians
reach, Prometheus-like, past psychology and even past philosophy to explain
our behaviours, minds, and social forms in a language once reserved for debates
about hybrid corn or fungus growing among ants. What is going on?
Blame it on the cognitive revolution. In the breezy days of behaviourist
populism, evolution, following Darwin’s lead, was content largely with
speculations about the origins of instinct and drives. This was the thin end of
the wedge that evolutionists have driven into the mind as behaviourism thawed
into cognitive science and the mysteries of consciousness, intention, self-
awareness, and human genius returned from the fringes of scientific respectability
to crowd the centre of human science. The linchpin, of course, has been the aggressive
detente set up between the brain scientists and the mind scientists. The wall is
down. Increasingly, claims to a proper study of humankind are taken as the
common, if controversial, property of both parties. Biological evolution withers
without organic matter, filled with heritable variations, on which to work its
seeming magic. But once the mind-brain connection gains a toehold, evolutionary
exegesis follows swiftly, and it has, buoyed by a remarkable volume of
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anthropological, ethological, paleontologic and tenetic field work among human

and animal populations.
Resembling evolved organisms to an uncanny degree, the “definitions” of creativity
I have seen in the literature carry the unique imprint of their progenitors while
suggesting some mild degree of consensus: creativity as a kind of capacity to
think up something new that people find significant. It is possible to be more precise
than this, of course, and in order to maintain consistency with my earlier usage, I
shall by creative process have in mind those mental events by which an organism
intentionally goes beyond its prior experience to a novel and appropriate
outcome. Creativity will refer to that tantalizing constellation of personality and
intellectual traits shown by people who, when given a measure of free rein, spend
significant amounts of time engaged in the creative process. Outcomes
achievable in principle by creative organisms can vary hugely in their novelty
and significance. The Wright brothers, for instance, could have stayed home
and made better bicycles instead of undertaking their momentous journeys to
Kitty Hawk with all the difficulties and deprivations those entailed.
An outcome is a product of the creative process. The creative process need not
have an outcome consistent with the organism’s originating intentions. But it can,
as the invented world that is home to our species demonstrates. In science, outcomes
often teach us something about the world that predates our intentions and are called
discoveries. An innovation, finally, refers to an outcome that attains some level
of adoption in the society under consideration. Outcomes can fail to turn into
innovations or be lethargic in making the transition through a lack of attributed
value or because the discoverer “sits” on the breakthrough or through sheer
happenstance. Can evolutionary science offer any insights into what is happening
in such diverse circumstances, over and above that already possible through
psychology and the neurosciences?
I think the answer is a guarded yes because evolutionary science treats questions
of special relevance to creativity research. These are the “why” questions. As in
the behavioural sciences, much of biology is concerned with “how” questions:
how cells divide, how long-term memories are stored in the brain etc. These are
familiar questions dealing with process and mechanism. Evolutionists, however,
want answers to the whys rather than the hows of anatomy, physiology, and
behaviour: why cells divide in a certain way or why parents sometimes behave
altruistically toward their offspring. The question ‘why’ demands the study of
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history - the history of individuals, the history of their culture and society, and
ultimately the history of their population. The history of biological process is
by definition evolution. Let us consider this latter point more carefully because
above all it is important to know why human creativity is as it is, rather than
some other way it might have been had the past been different.
1. The term ‘this’ in the statement ‘this was the thin end of the wedge’…..refers to
(1) conjectures about innate responses and motivations.
(2) proofs in the behaviourist school.
(3) the cognitive revolution that was gaining ground.
(4) the new theories of evolutionists.
2. If an organisation were to encourage work related creativity among its
employees, as per the passage they need
(1) extra time to pursue their ideas.
(2) autonomy, at least to a certain extent.
(3) to be chosen as per their previous track record and academic performance.
(4) financial and emotional support from the firm.
3. Identify the statement which is not true as per the passage.
(1) A ‘discovery’ is that outcome of a creative process which brings forth the
already existing fact into limelight.
(2) An innovation is an outcome that has attracted a respectable degree of
adoption by society.
(3) Creative process need not be a deliberate function on the part of an
individual.
(4) During the process of creativity, the intended and the actual goals need not
be the same.
4. The statement, ‘The wall is down’ implies one of the following.
(1) Scientists have realised the importance of the evolution of cognitive science.
(2) The increasing level of acceptance that the human brain is a subject of
research for both brain and mind scientists.
(3) The bridge between behaviourism and cognitive science is stronger now.
(4) The evolutionary and anthropological evidence erased the distinction
between the psychology and the philosophy of human evolution.
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PASSAGE – II
The relationship between age and income is only casually appreciated by. recent
theories on the purported redistribution of income. It is known, of course, that the
average person’s income begins to decline after he is fifty-five years of age, and
that it declines sharply after sixty-five. In 1957, 58 per cent of the spending units
headed by persons sixty-five years and older earned less than $2,000. The
relationship between old age and low income has often been considered a reflection
of sociological rather than economic factors-and therefore not to be included in
any study of the economy. Actually, the character of the relationship is too integrated
to be dissected. However, its significance is mounting with the increase in the
number of older persons. The lowest-income groups include a heavy concentration
of older persons-in 1957, one-third of all spending units in the $0-$2,000 class
were headed by persons sixty-five years and older; in 1948, it was 28 percent.
But in economic planning and social policy, it must be remembered that, with the
same income, the sixty-five-or-more spending unit will not spend less or need less
than the younger spending unit, even though the pressure to save is greater than on
the young. The functional ethos of our economy dictates that the comparatively
unproductive old-age population should consume in accordance with their output
rather than their requirements. Most social scientists have accepted these values;
they have assumed that the minimum economic needs of the aged should be lower
than those of the younger family. But it is precisely at retirement that personal
requirements and the new demands of leisure call for an even larger income if this
period is to be something more enjoyable than a wait for death.
The relationship between age and income is seen most clearly in the unionised
blue-collar worker. Except for layoffs, which his seniority minimises, and wage
increments for higher productivity, awarded in many industries, his income range
is determined by his occupation. But within that income range, the deciding factor
is the man’s age. After forty-five the average worker who loses his job has more
difficulty in finding a new one. Despite his seniority, the older worker is likely to
be down-graded to a lower paying job when he can no longer maintain the pace set
by younger men. This is especially true of unskilled and semiskilled workers.
The early and lower income period of a person’s working life during which he
acquires his basic vocational skills, is most pronounced for the skilled, managerial,
or professional worker. Then, between the ages of twenty-five and fifty, the average
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worker receives his peak earnings. Meanwhile, his family expenses rise; there are
children to support and basic household durables to obtain. Although his family’s
income may rise substantially until he is somewhere between thirty-five and forty-
five, per capita consumption may drop at the same time. For the growing working-
class family, limited in income by very nature of the bread-winner’s occupation,
the economic consequences of this parallel rise in age, income, and obligations are
especially pressing. Many in the low-income classes are just as vulnerable to poverty
during middle age, when they have a substantially larger income, as in old age. As
family obligations finally do begin declining, so does income. Consequently, most
members of these classes never have an adequate income.
Thus we see that, for a time, increasing age means, increasing income, and therefore
a probable boost in income-tenth position. Although there are no extensive data in
the matter, it can be confidently asserted that higher income-tenths have a much
greater representation of spending units headed by persons aged thirty-five to fifty-
five than do the lower income-tenths. This is demonstrably the case among the
richest 5 per cent of the consumer units. The real question is: To what extent does
distribution of income-tenths within a certain age group deviate from distribution
of income-tenths generally? Although information is not as complete as might be
desired, there is more than enough to make contingent generalisations. Detailed
data exist on income distribution by tenths and by age for 1935-36 and 1948, and
income-size distribution by age for the post-war years. They disclose sharp income
inequalities within every age group (although more moderate in the eighteen-to-
twenty-five category) -inequalities that closely parallel the over-all national income
pattern. The implication is clear: A spending units’ income-tenth position within
his age category varies much less, if at all, and is determined primarily by his
occupation.
In other words, in America the legendary of economic opportunity where any man
can work his way to the top, there is only slight income mobility outside the natural
age cycle of rising, then falling income. Since most of the sixty-five-and-over age
group falls in to the low-income brackets and constitutes the largest segment of the
$0-$2,000 income class, it is of obvious importance in analysing future poverty in
the United States to examine the growth trends of his group. The sixty-five-and-
over population composed 4.0 percent of the total population in 1900, 5.3 per cent
in 1930, 8.4 per cent in 1955, and will reach an estimated 9.6 percent in 1970 and
10.8 percent in 2000. Between 1900 and 1975, the total national population is
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expected to increase 176 per cent, but those from ages forty-five to sixty-four are
expected to increase 316 percent, and those sixty-five and over are expected to
increase 572 percent. Between 1960 and 1975, the population aged eighteen to
twenty-five is also expected to grow far more rapidly than the middle-aged
population. With the more rapid expansion of these two low-income groups, the
young and the old, in the years immediately ahead, an increase in the extent of
poverty is probable.
5. According to the passage, most social scientists erroneously assume that
(1) personal expenses increase with the age of the spending unit
(2) the needs of the younger spending unit are greater than those of the aged
(3) leisure living requires increased income
(4) old age population should consume in accordance with their requirements
6. It can be inferred that in the 35-55 age category
(1) income-tenth positions vary greatly
(2) income-tenth positions vary very little
(3) there is great mobility between income- tenth positions
(4) occupations have little bearing on the income-tenth position
7. The author believes which of the following?
I. The aged will continue to increase as a percentage of the total population
II. Income inequalities decrease with increasing age.
III. Managerial and professional workers have greater income mobility than
blue collar workers.
(1) I (2) II
(3) III (4) I and III
8. In the passage the term “functional ethos” means
(1) national group (2) ethic influence
(3) prevailing ideology (4) biased opinion
9. The article states that the old age population
(1) has increased due to longer life expectancy
(2) exceeds all but the 18-25 age group in growth rate
(3) is well represented among the higher-income tenths
(4) is increasing as a percentage of the low-income tenths
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10. According to the author, aside from the natural age cycle, economic opportunity
in America is greatly limited by
I. occupation
II. income inequality within every age group
III. class background
(1) I (2) II
(3) III (4) I and III
11. According to the passage, the older, unionised blue-collar workers are
(1) assured constant salary until retirement
(2) given preference over new workers because of seniority
(3) likely to receive downgraded salary
(4) more susceptible to lay-off after 40
12. The article states that the average worker finds that
(1) as family obligations begin escalating, income begins to decline
(2) his wage gains coincide with the decline of family needs
(3) he earns least while he is acquiring vocational skills
(4) he reaches peak earning power between the ages of 40-65
13. The article states that within higher income-tenths
(1) 5% of the spending units are in the 35-55 age group
(2) the income-tenth increases occur only in the 35-55 age group
(3) the 35-55 age group have a greater representation than they do with the
lower-income tenths
(4) income variables show a higher correlation than those determined by
occupation
14. It can be inferred that one could most accurately predict a person’s income
from
(1) his seniority position (2) his natural age cycle
(3) his occupation (4) his occupation and age
PASSAGE – III
Investment in education and universities is very important for developing countries.
One can come up with many reasons. A budding crop of talent would be lost to the
world without proper education. But this reason is true for developed and
underdeveloped societies. There is, in fact, only one reason why underdeveloped
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societies like ours establish and maintain universities. We do so as an investment

for our future. We are spending large and disproportionate amounts of money on a
few individuals, so that they should in the future make a disproportionate return to
the society. We are investing in a man’s brain in just the same way as we invest in
a tractor, and just as we expect the tractor to do many times as much work for us as
a handhoe so we expect the student we have trained to make many times as great a
contribution to our well-being as the man who had not had this good fortune. We
are giving to the student while he is at the university, so that we may receive more
from him afterwards. There is nothing altruistic about it; poor people cannot afford
financial altruism. We have a right to expect things from university graduates and
others who have had higher education of any kind: we do not just have hope, but
an expectation.
15. Underdeveloped societies establish and maintain universities because
(1) the universities produce educated manpower.
(2) such societies need highly skilled people.
(3) there is an acute shortage of skilled people.
(4) they want to have a bright future.
16. How much money is spent on a few individuals in the universities?
(1) An adequate amount of money is spent on some individuals in the
universities.
(2) Much more, than underdeveloped societies can really afford, is spent on a
few individuals.
(3) Little money is spent on the individuals in the universities.
(4) Much money is spent on the individuals in the universities.
17. How much work is expected from a tractor?
(1) A tractor does as much work as a handhoe does.
(2) A tractor does much more work than is done by four pairs of bullocks.
(3) A tractor does many times more work than a handhoe.
(4) A tractor does far more work than any group of farmers can do.
18. Why is so much money spent on student at the university?
(1) So that he can concentrate on his studies.
(2) So that we can get far more from him when he leaves the university.
(3) So that he can better his professional skill.
(4) So that he does not have any financial worry.
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19. What is meant by the phrase financial altruism?

(1) It means a careless use of finances.
(2) It means financial irresponsibility.
(3) It means financial accountability.
(4) It means an overgenerous spending of money on others.
20. What do we expect from a university graduate in developing societies?
(1) We expect a university graduate to maintain high professional standard.
(2) We expect a university graduate to return to the society far more than he
gets from it.
(3) We expect a university graduate to be forward looking in his outlook.
(4) We expect a university graduate to be a man of action.
21. We are investing in a man’s brain in just the same way as we invest in a tractor.
It means that
(1) spending money on university graduates is as useful as spending on tractors.
(2) spending money on university graduates is far more useful than spending
money on tractors.
(3) spending money on university graduates is exactly with the same intention
as spending money on tractors
(4) spending money on university graduates is slightly more useful than
spending money on tractors.
PASSAGE – IV
Modern thought has realized considerable progress by reducing the existent to the
series of appearances which manifest it. Its aim was to overcome a certain number
of dualisms which have embarrassed philosophy and to replace them by the monism
of the phenomenon. Has the attempt been successful?
In the first place we certainly thus get rid of that dualism which in the existent
opposes interior to exterior. There is no longer an exterior for the existent if one
means by that a superficial covering which hides from sight the true nature of the
object. And ibis true nature in turn, if it is to be the secret reality of the thing, which
one can have a presentiment of or which one can suppose but can never reach
because it is the “interior” of the object under consideration-this nature no longer
exists. The appearances which manifest the existent are neither interior nor exterior;
they are all equal, they all refer to other appearances, and none of them is privileged.
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Force, for example, is not a metaphysical conatus of an unknown kind which hides
behind its effects (accelerations, deviations. etc.); it is the totality of these effects.
Similarly an electric current does not have a secret reverse side; it is nothing but
the totality of the physical-chemical actions which manifest it (electrolysis, the
incandescence of a carbon filament, the displacement of the needle of a
galvanometer, etc.). No one of these actions alone is sufficient to reveal it. But no
action indicates anything which is behind itself; it indicates only itself and the total
series.
The obvious conclusion is that the dualism of being and appearance is no longer
entitled to any legal status within philosophy. The appearance refers to the total
series of appearances and not to a hidden reality which would drain to itself all the
being of the existent. And the appearance for its part is not an inconsistent
manifestation of this being. To the extent that men had believed in noumenal realities,
they have presented appearance as a pure negative. It was “that which is not being”;
it had no other being than that of illusion and error. But even this being was
borrowed, it was itself a pretense, and philosophers met with the greatest difficulty
in maintaining cohesion and existence in the appearance so that it should not itself
be reabsorbed in the depth of non- phenomenal being. But if we once get away
from what Nietzsche called “the illusion of worlds-behind-the-scene,” and if we
no longer believe in the being-behind-the-appearance, then the appearance becomes
full positivity; its essence is an “appearing” which is no longer opposed to being
but on the contrary is the measure of it. For the being of an existent is exactly what
it appears. Thus we arrive at the idea of the phenomenon such as we can find, for
example, in the “phenomenology” of Husserl or of Heidegger-the phenomenon of
the relative-absolute. Relative the phenomenon remains, for “to appear” supposes
in essence somebody to whom to appear. But it does not have the double relativity
of Kant’s Erscheinung. It does not point over its shoulder to a true being which
would be, for it, absolute. What it is, it is absolutely, for it reveals itself as it is. The
phenomenon can be studied and described as such, for it is absolutely indicative of
itself.
The duality of potency and act falls by the same stroke. The act is everything.
Behind the act there is neither potency nor “hexis” nor virtue. We shall refuse, for
example, to understand by “genius”-in the sense in which we say that Proust “had
genius” or that he “was” a genius-a particular capacity to produce certain works,
which was not exhausted exactly in producing them. The genius of Proust is neither
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the work considered in isolation nor the subjective ability to produce it; the work is
considered as the totality of the manifestations of the person.
22. Which of the following most agrees to what the author has to say in the passage?
(1) The dualism of ‘being’ and ‘appearance’ has legal standing within
philosophy.
(2) The ‘appearance’ is the total series of appearances and is not a hidden
reality, which would cease to exist.
(3) The ‘act’ is not everything, it is the ‘virtue’ or ‘potency’ behind it, which
matters.
(4) All except (1).
23. All of the following are true, with respect to the passage, except that :
(1) modern thought aims to strengthen dualism.
(2) the genius of a person is not manifest in the work considered in isolation
nor the subjective ability to produce it.
(3) the ‘appearance’ is a consistent manifestation of the ‘being’.
(4) dualism does not oppose interior to the exterior.
24. As per the passage, ‘appearance’ which portrays the ‘existent’ is :
(1) exterior. (2) interior.
(3) neither interior or exterior. (4) relative absolute.
25. As per the passage, the aim of the modern thought was to :
(1) do away with dualisms that have embarassed the philosophy.
(2) replace the dualisms by the monism.
(3) realise considerable progress by linking the existent to the series of
appearances manifesting it.
26. All of the following are false, with respect to the passage, except that :
(1) ‘exterior’ is the superficial covering which conceals, from sight, the true
nature of the object.
(2) the work of a genius does not reflect the totality of the person’s
manifestation.
(3) ‘appearance’ was thought of as negative, as long as people believed in
realising realities that were perceptible through intuition.
(4) The noumenon can be studied and described, as it is absolutely indicative
of itself.
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27. The idea of ‘act’ is best represented by which of the following?

(1) An ‘act’ is linked to ‘potency’ and ‘virtue’ behind it.
(2) The ‘act’ is the result of premeditated ‘plans’.
(3) There is no ‘potency’ or ‘virtue’ behind an ‘act’.
(1) Modern Thought And Dualism.
(2) Noumenal Realities - A Popular Belief.
(3) ‘Being’ And ‘Appearance’ - Their Non-relationship.
(4) Force Is Totality Of Several Effects.
29. The style of handling the passage is :
(1) satiric. (2) deductive.
(3) descriptive. (4) intuitive.
30. The passage is on :
(1) genealogy. (2) psychology.
(3) philosophy. (4) theology.
31. As per the passage, ‘dualism’ is best explained by :
(1) ‘being’ being distinct from ‘appearance’.
(2) ‘potency’ and ‘act’ being inter linked.
(3) opposition of ‘exterior’ to ‘interior’ in the ‘existent’ entity.
125
TEST – 10
Time : 25 Min.
PASSAGE – I
Much has been written in recent months about India’s reserve levels and the
embarrassment arising from its rapid growth. I do not propose to refer to this
issue here except to reiterate the adequacy of the reserves level has to be seen
not from the viewpoint of gross trade transactions, but from that of net current
account deficits, and that too the seasonal peaks. If the total trade of India, for instance,
per year absorbs on the import side, say $30 billion, it is unfair to calculate the
minimum reserve requirements in terms of so many months’ gross requirements.
This method ties up too much of the importing countries’ resources. What is
material is the nature and size of the difference between the exports and the
imports. Unfortunately, international rating agencies have fixed notions of what is
a reasonable cover for imports and prescribe as much as six to nine months
import requirements. Reserves are like cash inventories and we should have just
enough to meet emergencies and not too much, which would mean tying up resources.
Principles of management science do not seem to have permeated central bankers.
The foreign reserves of a country, like India, include foreign exchange, gold
and Special Drawing Rights (SDRs). The foreign exchange component is usually
held as deposits with foreign banks of proven rating, central banks and as
securities, preferably gilt securities of countries like the UK, the US and Japan.
In a period of volatility, the main reserve management problem faced by central
banks arises when the value of one or other of the currencies and deposits declines.
The total value of the foreign exchange reserves comes down when the currency
in which the significant part is denominated declines. To cite a simplified
example, if the total reserves are, say $5 billion at a time and say, more than 50
percent is in dollars and the balance is in yen, the effective value of the reserves comes
down in terms of yen.
Usually, the exchange holdings are measured in SDRs. SDRs are built up of a
basket of currencies. The total effective value of reserves in SDR terms will go
126
down when the currency composition of the reserves is weighted towards the
depreciated currency. The art of reserve management is to be able to anticipate
which particular currencies are likely to decline or strengthen and move the currency
composition away from the potentially weak to the potentially rich currency.
In short, what we need, in effect is sophisticated currency risk management.
This problem is not peculiar to central banks, as even large corporates have
the same problem. Indeed when large corporates move funds from one money centre
of the world to another, mostly to preserve the value of their balances, there is a shake-
up in the markets. In the Indian context, however, the Reserve bank of India (RBI)
is the country’s main holder of foreign exchange. Experts in RBI have been
active in evolving models to forecast currency movements.
A potentially weak currency is tempting as deposits denominated in that currency usually
offer higher interest rates. A risk-prone dealer may like to put more of the reserves into
such a high yield currency. Deposits denominated in yen do yield low rates of interest,
while those in sterling used to pay better rates. But once sterling falls, all the benefits
which could have attracted higher rates of interest in sterling-denominated deposits
are wiped out in one blow. The currency composition of exchange reserves calls
for the same blend of skills as needed by a portfolio manager in an active stock market.
The reserve manager has to be aware of the likely shifts both in interest rates
and in exchange rates and this skill has to be continuously upgraded.
Reserve management at the central bank level needs to be coordinated with
debt management, which in India is not handled by RBI. The foreign debt of a
country is also denominated in different currencies. Exposure to a particular
currency of repayment could be costly if that currency strengthens. Thus, the
yen debt of India offers a serious potential problem as it is strengthening
continuously. The merits of placing a major part of reserves - even if it be at
lower rates of interest -in strong currencies will help as it mitigates the problem
of currency risk in debt.
Various methods are available for hedging foreign exchange risks in debt
servicing. The same techniques are also useful for reserve management.
Besides currency risk, the central banker has also to hedge against interest
risk. RBI investment in foreign bonds, for instance, can also carry risks since interest
rate changes by the central banks of bond-issuing countries will change the investment
value. It is here that derivatives can be useful, even though they carry certain risks.
127
Another obvious risk to be avoided is ‘credit risk’ - the risk associated with banks
in which RBI has placed deposits. Certain central banks, such as Portugal’s,
lost heavily because they placed deposits with BCCI. A golden rule in reserve
management is to be safe and sound rather than to dare and despair. Some
argument has been advanced that if RBI is more daring in putting its reserves in high
yielding securities, the country would benefit. This would be risky. A lender of
last resort, like the central bank, cannot afford to take such risks. Safety above all
has to be the RBI’s motto.
The path of reserve management is not smooth. While the RBI has been handling this
with customary service and panache, I trust this will not turn its face against
sophisticated methods of risk management. When the reserves at stake are
$17 billion or more, nothing but the best will do.
1. The author feels that currency reserves should be measured in terms of
(1) the currency required in the next few months for trading.
(2) the gross requirement for the next few months.
(3) the seasonal peaks of the net current account deficits.
(4) the gross trade transaction requirements.
2. A risk-prone dealer is likely to invest in
(1) Pounds. (2) Yen.
(3) potentially weak currency. (4) potentially strong currency.
3. One of the principles of management science applicable to the central bankers,
according to the passage, is to
(1) hedge risks according to a solid plan.
(2) invest carefully across various portfolios so as not to keep all the eggs in
one basket.
(3) restrict liquid cash reserves to an optimal level.
(4) leave resources free so that they can be invested as and when the need
arises.
4. Which of the following cannot be inferred from the passage?
(1) Gross trade transactions are an important measure for foreign exchange
reserves.
(2) SDRs are made up of a combination of currencies.
(3) Reserve management is influenced by debt management.
(4) India’s foreign reserves are mainly in dollars.
128
5. Interest rates of a country increase as

(1) its currency value increases.
(2) its currency becomes weak.
(3) its balance of trade for that country improves.
(4) its currency increases with respect to sterling.
6. According to the passage, which of the following is not relevant to reserve
level and its management?
(1) Gross trade transaction
(2) The inter-bank interest offer rate
(3) Interest rates in different currencies
(4) Debt management
7. The central banker does not have to deal with
(1) currency risk. (2) debt risk.
(3) interest risk. (4) credit risk.
8. Interest risk is associated with the changes in the levels of interests of
(1) the RBI.
(2) the central banks of the countries where the Indian central bank invests.
(3) a country’s trading debt.
(4) a country’s foreign reserves.
9. Credit risk, in case of RBI,
(1) does not give higher returns.
(2) does not increase the foreign reserves of a country.
(3) depends on the bank of deposit.
(4) depends on the country of deposit.
PASSAGE – II
All along the chain of biological evolution, the extinction of species appear to
have been stages in the process of adapting genetic lineages to changing
environmental conditions. Although some catastrophic extinctions occurred
naturally, producing total loss of a genetic line, such catastrophes were
comparatively rare. In modem times, however, human activities have altered the
fundamental nature of this process, resulting in nearly total genetic losses.
129
It is not difficult to gain general agreement that main-induced increases in the

endangerment and extinction of wildlife-whether due to habitat alteration or loss,
pollution, insufficiently regulated hunting, or other factors are undesirable. It is,
however, more difficult to obtain consensus when consideration is given to the
economic costs of correcting such trends, including natural habitat preservation,
regulation of pesticides and other toxic substances, and wildlife and park
management, Endangered species often are, in effect, competitors with humans
for habitat and other resources which also provide other kinds of human uses and
needs.
The identification of ‘threatened species and other significant wildlife trends must
precede any corrective measures, and our knowledge base for making such
identification is deficient in many respects. Our present lists of threatened species
and subspecies are known to be incomplete, except in those geographical areas
which contain habitats of species that have important commercial or sports harvest
value.
Measures needed to protect endangered species vary considerably in difficulty
and cost. Of the approximately 400 invertebrate species which presently appear to
be threatened, for example, about one-third could probably be restored by such
inexpensive means as modifying the boundaries of designated natural areas,
acquiring and protecting caves and other small areas which contain particular
species, and additional management of parks and refuges.
Another one-third of the endangered lower animal species are threatened principally
by water pollution and could be protected by improved control, particularly of five
Southern rivers.
The remaining one-third of the 400 endangered shellfish species would be
considerably more difficult to protect. These are threatened by complex factors,
such as overcollecting, channelisation, highway and housing development, dams,
introduced species such as the Asian snail, dredging, quarry washing, poor erosion
control and lowering of water tables.
10. Which of the following is neither expressed nor implied in the passages as
being a threat posed by man to wildlife preservation?
(1) large scale housing development
(2) introduction of species into environments
(3) poor co-ordination of international efforts at part and refuge management
(4) control of blights and pests which attack crops
130
11. It can be inferred form the passage that studies of endangered species
(1) have revealed little of importance to improve wildlife preservation
(2) are more likely to be carried out when a financially concerned interest
group is involved
(3) sometimes endanger the very species they hope to protect
(4) seldom arrive at consensus
12. Which of the following statements is not expressed or implied in the passage?
(1) Approximately 400 species of mollusk are on the current endangered
species list.
(2) The Asian snail is a victim of overcollecting.
(3) It is not easy to arrive at consensus on how to deal with situations in which
humans compete with endangered species for habitat and other resources,
especially when cost is a factor.
(4) Water pollution, which can be controlled at relatively low cost, threatens
the majority of the endangered invertebrate species.
13. According to the passage catastrophic extinction of a species leading to total
genetic loss
(1) was more likely to occur as a result of natural calamities and similar
conditions than by other means
(2) has rarely occurred among shellfish
(3) can be reversed by careful wildlife management
(4) has occurred more frequently during recent times than in the distant past
14. According to the passage, the author
(1) unequivocally believes that endangered species should be saved, regardless
of cost
(2) advocates natural habitat preservation
(3) is apprehensive about the cost of saving the 400 endangered species of
shellfish
(4) makes no judgements as to what should be done; he or she does, however,
suggests that we must learn more before we undertake any corrective
measures
131
PASSAGE – III
So far, it has been a bad season for the moustache. Two of our last great moustaches,
Enoch Powell and Frank Muir, have both passed away; Oswald Mosley has garnered
a great many bad reviews for his television series; and now, to cap it all, Saddam
Hussein is facing the prospect of a military bombardment. When the Official History
of the Moustache comes to be written, 1998 may well be seen as its Annus Horribilis.
At the moment, Saddam deserves at least a little credit as the bearer of probably
the most famous moustache in the world. And his particular moustache has inspired
a great many more moustaches: looking at those rather pot-faced shots of Saddam
and his ministers looking edgily at each other around his cabinet table, one is
struck by quite how much moustache there is in the room - quite enough to fill a
pillow-case, or to provide a Jack Russell with a decent winter vest.
It may well be that a Saddam-style moustache is a prerequisite for admittance to
Iraqi cabinet. Perhaps junior ministers anxious for advancement visit the barbers
and request a Saddam.
The situation is further complicated by the curious information coming out of Iraq
that Saddam employs 12 full-time lookalikes, each with his own moustache, to act
as decoys. An expert on Newsnight this week even suggested that the recent footage
of Saddam struggling to look relaxed and confident with his generals may well
have starred one of these lookalikes. If so, I wonder if his generals have been let in
on the ruse?
It would be unnerving for them to discover too late that all their military operations
were being choreographed by a mustachioed Iraqi actor down on his luck, a sort of
Middle Eastern Peter Wyngarde.
Men of a dictatorial disposition tend to hide behind a moustache, notably Stalin,
Hitler. Quite how Hitler came by his curiously comical moustache is unclear, though
Alan Bullock’s biography suggest it might have been carved from a beard rather
than grown as it were from scratch. Who knows? Perhaps Hitler originally requested
a walrus moustache (“I’ll have a Bismarck, please”), but the barber had a shaky
hand and kept cutting it lopsided, so that the final little postage-stamp was all that
could be salvaged.
With the examples of Saddam and Stalin and Hitler fresh in the public mind, the
British politicians have become wary of being too closely associated with a
moustache. The last of the trusty old Tory moustaches, in a direct line of descent
132
from the moustaches of Eden and Macmillan, belonged to Sir Anthony Grant, the
Conservative MP for Cambridge South West, who has now, alas, retired. Labour
moustaches are similarly in retreat, the two most famous moustaches in recent
Labour history were sported by Ken Livingstone and Peter Mandelson, yet they
have both now disappeared, leaving their owners looking strangely vacant and
useless, human equivalents of the empty car-lot.
Neither Livingstone nor Mandelson has ever stated publicly why they turned their
backs on their moustaches. What Livingstone may have failed to appreciate was
that this very spivviness was his main attraction. Londoners took to him because
they liked the idea of being run by someone who looked like Private Walker from
Dad’s Army. His moustache gave him the air of someone who could find you 20
Capstan, six fresh eggs and three gallons of petrol, no questions asked. The moment
he shaved it off, he lost this spivvy air, and quickly dwindled into insignificance.
Livingstone’s example demonstrated how a moustache can usurp and then outshine
a personality. The same thing happened to Salvador Dali: his last self-portrait,
painted in 1983 when he was ill and close to death, consisted of little more than the
familiar upturned moustache. And the Dali moustache had a life of its own: those
who saw him in his coffin remarked on quite how sprightly and full of beans his
moustache looked. In the circumstances, those who are at present urging Livingstone
to stand for Mayor of London might be better advised to seek out and sponsor his
missing moustache, or at least to encourage a reunion.
In his autobiography, Memoirs of an Unjust Fella, Sir James Richards quoted his
father’s belief that there were three kinds of men you must never trust: a man who
hunts south of the Thames; a man who has soup for lunch; and a man who waxes
his moustache. In the current climate, this dictum should probably be extended to
include any man who wears a moustache, waxed or otherwise. The moustache is in
retreat.
15. The Annus Horriblis for the moustache was
(1) 1945 (2) 1962
(3) 1998 (4) 1918
16. British politicians are giving up the moustache because
(1) of associations with dictators (2) it makes them look shifty
(3) opinion polls are against it (4) voters prefer the clean-shaven look
133
17. Which of the following is true?

(1) A moustache can usurp and outshine a personality.
(2) A Saddam-style moustache is a prerequisite for admittance to the Iraqi
cabinet.
(3) Livingstone without his moustache looked like Private Walter from Dad’s
Army.
(4) Sir Anthony Grant is the last moustache labour politician.
18. In recent times, the moustache
(1) has returned to favour.
(2) is worn only by dictators,
(3) is considered unfashionable in England.
19. According to the author all the following are true of a moustache, except
(1) dictators tend to hide behind it.
(2) british politicians are weary of it.
(3) hitler’s moustache might have been carved from a beard.
(4) the official history of the moustache is being written in 1998.
20. Sir James Richards’ father believed the following men to be untrustworthy
(1) A man who has soup for lunch
(2) A man who waxes his moustach
(3) A man who hunts south of Thames
21. Saddam Hussein’s versatility in behaviour is explained by
(1) his whims (2) his lookalikes
(3) his cabinet (4) the length of his moustache
PASSAGE – IV
It is often said that India has got the third largest pool of scientific and
technological manpower in the world. But, in spite of this large capable/ competent
pool we seem to be poorly equipped with the requisite R&D to make a dent in the
global market place. The harsh truth is that except for a few selected areas,
breakthrough in technology including drive for indigenisation have met with limited
134
success. There are neither adequate resources nor proper support to carry out
fundamental research, development of indigenous technology or commercialisation
of new technology by the Indian industries. It is not possible for an operating
industry to carry out fundamental research for typical operational problem or
develop technology suiting to own operating conditions.
For a developing country like India, where virtually majority of industrial parameters
are 1/10th of world average, its economy needs massive continuing investment in
industrial and infrastructure sector. Industrial development will continue to be
heavily dependent on advanced technology. Technology and technology transfer
are critical factors in development In India, considerable engineering, technology
and consultancy capabilities/ expertise have been built up over the years in various
sectors/disciplines. Several scientific and technical co-operation agreements have
been made with a large number of developing and developed countries at
government, enterprise, institution and industry association levels.
However, the issue of co-operation in the area of advanced technology is generally
not appearing in these agreements. Western countries dumping shelved technology
on developing countries or secretive in parting with their advanced process
technology is old hat. Therefore, developing countries like India will be in a tight
spot if they do not develop technologies by themselves or make judicious selection
regarding choice of technology and sourcing the technology. The choice of
technology and its source is an important aspect as it relates to quality and price of
technology. The actual goal of transfer of technology is the establishment of
scientific and technological capabilities rather than the mere transfer of plant and
equipment.
Technology transfer consists of three major components; technology assessment,
technology acquisition and assimilation and technology diffusion to local industries
after incorporating the necessary degree of modifications. In reality, organisations
usually fail to use the right technology and its source as many times they are not
conversant with the latest development in the field, may be unaware of the
emergence of new technologies and changing approaches to technology transfer.
They may lack the professional skills to select a technology that is suited to local
operating conditions and to acquire it on favourable terms. They are guided by
past relations, current affiliations and terms and conditions set in the aid package.
Thus the technology transfer process becomes often too costly and ineffective.
135
The principal form of technology transfer are licensing, outright purchase, joint
venture with capital participation, technology transfer associated with buy back
arrangement, technology transfer associated with loan agreement, technology
transfer associated with plant operation and management contract, technology
transfer forming part of a consultancy contract ( supply of basic engineering),
technology transfer associated with equipment supply contract or turnkey contract
etc. The technologies, which are latest in the field are usually non negotiable and
least available for acquisition. Whereas at the other end of the fulcrum exists the
shelved technologies. Between the latest and the shelved technologies lie ample
opportunities.
For successful transfer, in addition to finance, skilled and qualified personnel,
such as academicians, scientists and technicians are equally important. Unless the
importing organisation ensures the availability of such qualified personnel and
resources, the technology transfer is bound to suffer or may prove ineffective.
Technology transfer could be a multi-edged weapon which, if handled wrongly,
may result in expensive/unwanted imports, hurting the technological progress and
ultimately may lead to disaster. The national think tanks like R&D centres (CSIR
and others), engineering and technology institutions (IITs, IISc, Roorkee University
and others) and leading consultants like MECON can come forward to avoid such
eventuality.
Interaction between industry, engineering consultancy organisation, R&D centres
and academic institutions is very limited. These players work on seemingly disparate
paths. There are specific reasons behind this. Industrial/ engineering consultants
have limitations of time. Strong commitment to project objectives and adherence
to the strict time schedule within which they have to complete the assignment is of
paramount importance. By the time a technology is developed, it becomes very
costly and sometimes outdated. Due to this reason, industry/engineering consultants
have a tendency to avoid academic institutions and R&D centres.
As academic institutions and R&D centres do not receive due attention of industries,
they prefer working in isolation. Working in isolation is associated with many
constraints. The fact remains that the academics who do not understand the corporate
world cannot survive and the corporate world that does not use good academic
input can’t grow. There has to be a mutual appreciation, instead of competing, they
should complement each other. Truly speaking, there is a strong need for consultants
to get support/ assistance from R&D centres/ educational institutions in upgrading
136
their technical strength and strengthening design and engineering capabilities so

as to enable them to render their services to Indian industries by undertaking multi
faceted assignments under tight time schedule and stiff competition.
22. The author seems to agree best with which of the following, as made out by the
passage?
(1) The actual goal of technology transfer is the establishment of scientific
and technological capabilities, rather than merely transferring plant and
equipment.
(2) The technologies that are latest in the field are usually negotiable.
(3) Industry/engineering consultants take academic institutions and R & D
centres into confidence.
(4) As industries recognise academic institutions and R & D centres, working
in isolation is ruled out.
23. According to the passage, technology transfer :
(1) could be a multi edged weapon, which if handled wrongly, could hurt the
technological process disastrously.
(2) involves skilled and qualified personnel.
(3) is a critical factor in the country’s development.
24. According to the passage, academic institutions and industries :
(1) cannot function together.
(2) should complement each other, instead of competing.
(3) should have exchange visits of their key personnel.
(4) both require governmental attention.
25. As per the passage, which of the following cannot be the reason for India not
achieving the desired level of success in technological break through?
(1) Lack of adequate resources and proper support to carry out fundamental
research.
(2) Transfer of technology becoming a costly and an ineffective process.
(3) Commercialisation of the technology by the Indian industries has not taken
place to the desired level.
137
26. The interaction between R & D centres and industries is very limited which, as
per the passage, is because :
(1) the perception of an academician in the R & D centre is different from an
industrialist.
(2) by the time the technology is developed, it is costly and outdated.
(3) the laws of the land act as a binding factor for the industrialist to patronise
technology.
(4) there is no demand for technology.
27. Which of the following goes against what the author has to state in relation to
the passage?
(1) The transfer of technology has three components.
(2) Industrial development heavily depends on indigenous technology.
(3) The choice of technology has nothing to do with quality and price.
(4) India has the third largest pool of scientific and technological manpower
in the world.
28. All of the following are false, as per the passage, except that :
(1) technologies, which are latest in the field, are usually non-negotiable and
least available for acquisition.
(2) academicians can survive without understanding the corporate world.
(3) the revamping of the Indian economy is not possible by merely investing
in industrial and infrastructural sector.
(4) industries need not have a good academic input for their growth.
29. The passage relates to :
(1) business. (2) research & development.
(3) technology transfer. (4) market awareness.
(1) Industry And Academics.
(2) Technology Transfer–A Must For Developing Countries.
(3) Proper Utilisation Of Scientific And Technological Manpower.
(4) Pricing The Technology.
(1) the statement of facts. (2) imaginative.
(3) intuitive. (4) debatable.
138
TEST-1
PASSAGE-I PASSAGE-II PASSAGE-III PASSAGE-IV
Q. No. Ans. No. Q. No. Ans. No. Q. No. Ans. No. Q. No. Ans. No.
1 3 7 4 13 4 20 4
2 3 8 2 14 4 21 4
3 1 9 4 15 2 22 2
4 2 10 2 16 2 23 4
5 3 11 1 17 2 24 3
6 1 12 2 18 2 25 2
19 3 26 4
27 3
28 2
TEST-2
1 4 6 1 13 4 23 2
2 3 7 2 14 1 24 4
3 3 8 1 15 2 25 1
4 2 9 3 16 1 26 4
5 1 10 3 17 4 27 3
11 3 18 3 28 3
12 4 19 4 29 1
20 3 30 2
21 4 31 4
22 1 32 1
139
TEST-3
1 2 7 2 12 2 20 2
2 4 8 4 13 3 21 2
3 2 9 3 14 4 22 3
4 4 10 3 15 2 23 3
5 4 11 2 16 4 24 1
6 2 17 2 25 3
18 4 26 2
19 3 27 2
28 2
29 2
TEST-4
1 3 10 3 18 2 27 1
2 2 11 1 19 2 28 3
3 3 12 4 20 1 29 4
4 3 13 4 21 4 30 3
5 3 14 3 22 3 31 4
6 1 15 2 23 3 32 1
7 2 16 2 24 1 33 3
8 2 17 1 25 2 34 2
9 2 26 4 35 3
36 3
140
TEST-5
1 3 9 2 13 2 23 1
2 4 10 1 14 2 24 1
3 2 11 2 15 1 25 1
4 2 12 2 16 2 26 4
5 1 17 1 27 2
6 3 18 2 28 1
7 1 19 3 29 4
8 4 20 1 30 4
21 4 31 2
22 2 32 4
33 2
TEST-6
1 4 6 1 10 2 20 2
2 1 7 3 11 1 21 3
3 4 8 4 12 2 22 3
4 2 9 2 13 1 23 3
5 3 14 3 24 3
15 1 25 1
16 3 26 3
17 4 27 1
18 2 28 4
19 3 29 2
141
TEST-7
1 3 5 1 13 2 19 4
2 1 6 1 14 2 20 1
3 3 7 2 15 2 21 2
4 4 8 4 16 1 22 3
9 3 17 1 23 3
10 3 18 3 24 4
11 3 25 3
12 3 26 2
27 1
28 1
TEST-8
1 1 9 3 17 4 28 3
2 2 10 2 18 1 29 4
3 4 11 2 19 2 30 1
4 4 12 3 20 2 31 2
5 3 13 4 21 4 32 2
6 2 14 2 22 2 33 3
7 4 15 3 23 2 34 4
8 4 16 3 24 2 35 2
25 4 36 1
26 2 37 3
27 4
142
TEST-9
1 1 5 2 15 1 22 2
2 2 6 1 16 2 23 1
3 3 7 4 17 3 24 3
4 2 8 3 18 2 25 4
9 4 19 4 26 3
10 4 20 2 27 3
11 3 21 3 28 1
12 3 29 2
13 3 30 3
14 3 31 4
TEST-10
1 3 10 3 15 3 22 1
2 3 11 2 16 1 23 4
3 3 12 3 17 1 24 2
4 4 13 4 18 4 25 4
5 2 14 4 19 4 26 2
6 2 20 4 27 3
7 2 21 2 28 1
8 2 29 3
9 2 30 2
31 1
143

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READING

This book is a part of set, not be sold separately.

(3) Inspite of government’s reassurance, there is always a threat of misusing

7. The passage is most probably taken from...

extends in moments of panic. Rambaldi has made it comical-looking, slightly

1. The metaphorical implication of the germination of weeds includes:

17. The existence of Russia and China has made Marxism

have agreed upon a roaster of performing watchman’s duties to guard against

28. The central idea of the passage is that :

6. Which of the following is definitely true in the context of the passage?

14. The author walked out of the specialist’s office

21. In early ’80s total input subsidies were :

27. The author seems to be :

(3) Are Martians pure and sinless?

19. The number of merchant bankers has come down to

1. The statement that can be attributed to Samkara is:

8. The religions like Vaishnansm, Sainism and Saketaism

10. The most appropriate title for the passage is

(3) People’s inability to read subtle messages

no doubt do so elsewhere too. The emphasis everywhere is on learning as an

32. The following doesn’t affect the sense of well-being adversely :

6. According to the passage, every rebellion expresses...

17. According to the passage, which statement is true?

23. The passage comes out with :

Interestingly, however, modern activism in India, and indeed elsewhere, reflects

5. The view with which Idealists are not likely to agree is

18. “Dreams is a subconscious state of mind”. The author will

Although he concentrated on the internal flaws of capitalism and the awakening of

23. The motivating principle envisioned by Marx, as expressed in the passage,

6. The people in Vienna are

15. Rousseau called early men ‘noble savages’ because

22. Dante must have been a :

31. The main theme of the passage is that :

anthropological, ethological, paleontologic and tenetic field work among human

societies like ours establish and maintain universities. We do so as an investment

19. What is meant by the phrase financial altruism?

27. The idea of ‘act’ is best represented by which of the following?

5. Interest rates of a country increase as

It is not difficult to gain general agreement that main-induced increases in the

17. Which of the following is true?

their technical strength and strengthening design and engineering capabilities so

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