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SECTION
I
Number of questions: 55
DIRECTIONS for questions I to 5:
Sentences given in each question, when properly sequenced, form a coherent
paragraph. Each sentence is labelled with a letter. Choose the most logical
order of sentence from among the four given choices to construct a coherent
paragraph.
1.
A. In rejecting the functionalism in positivist organization theory, either
wholly or partially, there is often a move towards a political model of
organization theory.
B. Thus the analysis would shift to the power resources possessed by different
groups in the organization and the way they use these resources in actual power
plays to shape the organizational structure.
C. At the extreme, in one set of writings, the growth of administrators in the
organization is held to be completely unrelated to the work to be done and to be
caused totally by the political pursuit of self- interest.
D. The political model holds that individual interests are pursued in
organizational life through the exercise of power and influence.
1. ADBC
2. CBAD
3. DBCA
4. ABDC
2.
A. Group decision making, however, does not necessarily fully guard against
arbitrariness and anarchy, for individual capriciousness can get substituted by
collusion of group members.
B. Nature itself is an intricate system of checks and balances, meant to
preserve the delicate balance between various environmental factors that affect
our ecology.
C. In institutions also, there is a need to have in place a system of checks and
balances which inhibits the concentration of power in only some individuals.
D. When human interventions alter this delicate balance, the outcomes have been
seen to be disastrous.
1. CDAB
2. BCAD
3. CABD
4. BDCA
3.
A. He was bone-weary and soul-weary, and found himself muttering, "Either I
can't manage this place, or it's unmanageable."
B. To his horror, he realized that he had become the victim of an amorphous,
unwitting, unconscious conspiracy to immerse him in routine work that had no
significance.
C. It was one of those nights in the office. when -the office clock was moving
towards four in the morning and Bennis was still not through with the incredible
mass of paper stacked before him.
D. He reached for his calendar and ran his eyes down each hour, half-hour, and
quarter-hour, to see where his time had gone that day, the day before, the month
before.
1. ABCD
2. CADB
3. BDCA
4. DCBA
4.
A. With that, I swallowed the shampoo, and obtained most realistic results
almost on the spot.
B. The man shuffled away into the back regions to make up a prescription, and
after a moment I got through on the shop-telephone to the Consulate, intimating
my location.
C. Then, while the pharmacist was wrapping up a six-ounce bottle of the mixture,
I groaned and inquired whether he could give me something for acute gastric
cramp.
D. I intended to stage a sharp gastric attack, and entering an old-fashioned
pharmacy, I asked for a popular shampoo mixture, consisting of olive oil and
flaked soap.
1. DCBA
2. DACB
3. BDAC
4. BCDA
5.
A. Since then, intelligence tests have been mostly used to separate dull
children in school from average or bright children, so that special education
can be provided to the dull.
B. In other words, intelligence tests give us a norm for each age.
C. Intelligence is expressed as Intelligence quotient, and tests are developed
to indicate what an average child of a certain age can do-what a 5-year-old can
answer, but a 4year-old cannot, for instance.
D. Binet developed the first set of such tests in the early 1900s to find out
which children in school needed special attention.
E. Intelligence can be measured by tests.
1. CDABE
2. DECAB
3. EDACB
4. CBADE
DIRECTIONS for questions 6 to 13: Read each of the eight short passages
given below and answer the question that follows it.
6. Three airlines - IA, JA and SA - operate on the Delhi-Mumbai route. To
increase the number of seats sold, SA reduced its fares and this was emulated by
IA and JA immediately. The general belief was that the volume of air travel
between Delhi and Mumbai would increase as a result.
Which of the following, if true, would add credence to the general belief?
I. Increase in profitability of the three airlines.
2. Extension of the discount scheme to other routes.
3. A study that shows that air travellers in India are price-conscious.
4. A study that shows that as much as 80% of air travel in India is
company-sponsored.
7. According to McNeill, a Brahmin priest was expected to be able to
recite at least one of the Vedas. The practice was essential for several
centuries when the Vedas had not yet been written down. It must have had a
selective effect, since priests would have been recruited from those able or
willing to memorize long passages. It must have helped in the dissemination of
the work, since a memorized passage can be duplicated many times.
Which one of the following can be inferred from the above passage?
I. Reciting the Vedas was a Brahmin's obligation.
2. The Vedic priest was like a recorded audio cassette.
3. McNeill studied the behaviour of Brahmin priests.
4. Vedic hymns had not been scripted.
8. Developed countries have made adequate provisions for social security
for senior citizens. State insurers (as well as private ones) offer medicare and
pension benefits to people who can no longer earn. In India, with the collapse
of the joint family system, the traditional shelter of the elderly has
disappeared. And a State faced with a financial crunch is not in a position to
provide social security. So, it is advisable that the working population give
serious thought to building a financial base for itself.
Which one of the following, if it were to happen, weakens the conclusion drawn
in the above passage the most?
1. The investable income of the working population, as a proportion of its total
income, will grow in the future.
2. The insurance sector is underdeveloped and trends indicate that it will be
extensively privatized in the future.
3. India is on a path of development that will take it to a developed country
status, with all its positive and negative implications.
4. If the working population builds a stronger financial base, there will be a
revival of the joint family system.
9. Various studies have shown that our forested and hilly regions and, in
general, areas where biodiversity—as reflected in the variety of flora—is
high, are the places where poverty appears to be high. And these same areas are
also the ones where educational performance seems to be poor. Therefore, it may
be surmised that, even disregarding poverty status, richness in biodiversity
goes hand in hand with educational backwardness.
Which one of the following statements, if true, can be said to best provide
supporting evidence for the surmise mentioned in the passage?
1. In regions where there is little variety in flora, educational performance is
seen to be as good as in regions with high variety in flora, when poverty levels
are high.
2. Regions which show high biodiversity also exhibit poor educational
performance, at low levels of poverty.
3. Regions which show high biodiversity reveal high levels of poverty and poor
educational performance.
4. In regions where there is low biodiversity, at all levels of poverty,
educational performance is seen to be good.
10. Cigarettes constitute a mere 20% of tobacco consumption in India, and
fewer than 15% of the 200 million tobacco users consume cigarettes., Yet these
15% contribute nearly 90% of the tax revenues to the Exchequer from the tobacco
sector. The punitive cigarette taxation regime has kept the tax base narrow, and
reducing taxes will expand this base.
Which one of the following best bolsters the conclusion that reducing duties
will expand the tax base'?
1. The cigarette manufacturers’ association has decided to indulge in
aggressive promotion.
2. There is a likelihood that tobacco consumers will shift to cigarette smoking
if cigarette prices were to reduce.
3. The cigarette manufacturers are lobbying for a reduction on duties.
4. An increase in duties on non-cigarette tobacco may lead to a shift in favour
of cigarette smoking.
11. Thomas Malthus, the British clergyman turned economist, predicted
that the planet would not be able to support the human population for long. His
explanation was that human population grows at a geometric rate, while the food
supply grows only at an arithmetic rate.
Which one of the following, if true, would not undermine the thesis offered by
Malthus?
1. Population growth can be slowed down by the voluntary choices of individuals
and not just by natural disasters.
2. The capacity of the planet to feed a growing human population can be enhanced
through biotechnological means.
3. Human systems, and natural systems like food supply, follow natural laws of
growth which have remained constant, and will remain unchanged.
4. Human beings can colonize other planetary systems on a regular and on-going
basis to accommodate a growing population.
12. The company's coffee crop for 1998-99 totalled 8079 tonnes, an all
time record. The increase over the previous year's production of 5830 tonnes was
38.58%. The previous highest crop was 6089 tonnes in 1970-7 1. The company had
fixed a target of 8000 tonnes to be realized by the year 2000-01, and this has
been achieved two years earlier, thanks to the emphasis laid on the key areas of
irrigation, replacement of unproductive coffee bushes, intensive refilling and
improved agricultural practices. It is now our endeavour to reach the target of
10000 tonnes in the year 2001-02.
Which one of the following would contribute most to making the target of I 0000
tonnes in 2001-02 unrealistic?
1. The potential of the productivity enhancing measures implemented up to now
has been exhausted.
2. The total company land under coffee has remained constant since 1969 when an
estate in the Nilgiri Hills was acquired.
3. The sensitivity of the crop to climatic factors makes predictions about
production uncertain.
4. The target-setting procedures in the company have been proved to be sound by
the achievement of the 8000 tonne target.
13. Animals in general are shrewd in proportion as they cultivate
society. Elephants and beavers show the greatest signs of this sagacity when
they are together in large numbers, but when man invades their communities they
lose all their spirit of industry. Among insects, the labours of the bee and the
ant have attracted the attention and admiration of naturalists, but all their
sagacity seems to be lost upon separation, and a single bee or ant seems
destitute of every degree of industry. It becomes the most stupid insect
imaginable,, and it languishes and soon dies.
Which of the following can be inferred from the above passage?
1. Humankind is responsible for the destruction of the natural habitat of
animals and insects.
2. Animals, in general, are unable to function effectively outside their normal
social environment.
3. Naturalists have great admiration for bees and ants, despite their lack of
industry upon separation.
4. Elephants and beavers are smarter than bees and ants in the presence of human
beings.
DIRECTIONS for questions 14 and 15: For each of the two questions,
indicate which of the statements given, with that particular question is
consistent with the description of the unseasonable man in the passage below.
Unseasonableness is a tendency to do socially permissible things at the wrong
time. The unseasonable man is the sort of person who comes to confide in you
when you are busy. He serenades his beloved when she is ill. He asks a man who
has just lost money by paying a bill for a friend to pay a bi II for him. He
invites a friend to go for a ride just after the friend has finished a long car
trip. He is eager to offer services which are not wanted but which cannot be
politely refused. If he is present at an arbitration, he stirs up dissension
between the two parties, who were really anxious to agree. Such is the
unseasonable man.
14. He tends to
1. entertain women.
2. be a successful arbitrator when dissenting parties are anxious to agree.
3. be helpful when solicited.
4. tell a long story to people who have heard it many times before.
15. The unseasonable man tends to
1. bring a higher bidder to a salesman who has just closed a deal.
2. disclose confidential information to others.
3. sing the praises of the bride when he goes to a wedding.
4. sleep late and rise early.
DIRECTIONS for questions 16 to 23: In each of the following sentences, a
part of the sentence is underlined. Beneath each sentence, four different ways
of phrasing the underlined part are indicated. Choose the best alternative from
among the four.
16. It was us who had left before he arrived.
1. we who had left before time he had arrived.
2. us who had went before he arrived.
3. us who had went before had arrived.
4. we who had left before he arrived.
17. The MP rose up to say that, in her opinion, she thought the
Women's Reservation Bill should be passed on unanimously.
1. rose to say that she thought the Women's Reservation Bill should be passed
2. rose up to say that, the Women's Reservation Bill should be passed on
3. rose to say that, in her opinion, she thought that the Women's Reservation
Bill should be passed
4. rose to say that, in her opinion, the Women's Reservation Bill should be
passed on
18. Mr. Pillai, the president of the union and who is also a member of
the community group, will be in charge of the negotiations.
1. since he is a member of the community group
2. also being a member of the community group
3. a member of the community group
4. , in addition, who is a member of the community group
19. Since the advent of cable television, at the beginning of this
decade, the entertainment industry took a giant stride forward in our
country.
1. this decade saw the entertainment industry taking
2. this decade, the entertainment industry has taken
3. this decade, the entertainment industry had taken
4. this decade, the entertainment industry took
20. His mother made great sacrifices to educate him, moving house on
three occasions, and severing the thread on her loom's shuttle whenever
Mencius neglected his lessons to make him understand the need to persevere.
1. severing the thread on her loom's shuttle whenever Mencius neglected his
lessons to make him understand the need to persevere.
2. severed the thread on her loom's shuttle whenever Mencius neglected his
lessons to make him understand the need to persevere.
3. severed the thread on her loom's shuttle whenever Mencius neglected his
lessons to make him understand the need for persevering.
4. severing the thread on her loom's shuttle whenever Mencius neglected his
lessons, to make them understand the need to persevere.
21. If you are on a three-month software design project and, in two
weeks, you've put together a programme that solves part of the problem, show
it to your boss without delay.
1. and, you've put together a programme that solves part of the problem in two
weeks
2. and, in two weeks, you've put together a programme that solves part of the
problem
3. and, you've put together a programme that has solved part of the problem in
two weeks
4. and, in two weeks you put together a programme that solved only part of the
problem
22. Many of these environmentalists proclaim to save nothing less than
the planet itself.
1. to save nothing lesser than
2. that they are saving nothing lesser than
3. to save nothing less than
4. that they save nothing less than
23. Bacon believes that the medical profession should be permitted to
ease and quicken death where the end would otherwise only delay for a few
days and at the cost of great pain.
1. be delayed for a few days
2. be delayed for a few days and
3. be otherwise only delayed for a few days and
4. otherwise only delay for a few days and
DIRECTIONS for questions 24 to 50: Each of the five passages given below
is followed by questions. For each question, choose the best answer.
PASSAGE
I
The World Trade Organisation (WTO) was
created in the early 1990s as a component of the Uruguay Round negotiation.
However, it could have been negotiated as part of the Tokyo Round of the 1970s,
since that negotiation was an attempt at a 'constitutional reform' of the
General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). Or it could have been put off to
the future, as the US government wanted. What factors led to the creation of the
WTO in the early 1990s?
One factor was the pattern of multilateral bargaining that developed late in the
Uruguay Round. Like all complex international agreements, the WTO was a product
of a series of trade-offs between principal actors and groups. For the United
States, which did not want a new Organisation, the dispute settlement part of
the WTO package achieved its longstanding goal of a more effective and more
legal dispute settlement system. For the Europeans, who by the 1990s had come to
view GATT dispute settlement less in political terms and more as a regime of
legal obligations, the WTO package was acceptable as a means to discipline the
resort to unilateral measures by the United States. Countries like Canada and
other middle and smaller trading partners were attracted by the expansion of a
rulesbased system and by the symbolic value of a trade Organisation, both of
which inherently support the weak against the strong. The developing countries
were attracted due to the provisions banning uni 'lateral measures. Finally, and
perhaps most important, many countries at the Uruguay Round came to put a higher
priority on the export gains than on the import losses that the negotiation
would produce, and they came to associate the WTO and a rules-based system with
those gains. This reasoning - replicated in many countries - was contained in
U.S. Ambassador Kantor's defence of the WTO, and it amounted to a recognition
that international trade and its benefits cannot be enjoyed unless trading
nations accept the discipline of a negotiated rules-based environment.
A second factor in the creation of the WTO was pressure from lawyers and the
legal process. The dispute settlement system of the WTO was seen as a victory of
legalists over pragmatists but the matter went deeper than that. The GATT, and
the WTO, are contract organisations based on rules, and it is inevitable that an
Organisation created to further rules will in turn be influenced by the legal
process. Robert Hudec has written of the 'momentum of legal development', but
what is this precisely? Legal development can be defined as promotion of the
technical legal values of consistency, clarity (or, certainty) and
effectiveness; these are values that those responsible for administering any
legal system will seek to maximise. As it played out in the WTO, consistency
meant integrating under one roof the whole lot of separate agreements signed
under GATT auspices; clarity meant removing ambiguities about the powers of
contracting parties to make certain decisions or to undertake waivers; and
effectiveness meant eliminating exceptions arising out of grandfather-rights and
resolving defects in dispute settlement procedures and institutional provisions.
Concern for these values is inherent in any rules-based system of co-operation,
since without these values rules would be meaningless in the first place. Rules,
therefore, create their own incentive for fulfilment.
The momentum of legal development has occurred in other institutions besides the
GATT, most notably in the European Union (EU). Over the past two decades the
European Court of Justice (ECJ) has consistently rendered decisions that have
expanded incrementally the EU's internal market, in which the doctrine of
'mutual recognition' handed down in the case Cassis de Dijon in 1979 was a key
turning point. The Court is now widely recognised as a major player in European
integration, even though arguably such a strong role was not originally
envisaged in the Treaty of Rome, which initiated the current European Union. One
means the Court used to expand integration was the 'teleological method of
interpretation', whereby the actions of member states were evaluated against
'the accomplishment of the most elementary community goals set forth in the
Preamble to the [Rome] treaty'. The teleological method represents an effort to
keep current policies consistent with stated goals, and it is analogous to the
effort in GATT to keep contracting party trade practices consistent with stated
rules. In both cases legal concerns and procedures are an independent force for
further cooperation.
In large part the WTO was an exercise in consolidation. In the context of a
trade negotiation that created a near- revolutionary expansion of international
trade rules, the formation of the WTO was a deeply conservative act needed to
ensure that the benefits of the new rules would not be lost. The WTO was all
about institutional structure and dispute settlement: these are the concerns of
conservatives and not revolutionaries, which is why lawyers and legalists took
the lead on these issues. The WTO codified the GATT institutional practice that
had developed by custom over three decades, and it incorporated a new dispute
settlement system that was necessary to keep both old and new rules from
becoming a sham. Both the international structure and the dispute settlement
system were necessary to preserve and enhance the integrity of the multilateral
trade regime that had been built incrementally from the 1940s to the 1990s.
24. What could be the closest reason why the WTO was not formed in the
1970s?
1. The US government did not like it.
2. Important players did not find it in their best interest to do so.
3. Lawyers did not work for the dispute settlement system.
4. The Tokyo Round negotiation was an attempt at constitutional reform.
25. The most likely reason for the acceptance of the WTO package by
nations was that
1. it had the means to prevent the US from taking unilateral measures.
2. they recognized the need for a rule-based environment to protect the benefits
of increased trade.
3. it settles disputes more legally and more effectively.
4. its rule-based system leads to export gains.
26. According to the passage, WTO promoted the technical legal values
partly through
1. integrating under one roof the agreements signed under GATT.
2. rules that create their own incentive for fulfilment.
3. grandfather-rights exceptions and defects in dispute settlement procedures.
4. ambiguities about the powers of contracting parties to make certain
decisions.
27. In the method of interpretation of the European Court of Justice,
1. current policies needed to be consistent with stated goals.
2. contracting party trade practices needed to be consistent with stated rules.
3. enunciation of the most elementary community goals needed to be emphasized.
4. actions of member states needed to be evaluated against the stated community
goals.
28. In the statement "...it amounted to a recognition that
international trade and its benefits cannot be enjoyed unless trading nations
accept the discipline of a negotiated rules-based environment.", ‘it'
refers to:
1. Ambassador Kantor's defence of the WTO.
2. The higher priority on export gains placed by many countries at the Uruguay
Round.
3. The export gains many countries came to associate with a rule-based system.
4. The provision of a rule-based system by the WTO.
29. The importance of Cassis de Dijon is that it
1. gave a new impetus to the momentum of legal development at the European Court
of Justice.
2. resulted in a decision that expanded incrementally the EU's internal market.
3. strengthened the role of the Court more than envisaged in the Treaty of Rome.
4. led to a doctrine that was a key turning point in European integration.
PASSAGE
II
Have you ever come across a painting, by
Picasso, Mondrian, Miro, or any other modem abstract painter of this century,
and found yourself engulfed in a brightly coloured canvas which your senses
cannot interpret? Many people would tend to denounce abstractionism as senseless
trash. These people are disoriented by Miro's bright, fanciful creatures and
two- dimensional canvases. They click their tongues and shake their heads at
Mondrian's grid works, declaring the poor guy played too many scrabble games.
They silently shake their heads in sympathy for Picasso, whose gruesome,
distorted figures must be a reflection of his mental health. Then, standing in
front of a work by Charlie Russell, the famous Western artist, they'll declare
it a work of God. People feel more comfortable with something they can relate to
and understand immediately without too much thought. This is the case with the
work of Charlie Russell. Being able to recognize the elements in his
paintings--trees, horses and cowboys-gives people a safety line to their world
of "reality". There are some who would disagree when I say abstract
art requires more creativity and artistic talent to produce a good piece than
does representational art, but there are many weaknesses in their arguments.
People who look down on abstract art have several major arguments to support
their beliefs. They feel that artists turn abstract because they are not capable
of the technical drafting skills that appear in a Russell; therefore, such
artists create an art form that anyone is capable of and that is less time
consuming, and then parade it as artistic progress. Secondly, they feel that the
purpose of art is to create something of beauty in an orderly, logical
composition. Russell's compositions are balanced and rational, everything sits
calmly on the canvas, leaving the viewer satisfied that he has seen all there is
to see. The modem abstractionists, on the other hand, seem to compose their
pieces irrationally. For example, upon seeing Picasso's Guernica, a friend of
mine asked me, "What's the point?" Finally, many people feel that art
should portray the ideal and real. The exactness of detail in Charlie Russell's
work is an example of this. He has been called a great historian because his
pieces depict the life style, dress, and events of the times. His subject matter
is derived from his own experiences on the trail, and reproduced to the smallest
detail.
I agree in part with many of these arguments, and at one time even endorsed
them. But now, I believe differently. Firstly I object to the argument that
abstract artists are not capable of drafting. Many abstract artists, such as
Picasso, are excellent draftsmen. As his work matured, Picasso became more
abstract in order to increase the expressive quality of his work. Guernica was
meant as a protest against the bombing of that city by the Germans. To express
the terror and suffering of the victims more vividly, he distorted the figures
and presented them in a black and white journalistic manner. If he had used
representational images and colour, much of the emotional content would have
been lost and the piece would not have caused the demand for justice that it
did. Secondly, I do not think that a piece must be logical and aesthetically
pleasing to be art. The message it conveys to its viewers is more important. It
should reflect the ideals and issues of its time and be true to itself, not just
a flowery, glossy surface. For example, through his work, Mondrian was trying to
present a system of simplicity, logic, and rational order. As a result, his
pieces did end up looking like a scrabble board.
Miro created powerful, surrealistic images from his dreams and subconscious.
These artists were trying to evoke a response from society through an
expressionistic manner. Finally,-abstract artists and representational artists
maintain different ideas about 'reality'. To the representational artist,
reality is what he sees with his eyes. This is the reality he reproduces on
canvas. To the abstract artist, reality is what he feels about what his eyes
see. This is the reality he interprets on canvas. This can be illustrated by
Mondrian's Trees series. You can actually see the progression from the early
recognizable, though abstracted, Trees, to his final solution, the grid system.
A cycle of abstract and representational art began with the first scratchings of
prehistoric man. From the abstractions of ancient Egypt to representational,
classical Rome, returning to abstractionism in early Christian art and so on up
to the present day, the cycle has been going on. But this day and age may
witness its death through the camera. With film, there is no need to produce
finely detailed, historical records manually; the camera does this for us more
efficiently. Maybe, representational art would cease to exist. With
abstractionism as the victor of the first battle, may be a different kind of
cycle will be touched off. Possibly, some time in the distant future, thousands
of years from now, art itself will be physically non- existent. Some artists
today believe that once they have planned and constructed a piece in their mind,
there is no sense in finishing it with their hands; it has already been done and
can never be duplicated.
30. The author argues that many people look down upon abstract art
because they feel that:
1. Modem abstract art does not portray what is ideal and real.
2. Abstract artists are unskilled in matters of technical drafting.
3. Abstractionists compose irrationally.
4. All of the above.
31. The author believes that people feel comfortable with
representational art because:
1. they are not engulfed in brightly coloured canvases.
2. they do not have to click their tongues and shake their heads in sympathy.
3. they understand the art without putting too much strain on their minds.
4. paintings like Guernica do not have a point.
32. In the author's opinion, Picasso's Guernica created a strong demand
for justice since
1. it was a protest against the German bombing of Guernica.
2. Picasso managed to express the emotional content well with his abstract
depiction.
3. it depicts the terror and suffering of the victims in a distorted manner.
4. it was a mature work of Picasso's, painted when the artist's drafting skills
were excellent.
33. The author acknowledges that Mondrian's pieces may have ended up
looking like a scrabble board because
1. many people declared the poor guy played too many scrabble games.
2. Mondrian believed in the 'grid-works' approach to abstractionist painting.
3. Mondrian was trying to convey the message of simplicity and rational order.
4. Mondrian learned from his Trees series to evolve a grid system.
34. The main difference between the abstract artist and the
representational artist in matters of the 'ideal' and the 'real', according to
the author, is:
1. How each chooses to deal with 'reality' on his or her canvas.
2. The superiority of interpretation of reality over reproduction of reality.
3. The different values attached by each to being a historian.
4. The varying levels of drafting skills and logical thinking abilities.
PASSAGE
III
Each one has his reasons: for one art is a
flight; for another, a means of conquering. But one can flee into a hermitage,
into madness, into death. One can conquer by arms. Why does it have to be
writing, why does one have to manage his escapes and conquests by writing?
Because, behind the various alms of authors, there is a deeper and more
immediate choice which is common to all of us. We shall try to elucidate this
choice, and we shall see whether it is not in the name of this very choice of
writing that the engagement of writers must be required.
Each of our perceptions is accompanied by the consciousness that human reality
is a 'revealer', that is, it is through human reality that 'there is' being, or,
to put it differently, that man is the means by which things are manifested. It
is our presence in the world which multiplies relations. It is we who set up a
relationship between this tree and that bit of sky. Thanks to us, that star
which has been dead for millenia, that quarter moon, and that dark river are
disclosed in the unity of a landscape. It is the speed of our auto and our
airplane which organizes the great masses of the earth. With each of our acts,
the world reveals to us a new face. But, if we know that we are directors of
being, we also know that we are not its producers. If we turn away from this
landscape, it will sink back into its dark permanence. At least, it will sink
back; there is no one mad enough to think that it is going to be annihilated. It
is we who shall be annihilated, and the earth will remain in its lethargy until
another consciousness comes along to awaken it. Thus, to our inner certainty of
being 'revealers' is added that of being inessential in relation to the thing
revealed.
One of the chief motives of artistic creation is certainly the need of feeling
that we are essential in relationship to the world. If I fix on canvas or in
writing a certain aspect of the fields or the sea or a look on someone's face
which I have disclosed, I am conscious of having produced them by condensing
relationships, by introducing order where there was none, by imposing the unity
of mind on the diversity of things. That is, I think myself essential in
relation to my creation. But this time it is the created object which escapes
me; I can not reveal and produce at the same time. The creation becomes
inessential in relation to the creative activity. First of all, even if it
appears to others as definitive, the created object always seems to us in a
state of suspension; we can always change this line, that shade, that word.
Thus, it never forces itself. A novice painter asked his teacher, 'When should I
consider my painting finished?' And the teacher answered, 'When you can look at
it in amazement and say to yourself "I'm the one who did that!...
Which amounts to saying 'never'. For it is virtually considering one's work with
someone else's eyes and revealing what has been created. But it is self-evident
that we are proportionally less conscious of the thing produced and more
conscious of our productive activity. When it is a matter of poetry or
carpentry, we work according to traditional nonns, with tools whose usage is
codified; it is Heidegger's famous 'they' who are working with our hands. In
this case, the result can seem to us sufficiently strange to preserve its
objectivity in our eyes. But if we ourselves produce the rules of production,
the measures, the criteria, and if our creative drive comes from the very depths
of our heart, then we never find anything but ourselves in our work. It is we
who have invented the laws by which we judge it. It is our history, our love,
our gaiety that we recognize in it. Even if we should regard it without touching
it any further, we never receive from it that gaiety or love. We put them into
it. The results which we have obtained on canvas or paper never seem to us
objective. We are too familiar with the processes of which they are the effects.
These processes remain a subjective discovery; they are ourselves, our
inspiration, our ruse, and when we seek to perceive our work, we create it
again, we repeat mentally the operations which produced it; each of its aspects
appears as a result. Thus, in the perception, the object is given as the
essential thing and the subject as the inessential. The latter seeks
essentiality in the creation and obtains it, but then it is the object which
becomes the inessential.
The dialectic is nowhere more apparent than in the art of writing, for the
literary object is a peculiar top which exists only in movement. To make it come
into view a concrete act called reading is necessary, and it lasts only as long
as this act can last. Beyond that, there are only black marks on paper. Now, the
writer can not read what be writes, whereas the shoemaker can put on the shoes
he has just made if they are to his size, and the architect can live in the
house he has built. In reading, one foresees; one waits. He foresees the end of
the sentence, the following sentence, the next page. He waits for them to
confirm or disappoint his foresights. The reading is composed of a host of
hypotheses, followed by awakenings, of hopes and deceptions, Readers are always
ahead of the sentence they are reading in a merely probable future which partly
collapses and partly comes together in proportion as they progress, which
withdraws from one page to the next and forms the moving horizon of the literary
object. Without waiting, without a future, without ignorance, there is no
objectivity.
35. The author holds that:
1. There is an objective reality and a subjective reality.
2. Nature is the sum total of disparate elements.
3. It is human action that reveals the various facets of nature.
4. Apparently disconnected elements in nature are unified in a fundamental
sense.
36. It is the author's contention that:
1. Artistic creations are results of human consciousness.
2. The very act of artistic creation leads to the escape of the created object.
3. Man can produce and reveal at the same time.
4. An act of creation forces itself on our consciousness leaving us full of
amazement.
37. The passage makes a distinction between perception and creation in
terms of
1. Objectivity and subjectivity.
2. Revelation and action.
3. Objective reality and perceived reality.
4. Essentiality and non-essentiality of objects and subjects.
38. The art of writing manifests the dialectic of perception and creation
because
1. reading reveals the writing till the act of reading lasts.
2. writing to be meaningful needs the concrete act of reading.
3. this art is anticipated and progresses on a series of hypotheses.
4. this literary object has a moving horizon brought about by the very act of
creation.
39. A writer, as an artist,
1. reveals the essentiality of revelation.
2. makes us feel essential vis-d-vis nature.
3. creates reality.
4. reveals nature in its permanence.
PASSAGE
IV
Since World War II, the nation-state has been
regarded with approval by every political system and every ideology. In the name
of modernisation in the West, of socialism in the Eastern bloc, and of
development in the Third World, it was expected to guarantee the happiness of
individuals as citizens and of peoples as societies. However, the state today
appears to have broken down in many parts of the world. It has failed to
guarantee either security or social justice, and has been unable to prevent
either international wars or civil wars. Disturbed by the claims of communities
within it, the nation-state tries to repress their demands and to proclaim
itself as the only guarantor of security of all. In the name of national unity,
territorial integrity, equality of all its citizens and non-partisan secularism,
the state can use its powerful resources to reject the demands of the
communities; it may even go so far as genocide to ensure that order prevails.
As one observes the awakening of communities in different parts of the world,
one cannot ignore the context in which identity issues arise. It is no longer a
context of sealed frontiers and isolated regions but is one of integrated global
systems. In a reaction to this trend towards globalisation, individuals and
communities everywhere are voicing their desire to exist, to use their power of
creation and to play an active part in national and international life.
There are two ways in which the current upsurge in demands for the recognition
of identities can be looked at. On the positive side, the efforts by certain
population groups to assert their identity can be regarded as "liberation
movements", challenging oppression and injustice. What these groups are
doing - proclaiming that they are different, rediscovering the roots of their
culture or strengthening group solidarity - may accordingly be seen as
legitimate attempts to escape from their state of subjugation and enjoy a
certain measure of dignity. On the downside, however, militant action for
recognition tends to make such groups more deeply entrenched in their attitude
and to make their cultural compartments even more watertight. The assertion of
identity then starts turning into self-absorption and isolation, and is liable
to slide into intolerance of others and towards ideas of "ethnic
cleansing", xenophobia and violence.
Whereas continuous variations among peoples prevent drawing of clear dividing
lines between the groups, those militating for recognition of their group's
identity arbitrarily choose a limited number of criteria such as religion,
language, skin colour, and place of origin so that their members recognise
themselves primarily in terms of the labels attached to the group whose
existence is being asserted. This distinction between the group in question and
other groups is established by simplifying the feature selected. Simplification
also works by transforming groups into essences, abstractions endowed with the
capacity to remain unchanged through time. In some cases, people actually act as
though the group has remained unchanged and talk, for example, about the history
of nations and communities as if these entities survived for centuries without
changing, with the same ways of acting and thinking, the same desires,
anxieties, and aspirations.
Paradoxically, precisely because identity represents a simplifying fiction,
creating uniform groups out of disparate people, that identity performs a
cognitive function. It enables us to put names to ourselves and others, form
some idea of who we are and who others are, and ascertain the place we occupy
along with the others in the world and society. The current upsurge to assert
the identity of groups can thus be partly explained by the cognitive function
performed by identity. However, that said, people would not go along as they do,
often in large numbers, with the propositions put to them, in spite of the
sacrifices they entail, if there was not a very strong feeling of need for
identity, a need to take stock of things and know "who we are",
"where we come from", and "where we are going".
Identity is thus a necessity in a constantly changing world, but it can also be
a potent source of' violence and disruption. How can these two contradictory
aspects of identity be reconciled? First, we must bear the arbitrary nature of
identity categories in mind, not with a view to eliminating all forms of
identification—which would be unrealistic since identity is a cognitive
necessity—but simply to remind ourselves that each of us has several
identities at the same time. Second, since tears of nostalgia are being shed
over the past, we recognise that culture is constantly being recreated by
cobbling together fresh and original elements and counter-cultures. There are in
our own country a large number of syncretic cults wherein modem elements are
blended with traditional values or people of different communities venerate
saints or divinities of particular faiths. Such cults and movements are
characterised by a continual inflow and outflow of members which prevent them
from taking on a self-perpetuating existence of their own and hold out hope for
the future, indeed, perhaps for the only possible future. Finally, the
nation-state must respond to the identity urges of its constituent communities
and to their legitimate quest for security and social justice. It must do so by
inventing what the French philosopher and sociologist, Raymond Aron, called
"peace through law". That would guarantee justice both to the state as
a whole and its parts, and respect the claims of both reason and emotions. The
problem is one of reconciling nationalist demands with the exercise of
democracy.
40. According to the author, happiness of individuals was expected to be
guaranteed in the name of:
1. Development in the Third world.
2. Socialism in the Third world.
3. Development in the West.
4. Modernisation in the Eastern Bloc.
41. Demands for recognition of identities can be viewed:
1. Positively and negatively.
2. As liberation movements and militant action.
3. As efforts to rediscover cultural roots which can slide towards intolerance
of others.
4. All of the above.
42. Going by the author's exposition of the nature of identity, which of
the following statements is untrue?
1. Identity represents creating uniform groups out of disparate people.
2. Identity is a necessity in the changing world.
3. Identity is a cognitive necessity.
4. None of the above.
43. According to the author, the nation-state
1. has fulfilled its potential.
2. is willing to do anything to preserve order.
3. generates security for all its citizens.
4. has been a major force in preventing civil and international wars.
44. Which of the following views of the nation-state cannot be attributed
to the author?
1. It has not guaranteed peace and security.
2. It may go as far as genocide for self-preservation.
3. It represents the demands of communities within it.
4. It is unable to prevent international wars.
PASSAGE
V
The persistent patterns in the way nations fight reflect their
cultural and historical traditions and deeply rooted attitudes that collectively
make up their strategic culture. These patterns provide insights that go beyond
what can be learnt just by comparing armaments and divisions. In the Vietnam
War, the strategic tradition of the United States called for forcing the enemy
to fight a massed battle in an open area, where superior American weapons would
prevail. The United States was trying to re-fight World War II in the jungles of
Southeast Asia, against an enemy with no intention of doing so.
Some British military historians describe the Asian way of war as one of
indirect attacks, avoiding frontal attacks meant to overpower an opponent. This
traces back to Asian history and geography: the great distances and harsh
terrain have often made it difficult to execute the sort of open field clashes
allowed by the flat terrain and relatively compact size of Europe. A very
different strategic tradition arose in Asia.
The bow and arrow were metaphors for an Eastern way of war. By its nature, the
arrow is an indirect weapon. Fired from a distance of hundreds of yards, it does
not necessitate immediate physical contact with the enemy. Thus, it can be fired
from hidden positions. When fired from behind a ridge, the barrage seems to come
out of nowhere, taking the enemy by surprise. The tradition of this kind of
fighting is captured in the classical strategic writings of the East. The 2,000
years' worth of Chinese writings on war constitutes the most subtle writings on
the subject in any language. Not until Clausewitz, did the West produce a
strategic theorist to match the sophistication of Sun-tzu, whose Art of War was
written 2,300 years earlier.
In Sun-tzu and other Chinese writings, the highest achievement of arms is to
defeat an adversary without fighting. He wrote: "To win one hundred
victories in one hundred battles is not the acme of skill. To subdue the enemy
without fighting is the supreme excellence." Actual combat is just one
among many means towards the goal of subduing an adversary. War contains too
many surprises to be a first resort. It can lead to ruinous losses, as has been
seen time and again. It can have the unwanted effect of inspiring heroic efforts
in an enemy, as the United States learned in Vietnam, and as the Japanese found
out after Pearl Harbor.
Aware of the uncertainties of a military campaign, Sun-tzu advocated war only
after the most thorough preparations. Even then it should be quick and clean.
Ideally, the army is just an instrument to deal the final blow to an enemy
already weakened by isolation, poor morale, and disunity. Ever since Sun-tzu,
the Chinese have been seen as masters of -subtlety who take measured actions to
manipulate an adversary without his knowledge. The dividing line between war and
peace can be obscure. Low level violence often is the backdrop to a larger
strategic campaign. The unwitting victim, focused on the day-to-day events,
never realizes what's happening to him until it's too late. History holds many
examples. The Viet Cong lured French and U.S. infantry deep into the jungle,
weakening their morale over several years. The mobile army of the United States
was designed to fight on the plains of Europe, where it could quickly move
unhindered from one spot to the next. The jungle did more than make quick
movement impossible; broken down into smaller units and scattered in isolated
bases, US forces were deprived of the feeling of support and protection that
ordinarily comes from being part of a big army.
The isolation of U.S. troops in Vietnam was not just a logistical 'detail,
something that could be overcome by, for instance, bringing in reinforcements by
helicopter. In a big army reinforcements are readily available. It was Napoleon
who realized the extraordinary effects on morale that come from being part of a
larger formation. Just the knowledge of it lowers the soldier's fear and
increases his aggressiveness. In the jungle and on isolated bases, this feeling
was removed. The thick vegetation slowed down the reinforcements and made it
difficult to find stranded units. Soldiers felt they were on their own.
More important, by altering the way the war was fought, the Viet Cong stripped
the United States of its belief in the inevitability of victory, as it had done
to the French before them. Morale was high when these armies first went to
Vietnam. Only after many years of debilitating and demoralizing fighting did
Hanoi launch its decisive attacks, at Dienbienphu in 1954 and against Saigon in
1975. It should be recalled that in the final push to victory the North
Vietnamese abandoned their jungle guerrilla tactics completely, committing their
entire army of twenty divisions to pushing the South Vietnamese into collapse.
This final battle, with the enemy's army all in one place, was the one that the
United States had desperately wanted to fight in 1965. When it did come out into
the open in 1975, Washington had already withdrawn its forces and there was no
possibility of re-intervention.
The Japanese early in World War 11 used a modem form of the indirect attack, one
that relied on stealth and surprise for its effect. At Pearl Harbor, in the
Philippines, and in Southeast Asia, stealth and surprise were attained by
sailing under radio silence so that the navy's movements could not be tracked.
Moving troops aboard ships into Southeast Asia made it appear that the Japanese
army was also "invisible." Attacks against Hawaii and Singapore
seemed, to the American and British defenders, to come from nowhere. In
Indonesia and the Philippines the Japanese attack was even faster than the
German blitz against France in the West.
The greatest military surprises in American history have all been in Asia.
Surely there is something going on here beyond the purely technical difficulties
of detecting enemy movements. Pearl Harbor, the Chinese intervention in Korea,
and the Tet offensive in Vietnam all came out of a tradition of surprise and
stealth. U.S. technical intelligence – the location of enemy units and their
movements was greatly improved after each surprise, but with no noticeable
improvement in the American ability to foresee or prepare what would happen
next. There is a cultural divide here, not just a technical one. Even when it
was possible to track an army with intelligence satellites, as when Iraq invaded
Kuwait or when Syria and Egypt attacked Israel, surprise was achieved. The
United States was stunned by Iraq's attack on Kuwait even though it had
satellite pictures of Iraqi troops massing at the border.
The exception that proves the point that cultural differences obscure the West's
understanding of Asian behavior was the Soviet Union's 1979 invasion of
Afghanistan. This was fully anticipated and understood in advance. There was no
surprise because the United States understood Moscow's world view and thinking.
It could anticipate Soviet action almost as well as the Soviets themselves,
because the Soviet Union was really a Western country.
The difference between the Eastern and the Western way of war is striking. The
West's great strategic writer, Clausewitz, linked war to politics, as did
Sun-tzu. Both were opponents of militarism, of turning war over to the generals.
But there all similarity ends. Clausewitz wrote that the way to achieve a larger
political purpose is through destruction of the enemy's army. After observing
Napoleon conquer Europe by smashing enemy armies to bits, Clausewitz made his
famous remark in On War (1932) that combat is the continuation of politics by
violent means. Morale and unity are important, but they should be harnessed for
the ultimate battle. If the Eastern way of war is embodied by the stealthy
archer, the metaphorical Western counterpart is the swordsman charging forward,
seeking a decisive showdown, eager to administer the blow that will obliterate
the enemy once and for all. In this view, war proceeds along a fixed course and
occupies a finite extent of time, like a play in three acts with a beginning, a
middle, and an end. The end, the final scene, decides the issue for good.
When things don't work out quite this way, the Western military mind feels
tremendous frustration. Sun-tzu's great disciples, Mao Zedong and Ho Chi Minh,
are respected in Asia for their clever use of indirection and deception to
achieve an advantage over stronger adversaries. But in the West their approach
is seen as underhanded and devious. To the American strategic mind, the Viet
Cong guerrilla did not fight fairly. He should have come out into the open and
fought like a man, instead of hiding in the jungle and sneaking around like a
cat in the night.
45. According to the author, the main reason for the U.S. losing the
Vietnam war was
1. the Vietnamese understood the local terrain better.
2. the lack of support for the war from the American people.
3. the failure of the U.S. to mobilize its military strength.
4. their inability to fight a war on terms other than those they understood
well.
46. Which of the following statements does not describe the 'Asian' way
of war?
1. Indirect attacks without frontal attacks.
2. The swordsman charging forward to obliterate the enemy once and for all.
3. Manipulation of an adversary without his knowledge.
4. Subduing an enemy without fighting.
47. Which of the following is not one of Sun-tzu's ideas?
1. Actual combat is the principal means of subduing an adversary.
2. War should be undertaken only after thorough preparation.
3. War is linked to politics.
4. War should not be left to the generals alone.
48. The difference in the concepts of war of Clausewitz and Sun-tzu is
best characterized by
1. Clausewitz's support for militarism as against Sun-tzu's opposition to it.
2. their relative degrees of sophistication.
3. their attitude to guerrilla warfare.
4. their differing conceptions of the structure, time and sequence of a war.
49. To the Americans, the approach of the Viet Cong seemed devious
because
1. the Viet Cong did not fight like men out in the open.
2. the Viet Cong allied with America's enemies.
3. the Viet Cong took strategic advice from Mao Zedong.
4. the Viet Cong used bows and arrows rather than conventional weapons.
50. According to the author, the greatest military surprises in American
history have been in Asia because
1. The Americans failed to implement their military strategies many miles away
from their own country.
2. The Americans were unable to use their technologies like intelligence
satellites effectively to detect enemy movements.
3. The Americans failed to understand the Asian culture of war that was based on
stealth and surprise.
4. Clausewitz is inferior to Sun-tzu.
DIRECTIONS for questions 51 to 55: Arrange the sentences A, B, C and D to
form a logical sequence between sentences 1 and 6.
51.
1. Making people laugh is tricky.
A. At times, the intended humour may simply not come off.
B. Making people laugh while trying to sell them something is a tougher
challenge, since the commercial can fall flat on two grounds.
C. There are many advertisements which do amuse but do not even begin to set the
cash ti ills ringing.
D. Again, it is rarely sufficient for an advertiser simply to amuse the target
audience in order to reap the sales benefit.
6. There are indications that in substituting the hard sell for a more
entertaining approach, some agencies have rather thrown out the baby with the
bath water.
1. CDBA
2. ABCD
3. BADC
4. DCBA
52.
1. Picture a termite colony, occupying a tall mud hump on an African plain.
A. Hungry predators often invade the colony and unsettle the balance.
B. The colony flourishes only if the proportion of soldiers to workers remains
roughly the same, so that the queen and workers can be protected by the
soldiers, and the queen and soldiers can be serviced by the workers.
C. But its fortunes are presently restored, because the immobile queen, walled
in well below ground level, lays eggs not only in large enough numbers, but also
in the varying proportions required.
D. The hump is alive with worker termites and soldier termites going about their
distinct kinds of business.
6. How can we account for her mysterious ability to respond like this to events
on the distant surface?
1. BADC
2. DBAC
3. ADCB
4. BDCA
53.
1. According to recent research, the critical period for developing language
skills is between the ages of three and five and a half years.
A. The read-to child already has a large vocabulary and a sense of grammar and
sentence structure.
B. Children who are read to in these years have a far better chance of reading
well in school, indeed, of doing well in all their subjects.
C. And the reason is actually quite simple.
D. This correlation is far and away the highest yet found between home
influences and school success.
6. Her comprehension of language is therefore very high.
1. DACB
2. ADCB
3. ABCD
4. BDCA
54.
1. High-powered outboard motors were considered to be one of the major threats
to the survival of the Beluga whales.
A. With these, hunters could approach Belugas within hunting range and profit
from its inner skin and blubber.
B. To escape an approaching motor, Belugas have learned to dive to the ocean
bottom and stay there for up to 20 minutes, by which time the confused predator
has left.
C. Today, however, even with much more powerful engines, it is difficult to come
close, because the whales seem to disappear suddenly just when you thought you
had them in your sights.
D. When the first outboard engines arrived in the early 1930s, one came across 4
and 8 HP motors.
6. Belugas seem to have used their well-known sensitivity to noise to evolve an
‘avoidance' strategy to outsmart hunters and their powerful technologies.
1. DACB
2. CDAB
3. ADBC
4. BDAC
55.
1. The reconstruction of history by post-revolutionary science texts involves
more than a multiplication of historical misconstructions.
A. Because they aim quickly to acquaint the student with what the contemporary
scientific community thinks it knows, textbooks treat the various experiments,
concepts, laws and theories of the current normal science as separately and as
nearly seriatim as possible.
B. Those misconstructions render revolutions invisible; the arrangement of the
still visible material in science texts implies a process that, if it existed,
would deny revolutions a function.
C. But when combined with the generally unhistorical air of science writing and
with the occasional systematic misconstruction, one impression is likely to
follow.
D. As pedagogy this technique of presentation is unexceptionable.
6. Science has reached its present state by a series of individual discoveries
and inventions that, when gathered together, constitute the modem body of
technical knowledge.
1. BADC
2. ADCB
3. DACB
4. CBDA
End
of Section I
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