Directions (1-15): Read the paragraphs given in each question and choose a suitable summary from the given options:
Q1. It appears that there are basically two types of scientific innovators. The first ones are innovators in totality who conceive the idea that may have never existed before. They derive inspiration from events, incidents and traditions occurring in their surroundings or even from folk stories floating around. The other ones are the incremental innovators who work on existing objects and ideas to bring some newness therein. Development of several modern drugs from Ayurvedic texts and folklores fall in this category.
(a) Innovators in totality conceive new ideas from events and traditions such as the tradition of Ayurvedic medicine in ancient India. Incremental innovators improve existing ideas.
(b) Scientific innovation takes the form of inception and development of new ideas, and study for refining existing ideas. Application of Ayurveda in modern medicine is an example of the latter.
(c) Innovators are either incremental or total innovators. Incremental innovators conceptualize new ideas while total innovators utilize events, incidents and traditions to conceive improvements.
(d) Conception on new ideas and improvements of ideas are some of the several forms of scientific innovation. The former draws on events or incidents while the latter draws on existing objects.
(e) None of the above is correct summary
Q2. Obama initially promised to close Guantanamo Bay within a year of entering the White House in 2009. Opposition to its closure involves two central issues which Obama has been unable to resolve. One is finding host countries to take in all the detainees. The other issue concerns whether some of the detainees can be moved to “supermax” facilities within the United States. Seventeen detainees who have received their final transfer approval are scheduled for release in the coming weeks. As many as an additional 30 more could be released by the summer. This would reduce the prison’s population to 60, but still the question remains: Would the remaining prisoners be moved to prisons in the U.S., and would their legal status finally be addressed?
(a) The Obama administration has faced opposition to its decision to close the Guantanamo Bay facility as the legal status of the inmates has not been addressed.
(b) The Obama administration has not delivered on its promise to close Guantanamo Bay. Reasons cited for the same, inter alia, are lack of citizenship details of the inmates and convincing host countries to take them.
(c) President Obama has faced stiff criticism for closing down Guantanamo Bay as the question of legal status of the inmates has not been addressed. Further, the government cannot house the released inmates within the U.S.
(d) Questions pertaining to housing the detainees of Guantanamo Bay have created roadblocks for the Obama administration. Whether the remaining prisoners will be moved to other facilities or to their host countries remains to be seen.
(e) None of the above is correct summary
Q3. While it is essential to follow through on the opportunity the Paris agreement has created to prevent a cataclysmic planetary collapse over the decades ahead, building climate change resilience can start now, Importantly, the agreement paid relatively scant attention to the need for more investment in resilience building to help communities, cities and countries manage the consequences of climate change that is already underway. Our experience of working in a diverse range of cities across Asia through the Asian Cities Climate Change Resilience Network and the 100 Resilience Cities initiative – both pioneered by The Rockefeller Foundation – demonstrates that cities can take innovative, integrated and practical solutions, without always requiring a great deal of money. Indeed, the main investment has often been that of political will and active engagement by local citizens, business and experts.
(a) Climate Change is one of the most important issues of our time and the experience of Foundations can be very useful in combating its immediate effects.
(b) Climate Resilience refers to the ill effects of climate change that are already underway. Innovative and pragmatic solutions are imperative to tackle this problem of climate change.
(c) The recent climate convention in Paris has not taken into consideration combating the negative into consideration combating the negative effects of climate change that have already started manifesting. Strategies to mitigate the same can be implemented through joint participation of various segments of society.
(d) Lack of political will and public participation has resulted in poor implementation of various solutions to combat climate change and build resistance.
(e) None of the above is correct summary
Q4. Perrault was born in 1628, and worked as an adviser in the French court of Louis XIV. He only began to write his fairy stories, borrowing the plots and the well-known opening, “once upon a time” or il etait une fois, from folk tales, later in life. “Perrault’s stories set the standard for the modern fairytale,” said Google. The backbone of these fairytales persists within contemporary novels and movies, making our reading or cinema-going a fundamentally optimistic venture: when we hear ‘once upon a time’, we’ve come to expect – and anxiously await – a ‘happily even after’.”
(a) Perrault was an eminent novelist who compiled fairy tales which created the basic framework for several contemporary novels and movies as we know them today.
(b) Perrault’s version of fairy tales has had a far greater influence on the human psyche than we realize. We find them to be a recurring theme in all our contemporary stories which leads us to seek a happily even after ending in every book or movie we come across.
(c) The very fact that when we hear ‘once upon a time’ we are filled with optimism for a happy ending signifies how much the stories of our childhood influence us.
(d) Perrault’s collection of fairy tales is largely responsible for the optimism of the cinema going audience. This shows the significant impact of reading these stories at a young age.
(e) None of the above is correct summary
Q5. Since we first began to live in cities, we have yearned for the innocence of the country. The ancient Greeks used epic poetry to eulogise the lives of herdsmen and shepherdesses; in the Elizabethan theatre, dramatists often took their characters out of the court and into wilderness; the Victorians wrote novels that bestowed nature with tragic romance. We have video games.
(a) The simplicity of pastoral life has for long been a much romanticized idea in all cultures. In each age we have dedicated the most popular medium of expression to this theme; and in this age we build video games on the same.
(b) We humans have yearned for the peace and quiet of country life ever since the rise of urbanization. Now video games have cashed in on this sentiment and are minting money.
(c) The widespread popularity of pastoral themes of poetry, plays and books signifies that since the first urban settlements, man has mourned the loss of the innocence of pastoral life. Now even our video games are propagating the idea that development isn’t everything.
(d) The tragic loss of country life has dominated literature in all cultures and eras. Video games carrying forward this sentiment are no different.
(e) None of the above is correct summary
Q6. You doubtless know the story by now: how Britons followed Americans into borrowing money they couldn’t afford to buy stuff they didn’t need. How shoppers went crazy and entire economies got off-kilter-until catastrophe hit. How the feckless Anglo-Americans now need to tighten their belts, stop maxing out their credit cards and start saving like Germans. This is that rare example of an account agreed by both the anti-consumerist left and the anti-welfarist right. And it is mostly tosh. It lacks history, and assumes that debt is a uniquely Anglo-American vice. It sits unnervingly close to hypocrisy: my necessary loan is your stupid debt.
(a) The assumption that the British and Americans should stop living beyond their means and adopt austerity measures exposes the hypocrisy of the capitalist and socialist segments.
(b) The assumption that the British followed the Americans into a debt crisis is unfair and rankles of hypocrisy.
(c) Both the capitalist right and the socialist left seem to agree that austerity measures are the need to the hour for the Americans and British. This is however an unresearched opinion bordering on hypocrisy.
(d) Living beyond their means is not a uniquely Anglo-American problem and attempts to cast it is such reveal a lack of understanding of the issue. An expenditure which is a necessity for one cannot be an extravagance of another.
(e) None of the above is correct summary
Q7. For 45 years, Iran’s most famous modern monument, the Azadi (Freedom) Tower in Tehran, has been the backdrop to every major news story coming out of the country. A plaza for celebrations, anniversaries, military parades and a gathering point for mass demonstrations, the 50m (165 ft) tall tower has overlooked some of Iran’s most important political events. Most recently, the mass demonstrations that followed the disputed presidential election of 2009 drew hundreds of thousands to Azadi Tower, where they demanded a recount of their votes.
(a) When their basic rights are threatened, people often find a national symbol as the rallying point to raise their protests.
(b) The Azadi Tower has become the symbol of the modern man’s struggle against the conservative institutions of power to reclaim his rights.
(c) The Azadi Tower of Iran has become symbolic to the citizens’ trials and tribulations as well as their triumphs over the years.
(d) All news worthy incidents in Iran have taken place in the backdrop of the Azadi Tower.
(e) None of the above is correct summary
Q8. A project aiming to revolutionise medicine by unlocking the secrets of DNA is under way in centres across England. Prime Minister David Cameron has said it “will see the U.K. lead the world in genetic research within years”. The first genetic codes of people with cancer or rare diseases, out of a target of 100,000, have been sequenced. Experts believe it will lead to targeted therapies and could make chemotherapy “a thing of the past”. Just one human genome contains more than three billion base pairs – the building blocks of DNA.
(a) Prime Minister Cameron has unveiled an ambitious Genome Project which has the potential to cure cancer.
(b) Sequencing genetic codes may hold the key to combating rare and fatal diseases. This idea is at the heart of a project launched in England, which experts feel, will revolutionise medicine.
(c) Targeted therapy for rare diseases has been made possible by studying the genetic codes of people with cancer and rare diseases. A similar project is also underway in England.
(d) The 100,000 Genome project could make chemotherapy a thing of the past as genetic code sequencing can provide targeted therapies for cancer and rare diseases.
(e) None of the above is correct summary
Q9. Lego’s decision to stop asking bulk customers what they want to do with the bricks is a “victory for freedom of speech”, Chinese artist Ai Weiwei has told the BBC. Last October, Ai accused Lego of censorship when it refused to sell its bricks directly to him. On Tuesday Lego said customers should instead make clear that the company does not endorse works shown in public. Ai, a leading artist, is also known for criticism of the Chinese government. He said Lego’s U-turn would encourage people to use the product to express themselves.
(a) We live in truly strange times where even a child’s plaything can turn into a medium of expression. The Chinese government discovered this when artist Ai Weiwei used it to criticize their policies.
(b) Business firms seldom side against the government to protect the interests of the consumers whose satisfaction is their ultimate aim. Lego, however, begs to differ.
(c) Lego bricks have recently been used by the Chinese to make political statements forcing Lego to impose restrictions on bulk buying. The toy major was forced to take this step.
(d) Lego has rolled back the controversial decision to seek information from customers purchasing in bulk. This was seen as a move encouraging the use of the product as a medium of expression.
(e) None of the above is correct summary
Q10. ‘Kooks’, from the 1971 album Hunky Dory, looks ahead to parenthood, alongside his then wife Angie, with optimism. It offers advice to a child growing up in unconventional circumstances. ‘Kooks’ isn’t among bowie’s most famous songs. ‘The better known Changes’, ‘Life on Mars’ and ‘Oh, You Pretty Things’ all appeared on the same album. But many of his fans have taken to Twitter to praise it in the wake of his death, noting its anthemic quality, its openness and acceptance of difference.
(a) Bowie’s song ‘Kooks’ has always been a favourite with his fans, who have now taken to twitter to praise the song in the wake of his death.
(b) Bowie’s ‘Kooks’ has captured imaginations as a piece of advice to a child and for its quality of innocence and acceptance.
(c) The song, ‘Kooks’ was written by Bowie as a celebration of parenthood at the birth of his son. It offers advice and guidance and has become very popular after his death.
(d) ‘Kooks’ may not be Bowie’s most famous song but its theme of optimism and open acceptance serve as a means of guidance to a growing child. This has made it one of his most memorable songs.
(e) None of the above is correct summary
Q11. ‘Jerusalem’ is the musical setting of William Blake’s poem Prelude to Milton. He was specifically thinking about a legend that as a boy, Jesus of Nazareth visited England with his great uncle, Joseph of Arimathea, who was a sailor and trader. So why did Blake spin a poem about a medieval myth? Probably because England at the time was a place of change and he wasn’t entirely happy about the direction it was taking. It was the time of the Industrial Revolution, when factories – the dark Satanic Mills he wrote of – seemed to swallow people up and spit them out broken and mangled. As a nonconformist Christian, Blake looked back on a time when a religious figure could walk in barefoot simplicity on “England’s green and pleasant land”.
(a) Usually in times of political turmoil, poets and artists attempt to construct an alternate history through their works.
(b) Jerusalem is an expression of Blake’s dissatisfaction with the industrial revolution taking place in England.
(c) Blake’s Jerusalem explores a Christian myth to express his dissatisfaction about the dreary industrial revolution in England. Blake looked back at a time when there was more simplicity.
(d) Jerusalem was written to further popularize the legend of Jesus visiting England in a time when English society was suffering from the industrial revolution.
(e) None of the above is correct summary
Q12. The Rainforest Alliance, an ethical certification organisation, has now stripped a group of Assam Company’s plantations of its green frog seal. The Assam Company said the loss of its certification was because of a “minor error” on one estate ‘Hajua’ while spraying a plant extract, which it understood did not require personal protective equipment. It said that because the Assam company estates operate in a “single cluster”, the other estates were automatically decertified.
(a) The green frog seal is imperative for tea plantations to ensure demand from companies as it testifies to their ethical conduct.
(b) Minor errors may sometimes have far reaching consequences as the Assam Company has realised.
(c) Ethical conduct of business also includes their treatment of their staff. The Assam Company’s green frog seal was revoked recently due to negligence in observing safety of employees.
(d) A minor error in wearing protective gear has resulted in revocation of the Assam Company’s green frog seal. An incident on one estate has resulted in decertification of all the other estates held by the company.
(e) None of the above is correct summary
Q13. We have songs for different moods and different times of day, and to achieve different objectives. I write of Bach, I run to Martin Solveig, maybe you sort the recycling to Senagalese pop music, or polish antique silverware to Nicky Minaj’s Anaconda. The limitations of one song could never define even a single life, so the idea of trying to define a country with reference to just one song is laughably simplistic. Those calling for an English national anthem should give up now: it’s a pointless fruitless, unnecessary task.
(a) Different moods of a person can be defined by the promiscuous selection of songs they listen to.
(b) Songs are used as National Anthems for their ability to reflect our moods and ideas. Yet it may not be possible to adopt a single song to reflect the patriotism of an entire nation.
(c) No song can capture the entire range of emotions of an individual. How is it possible then for a song to represent the idea of their nation to the millions of individuals in England.
(d) While songs usually reflect most emotions in an individual, they usually cannot give a true picture of the patriotic spirit of a nation.
(e) None of the above is correct summary
Q14. Stripping terrorists of their citizenship is tempting for governments and satisfying for voters. It allays concerns that jihadists may recruit and radicalize susceptible inmates while in prison, or that they might one day again roam France and wreak havoc. The symbolism – that a person waging war against France is no longer French – is politically popular: three-quarters of French people support Mr Hollande’s proposal, according to a recent poll. Yet many on France’s left see it differently. They say that the planned law could foment radicalisation by sending the message to dual-citizen Muslims that they are less French that the rest of society and, by creating unequal categories of citizenship, betray the cherished “egalite” enshrined in France’s constitution.
(a) Revoking the citizenship of terrorists is a very popular idea in France. However this could also have repercussions such as alienating citizens with dual citizenship and a violation of the “egalite” principle.
(b) French President Hollande has proposed stripping jihadists of citizenship as this may be used to radicalize prison inmates. However the decision could also create unequal categories of citizenship.
(c) In a symbolic gesture the French are demanding revoking the citizenship of known terrorists. This will prevent the recruit of prison inmates for antinational agendas.
(d) Francoise Hollande has proposed a new bill to strip terrorists of their citizenship. This is an intensely debated argument.
(e) None of the above is correct summary
Q15. But there are solid reasons why the world has now convinced itself that oil is worth much less than before. On one side of the ledger there is supply, not only of oil itself, but also of the other fossil fuels which can often substitute for it, notably gas, which is more abundant than anyone would have imagined a few years ago, courtesy of the fracking boom. On the demand side, things have been developing even more rapidly, with a serious slowdown in the resource-intensive emerging economies, above all debt-laden China. The fracking revolution will not be reversed, and it increasingly looks like the Chinese flu will be hard to shake. All of which suggests that low oil prices could be here for a while.
(a) Both demand and supply forces have resulted in the substantial reduction in global oil prices.
(b) The demand for oil has been slowing due to slowdown of resource intensive economies and the supply has been hampered due to the availability of alternative resources, thus pushing prices down further.
(c) The fracking boom has restricted the supply of oil to debt laden China resulting in lower oil prices.
(d) The fracking boom on the demand side and the Chinese Flu on the supply side have caused sharp decline in global oil prices.
(e) None of the above is correct summary
Solutions
S1. Ans.(b)
Sol. (a) is incorrect as application of Ayurveda to modern medicine is an example of incremental innovation. (c) is incorrect as the last sentence states that total innovators conceive improvements whereas they conceive ideas from scratch hence there is no scope for improvements in those ideas. According to (d) there are several forms of innovation whereas the passage states that there are basically two types. Hence this is a distortion of the facts presented in the passage. (b) provides the summary of the points correctly.
S2. Ans.(d)
Sol. (a) is incorrect because it does not mention the main idea of the passage, which is the decision to deal with the current inmates from the Guantanamo facility. There are two options to resolve the issue before the government – send the inmates to their host countries or shift them to other U.S. prisons. (b) does not take into account the option of moving detainees to supermax facilities. (c) is a distortion of the passage – President Obama has not closed down the facility yet. (d) captures the essence of the paragraph in the best manner.
S3. Ans.(c)
Sol. The main idea of the passage is that the prevention of climate change will involve solutions which will be implemented over the decades to come. It will be a long term exercise. However, climate change already has had negative consequences. Resilience measures are required to mitigate the impact of these consequences. Innovative and practical solutions are available that can be implemented through the participation of politicians, citizens, business firms and experts (various segments of society). These points are best summarized in (c).
S4. Ans.(b)
Sol. Main Idea: Perrault is the first known individual to have written some form of fairy stories which then evolved into the modern fairy tales that we read as children. These stories have lent a certain degree of optimism to the human mind. We look for a happy ending in every contemporary novel or movie we see. Thus in a way these fairy tales provide the basic framework for all our contemporary stories. (b) best captures the essence of the passage.
S5. Ans.(a)
Sol. (a) is the central idea of the passage. (b) refers to video games minting money which is not mentioned. The passage says that video games are now using the theme of country life but does not indicate if such video games are successful. (c) mentions another idea: development is not everything – which is not mentioned in the passage. (d) says the tragic loss of country life. This is too extreme and the passage does not say that the shift to urban settlements was tragic.
S6. Ans.(d)
Sol. According to the passage a lot of people, including political factions, believe that Anglo-Americans living beyond their means through debt was the root cause that pushed the world economy into recession. Instead of spending on credit, these countries should focus on savings. However this opinion is flawed and reveals a lack of knowledge about the history of such a crisis. There is also an element of hypocrisy in judging these consumers – something which constitutes a necessary expenditures for some cannot become a wasteful expenditure for others, those who lack the means. Option (d) captures the theme correctly.
S7. Ans.(c)
Sol. The passage refers to the fact that the Azadi Tower is the rallying point for all major national celebrations and anniversaries as well as for staging mass demonstrations. Hence it symbolizes both the struggles and the victories of the Iranian people (a) is too broad in focus. The passage specifically mentions Iran. (d) and (b) do not capture the main idea.
S8. Ans.(b)
Sol. (a) does not cover the main idea. (c) is a distortion of the passage – the results it speaks of have not been achieved yet but are likely to be achieved in the future. (d) mentions the 100,000 genome project whereas the same has not been mentioned in the passage.
S9. Ans.(d)
Sol. The passage talks specifically of the Lego decision and its consequences. It does not explore the idea mentioned in A in detail. The idea in (b) is incomplete. (c) does not talk about the roll back and related consequences.
S10. Ans.(d)
Sol. (a) is incorrect because ‘Kooks’ was not one of his most popular songs until after his death. (b) mentions the quality of innocence which has not been mentioned in the passage. (c) is an incomplete summary of the passage. The chief purpose of the song was not to celebrate parenthood, it was to offer advice.
S11. Ans.(c)
Sol. (a) is too general. (b) is incomplete as it does not mention the importance of the myth about Jesus. (d) is a distortion. Blake did not intend to popularize the myth, he merely returned to it because he longed for simpler times.
S12. Ans.(c)
Sol. (a) is not the main idea of the passage but an introduction. (b) is an incomplete summary. (d) does not touch upon the point of ethical conduct.
S13. Ans.(c)
Sol. (a) is too general. (b) also gives the reason of why songs are used as national anthems the world over which is unnecessary. (d) is too general and does not consider the ongoing debate over the English National Anthem.
S14. Ans.(a)
Sol. (a) best captures all the main points of the passage. The others are incomplete in some way or the other.
S15. Ans.(b)
Sol. (a) does not give enough information. (b) best captures the essence of the passage. (c) is a distortion – the fracking boom has not restricted supply. (d) is a distortion – the fracking boom was on the supply side and China’s reduction in demand on the demand side.
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