Test Level 1: Specific Detail / VIC - CAT MCQ

Directions: The passage below is followed by a question based on its content. Answer the question on the basis of what is stated or implied in the passage.

This attempt to account for the universe, which is a theater of change and imperfection, and at the same time teach that God is perfect and unchanging, was continued by the Christians. Those men who sought to reconcile Christianity with Greek philosophy were known as Apologists. They taught that the universe contains traces of something different from pure matter and thus points to a God who is eternal, unchanging and good. This God is the   first cause of everything in the universe, the creator of the Universe. For them the ideas of Plato and the forms of Aristotle become God. God is the eternal and abiding principle in all change, the eternal pattern which never changes. He is the unity of all forms, all ideas. Through divine emanations he has created the world and everything in the world, so far it is a part of God, strives to be more like God, to return to Him. The creator fashioned the world from matter which he created out of nothing. The pattern of the world is in His mind.
One of the greatest thinkers among these early Christian philosophers, one who worked out the theory of the Apologists most completely, was Augustine, who became Saint Augustine. God, he taught, created matter out of nothing and then created everything in the Universe. The forms which he impressed upon matter were in God's mind from the beginning of time and even before God existed before there was any time. Indeed God created time and space also. Thus everything that is or ever shall be is a creation of God and must follow his laws and will. Here again we see the influence of the Greeks in the belief that the universe is the result of the coming together of matter and form.
But the Christian thinkers went further than the Greeks in that they attempted to account for the existence of matter. You will remember that the Greeks simply accepted matter as well as the ideas or forms as existing from the beginning. The Christians put the ideas or forms in God's mind and went onto say that God created matter out of nothing. After he had created matter He had something upon which to impress ideas or forms.
Further these Christian philosophers taught that the ideas or forms, being in the mind of God, were divine. Therefore in so far as things are ideas or forms impressed on matter, they seek God, try to return to him. But matter holds them back. Matter which god has created is the principle which makes it necessary for things to struggle in their attempt to become divine.
Augustine lived during the fourth century of the Christian era. He saw the great Roman Empire, which had been established by the Caesar falling to pieces and watched the barbarians from the north gradually moving down into the empire and even towards Rome. He lived near the beginning of that period in history known as the Dark Ages, a period when these ignorant crude barbarians swarmed over the Roman Empire and destroyed the civilization which bad been building since the early days of the Greeks.

Q.The Dark Ages began in the

Directions: The passage below is followed by a question based on its content. Answer the question on the basis of what is stated or implied in the passage.

This attempt to account for the universe, which is a theater of change and imperfection, and at the same time teach that God is perfect and unchanging, was continued by the Christians. Those men who sought to reconcile Christianity with Greek philosophy were known as Apologists. They taught that the universe contains traces of something different from pure matter and thus points to a God who is eternal, unchanging and good. This God is the   first cause of everything in the universe, the creator of the Universe. For them the ideas of Plato and the forms of Aristotle become God. God is the eternal and abiding principle in all change, the eternal pattern which never changes. He is the unity of all forms, all ideas. Through divine emanations he has created the world and everything in the world, so far it is a part of God, strives to be more like God, to return to Him. The creator fashioned the world from matter which he created out of nothing. The pattern of the world is in His mind.
One of the greatest thinkers among these early Christian philosophers, one who worked out the theory of the Apologists most completely, was Augustine, who became Saint Augustine. God, he taught, created matter out of nothing and then created everything in the Universe. The forms which he impressed upon matter were in God's mind from the beginning of time and even before God existed before there was any time. Indeed God created time and space also. Thus everything that is or ever shall be is a creation of God and must follow his laws and will. Here again we see the influence of the Greeks in the belief that the universe is the result of the coming together of matter and form.
But the Christian thinkers went further than the Greeks in that they attempted to account for the existence of matter. You will remember that the Greeks simply accepted matter as well as the ideas or forms as existing from the beginning. The Christians put the ideas or forms in God's mind and went onto say that God created matter out of nothing. After he had created matter He had something upon which to impress ideas or forms.
Further these Christian philosophers taught that the ideas or forms, being in the mind of God, were divine. Therefore in so far as things are ideas or forms impressed on matter, they seek God, try to return to him. But matter holds them back. Matter which god has created is the principle which makes it necessary for things to struggle in their attempt to become divine.
Augustine lived during the fourth century of the Christian era. He saw the great Roman Empire, which had been established by the Caesar falling to pieces and watched the barbarians from the north gradually moving down into the empire and even towards Rome. He lived near the beginning of that period in history known as the Dark Ages, a period when these ignorant crude barbarians swarmed over the Roman Empire and destroyed the civilization which bad been building since the early days of the Greeks.

Q. What is the principle that makes it necessary for things to struggle to become divine?

Directions: The passage below is followed by a question based on its content. Answer the question on the basis of what is stated or implied in the passage.

Now, let us speak of one of the most prolific, writers of her times, Anne Silvia Spencer. Her writings and pieces of work very aptly reflect not only the social set–up of that age but also what she thought about the same. Her writings give us a clear view of what kind of a human being she was. The most famous of her works, her autobiography, “The story of a simple girl” presents to us the way she acquired great heights as an author.
Her father, Charles Spencer, was, as Anne later wrote, a very peculiar person.  "Heir to a fortune, educated at Harrow and Cambridge, he was nevertheless a complete domestic tyrant". After bearing him ten children, his gentle wife had little strength left for struggle against him, and the children never dared oppose his wishes.
Yet Anne’s childhood was happy. She romped and studied with her eldest brother, learnt Greek and French, read widely and wrote poetic tragedies. Her own tragedy began at fifteen with a cough and an injury to her back, which resulted in increasingly bad health.  Then her mother died.
Four years later, her father decided to sell the country home. The large family moved from house to house until her father bought No. 72 Deer Haven. There Anne's health grew worse, and she became a creature of the shadows and silence.
As the years passed, the family grew used to her withdrawn life. She had a certain independence, for an uncle had left her a small income. But her brothers and sisters were at the mercy of Mr. Spencer's harsh rules, which hung over the household like thunder in heavy weather.  Chief among them was the absolute refusal to let his daughters marry. He prevented the marriage of Anne’s gay, dance–loving sister, Helena, and the scenes that followed broke Anne’s heart. Yet she remained devoted to her father. It was a devotion that served to strengthen the walls of her prison.
She didn’t talk much to her siblings & definitely not to her father. Irrespective of her solitary existence, she was pretty fond of her brothers and siblings. As per her feelings for her father, she herself could not decide (as she writes in her autobiography) whether she had a feeling of loathe or veneration for her father.

Q. Anne's father was 'a complete domestic tyrant' implies that

Directions: The passage below IS followed by a question based on its content. Answer the question on the basis of what is stated or implied in the passage.

From the surface of the planet Pluto, we look up at Charon in the sky, 20 times closer to Pluto than our Moon is to Earth. It is an impressive sight. Charon may rank twelfth in size among moons in the solar system, but it is so close to Pluto—only 11,650 miles (18,800 kilometers) above Pluto's equator—that it appears larger than any other moon appears from the surface of its planet. Charon covers almost 4 degrees in Pluto's sky—eight times as wide as our Moon appears from Earth. On our planet, you can hold a pea out at arm's length and completely eclipse our Moon. On Pluto, to block Charon from view, you would need a billiard ball.
It was no surprise that Charon rotates in the same period of time as it revolves so that it always presents the same hemisphere to Pluto. All the inner satellites and all the major satellites in the solar system have synchronous rotation and revolution because they are tidally coupled to their planets. A planet's gravity creates a slight tidal bulge in its moons and pulls on that bulge so that the moons cannot turn it away from the planet. One side of the satellite always faces the planet and the other side always faces away while the planet rotates rapidly, so that the moon rises and sets for all parts of the planet.
But Pluto furnished a surprise. Pluto and Charon are so close to twins in size and so close together that Charon's gravity induces a bulge in Pluto. The bulge is great enough that Pluto is tidally coupled to Charon just as Charon is tidally coupled to Pluto. Thus, Pluto always shows the same face to Charon just as Charon always shows the same face to Pluto. It is the only example of mutual tidal coupling in the solar system. The result is that for an astronaut standing on Pluto, Charon is either always visible or never visible.
The shadows we see on Charon reveal an uneven, cratered landscape. Like Pluto, Charon is light gray, although somewhat darker and more even in color than Pluto, as was known from measurements made from Earth using the Pluto–Charon eclipses. The very slightly reddish brown hue of Pluto is missing from Charon—or at least from Charon's Pluto–facing side, that is the only side we get to see from the surface of Pluto. Missing too from Charon is the methane frost which partially covers Pluto. With Charon's smaller mass and therefore weaker gravity, whatever methane ice there was at the surface has evaporated. Perhaps this in part explains why Charon is less effective. The escaping methane has exposed frozen water to view.
On Earth, we are used to the rising and setting of the Sun, Moon, and stars as our planet turns. On Pluto, the Sun rises and sets, if somewhat slowly, but Charon stays fixed in the sky. It never rises or sets, thanks to tidal coupling. As Charon revolves once around Pluto in 6.4 days, Pluto spins once around on its axis in that same period of time. The result is that Charon hangs almost stationary in the sky while the Sun and stars glide slowly past in the background. Because Charon is so large in the sky, stars are frequently blocked from view. These stellar occultations are the only eclipses visible during the 120–year gap between seasons of solar and lunar eclipses.
From the vantage point of Earth, Pluto and Charon pass in front of and behind one another very rarely. The Earth experiences solar and lunar eclipses at least four times and sometimes as many as seven times a year. Because of Pluto's axial tilt and Charon's position over Pluto's equator, the pair goes for almost 120 years without their shadows ever falling upon one another. Then, in a period roughly six years long, every 6.39–day orbit Charon makes carries it across the face of Pluto and then around behind Pluto. The result is eclipse frenzy. Serendipitously, that eclipse season began in 1985, soon after Charon was discovered.
During an eclipse of the Sun on Pluto, Charon would look like a giant dark hole in the sky, marked only by the absence of stars. It would be dark but not black because it would be illuminated by reflected light from Pluto. The corona— the outer atmosphere of the Sun, which makes solar eclipses seen from Earth so beautiful—would be visible only just after the Sun vanished and just before it reappeared. At mid–eclipse, the disk of Charon covers the entire orbit of the Earth. The corona is far too faint at that distance from the Sun to peer around the edges of Charon.

Q. The main point of the first paragraph is that

Directions: The passage below IS followed by a question based on its content. Answer the question on the basis of what is stated or implied in the passage.

The categorization by literary historians can be to some extent a precarious venture. When Asian poets are discussed independently as a set, for example, the degree to which their work reveals the advancement of poetry in broad–spectrum should not be forgotten, or a misrepresentation of literary history may be the consequence. This prudence is predominantly pertinent in an appraisal of the divergence between Asian poets at the start century (1900–1909) and those of the generation of the 1920's. These dissimilarities include the intrepid and more candid vocalizations of the later generation and its methodological ingenuity. It should not be forgotten, though, that analogous differences also existed for parallel generations of British poets.
When poets of the 1910's and 1920's are considered collectively, however, the peculiarities that literary historians might make out between "traditional" and "experimental" would be of little consequence in a debate of Asian poets, although these remain supportive classifications for British poets of these decades. Positively differences can be noted between "traditional" Asian poets such as Tagore and Seth and "experimental" ones such as Chan and Qayuum. But Asian poets were not fighting over old or fresh styles; rather, one consummate Asian poet was ready to welcome another, without caring for his or her styles, for what weighed was racial pride.
But, in the 1920's, Asian poets deliberated over the issue whether they should deal with particularly racial themes. The questions were raised like whether they should only write about Asian experience for an Asian audience or whether such demands were restraining. It may be believed, though, that nearly all these poets wrote their finest poems when they spoke out of racial sentiment, race being, as Kim Sun rightly put it,
"Necessarily the thing the Asian poet knows best".
At the start of the century, by comparison, most Asian poets generally wrote in the conformist manner of the age and articulated noble, if ambiguous, sentiments in their poetry. These poets were not extraordinarily gifted, though Rosh Jannah and J. Mitra may be segregated from the group. They decided not to write in vernacular, which as Stuart Bergmann has suggested, "Intended a refutation of stereotypes of Asian life," and they declined to write solely about racial issues. This denial had both a positive and negative results. As Bergmann observes, "Usefully persisted that Asian poets should not be cramped to issues of race, these poets made error .... They declined to introspect and write". These are vital perspicacities, but one must accentuate that this refusal to look within was also characteristic of most British poets of the time. They, too, often ignored their own familiarity and consequently fashioned some very ordinary poems about indistinct topics, such as the tranquility of nature.

Q. It can be inferred from the passage that classifying a poet as either conservative or experimental would be of little impact when writing about Asian poets of the 1910's and the 19'20's because

Directions: The passage below is followed by a question based on its content. Answer the question on the basis of what is stated or implied in the passage.

Emile Durkheim, the first person to be formally recognized as a sociologist and the most scientific of the pioneers, conducted a study that stands as a research model for sociologists today.  His investigation of suicide was, in fact, the first sociologist study to use statistics. In 'Suicide' (1964, originally published in 1897) Durkheim documented his contention that some aspects of human behavior–even something as allegedly individualistic as suicide can be explained without reference to individuals.
Like all of Durkheim's work, 'Suicide' must be viewed within the context of his concern for social integration. Durkheim believed that the suicide rates within a social entity (for example, a group, organization, or society) are related to the degree to which individuals are socially involved (integrated and regulated). Durkheim described three types of suicides: egoistic, anomic, and altruistic. Egoistic suicide is promoted when individuals do not have sufficient social ties. Since single (never married) adults, for example, are not heavily involved with family life, they are more likely to commit suicide than are married adults. Altruistic suicide on the other hand, is more likely to occur when social integration is too strong. The ritual suicide of Hindu widows on their husband's funeral pyres is one example. Military personnel, trained to lay down their lives for their country, provide another illustration.
Durkheim's third type of suicide - anomic suicide – increases when the social regulation of individuals is disrupted. For example, suicide rates increase during economic depressions. People who suddenly find themselves without a job or without hope of finding one are more prone to kill themselves. Suicides may also increase during periods of prosperity. People may loosen their social ties by taking new jobs, moving to new communities, or finding new mates.
Using data from the government population reports of several countries (much of it from the French Government Statistical Office), Durkheim found strong support for his line of reasoning. Suicide rates were higher among single than married people, among military personnel than civilians, among divorced than married people, and among people involved in nationwide economic crises.
It is important to realise that Durkheim's primary interest was not in the empirical (observable) indicators he used such as suicide rates among military personnel, married people, and so forth. Rather, Durkheim used the following indicators to support several of his contentions:
(a) Social behaviour can be explained by social rather than psychological factors;
(b) Suicide is affected by the degree of integration and regulation within social entities; and
(c) Since society can be studied scientifically, sociology is worthy of recognition in the academic world. Durkheim was successful on all three counts.

Q. According to Durkheim, suicide rates within a social entity can be explained in terms of

Directions: The passage below is followed by a question based on its content. Answer the question on the basis of what is stated or implied in the passage.

Emile Durkheim, the first person to be formally recognized as a sociologist and the most scientific of the pioneers, conducted a study that stands as a research model for sociologists today.  His investigation of suicide was, in fact, the first sociologist study to use statistics. In 'Suicide' (1964, originally published in 1897) Durkheim documented his contention that some aspects of human behavior–even something as allegedly individualistic as suicide can be explained without reference to individuals.
Like all of Durkheim's work, 'Suicide' must be viewed within the context of his concern for social integration. Durkheim believed that the suicide rates within a social entity (for example, a group, organization, or society) are related to the degree to which individuals are socially involved (integrated and regulated). Durkheim described three types of suicides: egoistic, anomic, and altruistic. Egoistic suicide is promoted when individuals do not have sufficient social ties. Since single (never married) adults, for example, are not heavily involved with family life, they are more likely to commit suicide than are married adults. Altruistic suicide on the other hand, is more likely to occur when social integration is too strong. The ritual suicide of Hindu widows on their husband's funeral pyres is one example. Military personnel, trained to lay down their lives for their country, provide another illustration.
Durkheim's third type of suicide - anomic suicide – increases when the social regulation of individuals is disrupted. For example, suicide rates increase during economic depressions. People who suddenly find themselves without a job or without hope of finding one are more prone to kill themselves. Suicides may also increase during periods of prosperity. People may loosen their social ties by taking new jobs, moving to new communities, or finding new mates.
Using data from the government population reports of several countries (much of it from the French Government Statistical Office), Durkheim found strong support for his line of reasoning. Suicide rates were higher among single than married people, among military personnel than civilians, among divorced than married people, and among people involved in nationwide economic crises.
It is important to realise that Durkheim's primary interest was not in the empirical (observable) indicators he used such as suicide rates among military personnel, married people, and so forth. Rather, Durkheim used the following indicators to support several of his contentions:
(a) Social behaviour can be explained by social rather than psychological factors;
(b) Suicide is affected by the degree of integration and regulation within social entities; and
(c) Since society can be studied scientifically, sociology is worthy of recognition in the academic world. Durkheim was successful on all three counts.

Q. According to Durkheim altruistic suicide is more likely among