Test Level 1: Speed Building (October 4) - 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.

Is our planet the sole habitat of life? In a universe that contains billions of galaxies, each galaxy containing the order of hundred billion stars like Sun, is there any possibility of the existence of extra-terrestrial intelligence? This latter question, of course, presumes that we humans on the Earth are intelligent. Our ancient mythologies, as indeed those of most ancient cultures, routinely talk of the extra-terrestrials, like the yakshas, kinnaras, and gandharvas. So, does modern science fiction with its high profile versions in Star Trek or Star Wars.
What are the ground (or, rather, space) realities for modern technology to carry out a Star Trek type interstellar exploration? Till the late fifties scientists were cautious about talking of SETI, that is the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence. But today it is a respectable discipline attracting support even from a conservative funding agency like NASA. What has been the key factor in bringing about this change of perception?
In the mid-fifties the astrophysicist Fred Hoyle proposed that gigantic clouds containing molecules might exist in space. But his ideas were considered so radical that he could not get his paper published. So he put it all as part of a science fiction novel called The Black Cloud that was a great success.
Within a few years, however, special dish antennas equipped to receive radiation of a few millimeters wavelength began to detect molecules in space. What is more, these molecules were organic as well as inorganic, with the organic ones being not only large and complex but also recognisable as sub-structures of the DNA molecule known to be basic to all living systems on the Earth. Today we know of gigantic molecular clouds filling the vast spaces between stars, and extending to several tens to hundreds of light years. So, circumstantial evidence suggests that if the basic building blocks of life are seen scattered in space, why not life itself?
Thus in the sixties there started inter-disciplinary discussions about extra-terrestrial life. The astronomers can tell what are the likely sites for life and how many of them are there in our Milky Way Galaxy of stars. Biologists have to decide what is it that triggers the life-mechanism and where among the various astronomical sites it is likely to occur. Then the evolutionists have to say how a simple living system can develop over what time span into a complex intelligent species. Experts in artificial intelligence, communications and information transfer are needed to resolve the problem of contacting such species if they exist. And the social scientists need to assess the lifetime of an advanced civilisation.
In the sixties, Frank Drake, an astronomer from Cornell University, quantified these issues into what has come to be known as the Drake's equation. Simply put, it is a series of factors which, when multiplied together, would give us the total number, N, of extraterrestrial civilisations in our Milky Way, which have progressed beyond us on the technological ladder
The assumptions behind Drake's equation are fairly conservative. They suppose that such a civilisation would exist on a planet moving around a star from which it gets energy for survival. The planet would have to be at an optimum distance from the star, not too near or it will be too hot for survival, and not too far, otherwise, there will be hardly any energy available for sustaining life. The nature of life is also assumed to be not very radically different from the way we perceive it here. It is for the experts from the various disciplines to estimate these factors and thereby arrive at a realistic value of N. If calculations give N = 1 then we are the only advanced civilisation in our Galaxy enjoying a unique, lonely status. If N turns out to be large, say, a million or so, then we do lose our uniqueness but can aspire to a social intercourse in the Galaxy.
The current state of our knowledge is such that we cannot estimate this number. But when you start asking experts, their guesses are many. There are the pessimists who think that we are alone. These are largely the biologists who think that the appearance of life on Earth is a combination of such rare events that not even the astronomical numbers quoted in the beginning can compensate for it. The optimists, and among these are the astronomers who are impressed by the vastness of the Universe, think otherwise. For them, it is the belief that once we know how life originates we will find it not such a rare phenomenon. One argument the pessimists put forward is: If life is so common, why has no one visited us from an alien habitat? At this stage, a UFO-buff will say that we have visited that we are being- visited. There is, however no scientifically valid evidence for this assumption. Visiting even the nearby planetary systems is not so simple. With our present technology, let us suppose we can reach the Moon in 50 hours. How far is the Moon? Rather than quote a distance in kilometres, left me say that light would take approximately a second and a quarter to cover the distance. How long will it take for such a spaceship to come from the nearest star Proxima Centauri to the Earth? Light takes four and a quarter years to make the journey.
Well, I will spare you the arithmetic and give the answer; it will take about six lakh years! No doubt, aliens will have better technology and can reduce the travel time but it shows the enormity of the problem. Many optimists answer the above question in a different way. They invoke the so-called "zoo-hypothesis". We humans have zoos and sanctuaries in which wild animals enjoy a protected life. Animals or birds are remotely observed and their behavioural patterns studied, but there is no interference with their life. Likewise, we on the Earth are being remotely observed and studied by the extra terrestrials and on purpose they do not interfere with our life-system, which they want to study!
Leaving speculations aside how can we look for alien ETs? As seen earlier, with our present technology space explorations with humans or without them are out. The only practical way is the one proposed by two scientists Giuseppe Cocconi and Philip Morrison in 1959. The method involves using the radio wavelength of 21 centimetres for interstellar communications. The atom of hydrogen, the most common element in the Galaxy, naturally emits radiation of this wavelength. Thus it will be known to the ET as it is to per quantum to send out and is less likely to be absorbed en route, compared to other waves. Our atmosphere is also relatively less noisy at this wavelength.
Given these advantages, the best strategy is to erect huge antennas and try to intercept any communication that may be going on between two ET groups. If we can detect and decode intelligent messages, we will be able to locate the sender and the receiver. This wire-tapping on a cosmic scale may have doubtful morality, but the success of the experiment will justify the means. SETI enthusiasts are trying this out as well as the more hone method of sending our own messages to likely sites of ETs and hoping for a reply. But enormous patience needed in carrying out any conversation of this kind. For, if you say "hi" to your ET neighbour going around Proxima Centauri, you will have to wait for eight and a half years for a reply!

Q. Drake's equation can best be described as

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.

Bangladesh, a country numbering almost 140 million, whose population is 90 percent Muslim, is a prime example of a nation under siege from a deluge of NGOs. Since 1981, foreign NGOs have created an indigenous mercenary army and set up a parallel government of their own in the country. Given handsome salaries, bribes, awards, vehicles, machinery and huge funds, the nouveau riche mercenaries pretending to be writers, lawyers, teachers, artists and human-right activists, among others, have set up factories, printing presses, and publishing houses.
Bangladesh is probably the world leader in non-governmental organisations, NGOs, perhaps because economically it is near the bottom of the heap. The 20,000 or so NGOs there operate mainly in the country's 86,000 villages, providing education, health, small loans and agricultural development far more efficiently than the corrupt and inefficient government. Yet, while outsiders have lavished praise on the NGOs, Bangladeshis themselves are ambivalent.
Some fear the organisations are becoming a parallel State, financed by foreigners and accountable to nobody.
Most of the foreign money (around $250m a year) goes to a handful of famous NGOs such as the Grameen Bank, the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC), Proshika and the Association for Social Advancement. These are among the biggest rural-development organisations in the world, and they have an awesome reach.
BRAC alone has 19,000 full-time employees, 34,000 part-time teachers, and 2.3m members (96% female) in 66,000 villages. Its schools admit only those who do not attend or have dropped out of government schools, and at least 70% of these must be girls. It hires teachers from each village, of whom 96% are women without teaching qualifications. They run schools in rented thatched huts, set neither exams nor homework, and have flexible school hours that enable children to work in the fields with their parents, reducing the incentive to drop out.
Teachers are paid 600 taka ($12) a month and teach children that government teachers (paid six times as much) cannot.
The Grameen Bank has pioneered small loans to the poor. Commercial banks say it is too risky to make loans of around $100 to people without assets. But, Grameen organises borrowers into groups which guarantee a loan to any member (exerting peer pressure for repayment). Its repayment rate is over 95%. Other NGOs have followed this route, and now more than poor people (almost all women) have obtained small loans for shops, sewing machines, chicken farming and the like.
Micro-credit is one reason for the fall in poverty in Bangladesh, from 59% of the population in 1991-92 to 53% in 1995-96. A more important reason is the attention to women that NGOs have given. By directing education, jobs and credit at women, the NGOs have created a social revolution in a conservative Muslim society. This is mainly why the fertility rate in Bangladesh has crashed from 6.1 births per woman in 1960 to 3.4 births today. It is expected to decline to 2.5 births by 2010. The mullahs hate NGOs for eroding the traditional male-dominated structure, and occasionally attack their offices.
Resentment also comes from politicians, bureaucrats and leftists, all of whose shortcomings have been exposed by the success of NGOs. Leftwing critics accuse NGOs of exploitative rates of interest: BRAC charges 15%, Grameen up to 22%. Yet the high rate of repayment is the best evidence of affordability. In fact, in labour-intensive work, interest charges are a small proportion of total costs.
Grameen Bank has a policy of only giving its loans to women. This has led to calls that its effects are weakening the institution of the family. It is interested in pursuing a policy that will lead Bangladesh to a situation to that we see in the West where the institution of marriage is on the retreat (marriage break down is at an all time high). When one examines who the patrons of the Grameen Bank are things become much clearer. The World Bank, ADB together with the UN, sets the whole agenda of the Grameen Bank. The World Bank is of course the best example of an NGO, whose abject failures at alleviating poverty are all too well documented.
Politicians complain that NGOs have money and power without accountability, embezzle foreign funds and cook their books. The NGOs reply that their accounts are audited, and sometimes not just in Bangladesh, but also to satisfy donors, by auditors abroad. They say they are accountable both to donors and the villagers they serve. The easy availability of donor funds h as encouraged some crooks to set themselves up as NGOs. But, corruption among NGOs is a trickle compared to the rivers in government.

Q. The point about payment of wages is given to

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.

When you first arrive in a new culture, there is a period of confusion that comes from the new situation and from a lack of information. It leaves you quite dependent and in need of help in the form of information and advice. The second stage begins as you start to interact with the new culture. It is called the stage of small victories. Each new encounter with the culture is fraught with peril. It is preceded by anxiety and information collection and rehearsal.  Then the event occurs and you return home either triumphant or defeated.  When successful, the feelings really are very much as though a major victory has been won.  A heightened roller coaster effect is particularly characteristic of this stage. The support needed is emotional support from people who appreciate what you are going through and who can cheer you onward. It often happens that once some of the fundamentals of life are mastered, there is time to explore and discover the new culture. This is the honeymoon stage of wonder and infatuation. In it there is heightened appreciation for the new, the different, the aesthetic. Depending on the degree of cultural immersion and exploration, it may continue for a considerable period of time. During this time there is no interest in attending to the less attractive downsides of the culture.
After a while, a self-correction takes place. No honeymoon can last forever. Irritation and anger begin to be experienced. Why in the world would anyone do it that way? Can't these people get their act together? Now the deficits seem glaringly apparent. For some people, they overwhelm the positive characteristics and become predominant.
Finally, if you are lucky enough to chart a course through these stages and not get stuck (and people do get stuck in these stages), there is a rebalance of reality. There is the capacity to understand and enjoy the new culture without ignoring those features that are less desirable.
This cultural entry and engagement process is both cognitive and affective. New information is acquired and remembered: old schema and perceptions are revised and qualified. An active learning process occurs. At the same time anxiety arises in reaction to uncertainties and the challenges of the learning processes. It must be managed, as must the extremes of feeling that occur in this labile period. Thus, I am describing a learning process that results in valuing and affirming the best in the culture while at the same time seeing it in its completeness, seeing it whole. The capacity to affirm the whole - including those aspects that are less desirable yet are part of the whole - is critically important.
An appreciative process, "appreciative inquiry" is proposed as a way of helping members of different cultures recognise and value their differences and create a new culture where different values are understood and honoured. Executives - those who must lead this culture, change projects - need to understand that equal employment opportunity, affirmative action and sexual harassment policies, as viewed and implemented in organizations, are problem-oriented change strategies. They focus on correcting what is wrong rather than creating a valued future. Executives themselves will need to inquire appreciatively into cultures that too are known to them before they are equipped to lead cultural change in their own organizations.

Q. Which of the following statements cannot be inferred from the above passage?

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.

When you first arrive in a new culture, there is a period of confusion that comes from the new situation and from a lack of information. It leaves you quite dependent and in need of help in the form of information and advice. The second stage begins as you start to interact with the new culture. It is called the stage of small victories. Each new encounter with the culture is fraught with peril. It is preceded by anxiety and information collection and rehearsal.  Then the event occurs and you return home either triumphant or defeated.  When successful, the feelings really are very much as though a major victory has been won.  A heightened roller coaster effect is particularly characteristic of this stage. The support needed is emotional support from people who appreciate what you are going through and who can cheer you onward. It often happens that once some of the fundamentals of life are mastered, there is time to explore and discover the new culture. This is the honeymoon stage of wonder and infatuation. In it there is heightened appreciation for the new, the different, the aesthetic. Depending on the degree of cultural immersion and exploration, it may continue for a considerable period of time. During this time there is no interest in attending to the less attractive downsides of the culture.
After a while, a self-correction takes place. No honeymoon can last forever. Irritation and anger begin to be experienced. Why in the world would anyone do it that way? Can't these people get their act together? Now the deficits seem glaringly apparent. For some people, they overwhelm the positive characteristics and become predominant.
Finally, if you are lucky enough to chart a course through these stages and not get stuck (and people do get stuck in these stages), there is a rebalance of reality. There is the capacity to understand and enjoy the new culture without ignoring those features that are less desirable.
This cultural entry and engagement process is both cognitive and affective. New information is acquired and remembered: old schema and perceptions are revised and qualified. An active learning process occurs. At the same time anxiety arises in reaction to uncertainties and the challenges of the learning processes. It must be managed, as must the extremes of feeling that occur in this labile period. Thus, I am describing a learning process that results in valuing and affirming the best in the culture while at the same time seeing it in its completeness, seeing it whole. The capacity to affirm the whole - including those aspects that are less desirable yet are part of the whole - is critically important.
An appreciative process, "appreciative inquiry" is proposed as a way of helping members of different cultures recognise and value their differences and create a new culture where different values are understood and honoured. Executives - those who must lead this culture, change projects - need to understand that equal employment opportunity, affirmative action and sexual harassment policies, as viewed and implemented in organizations, are problem-oriented change strategies. They focus on correcting what is wrong rather than creating a valued future. Executives themselves will need to inquire appreciatively into cultures that too are known to them before they are equipped to lead cultural change in their own organizations.

Q. Which of the following statements is not true?

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 vast collection of interconnected networks that all use the TCP/IP protocols and that evolved from the ARPANET of the late 60's and early 70's, an "intranet" (lower case i), are computers connected to each other (a network), and are not part of the Internet unless the use TCP/IP protocols. An "intranet" is a private network inside a company or organization that uses the same kinds of software that you would find on the public Internet, but that is only for internal use. An intranet may be on the Internet or may simply be a network.

The world has come a long way since Xerox Corporation first built a new machine called the personal computer (PC) and Steve Jobs introduced the Mac as the friendly alternative to the forbidding mainframes of the 1960s and 1970s. The coming together of IBM, Intel and Microsoft in the early 1980s has set off a revolution that has brought the power of computing to the fingertips of every user across the world. From the departmental PC to the Local Area Network to the development of the Internet-the ubiquitous network of networks-the progress in computer and communications technology has been tremendous. Most people, organizations and countries have been influenced in one way or the other by the rapid spread of the Internet.

There are over 70 million Internet users worldwide, and the World Wide Web now unites entire universities, shopping centres, entertainment sites and business transactions facilities into virtual communities. But there is still a fair bit of skepticism and cynicism in the approach of many CEOs, marketing strategists and even some systems managers when it comes to going beyond the hype and developing an Internet strategy for their companies. Many organizations, particularly in India are still sitting on the fence. They prefer to wait for their overseas collaborators to take the first step, or go through the motions of setting up a company home page as their token offering to the Internet God-something everybody talks about but few seem to fully understand.

The truth is that the Internet is not just a faster communication medium for - mail or an on-line information gathering facility, two activities that account for a large proportion of the time users spend on the Net. Correctly understood and used, it can be the new paradigm for marketing and corporate communications that can change the way businessmen and professionals perceive and transact business in the next century. But that will only happen if corporate planners and marketing strategists take off their blinkers and look beyond traditional marketing and selling techniques. The ground is shifting from under their feet and it's time they made the Internet move. The formation of virtual communities will mean that the role of traditional selling media like newspapers, television, movie theatres and even the average salesperson will be eroded. As we begin to depend on the web for information, education and entertainment, marketing will truly become buyer-centric, and would depend less on sales promotion budgets. Most successful organizations will be those that predict customer psychology and enable or sponsor the development of virtual communities, thereby ensuring access into as many communities as possible to spread their specific product messages.

Among the earliest to adopt of this approach was Apple, whose famous E-World site has been one of the early successes in setting up a loyal community. Many early Indian web surfers, including movie thespian Shammi Kapoor will vouch for the impact of this site. Many pioneering marketers-from bookstores to travel agents to package delivery companies have already begun to develop a new breed of loyalists and are offering services ranging from browsing to information gathering, to order placement and consignment tracking through the Internet. These are the firms who are really establishing what Prahlad and Hamel called "Opportunity Share".
Internet is primarily an information rather than visual-driven environment, and that understanding this reality has fundamental implications for organizations who want to develop successful Internet applications. They ask, "Why not accept that the Internet is a wonderful environment to deliver deep, rich and timely information on products, services, event, developments? That it is a wonderful environment for allowing people to communicate (email) with each other, for allowing business to trade with business, and for marketers to understand consumer needs better and develop closer relationships with these consumers."

The IDC report says that about 50 percent of all US companies have set up sites on the Web. The companies connected to their customers are finding cost savings of 50 percent to 90 percent in sales, customer support, distribution, and other areas. 80 percent of companies using Intranet applications have seen a positive return on investment, with an average annualized return of 38 percent.

A recent global survey shows that over two-thirds of the world's marketing planners have the Internet as a key ingredient of their marketing mix for the year. To make this possible, an Internet strategy must be regarded as a thread running through the entire business strategy of the firms. From customer and market research to marketing, materials planning, procurement, manufacturing, distribution, logistics and customer service, every process can be enriched through the use of Internets, Intranets and Extranets. Of course it will require some business and technological savvy to leverage the immense potential of this new technology to attain sustainable competitive advantage. CEOs will have to build up this competence within their firms to survive and build market dominance in the new millennium.

Q. Which of the following statements is the author most likely to disagree with?

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.

Passage

Scientists might be very clever but there are still some things they can't expect to achieve. When they have used up all the easily available sources of energy that nature has scattered carelessly over the surface of our planet, they will have to resort to more laborious processes, and these will involve a gradual lowering of the standard of living. Modern industrialists are like men who have come for the first time fecund land, and can live for a little while in great comfort with only a mode of labour. It would be irrational to hope that the present heyday of industrialism will not develop far beyond its present level, but sooner or later, owing to the exhaustion of raw material, its capacity to supply human needs will diminish, not suddenly, but gradually. This could of course, be prevented if men exercised any restraint or foresight in their present frenzied exploitation. Perhaps before it is too late they will learn to do so. How long will it be before the accessible oil in the world is exhausted? Will all the arable land be turned into dust-bowls as it has been in large parts of the United States? Will the population increase to the point where men again, like their remote ancestors, have no leisure to think of any thing but the food supply? Such questions are not to be decided by general philosophical reflections. Communists think that there will be plenty of oil: if there are no capitalists. Capitalists feel work is the answer. Some religious people think that there will be plenty of food if we trust in Providence. Such ideas are superficial, even when they are called scientific, as they are by the communists.
We all know that the price of food goes up, but most of us attribute this to the wickedness of the Government. If we live under a progressive Government, it makes us reactionary; if we live under a reactionary Government, it turns us into Socialists. Both these reactions are superficial ephemeral, transitory and frivolous. All Governments, whatever their political complexion, are at present willy–nilly in the grip of natural forces which can only be dealt with by a degree of intelligence of which mankind hitherto has shown little evidence.
I do not think any reasonable person can doubt that in India. China and Japan, if the knowledge of birth control existed, the birth rate would fall very rapidly. In Africa the process might take longer, but there also it could be fairly easily achieved if Negro doctors, trained in the West, were given the funds to establish medical clinics in which every kind of medical information would be given. I do not suppose that America would contribute to this beneficent work, because if either party favoured it, that party would lose the Catholic vote in New York State, and therefore the Presidency.

Some opponents of Communism are attempting to produce an ideology for the Atlantic Powers, and for this purpose they have invented what they call 'Western Values'. These are supposed to consist of toleration, respect for individual liberty, and brotherly love. I am afraid this view is grossly unhistorical. If we compare Europe with other continents, it is marked out as the persecuting continent. Persecution only ceased after long and bitter experience of its futility; it continued as long as either Protestants or Catholics had any hope of exterminating the opposite party. The European record in this respect is far blacker than that of the Mohammedans, the Indians or the Chinese. No, if the West can claim superiority in anything, it is not in moral values but in science and scientific technique.
Everything done by European administrators to improve the lot of Africans is, at present, totally and utterly futile because of the growth of population. The Africans, not unnaturally, though now mistakenly, attribute their destitution to their exploitation by the white man.

If two hitherto rival football teams, under the influence of brotherly love, decide to cooperate in placing the football first beyond one goal and then beyond the other, no one's happiness would be increased. There is no reason why the zest derived from competition should be confined to athletics. Emulation between teams or localities or organisations can be a useful incentive. But if competition is not to become ruthless and harmful, the penalty for failure must not be disaster, as in war, or starvation, as in unregulated economic competition, but only loss of glory. Football would not be a desirable sport if defeated teams were put to death or left to starve.

The savage, in spite of his membership of a small community, lived a life in which his initiative was not too much hampered by the community. The things that he wanted to do, usually hunting and war, were also the things that his neighbours wanted to do, and if he felt an inclination to become a medicine man he only had to ingratiate himself with some individual already eminent in that profession, and so, in due course, to succeed to his powers of magic. If he was a man of exceptional talent, he might invent some improvement in weapons, or a new skill in hunting. These would not put him into any opposition to the community, but on the contrary, would be welcomed. The modern man lives a very different life. If he sings in the street he will be thought to be drunk and if he dances a policeman will reprove him for impeding the traffic.

Two great religions - Buddhism and Christianity - have sought to extend to the whole human race the cooperative feeling that is spontaneous towards fellow beings. They have preached the brotherhood of man, showing by the use of the word 'brotherhood' that they are attempting to extend beyond its natural bounds an emotional attitude which, in its origin, is biological. If we are all children of God, then we are all a family. But in practice those who, in theory, adopted this creed have always felt that those who did not adopt it were not children of God but children of Satan, and the old mechanism of hatred of those outside the tribe has returned, giving added vigour to the creed, but in a direction which diverted it from its original purpose. Religion, morality, economic self-interest, the mere pursuit of biological survival, all supply to our intelligence unanswerable arguments in favour of world-wide cooperation, but the old instincts that have come down to us from our tribal ancestors rise up in indignation, feeling that life would lose its savor if there were no one to hate, that anyone who could love such a scoundrel as so-and-so would be a worm, that struggle is the law of life, and that in a world where we all loved one another there would be nothing to live for.

Q. How does the author proceed in the paragraph?

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.

As a case study in the making of foreign policy, the Vietnam War will fascinate historians and social scientists for many decades to come. One question that will certainly be asked: How did men of superior ability, sound training, and high ideals - American policy-makers of the 1960s - create such costly and divisive policy?
In the first place, the American government was sorely lacking in real Vietnam or Indo-China expertise. In addition, the shadow of the 'œloss of China' distorted reporting. Career officers in the Department, and especially those in the field, had not forgotten the fate of their World War II colleagues who wrote in frankness from China and were later pilloried by Senate committees for critical comments on the Chinese Nationalists. Candid reporting on the strengths of the Viet Cong and the weaknesses of the Diem government was inhibited by the memory. A recurrent and increasingly important factor in the decision making process was the banishment of real expertise. Here the underlying cause was the 'œclosed politics' of policy making as issues become hot: the more sensitive the issue, and the higher it rises in the bureaucracy, the more completely the experts are excluded while the harassed senior generalists take over (that is, the Secretaries, Undersecretaries, and Presidential Assistants). The frantic skimming of briefing papers in the back seats of limousines is no substitute for the presence of specialists; furthermore, in times of crisis such papers are deemed 'œtoo sensitive' even for review by the specialists. Another underlying cause of this banishment, as Vietnam became more critical, was the replacement of the experts, who were generally and increasingly pessimistic, by men described as 'œcan' do guys, - loyal and energetic fixers unsorted by expertise.
A rela ted point - and crucial to government at all times was the 'œeffectiveness' trap, the trap that keeps men from speaking out, as clearly or often as they might, within the government. And it is the trap that keeps men from resigning in protest and airing their dissent outside the government. The inclination to remain silent or to acquiesce in the presence of the great men to live to fight another day, to give on this issue so that you can be 'œeffective' on later issues is overwhelming. As for the disinclination to resign in protest: it seems truer of a government in which ministers have no parliamentary backbench to which to retreat. In the absence of such a refuge, it is easy to rationalize the decision to stay aboard. By doing so, one may be able to prevent a few bad things from happening and perhaps even make a few good things happen. To exist is to lose even those marginal chances for 'œeffectiveness.'
Through a variety of procedures, both institutional and personal, doubt, dissent, and expertise were effectively neutralized in the making of policy. But what can be said of the men 'œin charge'? It is patently absurd to suggest that they produced such tragedy by intention and calculation. But it is neither absurd nor difficult to discern certain forces at work that caused decent and honorable men to do great harm.
Here comes the paramount role of executive fatigue. The physical and emotional toll of executive responsibility in State, the Pentagon, the White House, and other executive agencies is enormous; that toll is of course compounded by extended service. Many of today's Vietnam policy-makers have been on the job from seven years. Complaints may be few, and physical health may remain unimpaired, though emotional health is far harder to gauge. But what is most seriously eroded in the deadening process of fatigue is freshness of thought, imagination, a sense of possibility, a sense of priorities and perspective. Such men make bad policy and then compound it.
To fatigue must be added the factor of internal confusion. Even among the 'œarchitects' of our Vietnam commitment, there has been persistent confusion as to what type of war we were fighting and, as a direct consequence, confusion as to how to end that war. Was it, for instance, a civil war, in which case counterinsurgency might suffice? Or was it a war of international aggression? Who was the aggressor and the 'œreal enemy'? The Viet Cong? Hanoi? Peking? Moscow? Differing enemies dictated differing strategies and tactics. And confused throughout, in like fashion, was the question of American objectives. Given such confusion as to the who's and whys of our Vietnam commitment, it is not surprising, that policy-makers find it so difficult to agree on how to end the war.
A further influence on policy-makers was the factor of bureaucratic detachment, the professional callousness of the surgeon. In Washington the semantics of the military muted the reality of war for the civilian policy makers. In quiet, air-conditioned, thick-carpeted rooms, such terms as 'œsystematic pressure,' 'œarmed reconnaissance,' 'œtargets of opportunity,' and even 'œbody count' seemed to breed a sort of games-theory detachment. There is an unprovable factor that relates to bureaucratic detachment: the ingredient of cryptoracism. Bureaucratic detachment may well be compounded by a traditional Western sense that there are so many Asian, after all; that Asians have fatalism about life and a disregard for its loss; that they are cruel and barbaric to their own people; and that they are very different from us (and all look alike?).
It is impossible to write of Vietnam decision-making without writing about language. Throughout the conflict, words have been of paramount importance especially the impact of rhetorical escalation and the problem of oversell. In an important sense, Vietnam has become of crucial significance to us because we have said that it is of crucial significance. The key here is domestic politics: the need to sell the American people, press, and Congress on support for an unpopular and costly war in which the objectives themselves have been in flux. To sell means to persuade and to persuade means rhetoric. As the difficulties and costs have mounted, so has the definition of the stakes. And once you have said that the American Experiment itself stands or falls on the Vietnam outcome, you have thereby created a national stake far beyond any earlier stakes. Crucial throughout the process of Vietnam decision-making was a conviction among many policy-makers: that Vietnam posed a fundamental test of America's national will. Implicit in such a view was a curious assumption that Asians lacked will, or at least that in a contest between Asian and Anglo-Saxon wills, the non-Asians must prevail.
Finally, no discussion of the factors and forces at work on Vietnam policy makers can ignore the central fact of human ego investment. Men who have participated in a decision develop a stake in that decision. As they participate in further, related decisions, their stake increases. It might have been possible to dissuade a man of strong self-confidence at an early stage of the ladder of decision; but it is infinitely harder at later stages since a change of mind there usually involves implicit or explicit repudiation of a chain of previous decisions. To put it bluntly: at the heart of the Vietnam calamity is a group of able, dedicated men who have been regularly and repeatedly wrong and whose standing with their contemporaries, and more important, with history, depends, as they see it, on being proven right. These are not men who can be asked to extricate themselves from error.

Q. Which of the following best describes the approach of the author?