Test: CAT Verbal & Reading Comprehension- 6 (October 26) - CAT MCQ
24 Questions MCQ Test Daily Test for CAT Preparation - Test: CAT Verbal & Reading Comprehension- 6 (October 26)
Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage.
Like the geography of the planet, the human body has, until now, represented a fixed point in human experience, a 'given'. Today, we are fast approaching the day when the body can no longer be regarded as fixed. Man will be able, within a reasonably short period, to redesign not merely individual bodies, but the entire human race.
In 1962, Dr. J. D. Watson and Dr. F. H. C. Crick received the Nobel Prize for describing the DNA molecules. Since then, advances in genetics have come tripping over one another at a rapid pace. Molecular biology is now about to explode from the laboratories. New genetic knowledge will permit us to tinker with human heredity and manipulate the genes to create altogether new versions of man.
One of the more fantastic possibilities is that man will be able to make biological carbon copies of himself. Through a process called 'cloning', it will be possible to grow, from the nucleus of an adult cell, a new organism that has the same genetic characteristics of the person contributing the cell nucleus. The resultant human 'copy' would start life with a genetic endowment identical to that of the donor, although cultural differences might thereafter alter the personality or physical development of the clone.
Cloning will make it possible for people to see themselves born anew, to fill the world with twins of themselves. Cloning would, among other things, provide us with solid empirical evidence to help us resolve, once and for all, the ancient controversy over 'nature and nurture' or 'heredity and environment'. The solution of this problem, through the determination of the role played by each, would be one of the greatest milestones of human intellectual development. Whole libraries of philosophical speculation could, by a single stroke, be rendered irrelevant. An answer to this question would open the way for speedy, qualitative advances in psychology, moral philosophy and a dozen other fields.
But, cloning could also create undreamed of complications for the race. There is a certain charm to the idea of Albert Einstein bequeathing copies of himself to posterity. But, what of Adolf Hitler? Should there be laws to regulate cloning? Nobel Laureate Joshua Lederberg, a scientist who takes his social responsibility very seriously, believes it conceivable that those most likely to replicate themselves will be those who are the most narcissistic and that the clones they produce will also be narcissists.
Even if narcissism, however, is culturally, rather than biologically transmitted, there are other eerie difficulties. Thus, Lederberg raises a question as to whether human cloning, if permitted, might not 'go critical'. 'I use that phrase,' he said, 'in almost exactly the same sense that is involved in nuclear energy. It will go critical if there is a sufficient positive advantage to doing so....This has to do with whether the efficiency of communication, particularly along educational lines, is increased between identical genotypes or not. The similarity of neurological hardware might make it easier for identical copies to transmit technical and other insights from one generation to the next.'
Q. One of the conclusions that can be drawn from the passage is that the writer is firm in his conviction that
In 1962, Dr. J. D. Watson and Dr. F. H. C. Crick received the Nobel Prize for describing the DNA molecules. Since then, advances in genetics have come tripping over one another at a rapid pace. Molecular biology is now about to explode from the laboratories. New genetic knowledge will permit us to tinker with human heredity and manipulate the genes to create altogether new versions of man.
One of the more fantastic possibilities is that man will be able to make biological carbon copies of himself. Through a process called 'cloning', it will be possible to grow, from the nucleus of an adult cell, a new organism that has the same genetic characteristics of the person contributing the cell nucleus. The resultant human 'copy' would start life with a genetic endowment identical to that of the donor, although cultural differences might thereafter alter the personality or physical development of the clone.
Cloning will make it possible for people to see themselves born anew, to fill the world with twins of themselves. Cloning would, among other things, provide us with solid empirical evidence to help us resolve, once and for all, the ancient controversy over 'nature and nurture' or 'heredity and environment'. The solution of this problem, through the determination of the role played by each, would be one of the greatest milestones of human intellectual development. Whole libraries of philosophical speculation could, by a single stroke, be rendered irrelevant. An answer to this question would open the way for speedy, qualitative advances in psychology, moral philosophy and a dozen other fields.
But, cloning could also create undreamed of complications for the race. There is a certain charm to the idea of Albert Einstein bequeathing copies of himself to posterity. But, what of Adolf Hitler? Should there be laws to regulate cloning? Nobel Laureate Joshua Lederberg, a scientist who takes his social responsibility very seriously, believes it conceivable that those most likely to replicate themselves will be those who are the most narcissistic and that the clones they produce will also be narcissists.
Even if narcissism, however, is culturally, rather than biologically transmitted, there are other eerie difficulties. Thus, Lederberg raises a question as to whether human cloning, if permitted, might not 'go critical'. 'I use that phrase,' he said, 'in almost exactly the same sense that is involved in nuclear energy. It will go critical if there is a sufficient positive advantage to doing so....This has to do with whether the efficiency of communication, particularly along educational lines, is increased between identical genotypes or not. The similarity of neurological hardware might make it easier for identical copies to transmit technical and other insights from one generation to the next.'
Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage.
Like the geography of the planet, the human body has, until now, represented a fixed point in human experience, a 'given'. Today, we are fast approaching the day when the body can no longer be regarded as fixed. Man will be able, within a reasonably short period, to redesign not merely individual bodies, but the entire human race.
In 1962, Dr. J. D. Watson and Dr. F. H. C. Crick received the Nobel Prize for describing the DNA molecules. Since then, advances in genetics have come tripping over one another at a rapid pace. Molecular biology is now about to explode from the laboratories. New genetic knowledge will permit us to tinker with human heredity and manipulate the genes to create altogether new versions of man.
One of the more fantastic possibilities is that man will be able to make biological carbon copies of himself. Through a process called 'cloning', it will be possible to grow, from the nucleus of an adult cell, a new organism that has the same genetic characteristics of the person contributing the cell nucleus. The resultant human 'copy' would start life with a genetic endowment identical to that of the donor, although cultural differences might thereafter alter the personality or physical development of the clone.
Cloning will make it possible for people to see themselves born anew, to fill the world with twins of themselves. Cloning would, among other things, provide us with solid empirical evidence to help us resolve, once and for all, the ancient controversy over 'nature and nurture' or 'heredity and environment'. The solution of this problem, through the determination of the role played by each, would be one of the greatest milestones of human intellectual development. Whole libraries of philosophical speculation could, by a single stroke, be rendered irrelevant. An answer to this question would open the way for speedy, qualitative advances in psychology, moral philosophy and a dozen other fields.
But, cloning could also create undreamed of complications for the race. There is a certain charm to the idea of Albert Einstein bequeathing copies of himself to posterity. But, what of Adolf Hitler? Should there be laws to regulate cloning? Nobel Laureate Joshua Lederberg, a scientist who takes his social responsibility very seriously, believes it conceivable that those most likely to replicate themselves will be those who are the most narcissistic and that the clones they produce will also be narcissists.
Even if narcissism, however, is culturally, rather than biologically transmitted, there are other eerie difficulties. Thus, Lederberg raises a question as to whether human cloning, if permitted, might not 'go critical'. 'I use that phrase,' he said, 'in almost exactly the same sense that is involved in nuclear energy. It will go critical if there is a sufficient positive advantage to doing so....This has to do with whether the efficiency of communication, particularly along educational lines, is increased between identical genotypes or not. The similarity of neurological hardware might make it easier for identical copies to transmit technical and other insights from one generation to the next.'
Q. Besides the problems occasioned by narcissism, the writer talks of other "eerie difficulties". One of them stated by Lederberg could unmistakably be
In 1962, Dr. J. D. Watson and Dr. F. H. C. Crick received the Nobel Prize for describing the DNA molecules. Since then, advances in genetics have come tripping over one another at a rapid pace. Molecular biology is now about to explode from the laboratories. New genetic knowledge will permit us to tinker with human heredity and manipulate the genes to create altogether new versions of man.
One of the more fantastic possibilities is that man will be able to make biological carbon copies of himself. Through a process called 'cloning', it will be possible to grow, from the nucleus of an adult cell, a new organism that has the same genetic characteristics of the person contributing the cell nucleus. The resultant human 'copy' would start life with a genetic endowment identical to that of the donor, although cultural differences might thereafter alter the personality or physical development of the clone.
Cloning will make it possible for people to see themselves born anew, to fill the world with twins of themselves. Cloning would, among other things, provide us with solid empirical evidence to help us resolve, once and for all, the ancient controversy over 'nature and nurture' or 'heredity and environment'. The solution of this problem, through the determination of the role played by each, would be one of the greatest milestones of human intellectual development. Whole libraries of philosophical speculation could, by a single stroke, be rendered irrelevant. An answer to this question would open the way for speedy, qualitative advances in psychology, moral philosophy and a dozen other fields.
But, cloning could also create undreamed of complications for the race. There is a certain charm to the idea of Albert Einstein bequeathing copies of himself to posterity. But, what of Adolf Hitler? Should there be laws to regulate cloning? Nobel Laureate Joshua Lederberg, a scientist who takes his social responsibility very seriously, believes it conceivable that those most likely to replicate themselves will be those who are the most narcissistic and that the clones they produce will also be narcissists.
Even if narcissism, however, is culturally, rather than biologically transmitted, there are other eerie difficulties. Thus, Lederberg raises a question as to whether human cloning, if permitted, might not 'go critical'. 'I use that phrase,' he said, 'in almost exactly the same sense that is involved in nuclear energy. It will go critical if there is a sufficient positive advantage to doing so....This has to do with whether the efficiency of communication, particularly along educational lines, is increased between identical genotypes or not. The similarity of neurological hardware might make it easier for identical copies to transmit technical and other insights from one generation to the next.'
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Directions: Read the following passage and answer the question.
The fundamental objectives of sociology are the same as those of science: general discovery and explanation. To discover the essential data of social behaviour and the connections among the data is the first objective of sociology. To explain the data and the connections is the second larger objective. Science makes its advances in terms of both of these objectives. Sometimes it is the discovery of a new element or set of elements that marks a major breakthrough in the history of a scientific discipline. Closely related to such discovery is the discovery of relationships of data that had never been noted before. All of this is, as we know, of immense importance in science. But the drama of discovery, in this sense, can sometimes lead us to overlook the greater importance of explanation of what is revealed by the data. Sometimes decades, even centuries, pass before known connections and relationships are actually explained. Discovery and explanation are the two great interpenetrating, interacting realms of science.
The order or reality that interests the scientists is the empirical order, that is, the order of data and phenomena revealed to us through observation or experience. To be precise or explicit about what is, and is not, revealed by observation is not always easy, to be sure. And often it is necessary for our natural powers of observation to be supplemented by the most intricate of mechanical aids for given object to become empirical in the sense just used. What is empirical and observable today may have been non-existent in scientific consciousness a decade ago. Nevertheless, the first point to make about any science, physical or social, is that its world of data is the empirical world. A very large amount of scientific energy goes merely into the work of expanding the frontiers, through discovery, of the known, observable, empirical world.
From observation or discovery we move to explanation. The explanation sought by the scientist is, of course, not at all like the explanation sought by the theologian or metaphysician. The scientist is not interested not, that is, in his role of scientist in ultimate, transcendental, or divine causes of what he sets himself to explain. He is interested in explanations that are as empirical as the data themselves. If it is the high incidence of crime in a certain part of a large city that requires explanation, the scientist is obliged to offer his explanation in terms of factors which are empirically real as the phenomenon of crime itself. He does not explain the problem, for example, in terms of references to the will of God, demons, or original sin. A satisfactory explanation is not only one that is empirical, however, but one that can be stated in terms of a causal preposition. Description is an indispensable point of beginning, but description is not explanation. It is well to stress this point, for there are all too many scientists, or would be scientists, who are primarily concerned with data gathering, data counting and data describing, and who seem to forget that such operations, however useful, are but the first step. Until we have accounted for the problem at hand, explained it causally by referring the data to some principle or generalisation already established, or to some new principle or generalisation, we have not explained anything.
Q. Judging from the contents of the passage, the final step in a study of social behaviour would be to
The order or reality that interests the scientists is the empirical order, that is, the order of data and phenomena revealed to us through observation or experience. To be precise or explicit about what is, and is not, revealed by observation is not always easy, to be sure. And often it is necessary for our natural powers of observation to be supplemented by the most intricate of mechanical aids for given object to become empirical in the sense just used. What is empirical and observable today may have been non-existent in scientific consciousness a decade ago. Nevertheless, the first point to make about any science, physical or social, is that its world of data is the empirical world. A very large amount of scientific energy goes merely into the work of expanding the frontiers, through discovery, of the known, observable, empirical world.
From observation or discovery we move to explanation. The explanation sought by the scientist is, of course, not at all like the explanation sought by the theologian or metaphysician. The scientist is not interested not, that is, in his role of scientist in ultimate, transcendental, or divine causes of what he sets himself to explain. He is interested in explanations that are as empirical as the data themselves. If it is the high incidence of crime in a certain part of a large city that requires explanation, the scientist is obliged to offer his explanation in terms of factors which are empirically real as the phenomenon of crime itself. He does not explain the problem, for example, in terms of references to the will of God, demons, or original sin. A satisfactory explanation is not only one that is empirical, however, but one that can be stated in terms of a causal preposition. Description is an indispensable point of beginning, but description is not explanation. It is well to stress this point, for there are all too many scientists, or would be scientists, who are primarily concerned with data gathering, data counting and data describing, and who seem to forget that such operations, however useful, are but the first step. Until we have accounted for the problem at hand, explained it causally by referring the data to some principle or generalisation already established, or to some new principle or generalisation, we have not explained anything.
Directions: Read the passage and answer the following question.
Other worlds and their inhabitants have remained remarkably popular subjects of speculation in the past hundred years or more. We have been hearing people asking one another whether and when we shall be able to communicate with some of the far-off globes. The principles of present day communications may be extended to transmit messages across space. The existence of intelligent inhabitants in some of the other planets remained, for much of the 20th century, a matter of conviction, and for everybody it presented a question of fascinating interest, which deeply stirred the popular imagination.
Poets feel the inspiration of this subject, and novelists and romancers freely select other worlds as the scenes of their stories. Sometimes it is a trip from world to world, a kind of celestial pleasure yachting, with depictions of creatures more wonderful than that is presented to our imagination; and sometimes we are informed of the visions beheld by the temporarily disembodied spirits of trance mediums, or other modern thaumaturgists, flitting about among the unknown worlds.
Then, to vary the theme, we find charming inhabitants of other worlds represented as coming down to the earth and sojourning for a time on our dull planet, to the delight of susceptible successors of father Adam, who become, henceforth, ready to follow their captivating visitors to the ends of the universe.
In short, writers of fiction have vastly and indefinitely enlarged the bounds of romance, and made us so familiar with the peculiarities of our remarkable brothers and sisters of other worlds, that we can not help feeling, notwithstanding the many divergences in the descriptions, that we should certainly recognise them on sight wherever we might meet them. But the subject is by no means abandoned to the tellers of tales and the dreamers of dreams. Men of science, also, eagerly enter into the discussion of the possibilities of other worlds, and become warm over it.
Now, because of this widespread and continually increasing interest in the subject of other worlds, and on account of the many curious revelations that we owe to modern and improved means of investigation, it is certainly to be desired that the most important and interesting discoveries that have lately been made concerning the various globes, should be assembled in a convenient and popular form. Fact is admittedly often stranger and more wonderful than fiction, and there are no facts that appeal more powerfully to the imagination than do those of astronomy. Technical books on astronomy usually either ignore the subject of the habitability of the worlds, or dismiss it with scarcely any recognition of the overpowering human interest that it possesses. Many most important and significant discoveries, in several notable instances, have completely altered the aspect in which the other worlds present themselves for our judgment as to their conditions of habitability. The technical books on astronomy should now come up with inputs on the subject.
Q. Which of the following best portrays the relation between an unexplored world and a person enthusiastic about space study?
Directions: The four sentences (labelled 1, 2, 3, 4) below, when properly sequenced would yield a coherent paragraph. Decide on the proper sequencing of the order of the sentences and key in the sequence of the four numbers as your answer.
1. This pileup of fascinating findings may be at least partly responsible for an increase in people's interest in the lives of other animals — a trend that's reflected in an apparent uptick in books and television shows on the topic, as well as in legislation concerning other species.
2. As scientists peer more deeply into the lives of other animals, they're finding that our fellow creatures are far more emotionally, socially, and cognitively complex than we typically give them credit for.
3. Public sentiment in part pushed the National Institutes of Health to stop supporting biomedical research on chimpanzees in 2015.
4. A deluge of innovative research is revealing that behaviour we would call intelligent if humans did it can be found in virtually every corner of the animal kingdom.
Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage.
Like the geography of the planet, the human body has, until now, represented a fixed point in human experience, a 'given'. Today, we are fast approaching the day when the body can no longer be regarded as fixed. Man will be able, within a reasonably short period, to redesign not merely individual bodies, but the entire human race.
In 1962, Dr. J. D. Watson and Dr. F. H. C. Crick received the Nobel Prize for describing the DNA molecules. Since then, advances in genetics have come tripping over one another at a rapid pace. Molecular biology is now about to explode from the laboratories. New genetic knowledge will permit us to tinker with human heredity and manipulate the genes to create altogether new versions of man.
One of the more fantastic possibilities is that man will be able to make biological carbon copies of himself. Through a process called 'cloning', it will be possible to grow, from the nucleus of an adult cell, a new organism that has the same genetic characteristics of the person contributing the cell nucleus. The resultant human 'copy' would start life with a genetic endowment identical to that of the donor, although cultural differences might thereafter alter the personality or physical development of the clone.
Cloning will make it possible for people to see themselves born anew, to fill the world with twins of themselves. Cloning would, among other things, provide us with solid empirical evidence to help us resolve, once and for all, the ancient controversy over 'nature and nurture' or 'heredity and environment'. The solution of this problem, through the determination of the role played by each, would be one of the greatest milestones of human intellectual development. Whole libraries of philosophical speculation could, by a single stroke, be rendered irrelevant. An answer to this question would open the way for speedy, qualitative advances in psychology, moral philosophy and a dozen other fields.
But, cloning could also create undreamed of complications for the race. There is a certain charm to the idea of Albert Einstein bequeathing copies of himself to posterity. But, what of Adolf Hitler? Should there be laws to regulate cloning? Nobel Laureate Joshua Lederberg, a scientist who takes his social responsibility very seriously, believes it conceivable that those most likely to replicate themselves will be those who are the most narcissistic and that the clones they produce will also be narcissists.
Even if narcissism, however, is culturally, rather than biologically transmitted, there are other eerie difficulties. Thus, Lederberg raises a question as to whether human cloning, if permitted, might not 'go critical'. 'I use that phrase,' he said, 'in almost exactly the same sense that is involved in nuclear energy. It will go critical if there is a sufficient positive advantage to doing so....This has to do with whether the efficiency of communication, particularly along educational lines, is increased between identical genotypes or not. The similarity of neurological hardware might make it easier for identical copies to transmit technical and other insights from one generation to the next.'
Q. It can be inferred that when the author states "New genetic knowledge will permit us ... create altogether new versions of man," the author most likely
Directions: Read the following passage and answer the question.
The fundamental objectives of sociology are the same as those of science: general discovery and explanation. To discover the essential data of social behaviour and the connections among the data is the first objective of sociology. To explain the data and the connections is the second larger objective. Science makes its advances in terms of both of these objectives. Sometimes it is the discovery of a new element or set of elements that marks a major breakthrough in the history of a scientific discipline. Closely related to such discovery is the discovery of relationships of data that had never been noted before. All of this is, as we know, of immense importance in science. But the drama of discovery, in this sense, can sometimes lead us to overlook the greater importance of explanation of what is revealed by the data. Sometimes decades, even centuries, pass before known connections and relationships are actually explained. Discovery and explanation are the two great interpenetrating, interacting realms of science.
The order or reality that interests the scientists is the empirical order, that is, the order of data and phenomena revealed to us through observation or experience. To be precise or explicit about what is, and is not, revealed by observation is not always easy, to be sure. And often it is necessary for our natural powers of observation to be supplemented by the most intricate of mechanical aids for given object to become empirical in the sense just used. What is empirical and observable today may have been non-existent in scientific consciousness a decade ago. Nevertheless, the first point to make about any science, physical or social, is that its world of data is the empirical world. A very large amount of scientific energy goes merely into the work of expanding the frontiers, through discovery, of the known, observable, empirical world.
From observation or discovery we move to explanation. The explanation sought by the scientist is, of course, not at all like the explanation sought by the theologian or metaphysician. The scientist is not interested not, that is, in his role of scientist in ultimate, transcendental, or divine causes of what he sets himself to explain. He is interested in explanations that are as empirical as the data themselves. If it is the high incidence of crime in a certain part of a large city that requires explanation, the scientist is obliged to offer his explanation in terms of factors which are empirically real as the phenomenon of crime itself. He does not explain the problem, for example, in terms of references to the will of God, demons, or original sin. A satisfactory explanation is not only one that is empirical, however, but one that can be stated in terms of a causal preposition. Description is an indispensable point of beginning, but description is not explanation. It is well to stress this point, for there are all too many scientists, or would be scientists, who are primarily concerned with data gathering, data counting and data describing, and who seem to forget that such operations, however useful, are but the first step. Until we have accounted for the problem at hand, explained it causally by referring the data to some principle or generalisation already established, or to some new principle or generalisation, we have not explained anything.
Q. The author's main point in the first paragraph may best be described by which of the following statements?
Directions: Read the following passage carefully and answer the given question.
Your memory isn't a video camera, recording a constant stream of every sight and sound you're exposed to — you can only capture and retain what you pay attention to. And since you can't pay attention to everything, you'll be able to remember some aspects of what is happening before you but not others.
Think about the vast amount of information that your senses are exposed to in any given day. If you're awake for 16 hours today, your senses are open for business for 57,600 seconds. That's a lot of data. But you simply can't — and won't — remember most of what was available to your eyes, ears, nose and brain today.
The number-one reason for forgetting what you just heard, a person's name, where you put your phone, or whether you locked the front door or not is lack of attention. You can't later remember what is right in front of you if you don't pay attention to it. So if we want to remember something, we just have to pay attention to it.
Unfortunately, this isn't so simple. Even if we didn't live in such a highly distractible time, paying attention isn't easy for our brains. We tend to pay attention to — and therefore remember — what we find interesting, meaningful, new, surprising, significant, emotional and consequential. Our brains capture those details. We ignore, and fail to remember, the rest.
Paying attention requires conscious effort. Your default brain activity is not attentive. Your inattentive brain is zoned out, daydreaming, on autopilot, and full of constant background, repetitive thinking. You can't create a new memory in this state. If you want to remember something, you have to turn your brain on, wake up, become consciously aware and pay attention.
Because we remember what we pay attention to, we might want to be mindful about what we focus on. Optimists pay attention to positive experiences, so these events are consolidated into their memories. If you look for magic every day, if you pay attention to the moments of joy and awe, you can then capture these moments and consolidate them into memory. Over time, your life's narrative will be populated with memories that make you smile.
If you want to improve your memory, try minimising or removing things that distract you. Getting enough sleep, meditating and a little caffeine (not too much and none 12 hours before bed) are other powerful distraction fighters and can enhance your ability to pay attention and establish long-term memories.
So the next time you can't find your car, pause. And before you accuse your memory of failing, before you panic and worry that you have Alzheimer's, think: Did I pay attention to where I parked my car to begin with?
Q. "The number-one reason for forgetting what you just heard, a person's name, where you put your phone, or whether you locked the front door or not is lack of attention." Which of the following statements best states the reason for the author mentioning such examples to prove his point?
Directions: The passage given below is followed by four alternative summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage.
There is no escaping this basic truth. Indeed, challenges help us to grow. The normal process is to perceive a problem and then bring our emotional and thinking abilities into play in order to solve the problem. We can draw on our own legacy of experiences, and we can find support from our life partners, friends, the community, society's body of knowledge, and spiritual sources. Faced with a problem, we experience some anxiety - and this uncomfortable feeling motivates us to solve the problem in order to find our balance again. In the process, we become more flexible and more adept at dealing with problems in the future. As we mature, we discover that problems are not insurmountable - and we get better at problem-solving.
Directions: There is a sentence that is missing in the paragraph below. Look at the paragraph and decide in which blank (option 1, 2, 3, or 4) the following sentence would best fit.
Sentence: Advanced recycling complements mechanical recycling, the traditional approach, by expanding the range of plastics that can be recycled.
Paragraph: Consumer-packaged-goods (CPG) companies are making commitments to reduce the environmental impact of their products, particularly in relation to plastic packaging. However, the demand for circular polymers is growing faster than the capacity to meet it. To address this challenge, advanced recycling is emerging as a potential solution. (1) ________. While mechanical recycling is effective for clean, sorted waste, it faces limitations in feedstock availability and material properties. (2) ________. In contrast, advanced recycling can produce plastics with tailored molecular weight distributions and comonomers suitable for high-value uses like flexible food packaging. (3) ________. Despite its potential, advanced recycling is still in development and scaling stages, resulting in limited capacity. The uncertain financial returns and scale of operations hinder its widespread implementation. (4) ________.
Directions: Read the passage and answer the following question.
Other worlds and their inhabitants have remained remarkably popular subjects of speculation in the past hundred years or more. We have been hearing people asking one another whether and when we shall be able to communicate with some of the far-off globes. The principles of present day communications may be extended to transmit messages across space. The existence of intelligent inhabitants in some of the other planets remained, for much of the 20th century, a matter of conviction, and for everybody it presented a question of fascinating interest, which deeply stirred the popular imagination.
Poets feel the inspiration of this subject, and novelists and romancers freely select other worlds as the scenes of their stories. Sometimes it is a trip from world to world, a kind of celestial pleasure yachting, with depictions of creatures more wonderful than that is presented to our imagination; and sometimes we are informed of the visions beheld by the temporarily disembodied spirits of trance mediums, or other modern thaumaturgists, flitting about among the unknown worlds.
Then, to vary the theme, we find charming inhabitants of other worlds represented as coming down to the earth and sojourning for a time on our dull planet, to the delight of susceptible successors of father Adam, who become, henceforth, ready to follow their captivating visitors to the ends of the universe.
In short, writers of fiction have vastly and indefinitely enlarged the bounds of romance, and made us so familiar with the peculiarities of our remarkable brothers and sisters of other worlds, that we can not help feeling, notwithstanding the many divergences in the descriptions, that we should certainly recognise them on sight wherever we might meet them. But the subject is by no means abandoned to the tellers of tales and the dreamers of dreams. Men of science, also, eagerly enter into the discussion of the possibilities of other worlds, and become warm over it.
Now, because of this widespread and continually increasing interest in the subject of other worlds, and on account of the many curious revelations that we owe to modern and improved means of investigation, it is certainly to be desired that the most important and interesting discoveries that have lately been made concerning the various globes, should be assembled in a convenient and popular form. Fact is admittedly often stranger and more wonderful than fiction, and there are no facts that appeal more powerfully to the imagination than do those of astronomy. Technical books on astronomy usually either ignore the subject of the habitability of the worlds, or dismiss it with scarcely any recognition of the overpowering human interest that it possesses. Many most important and significant discoveries, in several notable instances, have completely altered the aspect in which the other worlds present themselves for our judgment as to their conditions of habitability. The technical books on astronomy should now come up with inputs on the subject.
Q. Which of the following best states the chief motivation for studying various globes?
Directions: There is a sentence that is missing in the paragraph below. Look at the paragraph and decide in which blank (option 1, 2, 3, or 4) the following sentence would best fit.
Sentence: Today's satellites can build a picture even when conditions are cloudy or dark.
Paragraph: (1) ________. Technology changes are also evident on the ground. Manufacturers of mobile phones are already modifying everyday smartphones to communicate with satellites; soon those who can afford a mobile phone will be able to access the global internet from anywhere on Earth. (2) ________. Large satellite dishes are giving way to small, compact, and significantly less expensive phased arrays that can retrieve large amounts of data from space for broad terrestrial dissemination. (3) ________. On the ground, advanced data processing and analytics are allowing even better use of the information collected from space—similar to when your smartphone camera stitches together a panoramic shot from several pictures. (4) ________. Sensors can measure moisture in the air and on the ground. Elements can be detected from space.
Directions: From the below given alternative summaries, choose the one that best presents the essence of the text.
In India, we need profound systemic changes in our method of education. Currently, the system pigeonholes individuals into a narrow range of disciplines and straitjackets them into rigid career tracks. Given the overwhelming emphasis on grades, creativity and independent thinking end up taking a back seat. So, how can we expect the spirit of curiosity and inquiry to develop in such a pressure cooker? The need of the hour is an education system that fosters exploration, questioning and debate. A system that can help each student to pursue a path that best stimulates individual creativity and challenges him or her. The objective should be to create citizens who have the ability to think laterally: Students who are equipped to step out into the real world and become thought leaders, rather than products of a machine that churns out yet another commodity.
Directions: Read the following passage and answer the question.
The fundamental objectives of sociology are the same as those of science: general discovery and explanation. To discover the essential data of social behaviour and the connections among the data is the first objective of sociology. To explain the data and the connections is the second larger objective. Science makes its advances in terms of both of these objectives. Sometimes it is the discovery of a new element or set of elements that marks a major breakthrough in the history of a scientific discipline. Closely related to such discovery is the discovery of relationships of data that had never been noted before. All of this is, as we know, of immense importance in science. But the drama of discovery, in this sense, can sometimes lead us to overlook the greater importance of explanation of what is revealed by the data. Sometimes decades, even centuries, pass before known connections and relationships are actually explained. Discovery and explanation are the two great interpenetrating, interacting realms of science.
The order or reality that interests the scientists is the empirical order, that is, the order of data and phenomena revealed to us through observation or experience. To be precise or explicit about what is, and is not, revealed by observation is not always easy, to be sure. And often it is necessary for our natural powers of observation to be supplemented by the most intricate of mechanical aids for given object to become empirical in the sense just used. What is empirical and observable today may have been non-existent in scientific consciousness a decade ago. Nevertheless, the first point to make about any science, physical or social, is that its world of data is the empirical world. A very large amount of scientific energy goes merely into the work of expanding the frontiers, through discovery, of the known, observable, empirical world.
From observation or discovery we move to explanation. The explanation sought by the scientist is, of course, not at all like the explanation sought by the theologian or metaphysician. The scientist is not interested not, that is, in his role of scientist in ultimate, transcendental, or divine causes of what he sets himself to explain. He is interested in explanations that are as empirical as the data themselves. If it is the high incidence of crime in a certain part of a large city that requires explanation, the scientist is obliged to offer his explanation in terms of factors which are empirically real as the phenomenon of crime itself. He does not explain the problem, for example, in terms of references to the will of God, demons, or original sin. A satisfactory explanation is not only one that is empirical, however, but one that can be stated in terms of a causal preposition. Description is an indispensable point of beginning, but description is not explanation. It is well to stress this point, for there are all too many scientists, or would be scientists, who are primarily concerned with data gathering, data counting and data describing, and who seem to forget that such operations, however useful, are but the first step. Until we have accounted for the problem at hand, explained it causally by referring the data to some principle or generalisation already established, or to some new principle or generalisation, we have not explained anything.
Q. Which of the following statements best agrees with the author's position?
Directions: Read the following passage carefully and answer the given question.
Your memory isn't a video camera, recording a constant stream of every sight and sound you're exposed to — you can only capture and retain what you pay attention to. And since you can't pay attention to everything, you'll be able to remember some aspects of what is happening before you but not others.
Think about the vast amount of information that your senses are exposed to in any given day. If you're awake for 16 hours today, your senses are open for business for 57,600 seconds. That's a lot of data. But you simply can't — and won't — remember most of what was available to your eyes, ears, nose and brain today.
The number-one reason for forgetting what you just heard, a person's name, where you put your phone, or whether you locked the front door or not is lack of attention. You can't later remember what is right in front of you if you don't pay attention to it. So if we want to remember something, we just have to pay attention to it.
Unfortunately, this isn't so simple. Even if we didn't live in such a highly distractible time, paying attention isn't easy for our brains. We tend to pay attention to — and therefore remember — what we find interesting, meaningful, new, surprising, significant, emotional and consequential. Our brains capture those details. We ignore, and fail to remember, the rest.
Paying attention requires conscious effort. Your default brain activity is not attentive. Your inattentive brain is zoned out, daydreaming, on autopilot, and full of constant background, repetitive thinking. You can't create a new memory in this state. If you want to remember something, you have to turn your brain on, wake up, become consciously aware and pay attention.
Because we remember what we pay attention to, we might want to be mindful about what we focus on. Optimists pay attention to positive experiences, so these events are consolidated into their memories. If you look for magic every day, if you pay attention to the moments of joy and awe, you can then capture these moments and consolidate them into memory. Over time, your life's narrative will be populated with memories that make you smile.
If you want to improve your memory, try minimising or removing things that distract you. Getting enough sleep, meditating and a little caffeine (not too much and none 12 hours before bed) are other powerful distraction fighters and can enhance your ability to pay attention and establish long-term memories.
So the next time you can't find your car, pause. And before you accuse your memory of failing, before you panic and worry that you have Alzheimer's, think: Did I pay attention to where I parked my car to begin with?
Q. Which of the following statements is the author of the passage most likely to agree with?
Directions: Read the following passage carefully and answer the given question.
Your memory isn't a video camera, recording a constant stream of every sight and sound you're exposed to — you can only capture and retain what you pay attention to. And since you can't pay attention to everything, you'll be able to remember some aspects of what is happening before you but not others.
Think about the vast amount of information that your senses are exposed to in any given day. If you're awake for 16 hours today, your senses are open for business for 57,600 seconds. That's a lot of data. But you simply can't — and won't — remember most of what was available to your eyes, ears, nose and brain today.
The number-one reason for forgetting what you just heard, a person's name, where you put your phone, or whether you locked the front door or not is lack of attention. You can't later remember what is right in front of you if you don't pay attention to it. So if we want to remember something, we just have to pay attention to it.
Unfortunately, this isn't so simple. Even if we didn't live in such a highly distractible time, paying attention isn't easy for our brains. We tend to pay attention to — and therefore remember — what we find interesting, meaningful, new, surprising, significant, emotional and consequential. Our brains capture those details. We ignore, and fail to remember, the rest.
Paying attention requires conscious effort. Your default brain activity is not attentive. Your inattentive brain is zoned out, daydreaming, on autopilot, and full of constant background, repetitive thinking. You can't create a new memory in this state. If you want to remember something, you have to turn your brain on, wake up, become consciously aware and pay attention.
Because we remember what we pay attention to, we might want to be mindful about what we focus on. Optimists pay attention to positive experiences, so these events are consolidated into their memories. If you look for magic every day, if you pay attention to the moments of joy and awe, you can then capture these moments and consolidate them into memory. Over time, your life's narrative will be populated with memories that make you smile.
If you want to improve your memory, try minimising or removing things that distract you. Getting enough sleep, meditating and a little caffeine (not too much and none 12 hours before bed) are other powerful distraction fighters and can enhance your ability to pay attention and establish long-term memories.
So the next time you can't find your car, pause. And before you accuse your memory of failing, before you panic and worry that you have Alzheimer's, think: Did I pay attention to where I parked my car to begin with?
Q. Which of the following primarily explains why we are not able to remember something?
Directions: Read the following passage carefully and answer the given question.
Your memory isn't a video camera, recording a constant stream of every sight and sound you're exposed to — you can only capture and retain what you pay attention to. And since you can't pay attention to everything, you'll be able to remember some aspects of what is happening before you but not others.
Think about the vast amount of information that your senses are exposed to in any given day. If you're awake for 16 hours today, your senses are open for business for 57,600 seconds. That's a lot of data. But you simply can't — and won't — remember most of what was available to your eyes, ears, nose and brain today.
The number-one reason for forgetting what you just heard, a person's name, where you put your phone, or whether you locked the front door or not is lack of attention. You can't later remember what is right in front of you if you don't pay attention to it. So if we want to remember something, we just have to pay attention to it.
Unfortunately, this isn't so simple. Even if we didn't live in such a highly distractible time, paying attention isn't easy for our brains. We tend to pay attention to — and therefore remember — what we find interesting, meaningful, new, surprising, significant, emotional and consequential. Our brains capture those details. We ignore, and fail to remember, the rest.
Paying attention requires conscious effort. Your default brain activity is not attentive. Your inattentive brain is zoned out, daydreaming, on autopilot, and full of constant background, repetitive thinking. You can't create a new memory in this state. If you want to remember something, you have to turn your brain on, wake up, become consciously aware and pay attention.
Because we remember what we pay attention to, we might want to be mindful about what we focus on. Optimists pay attention to positive experiences, so these events are consolidated into their memories. If you look for magic every day, if you pay attention to the moments of joy and awe, you can then capture these moments and consolidate them into memory. Over time, your life's narrative will be populated with memories that make you smile.
If you want to improve your memory, try minimising or removing things that distract you. Getting enough sleep, meditating and a little caffeine (not too much and none 12 hours before bed) are other powerful distraction fighters and can enhance your ability to pay attention and establish long-term memories.
So the next time you can't find your car, pause. And before you accuse your memory of failing, before you panic and worry that you have Alzheimer's, think: Did I pay attention to where I parked my car to begin with?
Q. Which of the following sets of topics is conceptually closest to the topics discussed in the passage?
Directions: Read the passage and answer the following question:
Other worlds and their inhabitants have remained remarkably popular subjects of speculation in the past hundred years or more. We have been hearing people asking one another whether and when we shall be able to communicate with some of the far-off globes. The principles of present day communications may be extended to transmit messages across space. The existence of intelligent inhabitants in some of the other planets remained, for much of the 20th century, a matter of conviction, and for everybody it presented a question of fascinating interest, which deeply stirred the popular imagination.
Poets feel the inspiration of this subject, and novelists and romancers freely select other worlds as the scenes of their stories. Sometimes it is a trip from world to world, a kind of celestial pleasure yachting, with depictions of creatures more wonderful than that is presented to our imagination; and sometimes we are informed of the visions beheld by the temporarily disembodied spirits of trance mediums, or other modern thaumaturgists, flitting about among the unknown worlds.
Then, to vary the theme, we find charming inhabitants of other worlds represented as coming down to the earth and sojourning for a time on our dull planet, to the delight of susceptible successors of father Adam, who become, henceforth, ready to follow their captivating visitors to the ends of the universe.
In short, writers of fiction have vastly and indefinitely enlarged the bounds of romance, and made us so familiar with the peculiarities of our remarkable brothers and sisters of other worlds, that we can not help feeling, notwithstanding the many divergences in the descriptions, that we should certainly recognise them on sight wherever we might meet them.
But the subject is by no means abandoned to the tellers of tales and the dreamers of dreams. Men of science, also, eagerly enter into the discussion of the possibilities of other worlds, and become warm over it.
Now, because of this widespread and continually increasing interest in the subject of other worlds, and on account of the many curious revelations that we owe to modern and improved means of investigation, it is certainly to be desired that the most important and interesting discoveries that have lately been made concerning the various globes, should be assembled in a convenient and popular form. Fact is admittedly often stranger and more wonderful than fiction, and there are no facts that appeal more powerfully to the imagination than do those of astronomy. Technical books on astronomy usually either ignore the subject of the habitability of the worlds, or dismiss it with scarcely any recognition of the overpowering human interest that it possesses. Many most important and significant discoveries, in several notable instances, have completely altered the aspect in which the other worlds present themselves for our judgment as to their conditions of habitability. The technical books on astronomy should now come up with inputs on the subject.
Q. The fictional perspective held by most people is likely to be much different from the factual because
Directions: The four sentences (labelled 1, 2, 3, 4) below, when properly sequenced would yield a coherent paragraph. Decide on the proper sequencing of the order of the sentences and key in the sequence of the four numbers as your answer.
1. When thinking of social movements, people tend to conjure the image of visibly alienated groups that have become vocal in order to bring attention to and eventually change the systematic neglect they experience.
2. The mental health movement (MHM), which has made notable progress over the past 50 years, only receives minimal attention from the larger society.
3. The modern world has made incredible bounds towards generating social movements to support disenfranchised groups.
4. Lipsky argued that it is essential for a social movement to receive attention from the mass media to be influential, but the mental health movement has never come to the fore as a major public social movement.
Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage.
Like the geography of the planet, the human body has, until now, represented a fixed point in human experience, a 'given'. Today, we are fast approaching the day when the body can no longer be regarded as fixed. Man will be able, within a reasonably short period, to redesign not merely individual bodies, but the entire human race.
In 1962, Dr. J. D. Watson and Dr. F. H. C. Crick received the Nobel Prize for describing the DNA molecules. Since then, advances in genetics have come tripping over one another at a rapid pace. Molecular biology is now about to explode from the laboratories. New genetic knowledge will permit us to tinker with human heredity and manipulate the genes to create altogether new versions of man.
One of the more fantastic possibilities is that man will be able to make biological carbon copies of himself. Through a process called 'cloning', it will be possible to grow, from the nucleus of an adult cell, a new organism that has the same genetic characteristics of the person contributing the cell nucleus. The resultant human 'copy' would start life with a genetic endowment identical to that of the donor, although cultural differences might thereafter alter the personality or physical development of the clone.
Cloning will make it possible for people to see themselves born anew, to fill the world with twins of themselves. Cloning would, among other things, provide us with solid empirical evidence to help us resolve, once and for all, the ancient controversy over 'nature and nurture' or 'heredity and environment'. The solution of this problem, through the determination of the role played by each, would be one of the greatest milestones of human intellectual development. Whole libraries of philosophical speculation could, by a single stroke, be rendered irrelevant. An answer to this question would open the way for speedy, qualitative advances in psychology, moral philosophy and a dozen other fields.
But, cloning could also create undreamed of complications for the race. There is a certain charm to the idea of Albert Einstein bequeathing copies of himself to posterity. But, what of Adolf Hitler? Should there be laws to regulate cloning? Nobel Laureate Joshua Lederberg, a scientist who takes his social responsibility very seriously, believes it conceivable that those most likely to replicate themselves will be those who are the most narcissistic and that the clones they produce will also be narcissists.
Even if narcissism, however, is culturally, rather than biologically transmitted, there are other eerie difficulties. Thus, Lederberg raises a question as to whether human cloning, if permitted, might not 'go critical'. 'I use that phrase,' he said, 'in almost exactly the same sense that is involved in nuclear energy. It will go critical if there is a sufficient positive advantage to doing so....This has to do with whether the efficiency of communication, particularly along educational lines, is increased between identical genotypes or not. The similarity of neurological hardware might make it easier for identical copies to transmit technical and other insights from one generation to the next.'
Q. According to the writer, in which of the following ways would the evidence gained from cloning prove to be one of the greatest milestones of human intellectual development?
Directions: Read the following passage and answer the question.
The fundamental objectives of sociology are the same as those of science: general discovery and explanation. To discover the essential data of social behaviour and the connections among the data is the first objective of sociology. To explain the data and the connections is the second larger objective. Science makes its advances in terms of both of these objectives. Sometimes it is the discovery of a new element or set of elements that marks a major breakthrough in the history of a scientific discipline. Closely related to such discovery is the discovery of relationships of data that had never been noted before. All of this is, as we know, of immense importance in science. But the drama of discovery, in this sense, can sometimes lead us to overlook the greater importance of explanation of what is revealed by the data. Sometimes decades, even centuries, pass before known connections and relationships are actually explained. Discovery and explanation are the two great interpenetrating, interacting realms of science.
The order or reality that interests the scientists is the empirical order, that is, the order of data and phenomena revealed to us through observation or experience. To be precise or explicit about what is, and is not, revealed by observation is not always easy, to be sure. And often it is necessary for our natural powers of observation to be supplemented by the most intricate of mechanical aids for given object to become empirical in the sense just used. What is empirical and observable today may have been non-existent in scientific consciousness a decade ago. Nevertheless, the first point to make about any science, physical or social, is that its world of data is the empirical world. A very large amount of scientific energy goes merely into the work of expanding the frontiers, through discovery, of the known, observable, empirical world.
From observation or discovery we move to explanation. The explanation sought by the scientist is, of course, not at all like the explanation sought by the theologian or metaphysician. The scientist is not interested not, that is, in his role of scientist in ultimate, transcendental, or divine causes of what he sets himself to explain. He is interested in explanations that are as empirical as the data themselves. If it is the high incidence of crime in a certain part of a large city that requires explanation, the scientist is obliged to offer his explanation in terms of factors which are empirically real as the phenomenon of crime itself. He does not explain the problem, for example, in terms of references to the will of God, demons, or original sin. A satisfactory explanation is not only one that is empirical, however, but one that can be stated in terms of a causal preposition. Description is an indispensable point of beginning, but description is not explanation. It is well to stress this point, for there are all too many scientists, or would be scientists, who are primarily concerned with data gathering, data counting and data describing, and who seem to forget that such operations, however useful, are but the first step. Until we have accounted for the problem at hand, explained it causally by referring the data to some principle or generalisation already established, or to some new principle or generalisation, we have not explained anything.
Q. According to the passage, scientists are not interested in theological explanations because
Directions: Read the passage and answer the following question.
Other worlds and their inhabitants have remained remarkably popular subjects of speculation in the past hundred years or more. We have been hearing people asking one another whether and when we shall be able to communicate with some of the far-off globes. The principles of present day communications may be extended to transmit messages across space. The existence of intelligent inhabitants in some of the other planets remained, for much of the 20th century, a matter of conviction, and for everybody it presented a question of fascinating interest, which deeply stirred the popular imagination.
Poets feel the inspiration of this subject, and novelists and romancers freely select other worlds as the scenes of their stories. Sometimes it is a trip from world to world, a kind of celestial pleasure yachting, with depictions of creatures more wonderful than that is presented to our imagination; and sometimes we are informed of the visions beheld by the temporarily disembodied spirits of trance mediums, or other modern thaumaturgists, flitting about among the unknown worlds.
Then, to vary the theme, we find charming inhabitants of other worlds represented as coming down to the earth and sojourning for a time on our dull planet, to the delight of susceptible successors of father Adam, who become, henceforth, ready to follow their captivating visitors to the ends of the universe.
In short, writers of fiction have vastly and indefinitely enlarged the bounds of romance, and made us so familiar with the peculiarities of our remarkable brothers and sisters of other worlds, that we can not help feeling, notwithstanding the many divergences in the descriptions, that we should certainly recognise them on sight wherever we might meet them. But the subject is by no means abandoned to the tellers of tales and the dreamers of dreams. Men of science, also, eagerly enter into the discussion of the possibilities of other worlds, and become warm over it.
Now, because of this widespread and continually increasing interest in the subject of other worlds, and on account of the many curious revelations that we owe to modern and improved means of investigation, it is certainly to be desired that the most important and interesting discoveries that have lately been made concerning the various globes, should be assembled in a convenient and popular form. Fact is admittedly often stranger and more wonderful than fiction, and there are no facts that appeal more powerfully to the imagination than do those of astronomy. Technical books on astronomy usually either ignore the subject of the habitability of the worlds, or dismiss it with scarcely any recognition of the overpowering human interest that it possesses. Many most important and significant discoveries, in several notable instances, have completely altered the aspect in which the other worlds present themselves for our judgment as to their conditions of habitability. The technical books on astronomy should now come up with inputs on the subject.
Q. ''Technical books on astronomy usually either ignore the subject of the habitability of the worlds, or dismiss it with scarcely any recognition of the overpowering human interest that it possesses.'' Which of the following best reflects what the author wants to convey through this line?
Directions: The passage given below is followed by four alternative summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage.
In the notion of consequences, the Utilitarian includes all of the good and bad produced by the act, whether arising after the act has been performed or during its performance. If the difference in the consequences of alternative acts is not great, some Utilitarians do not regard the choice between them as a moral issue. According to Mill, acts should be classified as morally right or wrong only if the consequences are of such significance that a person would wish to see the agent compelled, not merely persuaded and exhorted, to act in the preferred manner.
Directions: The four sentences (labelled 1, 2, 3, 4) below, when properly sequenced would yield a coherent paragraph. Decide on the proper sequencing of the order of the sentences and key in the sequence of the four numbers as your answer.
1. Hydrothermal hot springs form in areas of geothermal activity, where water is heated under the Earth, either by shallow bodies of magma or by moving through fault systems deep in the Earth's crust before rising to the surface.
2. As the water moves away from direct contact with the vent, it begins to cool and precipitate the ions dissolved within, forming mineral deposits.
3. These volcanic hot springs are all very rich in minerals, such as native sulphur and jarosite, because heated water can hold far more dissolved cations and anions compared to cold water.
4. Here, it might form a hot lake or stream, or a slow-boiling mud pool, or it could form a geyser that erupts hot water and steam at regular intervals.
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