Comprehension:
For two years, I tracked down dozens of . . . Chinese in Upper Egypt [who were] selling lingerie. In a deeply conservative region, where Egyptian families rarely allow women to work or own businesses, the Chinese flourished because of their status as outsiders. They didn’t gossip, and they kept their opinions to themselves. In a New Yorker article entitled “Learning to Speak Lingerie,” I described the Chinese use of Arabic as another non-threatening characteristic. I wrote, “Unlike Mandarin, Arabic is inflected for gender, and Chinese dealers, who learn the language strictly by ear, often pick up speech patterns from female customers. I’ve come to think of it as the lingerie dialect, and there’s something disarming about these Chinese men speaking in the feminine voice.” . . .
When I wrote about the Chinese in the New Yorker, most readers seemed to appreciate the unusual perspective. But as I often find with topics that involve the Middle East, some people had trouble getting past the black-and-white quality of a byline. “This piece is so orientalist I don’t know what to do,” Aisha Gani, a reporter who worked at The Guardian, tweeted. Another colleague at the British paper, Iman Amrani, agreed: “I wouldn’t have minded an article on the subject written by an Egyptian woman—probably would have had better insight.” . . .
As an MOL (man of language), I also take issue with this kind of essentialism. Empathy and understanding are not inherited traits, and they are not strictly tied to gender and race. An individual who wrestles with a difficult language can learn to be more sympathetic to outsiders and open to different experiences of the world. This learning process—the embarrassments, the frustrations, the gradual sense of understanding and connection—is invariably transformative. In Upper Egypt, the Chinese experience of struggling to learn Arabic and local culture had made them much more thoughtful. In the same way, I was interested in their lives not because of some kind of voyeurism, but because I had also experienced Egypt and Arabic as an outsider. And both the Chinese and the Egyptians welcomed me because I spoke their languages. My identity as a white male was far less important than my ability to communicate.
And that easily lobbed word—“Orientalist”—hardly captures the complexity of our interactions. What exactly is the dynamic when a man from Missouri observes a Zhejiang native selling lingerie to an Upper Egyptian woman? . . . If all of us now stand beside the same river, speaking in ways we all understand, who’s looking east and who’s looking west? Which way is Oriental?
For all of our current interest in identity politics, there’s no corresponding sense of identity linguistics. You are what you speak—the words that run throughout your mind are at least as fundamental to your selfhood as is your ethnicity or your gender. And sometimes it’s healthy to consider human characteristics that are not inborn, rigid, and outwardly defined. After all, you can always learn another language and change who you are.
Question for CAT PYQ 2019: Reading Comprehension - 1
Try yourself:According to the passage, which of the following is not responsible for language’s ability to change us?
Explanation
" This learning process—the embarrassments, the frustrations, the gradual sense of understanding and connection—is invariably transformative." From this sentence, option A can be inferred. Hence it is incorrect. " After all, you can always learn another language and change who you are." From this line, option B can be inferred. Hence it is incorrect. "You are what you speak—the words that run throughout your mind are at least as fundamental to your selfhood as is your ethnicity or your gender" From this option D can be inferred. Hence it is incorrect. The author makes no mention about the inherent ability of language to evolve over time to change a person. Hence, it is not responsible for language's ability to change us. Option C is the correct answer.
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Question for CAT PYQ 2019: Reading Comprehension - 1
Try yourself:A French ethnographer decides to study the culture of a Nigerian tribe. Which of the following is most likely to be the view of the author of the passage?
Explanation
The author is of the opinion that learning the language of local cultures would help bridge cultural barriers. Option D is against the author's point of view. Hence it is definitely incorrect. Option A is incorrect. The author is of the opinion that the ability to communicate is far more important than the racial divide between two people. Hence it is unlikely to be the view of the author.
Option C is incorrect as the author, in the passage is much more concerned about the ability to communicate that racial and gender identity of the person. Option B falls in line with the viewpoint of the author. Hence it is the correct answer.
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Question for CAT PYQ 2019: Reading Comprehension - 1
Try yourself:Which of the following can be inferred from the author’s claim, “Which way is Oriental?”
Explanation
"And that easily lobbed word—“Orientalist”—hardly captures the complexity of our interactions. What exactly is the dynamic when a man from Missouri observes a Zhejiang native selling lingerie to an Upper Egyptian woman? . . . If all of us now stand beside the same river, speaking in ways we all understand, who’s looking east and who’s looking west? Which way is Oriental?" From the above passage, it is clear that the author consider the word Orientalist an easily lobbied word that does not capture the complex nature of interactions between people of different cultures. The author is of the opinion that if people in different parts of the world all speak in tongues that all of them understand, then the east west divide would be broken. The author is of the opinion that learning new languages would help bridge the east west divide. There is no information provided in the passage that globalization has enabled people learn more languages and thereby mitigated cultural hierarchies and barriers. Hence,option A is incorrect. Option B is incorrect. The author never makes the claim that Orientalism has disappeared for the most part. The author makes no claim about goodwill. Hence option C is incorrect. Option D correctly encapsulates the arguments made by the author. Hence it is the correct answer.
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Question for CAT PYQ 2019: Reading Comprehension - 1
Try yourself:The author’s critics would argue that:
Explanation
The major idea put forth by the author is that cultural barriers can be broken down and an outsider can ingrain himself with the local culture by learning the language of the culture. The author himself says that an individual who wrestles with a difficult language would learn to be more sympathetic to outsiders. He also says that empathy is not tied to gender and race, and therefore a individual who learns languages is usually empathetic to different races in the world. Thus option B can be inferred from the passage and is incorrect. The passage makes no mention of linguistic politics. Also he is of the opinion that a person's characteristics can be changed for the good by learning another language. Hence option C can be inferred from the author's argument and is incorrect. The word orientalism itself means looking down upon middle eastern countries by the US and European countries. Hence, option D does not make sense. Option A is directly in conflict with the author's main point and that would be the major criticism by the author's critics. Hence it is the correct answer.
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Comprehension:
British colonial policy . . . went through two policy phases, or at least there were two strategies between which its policies actually oscillated, sometimes to its great advantage. At first, the new colonial apparatus exercised caution and occupied India by a mix of military power and subtle diplomacy, the high ground in the middle of the circle of circles. This, however, pushed them into contradictions. For, whatever their sense of the strangeness of the country and the thinness of colonial presence, the British colonial state represented the great conquering discourse of Enlightenment rationalism, entering India precisely at the moment of its greatest unchecked arrogance. As inheritors and representatives of this discourse, which carried everything before it, this colonial state could hardly adopt for long such a self-denying attitude. It had restructured everything in Europe—the productive system, the political regimes, the moral and cognitive orders—and would do the same in India, particularly as some empirically inclined theorists of that generation considered the colonies a massive laboratory of utilitarian or other theoretical experiments. Consequently, the colonial state could not settle simply for eminence at the cost of its marginality; it began to take initiatives to introduce the logic of modernity into Indian society. But this modernity did not enter a passive society. Sometimes, its initiatives were resisted by pre-existing structural forms. At times, there was a more direct form of collective resistance.
Therefore the map of continuity and discontinuity that this state left behind at the time of independence was rather complex and has to be traced with care.
Most significantly, of course, initiatives for modernity came to assume an external character. The acceptance of modernity came to be connected, ineradicably, with subjection. This again points to two different problems, one theoretical, the other political. Theoretically, because modernity was externally introduced, it is explanatorily unhelpful to apply the logical format of the ‘transition process’ to this pattern of change. Such a logical format would be wrong on two counts. First, however subtly, it would imply that what was proposed to be built was something like European capitalism. (And, in any case, historians have forcefully argued that what it was to replace was not like feudalism, with or without modificatory adjectives.) But, more fundamentally, the logical structure of endogenous change does not apply here. Here transformation agendas attack as an external force. This externality is not something that can be casually mentioned and forgotten. It is inscribed on every move, every object, every proposal, every legislative act, each line of causality. It comes to be marked on the epoch itself. This repetitive emphasis on externality should not be seen as a nationalist initiative that is so well-rehearsed in Indian social science. . . .
Quite apart from the externality of the entire historical proposal of modernity, some of its contents were remarkable. . . . Economic reforms, or rather alterations . . . did not foreshadow the construction of a classical capitalist economy, with its necessary emphasis on extractive and transport sectors. What happened was the creation of a degenerate version of capitalism —what early dependency theorists called the ‘development of underdevelopment’.
Question for CAT PYQ 2019: Reading Comprehension - 1
Try yourself:“Consequently, the colonial state could not settle simply for eminence at the cost of its marginality; it began to take initiatives to introduce the logic of modernity into Indian society.” Which of the following best captures the sense of this statement?
Explanation
From the passage it can be inferred that though the British enjoyed political eminence in India, they felt that they were still marginalised from Indian society, and hence, to bring the Indian state to the same footing, they sought to introduce modernity, which they felt was the next logical step into Indian society.It cannot be inferred from the passage that the British introduced modernity because they believed that the cost of their eminence was not settled. Hence, option A is incorrect.The colonial enterprise tried to introduce the logic of modernity because it felt marginalized, rather than to justify the cost of colonization. Hence option B is incorrect.Option C states that the introduction of modernity developed Indian society. However, the last paragraph states that the exercise proved counterproductive, and there was a development of underdevelopment. Option C is incorrect.Option D best explains the reason for the author introducing the statement mentioned in the question. Hence, option D is the correct answer.
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Question for CAT PYQ 2019: Reading Comprehension - 1
Try yourself:All of the following statements, if true, could be seen as supporting the arguments in the passage, EXCEPT:
Explanation
".....empirically inclined theorists of that generation considered the colonies a massive laboratory of utilitarian or other theoretical experiments." From the aforementioned lines, option A can be inferred.
"What happened was the creation of a degenerate version of capitalism —what early dependency theorists called the ‘development of underdevelopment’." From these lines it can be inferred that, because modernity was imposed upon India by the British, it led to the development of underdevelopment. Option B can be inferred.From the passage, it can be understood that feudalism underwent a transformative process into capitalism, unlike the Indian transition which happened inorganically through external factors. Hence, option D can be inferred as well.The change in British colonial policy was not induced by resistance to modernity in Indian society, but due to the perception that the British were marginalised in the context of the Indian society. Hence, option C, which cannot be inferred is the correct answer.
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Question for CAT PYQ 2019: Reading Comprehension - 1
Try yourself:All of the following statements about British colonialism can be inferred from the first paragraph, EXCEPT that it:
Explanation
".....empirically inclined theorists of that generation considered the colonies a massive laboratory of utilitarianor other theoretical experiments" From these lines option A can be inferred. Consider the lines, "e British colonial state represented the great conquering discourse of Enlightenment rationalism, entering India precisely at the moment of its greatest unchecked arrogance. . As inheritors and representatives of this discourse, which carried everything before it, this colonial state could hardly adopt for long such a self-denying attitude." Option C can be inferred from it.Consider the lines , " It had restructured everything in Europe—the productive system, the political regimes, the moral and cognitive orders—and would do the same in India, " Option D can be inferred from these lines.It is nowhere mentioned in the passage, that British colonialism faces resistence from the existing structural forms of Indian modernity. Hence , option B is the correct answer.
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Question for CAT PYQ 2019: Reading Comprehension - 1
Try yourself:Which one of the following 5-word sequences best captures the flow of the arguments in the passage?
Explanation
The first part of the passage talks about British colonial policy, which went through two policy phases. Hence, the options B and C which have military power as the introductory idea are incorrect. The second idea mentioned in the passage is about Enlightenment rationalism, of which the British colonizers were inheritors and representatives of The subsequent ideas are about how modernity was inorganically injected into India by subjecting it to external forces. The passage further talks about how these economic alterations did not give rise to the construction of a classical capitalist economy, but rather led to the development of underdevelopment. Option A mentions all the ideas correctly and hence it is the correct answer.
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Question for CAT PYQ 2019: Reading Comprehension - 1
Try yourself:Which of the following observations is a valid conclusion to draw from the author’s statement that “the logical structure of endogenous change does not apply here. Here transformation agendas attack as an external force”?
Explanation
Theoretically, because modernity was externally introduced, it is explanatorily unhelpful to apply the logical format of the ‘transition process’ to this pattern of change." From the given lines it can be understood that the general endogeneous method of the process of transition could not be accepted to British colonialisation of India, because modernity did not occur naturally but was externally introduced. The passage only states that initiatives for modernity were introduced to India through external sources. It does not state that all colonised societies cannot be changed by logic. Hence this option is incorrect. In the case of India, the transformational agents themselves are inorganic external forces. Hence, option C cannot be inferred. The passage nowhere states that Indian society is exogamous. Hence option D is incorrect. Option B best describes the conclusion that can be drawn from the author's statement. Hence it is the correct answer.
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Comprehension
Around the world, capital cities are disgorging bureaucrats. In the post-colonial fervour of the 20th century, coastal capitals picked by trade-focused empires were spurned for “regionally neutral” new ones. But decamping wholesale is costly and unpopular; governments these days prefer piecemeal dispersal. The trend reflects how the world has changed. In past eras, when information travelled at a snail’s pace, civil servants had to cluster together. But now desk-workers can ping emails and video-chat around the world. Travel for face-to- face meetings may be unavoidable, but transport links, too, have improved.
Proponents of moving civil servants around promise countless benefits. It disperses the risk that a terrorist attack or natural disaster will cripple an entire government. Wonks in the sticks will be inspired by new ideas that walled-off capitals cannot conjure up. Autonomous regulators perform best far from the pressure and lobbying of the big city. Some even hail a cure for ascendant cynicism and populism. The unloved bureaucrats of faraway capitals will become as popular as firefighters once they mix with regular folk.
Beyond these sunny visions, dispersing central-government functions usually has three specific aims: to improve the lives of both civil servants and those living in clogged capitals; to save money; to redress regional imbalances. The trouble is that these goals are not always realised.
The first aim—improving living conditions—has a long pedigree. After the second world war, Britain moved thousands of civil servants to “agreeable English country towns” as London was rebuilt. But swapping the capital for somewhere smaller is not always agreeable. Attrition rates can exceed 80%. . . . The second reason to pack bureaucrats off is to save money. Office space costs far more in capitals. Agencies that are moved elsewhere can often recruit better workers on lower salaries than in capitals, where well-paying multinationals mop up talent.
The third reason to shift is to rebalance regional inequality. Norway treats federal jobs as a resource every region deserves to enjoy, like profits from oil. Where government jobs go, private ones follow. Sometimes the aim is to fulfil the potential of a country’s second-tier cities. Unlike poor, remote places, bigger cities can make the most of relocated government agencies, linking them to local universities and businesses and supplying a better-educated workforce. The decision in 1946 to set up America’s Centres for Disease Control in Atlanta rather than Washington, D.C., has transformed the city into a hub for health-sector research and business.
The dilemma is obvious. Pick small, poor towns, and areas of high unemployment get new jobs, but it is hard to attract the most qualified workers; opt for larger cities with infrastructure and better-qualified residents, and the country’s most deprived areas see little benefit.
Others contend that decentralisation begets corruption by making government agencies less accountable. A study in America found that state-government corruption is worse when the state capital is isolated—journalists, who tend to live in the bigger cities, become less watchful of those in power.
Question for CAT PYQ 2019: Reading Comprehension - 1
Try yourself:According to the passage, colonial powers located their capitals:
Explanation
"In the post-colonial fervour of the 20th century, coastal capitals picked by trade-focused empires were spurned for “regionally neutral” new ones". From these lines, it can be inferred that the colonial empires had their capitals in the coasts as the empires were mostly focused on trade. It goes on to say that, post - colonisation, empires had their capitals changed to regionally neutral areas.Hence, it can be directly inferred that colonies had capitals in coasts to promote their trading interests.Option B is the correct answer.
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Question for CAT PYQ 2019: Reading Comprehension - 1
Try yourself:According to the author, relocating government agencies has not always been a success for all of the following reasons EXCEPT:
Explanation
Option B is a problem of relocating government agencies and it can be inferred from this line " Pick small, poor towns, and areas of high unemployment get new jobs, but it is hard to attract the most qualified workers". Hence, option B is incorrect. Option C is true with respect to the passage. It can be inferred from the line " Others contend that decentralisation begets corruption by making government agencies less accountable ." Hence it is incorrect. Option D is also mentioned in the passage. Qualified workers do not want to live in smaller cities. Hence, it is also a reason for relocation not being a success.Option A is not mentioned in the passage and hence it is the correct answer.
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Question for CAT PYQ 2019: Reading Comprehension - 1
Try yourself:The “long pedigree” of the aim to shift civil servants to improve their living standards implies that this move:
Explanation
The word pedigree has a meaning, " history of an idea or an activity". The term long pedigree indicates that the idea has been touted with a lot of times in the past. Option D is the only option that conveys this meaning and hence it is the correct answer.
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Question for CAT PYQ 2019: Reading Comprehension - 1
Try yourself:Based on the passage, people who support decentralising central government functions are LEAST likely to cite which of the following reasons for their view?
Explanation
The passage states that regulators perform best if they are far from the lobbying of a big city. Hence, the people who support decentralizing central government functions are likely to cite the above reason for their view. Option B and C are incorrect for this reason. Option D is incorrect as the passage states that infrastructure costs and salaries would become lower in smaller cities. The argument is used in the passage. Hence it is correct.The nexus between bureaucrats and media is not mentioned in the passage. Hence the argument is least likely to be used by people who support the decentralising of central government functions.Option A is the correct answer.
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Question for CAT PYQ 2019: Reading Comprehension - 1
Try yourself:The “dilemma” mentioned in the passage refers to:
Explanation
"The dilemma is obvious. Pick small, poor towns, and areas of high unemployment get new jobs, but it is hard to attract the most qualified workers; opt for larger cities with infrastructure and better-qualified residents, and the country’s most deprived areas see little benefit" Option A is incorrect. The passage makes no mention of having the government agencies in the "largest" city. It talks about having them in "larger cities". Hence it is incorrect. Option C talks about the relocation of private enterprises. This is not mentioned in the passage as the passage is primarily about the relocation of government bureaucrats. Option D makes no mention of decongesting large cities. Hence it is incorrect. Option B makes the right comparison. It compares the hard task of relocating qualified workers to smaller towns, to allocating workers to larger cities, which would result in smaller towns receiving little benefit. Option B is the correct answer.
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