CAT Practice Test - 9 - CAT MCQ

Read the passage and answer the question based on it.

The idea that plants can behave intelligently, let alone learn or form memories, was a fringe notion until quite recently. Memory requires a brain, and plants lack even the rudimentary nervous systems of bugs and worms. However, over the past decade or so this view has been forcefully challenged.

Plants are not simply organic, passive automata. We now know that they can sense and integrate information about dozens of different environmental variables, and that they use this knowledge to guide flexible, adaptive behaviour. Plants also mount complex, targeted defences in response to recognising specific predators. Plants communicate with one another and other organisms, such as parasites and microbes, using a variety of channels – including ‘mycorrhizal networks’ of fungus that link up the root systems of multiple plants, like some kind of subterranean internet. Perhaps it’s not really so surprising then that plants learn and use memories for prediction and decision-making.

What does learning and memory involve for a plant? An example that’s front and centre of the debate is vernalisation, a process in which certain plants must be exposed to the cold before they can flower in the spring. The ‘memory of winter’ is what helps plants to distinguish between spring (when pollinators, such as bees, are busy) and autumn (when they are not, and when the decision to flower at the wrong time of year could be reproductively disastrous). This involves what’s called epigenetic memory.

But is this really memory? Plant scientists who study ‘epigenetic memory’ will be the first to admit that it’s fundamentally different from the sort of thing studied by cognitive scientists. Both epigenetic and ‘brainy’ memories have one thing in common: a persistent change in the behaviour or state of a system, caused by an environmental stimulus that’s no longer present. Yet this description seems too broad, since it would also capture processes such as tissue damage, wounding or metabolic changes. Perhaps the interesting question isn’t really whether or not memories are needed for cognition, but rather which types of memories indicate the existence of underlying cognitive processes, and whether these processes exist in plants.

One form of learning that’s been studied extensively is habituation, in which creatures exposed to an unexpected but harmless stimulus (a noise, a flash of light) will have a cautionary response that slowly diminishes over time.

But what about more complex learning?  In 2016, Gagliano and colleagues tested whether Pisum sativum, or the garden pea, could link the movement of air with the availability of light. They placed seedlings at the base of a Y-maze, to be buffeted by air coming from only one of the forks – the brighter one. The plants were then allowed to grow into either fork of the Y-maze, to test whether they had learned the association. The results were positive – showing that the plants learned the conditioned response in a situationally relevant manner.

Why has it taken so long to figure this out? Plant blindness - A tendency to overlook plant capacities, behaviour, and the unique and active environmental roles that they play. We treat them as part of the background, not as active agents in an ecosystem.

Particularities of the way our bodies work – our perceptual, attentional and cognitive systems – contribute to plant blindness and biases. Plants don’t usually jump out at us suddenly, present an imminent threat, or behave in ways that obviously impact upon us. Furthermore, plant behaviour frequently involves chemical and structural changes that are simply too small, too fast or too slow for us to perceive without equipment.

Also, there’s a concern that we’re defining memory so broadly as to be meaningless, or that things such as habituation are not, in themselves, cognitive mechanisms. However, by pushing ourselves, we might end up expanding the concepts – such as ‘memory’, ‘learning’ and ‘thought’ – that initially motivated our enquiry.

Q. A suitable title for this passage is

Read the passage and answer the question based on it.

The idea that plants can behave intelligently, let alone learn or form memories, was a fringe notion until quite recently. Memory requires a brain, and plants lack even the rudimentary nervous systems of bugs and worms. However, over the past decade or so this view has been forcefully challenged.

Plants are not simply organic, passive automata. We now know that they can sense and integrate information about dozens of different environmental variables, and that they use this knowledge to guide flexible, adaptive behaviour. Plants also mount complex, targeted defences in response to recognising specific predators. Plants communicate with one another and other organisms, such as parasites and microbes, using a variety of channels – including ‘mycorrhizal networks’ of fungus that link up the root systems of multiple plants, like some kind of subterranean internet. Perhaps it’s not really so surprising then that plants learn and use memories for prediction and decision-making.

What does learning and memory involve for a plant? An example that’s front and centre of the debate is vernalisation, a process in which certain plants must be exposed to the cold before they can flower in the spring. The ‘memory of winter’ is what helps plants to distinguish between spring (when pollinators, such as bees, are busy) and autumn (when they are not, and when the decision to flower at the wrong time of year could be reproductively disastrous). This involves what’s called epigenetic memory.

But is this really memory? Plant scientists who study ‘epigenetic memory’ will be the first to admit that it’s fundamentally different from the sort of thing studied by cognitive scientists. Both epigenetic and ‘brainy’ memories have one thing in common: a persistent change in the behaviour or state of a system, caused by an environmental stimulus that’s no longer present. Yet this description seems too broad, since it would also capture processes such as tissue damage, wounding or metabolic changes. Perhaps the interesting question isn’t really whether or not memories are needed for cognition, but rather which types of memories indicate the existence of underlying cognitive processes, and whether these processes exist in plants.

One form of learning that’s been studied extensively is habituation, in which creatures exposed to an unexpected but harmless stimulus (a noise, a flash of light) will have a cautionary response that slowly diminishes over time.

But what about more complex learning?  In 2016, Gagliano and colleagues tested whether Pisum sativum, or the garden pea, could link the movement of air with the availability of light. They placed seedlings at the base of a Y-maze, to be buffeted by air coming from only one of the forks – the brighter one. The plants were then allowed to grow into either fork of the Y-maze, to test whether they had learned the association. The results were positive – showing that the plants learned the conditioned response in a situationally relevant manner.

Why has it taken so long to figure this out? Plant blindness - A tendency to overlook plant capacities, behaviour, and the unique and active environmental roles that they play. We treat them as part of the background, not as active agents in an ecosystem.

Particularities of the way our bodies work – our perceptual, attentional and cognitive systems – contribute to plant blindness and biases. Plants don’t usually jump out at us suddenly, present an imminent threat, or behave in ways that obviously impact upon us. Furthermore, plant behaviour frequently involves chemical and structural changes that are simply too small, too fast or too slow for us to perceive without equipment.

Also, there’s a concern that we’re defining memory so broadly as to be meaningless, or that things such as habituation are not, in themselves, cognitive mechanisms. However, by pushing ourselves, we might end up expanding the concepts – such as ‘memory’, ‘learning’ and ‘thought’ – that initially motivated our enquiry.

Q. The author is likely to agree with which of the following statements.

Read the passage and answer the question based on it.

When Lee Nelson first began researching autoimmune disorders in the 1980s, the prevailing assumption was that conditions such as arthritis and lupus tend to show up more commonly in women because they are linked to female sex hormones. But to Nelson, this explanation did not make sense. If hormones were the culprit, one would expect these afflictions to peak during a woman’s prime reproductive years, when instead they typically appear later in life.

One day in 1994, a colleague specializing in prenatal diagnosis called her up to say that a blood sample from a female technician in his lab was found to contain male DNA a full year after the birth of her son. ‘It set off a light bulb,’ Nelson told me. ‘I wondered what the consequences might be of harbouring these lingering cells.’ Since the developing foetus is genetically half-foreign to the mother, Nelson set out to investigate whether it could be that pregnancy poses a long-term challenge to women’s health.

Evidence that cells travel from the developing foetus into the mother dates back to 1893, when the German pathologist Georg Schmorl found signs of these genetic remnants in women who had died of pregnancy-induced hypertensive disorder. Autopsies revealed ‘giant’ and ‘very particular’ cells in the lungs, which he theorised had been transported as foreign bodies, originating in the placenta.

Within weeks of conception, cells from both mother and foetus traffic back and forth across the placenta, resulting in one becoming a part of the other. And the foetus need not come to full term to leave its lasting imprint on the mother: a woman who had a miscarriage or terminated a pregnancy will still harbour foetal cells. With each successive conception, the mother’s reservoir of foreign material grows deeper and more complex, with further opportunities to transfer cells from older siblings to younger children, or even across multiple generations.

Far from drifting at random, human and animal studies have found foetal origin cells in the mother’s bloodstream, skin and all major organs, even showing up as part of the beating heart. This passage means that women carry at least three unique cell populations in their bodies – their own, their mother’s, and their child’s – creating what biologists term a microchimera, named for the Greek fire-breathing monster with the head of a lion, the body of a goat, and the tail of a serpent.

Researchers realised in the 1990s that it also occurs during organ transplantation, where the genetic match between donor and recipient determines whether the body accepts or rejects the grafted tissue, or if it triggers disease. The body’s default tendency to reject foreign material begs the question of how, and why, microchimeric cells picked up during pregnancy linger on indefinitely. No one fully understands why these ‘interlopers’, as Nelson calls them, are tolerated for decades. One explanation is that they are stem or stem-like cells that are absorbed into the different features of the body’s internal landscape, able to bypass immune defences because they are half-identical to the mother’s own cell population. Another is that pregnancy itself changes the immune identity of the mother, altering the composition of what some researchers have dubbed the ‘microchiome’, making her more tolerant of foreign cells.

Most of the research focuses on the Y chromosome as a marker for foetal microchimerism. This does not mean that sons, rather than daughters, uniquely affect their mother’s bodies, but rather reflects an ease of measurement: the Y chromosome stands out among a woman’s XX genes. And there is nothing to suggest that the presence of male cells in women’s brains wields a particular influence. Nonetheless, the findings gesture toward an array of questions about what it means for one individual to play host to the cellular material of another.

Q. A suitable title for the passage would be

Read the passage and answer the question based on it.

When Lee Nelson first began researching autoimmune disorders in the 1980s, the prevailing assumption was that conditions such as arthritis and lupus tend to show up more commonly in women because they are linked to female sex hormones. But to Nelson, this explanation did not make sense. If hormones were the culprit, one would expect these afflictions to peak during a woman’s prime reproductive years, when instead they typically appear later in life.

One day in 1994, a colleague specializing in prenatal diagnosis called her up to say that a blood sample from a female technician in his lab was found to contain male DNA a full year after the birth of her son. ‘It set off a light bulb,’ Nelson told me. ‘I wondered what the consequences might be of harbouring these lingering cells.’ Since the developing foetus is genetically half-foreign to the mother, Nelson set out to investigate whether it could be that pregnancy poses a long-term challenge to women’s health.

Evidence that cells travel from the developing foetus into the mother dates back to 1893, when the German pathologist Georg Schmorl found signs of these genetic remnants in women who had died of pregnancy-induced hypertensive disorder. Autopsies revealed ‘giant’ and ‘very particular’ cells in the lungs, which he theorised had been transported as foreign bodies, originating in the placenta.

Within weeks of conception, cells from both mother and foetus traffic back and forth across the placenta, resulting in one becoming a part of the other. And the foetus need not come to full term to leave its lasting imprint on the mother: a woman who had a miscarriage or terminated a pregnancy will still harbour foetal cells. With each successive conception, the mother’s reservoir of foreign material grows deeper and more complex, with further opportunities to transfer cells from older siblings to younger children, or even across multiple generations.

Far from drifting at random, human and animal studies have found foetal origin cells in the mother’s bloodstream, skin and all major organs, even showing up as part of the beating heart. This passage means that women carry at least three unique cell populations in their bodies – their own, their mother’s, and their child’s – creating what biologists term a microchimera, named for the Greek fire-breathing monster with the head of a lion, the body of a goat, and the tail of a serpent.

Researchers realised in the 1990s that it also occurs during organ transplantation, where the genetic match between donor and recipient determines whether the body accepts or rejects the grafted tissue, or if it triggers disease. The body’s default tendency to reject foreign material begs the question of how, and why, microchimeric cells picked up during pregnancy linger on indefinitely. No one fully understands why these ‘interlopers’, as Nelson calls them, are tolerated for decades. One explanation is that they are stem or stem-like cells that are absorbed into the different features of the body’s internal landscape, able to bypass immune defences because they are half-identical to the mother’s own cell population. Another is that pregnancy itself changes the immune identity of the mother, altering the composition of what some researchers have dubbed the ‘microchiome’, making her more tolerant of foreign cells.

Most of the research focuses on the Y chromosome as a marker for foetal microchimerism. This does not mean that sons, rather than daughters, uniquely affect their mother’s bodies, but rather reflects an ease of measurement: the Y chromosome stands out among a woman’s XX genes. And there is nothing to suggest that the presence of male cells in women’s brains wields a particular influence. Nonetheless, the findings gesture toward an array of questions about what it means for one individual to play host to the cellular material of another.

Q. All of the following are true according to the passage, except

Read the passage and answer the question based on it.

When Lee Nelson first began researching autoimmune disorders in the 1980s, the prevailing assumption was that conditions such as arthritis and lupus tend to show up more commonly in women because they are linked to female sex hormones. But to Nelson, this explanation did not make sense. If hormones were the culprit, one would expect these afflictions to peak during a woman’s prime reproductive years, when instead they typically appear later in life.

One day in 1994, a colleague specializing in prenatal diagnosis called her up to say that a blood sample from a female technician in his lab was found to contain male DNA a full year after the birth of her son. ‘It set off a light bulb,’ Nelson told me. ‘I wondered what the consequences might be of harbouring these lingering cells.’ Since the developing foetus is genetically half-foreign to the mother, Nelson set out to investigate whether it could be that pregnancy poses a long-term challenge to women’s health.

Evidence that cells travel from the developing foetus into the mother dates back to 1893, when the German pathologist Georg Schmorl found signs of these genetic remnants in women who had died of pregnancy-induced hypertensive disorder. Autopsies revealed ‘giant’ and ‘very particular’ cells in the lungs, which he theorised had been transported as foreign bodies, originating in the placenta.

Within weeks of conception, cells from both mother and foetus traffic back and forth across the placenta, resulting in one becoming a part of the other. And the foetus need not come to full term to leave its lasting imprint on the mother: a woman who had a miscarriage or terminated a pregnancy will still harbour foetal cells. With each successive conception, the mother’s reservoir of foreign material grows deeper and more complex, with further opportunities to transfer cells from older siblings to younger children, or even across multiple generations.

Far from drifting at random, human and animal studies have found foetal origin cells in the mother’s bloodstream, skin and all major organs, even showing up as part of the beating heart. This passage means that women carry at least three unique cell populations in their bodies – their own, their mother’s, and their child’s – creating what biologists term a microchimera, named for the Greek fire-breathing monster with the head of a lion, the body of a goat, and the tail of a serpent.

Researchers realised in the 1990s that it also occurs during organ transplantation, where the genetic match between donor and recipient determines whether the body accepts or rejects the grafted tissue, or if it triggers disease. The body’s default tendency to reject foreign material begs the question of how, and why, microchimeric cells picked up during pregnancy linger on indefinitely. No one fully understands why these ‘interlopers’, as Nelson calls them, are tolerated for decades. One explanation is that they are stem or stem-like cells that are absorbed into the different features of the body’s internal landscape, able to bypass immune defences because they are half-identical to the mother’s own cell population. Another is that pregnancy itself changes the immune identity of the mother, altering the composition of what some researchers have dubbed the ‘microchiome’, making her more tolerant of foreign cells.

Most of the research focuses on the Y chromosome as a marker for foetal microchimerism. This does not mean that sons, rather than daughters, uniquely affect their mother’s bodies, but rather reflects an ease of measurement: the Y chromosome stands out among a woman’s XX genes. And there is nothing to suggest that the presence of male cells in women’s brains wields a particular influence. Nonetheless, the findings gesture toward an array of questions about what it means for one individual to play host to the cellular material of another.

Q. The author mentions organ transplantation to put forth the point that

Read the passage and answer the question based on it.

When Lee Nelson first began researching autoimmune disorders in the 1980s, the prevailing assumption was that conditions such as arthritis and lupus tend to show up more commonly in women because they are linked to female sex hormones. But to Nelson, this explanation did not make sense. If hormones were the culprit, one would expect these afflictions to peak during a woman’s prime reproductive years, when instead they typically appear later in life.

One day in 1994, a colleague specializing in prenatal diagnosis called her up to say that a blood sample from a female technician in his lab was found to contain male DNA a full year after the birth of her son. ‘It set off a light bulb,’ Nelson told me. ‘I wondered what the consequences might be of harbouring these lingering cells.’ Since the developing foetus is genetically half-foreign to the mother, Nelson set out to investigate whether it could be that pregnancy poses a long-term challenge to women’s health.

Evidence that cells travel from the developing foetus into the mother dates back to 1893, when the German pathologist Georg Schmorl found signs of these genetic remnants in women who had died of pregnancy-induced hypertensive disorder. Autopsies revealed ‘giant’ and ‘very particular’ cells in the lungs, which he theorised had been transported as foreign bodies, originating in the placenta.

Within weeks of conception, cells from both mother and foetus traffic back and forth across the placenta, resulting in one becoming a part of the other. And the foetus need not come to full term to leave its lasting imprint on the mother: a woman who had a miscarriage or terminated a pregnancy will still harbour foetal cells. With each successive conception, the mother’s reservoir of foreign material grows deeper and more complex, with further opportunities to transfer cells from older siblings to younger children, or even across multiple generations.

Far from drifting at random, human and animal studies have found foetal origin cells in the mother’s bloodstream, skin and all major organs, even showing up as part of the beating heart. This passage means that women carry at least three unique cell populations in their bodies – their own, their mother’s, and their child’s – creating what biologists term a microchimera, named for the Greek fire-breathing monster with the head of a lion, the body of a goat, and the tail of a serpent.

Researchers realised in the 1990s that it also occurs during organ transplantation, where the genetic match between donor and recipient determines whether the body accepts or rejects the grafted tissue, or if it triggers disease. The body’s default tendency to reject foreign material begs the question of how, and why, microchimeric cells picked up during pregnancy linger on indefinitely. No one fully understands why these ‘interlopers’, as Nelson calls them, are tolerated for decades. One explanation is that they are stem or stem-like cells that are absorbed into the different features of the body’s internal landscape, able to bypass immune defences because they are half-identical to the mother’s own cell population. Another is that pregnancy itself changes the immune identity of the mother, altering the composition of what some researchers have dubbed the ‘microchiome’, making her more tolerant of foreign cells.

Most of the research focuses on the Y chromosome as a marker for foetal microchimerism. This does not mean that sons, rather than daughters, uniquely affect their mother’s bodies, but rather reflects an ease of measurement: the Y chromosome stands out among a woman’s XX genes. And there is nothing to suggest that the presence of male cells in women’s brains wields a particular influence. Nonetheless, the findings gesture toward an array of questions about what it means for one individual to play host to the cellular material of another.

Q. Nelson gives all these as explanations for the tolerance of interlopers picked up during pregnancy, except

Read the passage and answer the question based on it.

When Lee Nelson first began researching autoimmune disorders in the 1980s, the prevailing assumption was that conditions such as arthritis and lupus tend to show up more commonly in women because they are linked to female sex hormones. But to Nelson, this explanation did not make sense. If hormones were the culprit, one would expect these afflictions to peak during a woman’s prime reproductive years, when instead they typically appear later in life.

One day in 1994, a colleague specializing in prenatal diagnosis called her up to say that a blood sample from a female technician in his lab was found to contain male DNA a full year after the birth of her son. ‘It set off a light bulb,’ Nelson told me. ‘I wondered what the consequences might be of harbouring these lingering cells.’ Since the developing foetus is genetically half-foreign to the mother, Nelson set out to investigate whether it could be that pregnancy poses a long-term challenge to women’s health.

Evidence that cells travel from the developing foetus into the mother dates back to 1893, when the German pathologist Georg Schmorl found signs of these genetic remnants in women who had died of pregnancy-induced hypertensive disorder. Autopsies revealed ‘giant’ and ‘very particular’ cells in the lungs, which he theorised had been transported as foreign bodies, originating in the placenta.

Within weeks of conception, cells from both mother and foetus traffic back and forth across the placenta, resulting in one becoming a part of the other. And the foetus need not come to full term to leave its lasting imprint on the mother: a woman who had a miscarriage or terminated a pregnancy will still harbour foetal cells. With each successive conception, the mother’s reservoir of foreign material grows deeper and more complex, with further opportunities to transfer cells from older siblings to younger children, or even across multiple generations.

Far from drifting at random, human and animal studies have found foetal origin cells in the mother’s bloodstream, skin and all major organs, even showing up as part of the beating heart. This passage means that women carry at least three unique cell populations in their bodies – their own, their mother’s, and their child’s – creating what biologists term a microchimera, named for the Greek fire-breathing monster with the head of a lion, the body of a goat, and the tail of a serpent.

Researchers realised in the 1990s that it also occurs during organ transplantation, where the genetic match between donor and recipient determines whether the body accepts or rejects the grafted tissue, or if it triggers disease. The body’s default tendency to reject foreign material begs the question of how, and why, microchimeric cells picked up during pregnancy linger on indefinitely. No one fully understands why these ‘interlopers’, as Nelson calls them, are tolerated for decades. One explanation is that they are stem or stem-like cells that are absorbed into the different features of the body’s internal landscape, able to bypass immune defences because they are half-identical to the mother’s own cell population. Another is that pregnancy itself changes the immune identity of the mother, altering the composition of what some researchers have dubbed the ‘microchiome’, making her more tolerant of foreign cells.

Most of the research focuses on the Y chromosome as a marker for foetal microchimerism. This does not mean that sons, rather than daughters, uniquely affect their mother’s bodies, but rather reflects an ease of measurement: the Y chromosome stands out among a woman’s XX genes. And there is nothing to suggest that the presence of male cells in women’s brains wields a particular influence. Nonetheless, the findings gesture toward an array of questions about what it means for one individual to play host to the cellular material of another.

Q. Nelson questions which of the following prevailing assumptions

Read the passage and answer the question based on it.

Civilization is a continuous movement"hence there is a gradual transition from the Oriental civilization to the Western. The former finally merges into the latter. Although the line of demarcation is not clearly drawn, some striking differences are apparent when the two are placed in juxtaposition. Perhaps the most evident contrast is observed in the gradual freedom of the mind from the influences of tradition and religious superstition. Connected with this, also, is the struggle for freedom from despotism in government. It has been observed how the ancient civilizations were characterized by the despotism of priests and kings. It was the early privilege of European life to gradually break away from this form of human degradation and establish individual rights and individual development. Kings and princes, indeed, ruled in the Western world, but they learned to do so with a fuller recognition of the rights of the governed. There came to be recognized, also, free discussion as the right of people in the processes of government. It is admitted that the despotic governments of the Old World existed for the few and neglected the many. While despotism was not wanting in European civilization, the struggle to be free from it was the ruling spirit of the age. The history of Europe centres around this struggle to be free from despotism and traditional learning, and to develop freedom of thought and action.

Among Oriental people the idea of progress was wanting in their philosophy. True, they had some notion of changes that take place in the conditions of political and social life, and in individual accomplishments, yet there was nothing hopeful in their presentation of the theory of life or in their practices of religion; and the few philosophers who recognized changes that were taking place saw not in them a persistent progress and growth. Their eyes were turned toward the past. Their thoughts centred on traditions and things that were fixed. Life was reduced to a dull, monotonous round by the great masses of the people. If at any time a ray of light penetrated the gloom, it was turned to illuminate the accumulated philosophies of the past. On the other hand, in European civilization we find the idea of progress becoming more and more predominant. The early Greeks and Romans were bound to a certain extent by the authority of tradition on one side and the fixity of purpose on the other. At times there was little that was hopeful in their philosophy, for they, too, recognized the decline in the affairs of men. But through trial and error, new discoveries of truth were made which persisted until the revival of learning in the Middle Ages, at the time of the formation of new nations, when the ideas of progress became fully recognized in the minds of the thoughtful, and subsequently in the full triumph of Western civilization came the recognition of the possibility of continuous progress.

Another great distinction in the development of European civilization was the recognition of humanity. In ancient times humanitarian spirit appeared not in the heart of man nor in the philosophy of government. Even the old tribal government was for the few. The national government was for selected citizens only. Specific gods, a special religion, the privilege of rights and duties were available to a few, while all others were deprived of them. This invoked a selfishness in practical life and developed a selfish system even among the leaders of ancient culture. The broad principle of the rights of an individual because he was human was not taken into serious consideration even among the more thoughtful. If he was friendly to the recognized god he was permitted to exist. If he was an enemy, he was to be crushed. On the other hand, the triumph of Western civilization is the recognition of the value of a human being and his right to engage in all human associations for which he is fitted. While the Greeks came into contact with the older civilizations of Egypt and Asia, and were influenced by their thought and custom, they brought a vigorous new life which gradually dominated and mastered the Oriental influences. They had sufficient vigor and independence to break with tradition, wherever it seemed necessary to accomplish their purpose of life.

Q. It can be clearly inferred from the passage that:

Read the passage and answer the question based on it. 

Civilization is a continuous movement—hence there is a gradual transition from the Oriental civilization to the Western. The former finally merges into the latter. Although the line of demarcation is not clearly drawn, some striking differences are apparent when the two are placed in juxtaposition. Perhaps the most evident contrast is observed in the gradual freedom of the mind from the influences of tradition and religious superstition. Connected with this, also, is the struggle for freedom from despotism in government. It has been observed how the ancient civilizations were characterized by the despotism of priests and kings. It was the early privilege of European life to gradually break away from this form of human degradation and establish individual rights and individual development. Kings and princes, indeed, ruled in the Western world, but they learned to do so with a fuller recognition of the rights of the governed. There came to be recognized, also, free discussion as the right of people in the processes of government. It is admitted that the despotic governments of the Old World existed for the few and neglected the many. While despotism was not wanting in European civilization, the struggle to be free from it was the ruling spirit of the age. The history of Europe centres around this struggle to be free from despotism and traditional learning, and to develop freedom of thought and action.

Among Oriental people the idea of progress was wanting in their philosophy. True, they had some notion of changes that take place in the conditions of political and social life, and in individual accomplishments, yet there was nothing hopeful in their presentation of the theory of life or in their practices of religion; and the few philosophers who recognized changes that were taking place saw not in them a persistent progress and growth. Their eyes were turned toward the past. Their thoughts centred on traditions and things that were fixed. Life was reduced to a dull, monotonous round by the great masses of the people. If at any time a ray of light penetrated the gloom, it was turned to illuminate the accumulated philosophies of the past. On the other hand, in European civilization we find the idea of progress becoming more and more predominant. The early Greeks and Romans were bound to a certain extent by the authority of tradition on one side and the fixity of purpose on the other. At times there was little that was hopeful in their philosophy, for they, too, recognized the decline in the affairs of men. But through trial and error, new discoveries of truth were made which persisted until the revival of learning in the Middle Ages, at the time of the formation of new nations, when the ideas of progress became fully recognized in the minds of the thoughtful, and subsequently in the full triumph of Western civilization came the recognition of the possibility of continuous progress.

Another great distinction in the development of European civilization was the recognition of humanity. In ancient times humanitarian spirit appeared not in the heart of man nor in the philosophy of government. Even the old tribal government was for the few. The national government was for selected citizens only. Specific gods, a special religion, the privilege of rights and duties were available to a few, while all others were deprived of them. This invoked a selfishness in practical life and developed a selfish system even among the leaders of ancient culture. The broad principle of the rights of an individual because he was human was not taken into serious consideration even among the more thoughtful. If he was friendly to the recognized god he was permitted to exist. If he was an enemy, he was to be crushed. On the other hand, the triumph of Western civilization is the recognition of the value of a human being and his right to engage in all human associations for which he is fitted. While the Greeks came into contact with the older civilizations of Egypt and Asia, and were influenced by their thought and custom, they brought a vigorous new life which gradually dominated and mastered the Oriental influences. They had sufficient vigor and independence to break with tradition, wherever it seemed necessary to accomplish their purpose of life.

Q. According to the information given in the passage, it can be deduced that:

Read the passage and answer the question based on it. 

Civilization is a continuous movement—hence there is a gradual transition from the Oriental civilization to the Western. The former finally merges into the latter. Although the line of demarcation is not clearly drawn, some striking differences are apparent when the two are placed in juxtaposition. Perhaps the most evident contrast is observed in the gradual freedom of the mind from the influences of tradition and religious superstition. Connected with this, also, is the struggle for freedom from despotism in government. It has been observed how the ancient civilizations were characterized by the despotism of priests and kings. It was the early privilege of European life to gradually break away from this form of human degradation and establish individual rights and individual development. Kings and princes, indeed, ruled in the Western world, but they learned to do so with a fuller recognition of the rights of the governed. There came to be recognized, also, free discussion as the right of people in the processes of government. It is admitted that the despotic governments of the Old World existed for the few and neglected the many. While despotism was not wanting in European civilization, the struggle to be free from it was the ruling spirit of the age. The history of Europe centres around this struggle to be free from despotism and traditional learning, and to develop freedom of thought and action.

Among Oriental people the idea of progress was wanting in their philosophy. True, they had some notion of changes that take place in the conditions of political and social life, and in individual accomplishments, yet there was nothing hopeful in their presentation of the theory of life or in their practices of religion; and the few philosophers who recognized changes that were taking place saw not in them a persistent progress and growth. Their eyes were turned toward the past. Their thoughts centred on traditions and things that were fixed. Life was reduced to a dull, monotonous round by the great masses of the people. If at any time a ray of light penetrated the gloom, it was turned to illuminate the accumulated philosophies of the past. On the other hand, in European civilization we find the idea of progress becoming more and more predominant. The early Greeks and Romans were bound to a certain extent by the authority of tradition on one side and the fixity of purpose on the other. At times there was little that was hopeful in their philosophy, for they, too, recognized the decline in the affairs of men. But through trial and error, new discoveries of truth were made which persisted until the revival of learning in the Middle Ages, at the time of the formation of new nations, when the ideas of progress became fully recognized in the minds of the thoughtful, and subsequently in the full triumph of Western civilization came the recognition of the possibility of continuous progress.

Another great distinction in the development of European civilization was the recognition of humanity. In ancient times humanitarian spirit appeared not in the heart of man nor in the philosophy of government. Even the old tribal government was for the few. The national government was for selected citizens only. Specific gods, a special religion, the privilege of rights and duties were available to a few, while all others were deprived of them. This invoked a selfishness in practical life and developed a selfish system even among the leaders of ancient culture. The broad principle of the rights of an individual because he was human was not taken into serious consideration even among the more thoughtful. If he was friendly to the recognized god he was permitted to exist. If he was an enemy, he was to be crushed. On the other hand, the triumph of Western civilization is the recognition of the value of a human being and his right to engage in all human associations for which he is fitted. While the Greeks came into contact with the older civilizations of Egypt and Asia, and were influenced by their thought and custom, they brought a vigorous new life which gradually dominated and mastered the Oriental influences. They had sufficient vigor and independence to break with tradition, wherever it seemed necessary to accomplish their purpose of life.

Q. The author would agree with the statement that:

Read the passage and answer the question based on it. 

Civilization is a continuous movement—hence there is a gradual transition from the Oriental civilization to the Western. The former finally merges into the latter. Although the line of demarcation is not clearly drawn, some striking differences are apparent when the two are placed in juxtaposition. Perhaps the most evident contrast is observed in the gradual freedom of the mind from the influences of tradition and religious superstition. Connected with this, also, is the struggle for freedom from despotism in government. It has been observed how the ancient civilizations were characterized by the despotism of priests and kings. It was the early privilege of European life to gradually break away from this form of human degradation and establish individual rights and individual development. Kings and princes, indeed, ruled in the Western world, but they learned to do so with a fuller recognition of the rights of the governed. There came to be recognized, also, free discussion as the right of people in the processes of government. It is admitted that the despotic governments of the Old World existed for the few and neglected the many. While despotism was not wanting in European civilization, the struggle to be free from it was the ruling spirit of the age. The history of Europe centres around this struggle to be free from despotism and traditional learning, and to develop freedom of thought and action.

Among Oriental people the idea of progress was wanting in their philosophy. True, they had some notion of changes that take place in the conditions of political and social life, and in individual accomplishments, yet there was nothing hopeful in their presentation of the theory of life or in their practices of religion; and the few philosophers who recognized changes that were taking place saw not in them a persistent progress and growth. Their eyes were turned toward the past. Their thoughts centred on traditions and things that were fixed. Life was reduced to a dull, monotonous round by the great masses of the people. If at any time a ray of light penetrated the gloom, it was turned to illuminate the accumulated philosophies of the past. On the other hand, in European civilization we find the idea of progress becoming more and more predominant. The early Greeks and Romans were bound to a certain extent by the authority of tradition on one side and the fixity of purpose on the other. At times there was little that was hopeful in their philosophy, for they, too, recognized the decline in the affairs of men. But through trial and error, new discoveries of truth were made which persisted until the revival of learning in the Middle Ages, at the time of the formation of new nations, when the ideas of progress became fully recognized in the minds of the thoughtful, and subsequently in the full triumph of Western civilization came the recognition of the possibility of continuous progress.

Another great distinction in the development of European civilization was the recognition of humanity. In ancient times humanitarian spirit appeared not in the heart of man nor in the philosophy of government. Even the old tribal government was for the few. The national government was for selected citizens only. Specific gods, a special religion, the privilege of rights and duties were available to a few, while all others were deprived of them. This invoked a selfishness in practical life and developed a selfish system even among the leaders of ancient culture. The broad principle of the rights of an individual because he was human was not taken into serious consideration even among the more thoughtful. If he was friendly to the recognized god he was permitted to exist. If he was an enemy, he was to be crushed. On the other hand, the triumph of Western civilization is the recognition of the value of a human being and his right to engage in all human associations for which he is fitted. While the Greeks came into contact with the older civilizations of Egypt and Asia, and were influenced by their thought and custom, they brought a vigorous new life which gradually dominated and mastered the Oriental influences. They had sufficient vigor and independence to break with tradition, wherever it seemed necessary to accomplish their purpose of life.

Q. It can be inferred from the passage that:

Read the passage and answer the question based on it.

India is the world’s largest user of groundwater and, since the 1980s, its groundwater levels have been dropping. The severity of the problem is particularly acute in the northwest, where levels have plunged from 8m below ground to 16m, so that water needs to be pumped from even greater depths. Worse yet, much of this is non-renewable since recharge rates are less than extraction rates and replenishing this resource can take thousands of years.

Moreover, the future of monsoon rainfall remains uncertain; while some climate models predict an increase, others forecast a weakening monsoon, although changes in monsoon variability are already underway and will continue into the future. Historical records show the number of dry spells and the intensity of wet spells have risen over the past 50 years. As climate change alters the monsoon, the large stresses on India’s groundwater resources may increase.

Diverting water to drier areas, for example, can encourage demand for water-intensive crops and further expand irrigation — leading to more stress on the physical system, the environment, and the people it supports. Understanding how and why people use water, therefore, is an important priority. Given the complex dynamics of both human agricultural and economic decisions, not to mention physical water and crop systems, what will India’s groundwater future look like?

To answer this question, an integrated approach can shed light on the role that adaptation responses and policy measures can play.
This brings us back to the policy proposal: could a $120-billion river-linking project help? Our model suggests that it all depends on how this project is carried out. But in simulations without new large reservoirs along canals, water transfers alone will alleviate very little non-renewable groundwater demand; without storage, water transfers in the wet season will not be available for dry-season irrigation. Historically, constructions of large water-holding dams and reservoirs have been contentious in India. While the exact plans for dam construction under the river-linking project have not yet been made public, it is clear that without a large increase in reservoir capacity, the proposed project will not alleviate groundwater stress.

In addition, India needs better policies that directly help small-holders and labourers to adapt and adjust to risks associated with groundwater depletion and a more variable future climate. This is no small task. But for a resource that will shape the course of India’s economic, social, and political future.

Q. What do you infer from the first and second paragraph?

Read the passage and answer the question based on it.

India is the world’s largest user of groundwater and, since the 1980s, its groundwater levels have been dropping. The severity of the problem is particularly acute in the northwest, where levels have plunged from 8m below ground to 16m, so that water needs to be pumped from even greater depths. Worse yet, much of this is non-renewable since recharge rates are less than extraction rates and replenishing this resource can take thousands of years.

Moreover, the future of monsoon rainfall remains uncertain; while some climate models predict an increase, others forecast a weakening monsoon, although changes in monsoon variability are already underway and will continue into the future. Historical records show the number of dry spells and the intensity of wet spells have risen over the past 50 years. As climate change alters the monsoon, the large stresses on India’s groundwater resources may increase.

Diverting water to drier areas, for example, can encourage demand for water-intensive crops and further expand irrigation — leading to more stress on the physical system, the environment, and the people it supports. Understanding how and why people use water, therefore, is an important priority. Given the complex dynamics of both human agricultural and economic decisions, not to mention physical water and crop systems, what will India’s groundwater future look like?

To answer this question, an integrated approach can shed light on the role that adaptation responses and policy measures can play.
This brings us back to the policy proposal: could a $120-billion river-linking project help? Our model suggests that it all depends on how this project is carried out. But in simulations without new large reservoirs along canals, water transfers alone will alleviate very little non-renewable groundwater demand; without storage, water transfers in the wet season will not be available for dry-season irrigation. Historically, constructions of large water-holding dams and reservoirs have been contentious in India. While the exact plans for dam construction under the river-linking project have not yet been made public, it is clear that without a large increase in reservoir capacity, the proposed project will not alleviate groundwater stress.

In addition, India needs better policies that directly help small-holders and labourers to adapt and adjust to risks associated with groundwater depletion and a more variable future climate. This is no small task. But for a resource that will shape the course of India’s economic, social, and political future.

Q. What does the author think about the ground water stress?

Read the passage and answer the question based on it.

India is the world’s largest user of groundwater and, since the 1980s, its groundwater levels have been dropping. The severity of the problem is particularly acute in the northwest, where levels have plunged from 8m below ground to 16m, so that water needs to be pumped from even greater depths. Worse yet, much of this is non-renewable since recharge rates are less than extraction rates and replenishing this resource can take thousands of years.

Moreover, the future of monsoon rainfall remains uncertain; while some climate models predict an increase, others forecast a weakening monsoon, although changes in monsoon variability are already underway and will continue into the future. Historical records show the number of dry spells and the intensity of wet spells have risen over the past 50 years. As climate change alters the monsoon, the large stresses on India’s groundwater resources may increase.

Diverting water to drier areas, for example, can encourage demand for water-intensive crops and further expand irrigation — leading to more stress on the physical system, the environment, and the people it supports. Understanding how and why people use water, therefore, is an important priority. Given the complex dynamics of both human agricultural and economic decisions, not to mention physical water and crop systems, what will India’s groundwater future look like?

To answer this question, an integrated approach can shed light on the role that adaptation responses and policy measures can play.
This brings us back to the policy proposal: could a $120-billion river-linking project help? Our model suggests that it all depends on how this project is carried out. But in simulations without new large reservoirs along canals, water transfers alone will alleviate very little non-renewable groundwater demand; without storage, water transfers in the wet season will not be available for dry-season irrigation. Historically, constructions of large water-holding dams and reservoirs have been contentious in India. While the exact plans for dam construction under the river-linking project have not yet been made public, it is clear that without a large increase in reservoir capacity, the proposed project will not alleviate groundwater stress.

In addition, India needs better policies that directly help small-holders and labourers to adapt and adjust to risks associated with groundwater depletion and a more variable future climate. This is no small task. But for a resource that will shape the course of India’s economic, social, and political future.

Q. As per the passage what could be most cost effective and sustainable way to alleviate ground water demand

Read the passage and answer the question based on it.

India is the world’s largest user of groundwater and, since the 1980s, its groundwater levels have been dropping. The severity of the problem is particularly acute in the northwest, where levels have plunged from 8m below ground to 16m, so that water needs to be pumped from even greater depths. Worse yet, much of this is non-renewable since recharge rates are less than extraction rates and replenishing this resource can take thousands of years.

Moreover, the future of monsoon rainfall remains uncertain; while some climate models predict an increase, others forecast a weakening monsoon, although changes in monsoon variability are already underway and will continue into the future. Historical records show the number of dry spells and the intensity of wet spells have risen over the past 50 years. As climate change alters the monsoon, the large stresses on India’s groundwater resources may increase.

Diverting water to drier areas, for example, can encourage demand for water-intensive crops and further expand irrigation — leading to more stress on the physical system, the environment, and the people it supports. Understanding how and why people use water, therefore, is an important priority. Given the complex dynamics of both human agricultural and economic decisions, not to mention physical water and crop systems, what will India’s groundwater future look like?

To answer this question, an integrated approach can shed light on the role that adaptation responses and policy measures can play.
This brings us back to the policy proposal: could a $120-billion river-linking project help? Our model suggests that it all depends on how this project is carried out. But in simulations without new large reservoirs along canals, water transfers alone will alleviate very little non-renewable groundwater demand; without storage, water transfers in the wet season will not be available for dry-season irrigation. Historically, constructions of large water-holding dams and reservoirs have been contentious in India. While the exact plans for dam construction under the river-linking project have not yet been made public, it is clear that without a large increase in reservoir capacity, the proposed project will not alleviate groundwater stress.

In addition, India needs better policies that directly help small-holders and labourers to adapt and adjust to risks associated with groundwater depletion and a more variable future climate. This is no small task. But for a resource that will shape the course of India’s economic, social, and political future.

Q. What is the primary purpose of the passage?

Four sentences related to a topic are given below. Three of them can be put together to form a meaningful and coherent short paragraph. Identify the odd one out. Choose its number as your answer and key it in.

1. A specific action that will help you to be more accepting is to find and dissolve your core beliefs about how people should be.

2. You may find it more productive if you begin with an inventory of the expectations of other people.

3. What conceptual idea is in your mind about how the world should be and when should it be that way?

4. These artificial standards in the mind become the basis for judgment and emotional reactions. 

The question consists of different statements one of which does not fit into the paragraph. Identify that sentence which is a misfit and choose that number as your answer.

1. In the 1980s and 1990s, Pillsbury, Quaker Oats, and even Procter & Gamble (an innovation powerhouse today) were vulnerable to smaller companies that could quickly roll out new products, thus eroding the giants’ market share.

2. For years, large consumer products companies typically screened out ideas that couldn’t result in revenues of several hundred million dollars within two years.

3. Not every offering was a blockbuster, but Time had learned what successful innovators know: To get more successes, you have to be willing to risk more failures.

4.This screen discouraged investments in ideas that couldn’t be tested and measured using conventional market research, or that weren’t grounded in experience, in favor of ideas that were close to current practice and hardly innovative.

5. P&G, for example, lamented not having introduced a new toilet bowl cleaner before a competitor did, despite P&G labs’ having developed similar technology.

The five sentences (labelled 1,2,3,4, and 5) given in this question, when properly sequenced, form a coherent paragraph. Decide on the proper order for the sentence and key in this sequence of five numbers as your answer.

1. The author, Richard Cohen, could not have realised just how inescapable his theme would become.

2. But the idea of the biological clock is a recent invention. It first appeared in the late 1970s.

3. “The Clock Is Ticking for the Career Woman,” the Washington Post declared, on the front page of its Metro Section, on 16 March 1978.

4. His article opened on a lunch date with a “Composite Woman” who is supposed to represent all women between the ages of 27 and 35.

5. Women in many times and places have felt pressure to bear children.

The five sentences (labelled 1,2,3,4, and 5) given in this question, when properly sequenced, form a coherent paragraph. Decide on the proper order for the sentence and key in this sequence of five numbers as your answer.

1. According to this revisionist reading, our contemporary offerings are now made not for the worship of God, but to placate Mammon, since our economic salvation depends on this ritual of excessive spending.

2. The narrative that Jesus came to save our economic skins was given extra credibility with news that retails sales in November were significantly up on last year, thanks to the shopping scrum that was Black Friday.

3. To the modern cynic, the arrival of the magi in Bethlehem uncannily foreshadows how Christmas would become primarily about the giving of useless gifts.

4. This is a myth now more potent than the story of the baby of the manger.

5. It persists, however, because it's a story that is equally convenient for both defenders and detractors of the economic status quo.

The five sentences (labelled 1,2,3,4, and 5) given in this question, when properly sequenced, form a coherent paragraph. Decide on the proper order for the sentence and key in this sequence of five numbers as your answer.

1. Some of the most intense research in the neurosciences today is devoted to elucidating what are described as maps of perception: how perception filters and maps the relentless torrent of information provided by the sense organs, our biotic instruments of measurement.
2. Confusion is another name for the world unfiltered, and maps are external, constructed filters that make sense of the confusion, just as the eye and brain are internal, physiological filters that cut through the bewildering mix of signal and noise in a visual scene.
3. Maps enable humans to use inherent biological skills of perception, their “educated” eyes, to separate the message from the static, to see the story line running through random pattern.
4. They turn numbers into visual images, create pattern out of measurements, and thus engage the highly evolved human capacity for pattern recognition.
5. By breaking down the graphic or pictorial vocabulary to a bare minimum, maps achieve a visual minimalism that, physiologically speaking, is easy on the eyes.

The five sentences (labelled 1,2,3,4, and 5) given in this question, when properly sequenced, form a coherent paragraph. Decide on the proper order for the sentence and key in this sequence of five numbers as your answer.

1. Thus, it actually makes enterprises easier to run and accelerates strategic change.

2. The existing structures and processes that together form an organization’s operating system need an additional element to address the challenges produced by mounting complexity and rapid change.

3. The solution is a second operating system, devoted to the design and implementation of strategy, that uses an agile, networklike structure and a very different set of processes.

4. It complements rather than overburdens the traditional hierarchy

5. The new operating system continually assesses the business, the industry, and the organization, and reacts with greater agility, speed, and creativity than the existing one.

Identify the most appropriate summary for the paragraph.

Bohm’s idea of holding the tension refers to that point of confrontation between thesis and antithesis.  We all know what that feels like, the dreaded moment when we know we’re on the verge of a standoff between two firmly planted, diametrically opposite positions.  Holding that tension is the last thing we want to do!  Escape is much more appealing. 
But Bohm directs us with a firm “NO!”  Hold the tension!  If the tension between the opposites can be held long enough without succumbing to the urge to identify with one side or the other, the third, a completely unexpected possibility, one that unites the two in a creative new way and moves beyond them, begins to form.”

Solve the following problem question and mark the best possible option.

In the addition problem stated below has a unique solution. In the problem, each letter of the alphabet represents a unique digit from 1 to 9, both inclusive.

Q. What is the value of ROAD + RAGE?

Solve the following problem question and mark the best possible option.

In the addition problem stated below has a unique solution. In the problem, each letter of the alphabet represents a unique digit from 1 to 9, both inclusive.

Q. Which of the following numbers cannot be expressed as the sum of the squares of two natural numbers?

Solve the following problem question and mark the best possible option.

In the addition problem stated below has a unique solution. In the problem, each letter of the alphabet represents a unique digit from 1 to 9, both inclusive.

Q. What is the remainder when GRAND is divided by E?

Solve the following problem question and mark the best possible option.
In the addition problem stated below has a unique solution. In the problem, each letter of the alphabet represents a unique digit from 1 to 9, both inclusive.

What is the value of SONG + DANCE? (in alphabetical value)

Read the information given below and answer the question that follows.

The Wimbledon Tennis tournament was won by four players - Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray in a period of ten years, with no player winning it in consecutive years. The tournament had only a single winner in each of the years. In a quiz competition, ten contestants A through J were asked to match the winner of the tournament with the year during this period. The names given by the contestants were as follows:

It was also found that, no two contestants had the same number of right answers, and each contestant marked the right winner in at least one of the years.

Q. Which contestant gave the least number of correct answers?