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15 Questions MCQ Test - Test: Reading Comprehension

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Test: Reading Comprehension - Question 1

Direction For Question : Enlightenment is man’s emergence from his self- imposed nonage. Nonage is the inability to use one’s own understanding without another’s guidance. This nonage is self-imposed if its cause lies not in lack of understanding but in indecision and lack of courage to use one’s own mind without another’s guidance. Dare to know! (Sapere aude.) “Have the courage to use your own understanding,” is therefore the motto of the enlightenment. Laziness and cowardice are the reasons why such a large part of mankind gladly remain minors all their lives, long after nature has freed them from external guidance. They are the reasons why it is so easy for others to set themselves up as guardians. It is so comfortable to be a minor. If I have a book that thinks for me, a pastor who acts as my conscience, a physician who prescribes my diet, and so on—then I have no need to exert myself. I have no need to think, if only I can pay; others will take care of that disagreeable business for me. Thus it is very difficult for the individual to work himself out of the nonage which has become almost second nature to him. He has even grown to like it, and is at first really incapable of using his own understanding because he has never been permitted to try it. Dogmas and formulas, these mechanical tools designed for reasonable use—or rather abuse— of his natural gifts, are the fetters of an everlasting nonage. The man who casts them off would make an uncertain leap over the narrowest ditch, because he is not used to such free movement. That is why there are only a few men who walk firmly, and who have emerged from nonage by cultivating their own minds. It is more nearly possible, however, for the public to enlighten itself; indeed, if it is only given freedom, enlightenment is almost inevitable. There will always be a few independent thinkers, even among the self- appointed guardians of the multitude. Once such men have thrown off the yoke of nonage, they will spread about them the spirit of a reasonable appreciation of man’s value and of his duty to think for himself. It is especially to be noted that the public which was earlier brought under the yoke by these men, afterwards forces these very guardians to remain in submission, if it is so incited by some of its guardians who are themselves incapable of any enlightenment. That shows how pernicious it is to implant prejudices: they will eventually revenge themselves upon their authors or their authors’ descendants. Therefore, a public can achieve enlightenment only slowly. A revolution may bring about the end of a personal despotism or of avaricious tyrannical oppression, but never a true reform of modes of thought. New prejudices will serve, in place of the old, as guide lines for the unthinking multitude. This enlightenment requires nothing but freedom— and the most innocent of all that may be called “freedom”: freedom to make public use of one’s reason in all matters. Now I hear the cry from all sides: “Do not argue!” The officer says: “Do not argue—drill!” The tax collector: “Do not argue—pay!” The pastor: “Do not argue—believe!” Only one ruler in the world says: “Argue as much as you please, but obey!” We find restrictions on freedom everywhere. But which restriction is harmful to enlightenment? Which restriction is innocent, and which advances enlightenment? I reply: the public use of one’s reason must be free at all times, and this alone can bring enlightenment to mankind.

Q. Which of the following is closest to being an example of ‘self-imposed nonage’?

Detailed Solution for Test: Reading Comprehension - Question 1

Refer to the lines – “Nonage is the inability to use one’s own...indecision and lack of courage to use one’s own mind without another’s guidance.” There are two components here: a – inability to use one’s knowledge without guidance; b – no lack of understanding. Only option 3 clearly shows the two things. The batsman knows how to bat aggressively; he is simply indecisive. In 1, the boy might not know the answer to questions of the homework. 2 is irrelevant. 4 has not component of indecisiveness. The employee is quite decisive.

Test: Reading Comprehension - Question 2

Direction For Question : Enlightenment is man’s emergence from his self- imposed nonage. Nonage is the inability to use one’s own understanding without another’s guidance. This nonage is self-imposed if its cause lies not in lack of understanding but in indecision and lack of courage to use one’s own mind without another’s guidance. Dare to know! (Sapere aude.) “Have the courage to use your own understanding,” is therefore the motto of the enlightenment. Laziness and cowardice are the reasons why such a large part of mankind gladly remain minors all their lives, long after nature has freed them from external guidance. They are the reasons why it is so easy for others to set themselves up as guardians. It is so comfortable to be a minor. If I have a book that thinks for me, a pastor who acts as my conscience, a physician who prescribes my diet, and so on—then I have no need to exert myself. I have no need to think, if only I can pay; others will take care of that disagreeable business for me. Thus it is very difficult for the individual to work himself out of the nonage which has become almost second nature to him. He has even grown to like it, and is at first really incapable of using his own understanding because he has never been permitted to try it. Dogmas and formulas, these mechanical tools designed for reasonable use—or rather abuse— of his natural gifts, are the fetters of an everlasting nonage. The man who casts them off would make an uncertain leap over the narrowest ditch, because he is not used to such free movement. That is why there are only a few men who walk firmly, and who have emerged from nonage by cultivating their own minds. It is more nearly possible, however, for the public to enlighten itself; indeed, if it is only given freedom, enlightenment is almost inevitable. There will always be a few independent thinkers, even among the self- appointed guardians of the multitude. Once such men have thrown off the yoke of nonage, they will spread about them the spirit of a reasonable appreciation of man’s value and of his duty to think for himself. It is especially to be noted that the public which was earlier brought under the yoke by these men, afterwards forces these very guardians to remain in submission, if it is so incited by some of its guardians who are themselves incapable of any enlightenment. That shows how pernicious it is to implant prejudices: they will eventually revenge themselves upon their authors or their authors’ descendants. Therefore, a public can achieve enlightenment only slowly. A revolution may bring about the end of a personal despotism or of avaricious tyrannical oppression, but never a true reform of modes of thought. New prejudices will serve, in place of the old, as guide lines for the unthinking multitude. This enlightenment requires nothing but freedom— and the most innocent of all that may be called “freedom”: freedom to make public use of one’s reason in all matters. Now I hear the cry from all sides: “Do not argue!” The officer says: “Do not argue—drill!” The tax collector: “Do not argue—pay!” The pastor: “Do not argue—believe!” Only one ruler in the world says: “Argue as much as you please, but obey!” We find restrictions on freedom everywhere. But which restriction is harmful to enlightenment? Which restriction is innocent, and which advances enlightenment? I reply: the public use of one’s reason must be free at all times, and this alone can bring enlightenment to mankind.

Q. Which of the following best captures the main idea of the passage?

Detailed Solution for Test: Reading Comprehension - Question 2

The author, in the passage, takes an explanatory approach. S/he defines the various reasons that are holding the public back from achieving enlightenment. S/he also analyses the prices to be paid for freedom without enlightenment. Hence, option 4 is the correct answer. Option 1 is too narrow. Option 2 is wrong as the author doesn’t focus on freedom. Option 3 is distorted. The author can’t evaluate something which has not been attained.

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Test: Reading Comprehension - Question 3

Direction For Question : Enlightenment is man’s emergence from his self- imposed nonage. Nonage is the inability to use one’s own understanding without another’s guidance. This nonage is self-imposed if its cause lies not in lack of understanding but in indecision and lack of courage to use one’s own mind without another’s guidance. Dare to know! (Sapere aude.) “Have the courage to use your own understanding,” is therefore the motto of the enlightenment. Laziness and cowardice are the reasons why such a large part of mankind gladly remain minors all their lives, long after nature has freed them from external guidance. They are the reasons why it is so easy for others to set themselves up as guardians. It is so comfortable to be a minor. If I have a book that thinks for me, a pastor who acts as my conscience, a physician who prescribes my diet, and so on—then I have no need to exert myself. I have no need to think, if only I can pay; others will take care of that disagreeable business for me. Thus it is very difficult for the individual to work himself out of the nonage which has become almost second nature to him. He has even grown to like it, and is at first really incapable of using his own understanding because he has never been permitted to try it. Dogmas and formulas, these mechanical tools designed for reasonable use—or rather abuse— of his natural gifts, are the fetters of an everlasting nonage. The man who casts them off would make an uncertain leap over the narrowest ditch, because he is not used to such free movement. That is why there are only a few men who walk firmly, and who have emerged from nonage by cultivating their own minds. It is more nearly possible, however, for the public to enlighten itself; indeed, if it is only given freedom, enlightenment is almost inevitable. There will always be a few independent thinkers, even among the self- appointed guardians of the multitude. Once such men have thrown off the yoke of nonage, they will spread about them the spirit of a reasonable appreciation of man’s value and of his duty to think for himself. It is especially to be noted that the public which was earlier brought under the yoke by these men, afterwards forces these very guardians to remain in submission, if it is so incited by some of its guardians who are themselves incapable of any enlightenment. That shows how pernicious it is to implant prejudices: they will eventually revenge themselves upon their authors or their authors’ descendants. Therefore, a public can achieve enlightenment only slowly. A revolution may bring about the end of a personal despotism or of avaricious tyrannical oppression, but never a true reform of modes of thought. New prejudices will serve, in place of the old, as guide lines for the unthinking multitude. This enlightenment requires nothing but freedom— and the most innocent of all that may be called “freedom”: freedom to make public use of one’s reason in all matters. Now I hear the cry from all sides: “Do not argue!” The officer says: “Do not argue—drill!” The tax collector: “Do not argue—pay!” The pastor: “Do not argue—believe!” Only one ruler in the world says: “Argue as much as you please, but obey!” We find restrictions on freedom everywhere. But which restriction is harmful to enlightenment? Which restriction is innocent, and which advances enlightenment? I reply: the public use of one’s reason must be free at all times, and this alone can bring enlightenment to mankind.

Q. What is the author trying to instruct us through this passage?

Detailed Solution for Test: Reading Comprehension - Question 3

This can be inferred from both the opening and the last paragraphs of the given passage. It is stated in the opening passage- “Have the courage to use your own understanding”. And in the last passage it is stated- “the public use of one’s reason must be free at all times”. 2 is distorted. There is no method of attaining freedom mentioned in the passage. Option 3 is beyond the scope of the passage. Option 4 is wrong because of ‘all cost’.

Test: Reading Comprehension - Question 4

Direction for question: Typewriters are the epitome of a technology that has been comprehensively rendered obsolete by the digital age. The ink comes off the ribbon, they weigh a ton, and second thoughts are a disaster. But they are also personal, portable and, above all, private. Type a document and lock it away and more or less the only way anyone else can get it is if you give it to them. That is why the Russians have decided to go back to typewriters in some government offices, and why in the US, some departments have never abandoned them. Yet it is not just their resistance to algorithms and secret surveillance that keeps typewriter production lines – well one, at least – in business (the last British one closed a year ago). Nor is it only the nostalgic appeal of the metal body and the stout well-defined keys that make them popular on eBay. A typewriter demands something particular: attentiveness. By the time the paper is loaded, the ribbon tightened, the carriage returned, the spacing and the margins set, there’s a big premium on hitting the right key. That means sorting out ideas, pulling together a kind of order and organising details before actually striking off. There can be no thinking on screen with a typewriter. Nor are there any easy distractions. No online shopping. No urgent emails. No Twitter. No need even for electricity – perfect for writing in a remote hideaway. The thinking process is accompanied by the encouraging clack of keys, and the ratchet of the carriage return. Ping!

Q. Which one of the following best describes what the passage is trying to do?

Detailed Solution for Test: Reading Comprehension - Question 4

Option 1 is the correct answer as the author provides examples of the US and Russia to tell that these countries have taken up the use of typewriter. The author also supports their using of typewriters by providing us with positive aspects of the typewriters. Option 2 is beyond the scope of the passage. Option 3 is incorrect since clearly it is not the main aim of the passage. There is no hint to make that claim. Option 4 is incorrect since this difference has nowhere been made.

Test: Reading Comprehension - Question 5

Direction for question: Typewriters are the epitome of a technology that has been comprehensively rendered obsolete by the digital age. The ink comes off the ribbon, they weigh a ton, and second thoughts are a disaster. But they are also personal, portable and, above all, private. Type a document and lock it away and more or less the only way anyone else can get it is if you give it to them. That is why the Russians have decided to go back to typewriters in some government offices, and why in the US, some departments have never abandoned them. Yet it is not just their resistance to algorithms and secret surveillance that keeps typewriter production lines – well one, at least – in business (the last British one closed a year ago). Nor is it only the nostalgic appeal of the metal body and the stout well-defined keys that make them popular on eBay. A typewriter demands something particular: attentiveness. By the time the paper is loaded, the ribbon tightened, the carriage returned, the spacing and the margins set, there’s a big premium on hitting the right key. That means sorting out ideas, pulling together a kind of order and organising details before actually striking off. There can be no thinking on screen with a typewriter. Nor are there any easy distractions. No online shopping. No urgent emails. No Twitter. No need even for electricity – perfect for writing in a remote hideaway. The thinking process is accompanied by the encouraging clack of keys, and the ratchet of the carriage return. Ping!

Q. According to the passage, some governments still use typewriters because:

Detailed Solution for Test: Reading Comprehension - Question 5

“Type a document and lock it away and more or less the only way anyone else can get.......... some departments have never abandoned them”. This information, which says that using of typewriters helps one control who views the document, makes option 4 correct.

Test: Reading Comprehension - Question 6

Direction for question: Typewriters are the epitome of a technology that has been comprehensively rendered obsolete by the digital age. The ink comes off the ribbon, they weigh a ton, and second thoughts are a disaster. But they are also personal, portable and, above all, private. Type a document and lock it away and more or less the only way anyone else can get it is if you give it to them. That is why the Russians have decided to go back to typewriters in some government offices, and why in the US, some departments have never abandoned them. Yet it is not just their resistance to algorithms and secret surveillance that keeps typewriter production lines – well one, at least – in business (the last British one closed a year ago). Nor is it only the nostalgic appeal of the metal body and the stout well-defined keys that make them popular on eBay. A typewriter demands something particular: attentiveness. By the time the paper is loaded, the ribbon tightened, the carriage returned, the spacing and the margins set, there’s a big premium on hitting the right key. That means sorting out ideas, pulling together a kind of order and organising details before actually striking off. There can be no thinking on screen with a typewriter. Nor are there any easy distractions. No online shopping. No urgent emails. No Twitter. No need even for electricity – perfect for writing in a remote hideaway. The thinking process is accompanied by the encouraging clack of keys, and the ratchet of the carriage return. Ping!

Q. The writer praises typewriters for all the following reasons EXCEPT:

Detailed Solution for Test: Reading Comprehension - Question 6

Towards the end of the passage, it is written- “Nor are there any easy distractions.” – i.e that typewriters can be used only for one single thing- writing. Hence 1 is stated in the passage and is therefore not the answer. It is also stated- “there’s a big premium on hitting the right key.” This means that once something has been typed, it cannot be revised. Hence option 2 is also stated. It is also stated- “....encouraging clack of keys”. This is associated with typewriters making more noise than computers. Hence option 3 is also stated. Nothing in the passage points towards option 4. Therefore, it is the correct answer.

Test: Reading Comprehension - Question 7

Direction For question : As the Heart of Darkness makes its way into the savage shadows of the African continent, Joseph Conrad exposes a psycho-geography of the collective unconscious in the entangling symbolic realities of the serpentine Congo. Conrad’s novella descends into the unknowable darkness at the heart of Africa, taking its narrator, Marlow, on an underworld journey of individuation, a modern odyssey toward the center of the Self and the center of the Earth. Ego dissolves into soul as, in the interior; Marlow encounters his double in the powerful image of ivory-obsessed Kurtz, the dark shadow of European imperialism. The dark meditation is graced by personifications of anima in Kurtz’ black goddess, the savagely magnificent consort of the underworld, and in his porcelain -skinned Persephone, innocent intended of the upper world. “Africa,” wrote Graham Greene, “will always be the Africa in the Victorian atlas, the blank unexplored continent in the shape of the human heart.” The African heart described by Greene “acquired a new layer of meaning when Conrad portrayed the Congo under King Leopold as the Heart of Darkness, a place where barbarism triumphs over humanity, nature over technology, biology over culture, id over super ego.” The unknown and uncharted topography of the African continent first beckoned Conrad’s narrator, Marlow, into its depths in his boyhood: “Now, when I was a little chap I had a passion for maps. I would look for hours at South America, or Africa, or Australia, and lose myself in all the glories of exploration”. When Marlow was grown and Africa was no longer a blank space on the map, but rather “a place of darkness,” there was still one river there that drew him especially, “a mighty big river, that you could see on the map, resembling an immense snake uncoiled, with its head in the sea, its body at rest curving afar over a vast country, and its tail lost in the depths of the land”. This same deep place, the Congo, that had seduced Conrad’s ivory hunting Kurtz into the horrors of its savage embrace had, in 1890, lured Conrad himself into adventure that turned him from sailor to writer and severely affected his health for the rest of his life. As the voyage up the Congo pro ved fateful for the development of Conrad’s narrator, Marlow, it was equally fateful for Conrad’s individuation, as he reflects in his letters “Before the Congo I was just a mere animal.” Hillman, in “Notes on White Supremacy” reminds us that, like Conrad, both Freud and Jung were called to venture into the shadowed continent and vestiges of their journeys still colour our psychological language: The convention informing geographical discoveries and the expansion of white consciousness over Africa continue to inform psychic geography. The topological language used by Freud for “the unconscious” as a place below, different, timeless, primordial, libidinal and separated from the consciousness recapitulates what white reporters centuries earlier said about West Africa. From Conrad’s Heart of Darkness to van der Post’s Venture to the Interior, Africa and the unconscious allegorize the other place.... “Just don’t stay in the topical colonies too long; you must reign at home,” writes Freud in 1911 to Jung, who himself made the African journey fourteen years later, describing the vast lands and dark peoples he encountered in language he applies as well to the immemorial unconscious psyche.... Part of psychology’s myth is that the unconscious was “discovered” as its contents are “explored”. Thus Africa has become a topology of the mind — its location, its shape, its cultures, its textures, its rhythms, its foliage, its hues, its wildness — all calling forth something lost in the psychology of the white European. It is with an understanding of our destiny to explore that symbolic lost continent within ourselves that we can begin to appreciate the prescience of Jungian psychology in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness.

Q. Which of the following can be inferred about the above given passage?

Detailed Solution for Test: Reading Comprehension - Question 7

Option (1) is the correct answer. Option (2) is ruled out since no themes are discussed in the passage. The above passage is not a summary of a portion of the novel, since there are several things mentioned, which will definitely not fall in the spectrum of the novel, like the views of Hillman and Graham Greene. Option (4) is incorrect since the author does not attack or criticize the novel. He simply analyses the novel, the representation of Africa and Congo, and portrayal of Kurtz and Marlow.

Test: Reading Comprehension - Question 8

Direction For question : As the Heart of Darkness makes its way into the savage shadows of the African continent, Joseph Conrad exposes a psycho-geography of the collective unconscious in the entangling symbolic realities of the serpentine Congo. Conrad’s novella descends into the unknowable darkness at the heart of Africa, taking its narrator, Marlow, on an underworld journey of individuation, a modern odyssey toward the center of the Self and the center of the Earth. Ego dissolves into soul as, in the interior; Marlow encounters his double in the powerful image of ivory-obsessed Kurtz, the dark shadow of European imperialism. The dark meditation is graced by personifications of anima in Kurtz’ black goddess, the savagely magnificent consort of the underworld, and in his porcelain -skinned Persephone, innocent intended of the upper world. “Africa,” wrote Graham Greene, “will always be the Africa in the Victorian atlas, the blank unexplored continent in the shape of the human heart.” The African heart described by Greene “acquired a new layer of meaning when Conrad portrayed the Congo under King Leopold as the Heart of Darkness, a place where barbarism triumphs over humanity, nature over technology, biology over culture, id over super ego.” The unknown and uncharted topography of the African continent first beckoned Conrad’s narrator, Marlow, into its depths in his boyhood: “Now, when I was a little chap I had a passion for maps. I would look for hours at South America, or Africa, or Australia, and lose myself in all the glories of exploration”. When Marlow was grown and Africa was no longer a blank space on the map, but rather “a place of darkness,” there was still one river there that drew him especially, “a mighty big river, that you could see on the map, resembling an immense snake uncoiled, with its head in the sea, its body at rest curving afar over a vast country, and its tail lost in the depths of the land”. This same deep place, the Congo, that had seduced Conrad’s ivory hunting Kurtz into the horrors of its savage embrace had, in 1890, lured Conrad himself into adventure that turned him from sailor to writer and severely affected his health for the rest of his life. As the voyage up the Congo pro ved fateful for the development of Conrad’s narrator, Marlow, it was equally fateful for Conrad’s individuation, as he reflects in his letters “Before the Congo I was just a mere animal.” Hillman, in “Notes on White Supremacy” reminds us that, like Conrad, both Freud and Jung were called to venture into the shadowed continent and vestiges of their journeys still colour our psychological language: The convention informing geographical discoveries and the expansion of white consciousness over Africa continue to inform psychic geography. The topological language used by Freud for “the unconscious” as a place below, different, timeless, primordial, libidinal and separated from the consciousness recapitulates what white reporters centuries earlier said about West Africa. From Conrad’s Heart of Darkness to van der Post’s Venture to the Interior, Africa and the unconscious allegorize the other place.... “Just don’t stay in the topical colonies too long; you must reign at home,” writes Freud in 1911 to Jung, who himself made the African journey fourteen years later, describing the vast lands and dark peoples he encountered in language he applies as well to the immemorial unconscious psyche.... Part of psychology’s myth is that the unconscious was “discovered” as its contents are “explored”. Thus Africa has become a topology of the mind — its location, its shape, its cultures, its textures, its rhythms, its foliage, its hues, its wildness — all calling forth something lost in the psychology of the white European. It is with an understanding of our destiny to explore that symbolic lost continent within ourselves that we can begin to appreciate the prescience of Jungian psychology in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness.

Q. Which of the following is not in alliance with the representation of ‘Africa’ as in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness?
(a) Conrad portrays Africa (Congo) as being inhibited by people who are primitive and uncivilized.
(b) Civilization is shown to be non-existent in the depths of Africa.
(c) Africa is portrayed as a place full of delights and charms, which attracts the attention of Marlow.

Detailed Solution for Test: Reading Comprehension - Question 8

Option (3) is the correct answer. Statements (a) and (b) can be inferred from the passage. In paragraph 2, the author calls Africa as “a place where barbarism triumphs”. Barbarism points towards presence of uncivilized people and lack of civilization. Statement (c) is the most appropriate as it is nowhere stated in the passage. What Marlow was attracted to, was a river in Africa. Calling Africa as a place of delights and charms will be too mainstream.

Test: Reading Comprehension - Question 9

Direction For question : As the Heart of Darkness makes its way into the savage shadows of the African continent, Joseph Conrad exposes a psycho-geography of the collective unconscious in the entangling symbolic realities of the serpentine Congo. Conrad’s novella descends into the unknowable darkness at the heart of Africa, taking its narrator, Marlow, on an underworld journey of individuation, a modern odyssey toward the center of the Self and the center of the Earth. Ego dissolves into soul as, in the interior; Marlow encounters his double in the powerful image of ivory-obsessed Kurtz, the dark shadow of European imperialism. The dark meditation is graced by personifications of anima in Kurtz’ black goddess, the savagely magnificent consort of the underworld, and in his porcelain -skinned Persephone, innocent intended of the upper world. “Africa,” wrote Graham Greene, “will always be the Africa in the Victorian atlas, the blank unexplored continent in the shape of the human heart.” The African heart described by Greene “acquired a new layer of meaning when Conrad portrayed the Congo under King Leopold as the Heart of Darkness, a place where barbarism triumphs over humanity, nature over technology, biology over culture, id over super ego.” The unknown and uncharted topography of the African continent first beckoned Conrad’s narrator, Marlow, into its depths in his boyhood: “Now, when I was a little chap I had a passion for maps. I would look for hours at South America, or Africa, or Australia, and lose myself in all the glories of exploration”. When Marlow was grown and Africa was no longer a blank space on the map, but rather “a place of darkness,” there was still one river there that drew him especially, “a mighty big river, that you could see on the map, resembling an immense snake uncoiled, with its head in the sea, its body at rest curving afar over a vast country, and its tail lost in the depths of the land”. This same deep place, the Congo, that had seduced Conrad’s ivory hunting Kurtz into the horrors of its savage embrace had, in 1890, lured Conrad himself into adventure that turned him from sailor to writer and severely affected his health for the rest of his life. As the voyage up the Congo pro ved fateful for the development of Conrad’s narrator, Marlow, it was equally fateful for Conrad’s individuation, as he reflects in his letters “Before the Congo I was just a mere animal.” Hillman, in “Notes on White Supremacy” reminds us that, like Conrad, both Freud and Jung were called to venture into the shadowed continent and vestiges of their journeys still colour our psychological language: The convention informing geographical discoveries and the expansion of white consciousness over Africa continue to inform psychic geography. The topological language used by Freud for “the unconscious” as a place below, different, timeless, primordial, libidinal and separated from the consciousness recapitulates what white reporters centuries earlier said about West Africa. From Conrad’s Heart of Darkness to van der Post’s Venture to the Interior, Africa and the unconscious allegorize the other place.... “Just don’t stay in the topical colonies too long; you must reign at home,” writes Freud in 1911 to Jung, who himself made the African journey fourteen years later, describing the vast lands and dark peoples he encountered in language he applies as well to the immemorial unconscious psyche.... Part of psychology’s myth is that the unconscious was “discovered” as its contents are “explored”. Thus Africa has become a topology of the mind — its location, its shape, its cultures, its textures, its rhythms, its foliage, its hues, its wildness — all calling forth something lost in the psychology of the white European. It is with an understanding of our destiny to explore that symbolic lost continent within ourselves that we can begin to appreciate the prescience of Jungian psychology in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness.

Q. According to the passage, which of the following is not true about The Congo?

Detailed Solution for Test: Reading Comprehension - Question 9

Option (4) is the correct answer. Options (1) and (2) can be inferred from the following sentence in paragraph 4- “this same deep place...............lured Conrad himself into adventure that turned him from sailor to writer and severely affected his health for the rest of his life.” Option (3) can be inferred from the opening sentence in the passage, where the author calls the Congo as ‘serpentine’. Serpentine means snake like. Option (4) is incorrect since it is beyond the scope of the passage. Though Congo is shown as affecting the health of the people, it does not state that Congo took lives of the people.

Test: Reading Comprehension - Question 10

Direction For question : As the Heart of Darkness makes its way into the savage shadows of the African continent, Joseph Conrad exposes a psycho-geography of the collective unconscious in the entangling symbolic realities of the serpentine Congo. Conrad’s novella descends into the unknowable darkness at the heart of Africa, taking its narrator, Marlow, on an underworld journey of individuation, a modern odyssey toward the center of the Self and the center of the Earth. Ego dissolves into soul as, in the interior; Marlow encounters his double in the powerful image of ivory-obsessed Kurtz, the dark shadow of European imperialism. The dark meditation is graced by personifications of anima in Kurtz’ black goddess, the savagely magnificent consort of the underworld, and in his porcelain -skinned Persephone, innocent intended of the upper world. “Africa,” wrote Graham Greene, “will always be the Africa in the Victorian atlas, the blank unexplored continent in the shape of the human heart.” The African heart described by Greene “acquired a new layer of meaning when Conrad portrayed the Congo under King Leopold as the Heart of Darkness, a place where barbarism triumphs over humanity, nature over technology, biology over culture, id over super ego.” The unknown and uncharted topography of the African continent first beckoned Conrad’s narrator, Marlow, into its depths in his boyhood: “Now, when I was a little chap I had a passion for maps. I would look for hours at South America, or Africa, or Australia, and lose myself in all the glories of exploration”. When Marlow was grown and Africa was no longer a blank space on the map, but rather “a place of darkness,” there was still one river there that drew him especially, “a mighty big river, that you could see on the map, resembling an immense snake uncoiled, with its head in the sea, its body at rest curving afar over a vast country, and its tail lost in the depths of the land”. This same deep place, the Congo, that had seduced Conrad’s ivory hunting Kurtz into the horrors of its savage embrace had, in 1890, lured Conrad himself into adventure that turned him from sailor to writer and severely affected his health for the rest of his life. As the voyage up the Congo pro ved fateful for the development of Conrad’s narrator, Marlow, it was equally fateful for Conrad’s individuation, as he reflects in his letters “Before the Congo I was just a mere animal.” Hillman, in “Notes on White Supremacy” reminds us that, like Conrad, both Freud and Jung were called to venture into the shadowed continent and vestiges of their journeys still colour our psychological language: The convention informing geographical discoveries and the expansion of white consciousness over Africa continue to inform psychic geography. The topological language used by Freud for “the unconscious” as a place below, different, timeless, primordial, libidinal and separated from the consciousness recapitulates what white reporters centuries earlier said about West Africa. From Conrad’s Heart of Darkness to van der Post’s Venture to the Interior, Africa and the unconscious allegorize the other place.... “Just don’t stay in the topical colonies too long; you must reign at home,” writes Freud in 1911 to Jung, who himself made the African journey fourteen years later, describing the vast lands and dark peoples he encountered in language he applies as well to the immemorial unconscious psyche.... Part of psychology’s myth is that the unconscious was “discovered” as its contents are “explored”. Thus Africa has become a topology of the mind — its location, its shape, its cultures, its textures, its rhythms, its foliage, its hues, its wildness — all calling forth something lost in the psychology of the white European. It is with an understanding of our destiny to explore that symbolic lost continent within ourselves that we can begin to appreciate the prescience of Jungian psychology in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness.

Q. The author compares Congo to an animal/a reptile. What is this figure of speech called?

Detailed Solution for Test: Reading Comprehension - Question 10

Metaphor is a figure of speech that means implied comparison. The author uses the metaphor of a snake to describe Congo. Alliteration is the repetition of the beginning sounds of neighboring words. Euphemism is a mild, indirect, or vague term substituting for a harsh, blunt, or offensive term. Onomatopoeia is the formation of a word from a sound associated with what is named.

Test: Reading Comprehension - Question 11

Direction For question : As the Heart of Darkness makes its way into the savage shadows of the African continent, Joseph Conrad exposes a psycho-geography of the collective unconscious in the entangling symbolic realities of the serpentine Congo. Conrad’s novella descends into the unknowable darkness at the heart of Africa, taking its narrator, Marlow, on an underworld journey of individuation, a modern odyssey toward the center of the Self and the center of the Earth. Ego dissolves into soul as, in the interior; Marlow encounters his double in the powerful image of ivory-obsessed Kurtz, the dark shadow of European imperialism. The dark meditation is graced by personifications of anima in Kurtz’ black goddess, the savagely magnificent consort of the underworld, and in his porcelain -skinned Persephone, innocent intended of the upper world. “Africa,” wrote Graham Greene, “will always be the Africa in the Victorian atlas, the blank unexplored continent in the shape of the human heart.” The African heart described by Greene “acquired a new layer of meaning when Conrad portrayed the Congo under King Leopold as the Heart of Darkness, a place where barbarism triumphs over humanity, nature over technology, biology over culture, id over super ego.” The unknown and uncharted topography of the African continent first beckoned Conrad’s narrator, Marlow, into its depths in his boyhood: “Now, when I was a little chap I had a passion for maps. I would look for hours at South America, or Africa, or Australia, and lose myself in all the glories of exploration”. When Marlow was grown and Africa was no longer a blank space on the map, but rather “a place of darkness,” there was still one river there that drew him especially, “a mighty big river, that you could see on the map, resembling an immense snake uncoiled, with its head in the sea, its body at rest curving afar over a vast country, and its tail lost in the depths of the land”. This same deep place, the Congo, that had seduced Conrad’s ivory hunting Kurtz into the horrors of its savage embrace had, in 1890, lured Conrad himself into adventure that turned him from sailor to writer and severely affected his health for the rest of his life. As the voyage up the Congo pro ved fateful for the development of Conrad’s narrator, Marlow, it was equally fateful for Conrad’s individuation, as he reflects in his letters “Before the Congo I was just a mere animal.” Hillman, in “Notes on White Supremacy” reminds us that, like Conrad, both Freud and Jung were called to venture into the shadowed continent and vestiges of their journeys still colour our psychological language: The convention informing geographical discoveries and the expansion of white consciousness over Africa continue to inform psychic geography. The topological language used by Freud for “the unconscious” as a place below, different, timeless, primordial, libidinal and separated from the consciousness recapitulates what white reporters centuries earlier said about West Africa. From Conrad’s Heart of Darkness to van der Post’s Venture to the Interior, Africa and the unconscious allegorize the other place.... “Just don’t stay in the topical colonies too long; you must reign at home,” writes Freud in 1911 to Jung, who himself made the African journey fourteen years later, describing the vast lands and dark peoples he encountered in language he applies as well to the immemorial unconscious psyche.... Part of psychology’s myth is that the unconscious was “discovered” as its contents are “explored”. Thus Africa has become a topology of the mind — its location, its shape, its cultures, its textures, its rhythms, its foliage, its hues, its wildness — all calling forth something lost in the psychology of the white European. It is with an understanding of our destiny to explore that symbolic lost continent within ourselves that we can begin to appreciate the prescience of Jungian psychology in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness.

Q. Identify the nature of author’s tone in the above passage.

Detailed Solution for Test: Reading Comprehension - Question 11

Option (3) is the correct answer. Clearly the passage is providing us information about the representation of Africa and Congo in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. Option (1) is incorrect because there are no signs of sarcasm or attack. Options (2) and (4) are also invalid as the author is neither idealizing anything nor arguing over something.

Test: Reading Comprehension - Question 12

Direction For question : As the Heart of Darkness makes its way into the savage shadows of the African continent, Joseph Conrad exposes a psycho-geography of the collective unconscious in the entangling symbolic realities of the serpentine Congo. Conrad’s novella descends into the unknowable darkness at the heart of Africa, taking its narrator, Marlow, on an underworld journey of individuation, a modern odyssey toward the center of the Self and the center of the Earth. Ego dissolves into soul as, in the interior; Marlow encounters his double in the powerful image of ivory-obsessed Kurtz, the dark shadow of European imperialism. The dark meditation is graced by personifications of anima in Kurtz’ black goddess, the savagely magnificent consort of the underworld, and in his porcelain -skinned Persephone, innocent intended of the upper world. “Africa,” wrote Graham Greene, “will always be the Africa in the Victorian atlas, the blank unexplored continent in the shape of the human heart.” The African heart described by Greene “acquired a new layer of meaning when Conrad portrayed the Congo under King Leopold as the Heart of Darkness, a place where barbarism triumphs over humanity, nature over technology, biology over culture, id over super ego.” The unknown and uncharted topography of the African continent first beckoned Conrad’s narrator, Marlow, into its depths in his boyhood: “Now, when I was a little chap I had a passion for maps. I would look for hours at South America, or Africa, or Australia, and lose myself in all the glories of exploration”. When Marlow was grown and Africa was no longer a blank space on the map, but rather “a place of darkness,” there was still one river there that drew him especially, “a mighty big river, that you could see on the map, resembling an immense snake uncoiled, with its head in the sea, its body at rest curving afar over a vast country, and its tail lost in the depths of the land”. This same deep place, the Congo, that had seduced Conrad’s ivory hunting Kurtz into the horrors of its savage embrace had, in 1890, lured Conrad himself into adventure that turned him from sailor to writer and severely affected his health for the rest of his life. As the voyage up the Congo pro ved fateful for the development of Conrad’s narrator, Marlow, it was equally fateful for Conrad’s individuation, as he reflects in his letters “Before the Congo I was just a mere animal.” Hillman, in “Notes on White Supremacy” reminds us that, like Conrad, both Freud and Jung were called to venture into the shadowed continent and vestiges of their journeys still colour our psychological language: The convention informing geographical discoveries and the expansion of white consciousness over Africa continue to inform psychic geography. The topological language used by Freud for “the unconscious” as a place below, different, timeless, primordial, libidinal and separated from the consciousness recapitulates what white reporters centuries earlier said about West Africa. From Conrad’s Heart of Darkness to van der Post’s Venture to the Interior, Africa and the unconscious allegorize the other place.... “Just don’t stay in the topical colonies too long; you must reign at home,” writes Freud in 1911 to Jung, who himself made the African journey fourteen years later, describing the vast lands and dark peoples he encountered in language he applies as well to the immemorial unconscious psyche.... Part of psychology’s myth is that the unconscious was “discovered” as its contents are “explored”. Thus Africa has become a topology of the mind — its location, its shape, its cultures, its textures, its rhythms, its foliage, its hues, its wildness — all calling forth something lost in the psychology of the white European. It is with an understanding of our destiny to explore that symbolic lost continent within ourselves that we can begin to appreciate the prescience of Jungian psychology in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness.

Q. Which of the following is most likely to be the profession of the author?

Detailed Solution for Test: Reading Comprehension - Question 12

The author can be a professor but the subject is missing. Hence, the most likely answer is 4 where the author’s background in English literature is clearly visible.

Test: Reading Comprehension - Question 13

Direction For questions : Scientists have long recognized the incredible diversity within a species. But they thought it reflected evolutionary changes that unfolded imperceptibly, over millions of years. That divergence between populations within a species was enforced, according to Ernst Mayr, the great evolutionary biologist of the 1940s, when a population was separated from the rest of the species by a mountain range or a desert, preventing breeding across the divide over geologic scales of time. Without the separation, gene flow was relentless. But as the separation persisted, the isolated population grew apart and speciation occurred. In the mid-1960s, the biologist Paul Ehrlich – author of The Population Bomb (1968) – and his Stanford University colleague Peter Raven challenged Mayr’s ideas about speciation. They had studied checkerspot butterflies living in the Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve in California, and it soon became clear that they were not examining a single population. Through years of capturing, marking and then recapturing the butterflies, they were able to prove that within the population, spread over just 50 acres of suitable checkerspot habitat, there were three groups that rarely interacted despite their very close proximity. Among other ideas, Ehrlich and Raven argued in a now classic paper from 1969 that gene flow was not as predictable and ubiquitous as Mayr and his cohort maintained, and thus evolutionary divergence between neighbouring groups in a population was probably common. They also asserted that isolation and gene flow were less important to evolutionary divergence than natural selection (when factors such as mate choice, weather, disease or predation cause better-adapted individuals to survive and pass on their successful genetic traits). For example, Ehrlich and Raven suggested that, without the force of natural selection, an isolated population would remain unchanged and that, in other scenarios, natural selection could be strong enough to overpower gene flow...

Q. Which of the following best sums up Ehrlich and Raven’s argument in their classic 1969 paper?

Detailed Solution for Test: Reading Comprehension - Question 13

Mayr’s contention was that speciation takes place due to factors like geographical isolation. However the 1969 paper challenges this notion and places the emphasis on natural selection.

Test: Reading Comprehension - Question 14

Direction For questions : Scientists have long recognized the incredible diversity within a species. But they thought it reflected evolutionary changes that unfolded imperceptibly, over millions of years. That divergence between populations within a species was enforced, according to Ernst Mayr, the great evolutionary biologist of the 1940s, when a population was separated from the rest of the species by a mountain range or a desert, preventing breeding across the divide over geologic scales of time. Without the separation, gene flow was relentless. But as the separation persisted, the isolated population grew apart and speciation occurred. In the mid-1960s, the biologist Paul Ehrlich – author of The Population Bomb (1968) – and his Stanford University colleague Peter Raven challenged Mayr’s ideas about speciation. They had studied checkerspot butterflies living in the Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve in California, and it soon became clear that they were not examining a single population. Through years of capturing, marking and then recapturing the butterflies, they were able to prove that within the population, spread over just 50 acres of suitable checkerspot habitat, there were three groups that rarely interacted despite their very close proximity. Among other ideas, Ehrlich and Raven argued in a now classic paper from 1969 that gene flow was not as predictable and ubiquitous as Mayr and his cohort maintained, and thus evolutionary divergence between neighbouring groups in a population was probably common. They also asserted that isolation and gene flow were less important to evolutionary divergence than natural selection (when factors such as mate choice, weather, disease or predation cause better-adapted individuals to survive and pass on their successful genetic traits). For example, Ehrlich and Raven suggested that, without the force of natural selection, an isolated population would remain unchanged and that, in other scenarios, natural selection could be strong enough to overpower gene flow...

Q. All of the following statements are true according to the passage EXCEPT:

Detailed Solution for Test: Reading Comprehension - Question 14

2 has neither been stated in the passage nor has it been implied. The other options can be directly verified from the passage.

Test: Reading Comprehension - Question 15

Direction For questions : Scientists have long recognized the incredible diversity within a species. But they thought it reflected evolutionary changes that unfolded imperceptibly, over millions of years. That divergence between populations within a species was enforced, according to Ernst Mayr, the great evolutionary biologist of the 1940s, when a population was separated from the rest of the species by a mountain range or a desert, preventing breeding across the divide over geologic scales of time. Without the separation, gene flow was relentless. But as the separation persisted, the isolated population grew apart and speciation occurred. In the mid-1960s, the biologist Paul Ehrlich – author of The Population Bomb (1968) – and his Stanford University colleague Peter Raven challenged Mayr’s ideas about speciation. They had studied checkerspot butterflies living in the Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve in California, and it soon became clear that they were not examining a single population. Through years of capturing, marking and then recapturing the butterflies, they were able to prove that within the population, spread over just 50 acres of suitable checkerspot habitat, there were three groups that rarely interacted despite their very close proximity. Among other ideas, Ehrlich and Raven argued in a now classic paper from 1969 that gene flow was not as predictable and ubiquitous as Mayr and his cohort maintained, and thus evolutionary divergence between neighbouring groups in a population was probably common. They also asserted that isolation and gene flow were less important to evolutionary divergence than natural selection (when factors such as mate choice, weather, disease or predation cause better-adapted individuals to survive and pass on their successful genetic traits). For example, Ehrlich and Raven suggested that, without the force of natural selection, an isolated population would remain unchanged and that, in other scenarios, natural selection could be strong enough to overpower gene flow...

Q. The author discusses Mayr, Ehrlich and Raven to demonstrate that:

Detailed Solution for Test: Reading Comprehension - Question 15

Option 1 is the correct answer as the author provides examples of the US and Russia to tell that these countries have taken up the use of typewriter. The author also supports their using of typewriters by providing us with positive aspects of the typewriters. Option 2 is beyond the scope of the passage. Option 3 is incorrect since clearly it is not the main aim of the passage. There is no hint to make that claim. Option 4 is incorrect since this difference has nowhere been made.

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