Test: Reading Comprehension- 2 - CAT MCQ

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage.
Persons do not become a society by living in physical proximity, any more than a man ceases to be socially influenced by being so many feet or miles removed from others. A book or a letter may institute a more intimate association between human beings separated thousands of miles from each other than exists between dwellers under the same roof. Individuals do not even compose a social group because they all work for a common end. The parts of a machine work with a maximum of cooperativeness for a common result, but they do not form a community. If, however, they were all cognizant of the common end and all interested in it so that they regulated their specific activity in view of it, then they would form a community. But this would involve communication. Each would have to know what the other was about and would have to have some way of keeping the other informed as to his own purpose and progress. Consensus demands communication.

We are thus compelled to recognise that within even the most social group there are many relations that are not as yet social. A large number of human relationships in any social group are still upon the machine-like plane. So far as the relations of parent and child, teacher and pupil, employer and employee, governor and governed, remain upon this level, they form no true social group, no matter how closely their respective activities touch one another. Giving and taking of orders modifies action and results, but does not of itself effect a sharing of purposes, a communication of interests.
Not only is social life identical with communication, but all communication (and hence all genuine social life) is educative. To be a recipient of a communication is to have an enlarged and changed experience. One shares in what another has thought and felt and in so far, meagrely or amply, has his own attitude modified. Nor is the one who communicates left unaffected. The experience has to be formulated in order to be communicated. To formulate requires getting outside of it, seeing it as another would see it, considering what points of contact it has with the life of another so that it may be got into such form that he can appreciate its meaning. All communication is like art. It may fairly be said, therefore, that any social arrangement that remains vitally social, or vitally shared, is educative to those who participate in it. Only when it becomes cast in a mould and runs in a routine way does it lose its educative power. In final account, then, not only does social life demand teaching and learning for its own permanence, but the very process of living together educates. It enlarges and enlightens experience; it stimulates and enriches imagination; it creates responsibility for accuracy and vividness of statement and thought. The inequality of achievement between the mature and the immature not only necessitates teaching the young, but the necessity of this teaching gives an immense stimulus to reducing experience to that order and form which will render it most easily communicable and hence most usable.
Q. None of the following describes the moment when teaching becomes a social experience EXCEPT:

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage.
The term "Deal Mechanics" denotes and connotes almost nothing: it conjures no concrete notions and images in our mind's eye. Phrases like these are known as buzzwords, named for the excitement, or buzz, they tend to generate when injected into spheres of discourse. Anyone other than a high-ranking businessman would likely be unable to express any sort of definition for these words.
Buzzwords have very little definitional significance and have a general pattern of life cycle. They are adopted rapidly across entire industries and socio-political strata and proliferate every nook and cranny of those spheres. Their use escalates until they become merely a cliché, and their prevalence begins to dilute their power.
Websites in which buzzwords abound in headlines get more and more page views every day, evangelical Silicon Valley CEOs all seem to use different permutations of the same words in their presentations and high-ranking businessmen all seem to engage in the same incomprehensible doublespeak. The debate over whether this is a beneficial shift has reached a stalemate of sorts. Some believe that buzzwords are linguistic parasites, latching onto an existing cultural sphere and draining it of its vitality, while others believe that language and buzzwords enjoy and thrive upon a mutual symbiotic relationship.
Given that buzzwords are a relatively new social phenomenon, a natural supposition might be that their effect on us is transitory, more a social phenomenon than a deeply rooted cognitive process. Literature generally supports the opposite, however. Pennycook et al.'s literary work, which explored this through computational linguistics, concluded that people tended to find meaningless, yet 'syntactically coherent' phrases at least somewhat profound. In conjunction, Kissler et al. demonstrated that our brains respond faster to words with emotional significance than they do to more mundane words, irrespective of whether those words convey a coherent idea. However, the vast majority of literature takes buzzwords as an axiom of culture without questioning their presence.
Grieve et al.'s paper identifies that the most widely adopted words tend to be slang phrases, extremely informal ways of capturing a common sentiment. They resonate with those most active in that particular sphere of discourse. As the words become more and more common and their novelty wears off, usage of the word becomes more casual, reinforcing its status as slang.
Secondly, as the word proliferates across conversation, its structure changes as well. This most commonly takes the form of phrase truncation to facilitate versatility of definition. For example, the phrase 'on fleek' was originally intended as a description of one's shapely eyebrows. Today, 'fleek' is used to describe something of high quality and which carries itself well.
Thirdly, these phrases engage in what Grieve et al. term 'Onomasiological Competition'. It describes the competition between two words that express much the same notion. If – instead of considering an emerging term in isolation – we consider the frequency of the emerging term and the pre-established term as compared to each other, we find a decrease in the amount of variance in the alternation between these two forms over time.
Buzzwords, as time goes on, have their multiple interpretations stripped away. We see that people start using buzzwords at the cost of other pre-established terms to express the same ideas and that they are not necessarily used to express their literal meaning.
Q. Which of the following lines from the passage disputes the superficial effect of buzzwords on the human mind?

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage.
The term "Deal Mechanics" denotes and connotes almost nothing: it conjures no concrete notions and images in our mind's eye. Phrases like these are known as buzzwords, named for the excitement, or buzz, they tend to generate when injected into spheres of discourse. Anyone other than a high-ranking businessman would likely be unable to express any sort of definition for these words.
Buzzwords have very little definitional significance and have a general pattern of life cycle. They are adopted rapidly across entire industries and socio-political strata and proliferate every nook and cranny of those spheres. Their use escalates until they become merely a cliché, and their prevalence begins to dilute their power.
Websites in which buzzwords abound in headlines get more and more page views every day, evangelical Silicon Valley CEOs all seem to use different permutations of the same words in their presentations and high-ranking businessmen all seem to engage in the same incomprehensible doublespeak. The debate over whether this is a beneficial shift has reached a stalemate of sorts. Some believe that buzzwords are linguistic parasites, latching onto an existing cultural sphere and draining it of its vitality, while others believe that language and buzzwords enjoy and thrive upon a mutual symbiotic relationship.
Given that buzzwords are a relatively new social phenomenon, a natural supposition might be that their effect on us is transitory, more a social phenomenon than a deeply rooted cognitive process. Literature generally supports the opposite, however. Pennycook et al.'s literary work, which explored this through computational linguistics, concluded that people tended to find meaningless, yet 'syntactically coherent' phrases at least somewhat profound. In conjunction, Kissler et al. demonstrated that our brains respond faster to words with emotional significance than they do to more mundane words, irrespective of whether those words convey a coherent idea. However, the vast majority of literature takes buzzwords as an axiom of culture without questioning their presence.
Grieve et al.'s paper identifies that the most widely adopted words tend to be slang phrases, extremely informal ways of capturing a common sentiment. They resonate with those most active in that particular sphere of discourse. As the words become more and more common and their novelty wears off, usage of the word becomes more casual, reinforcing its status as slang.
Secondly, as the word proliferates across conversation, its structure changes as well. This most commonly takes the form of phrase truncation to facilitate versatility of definition. For example, the phrase 'on fleek' was originally intended as a description of one's shapely eyebrows. Today, 'fleek' is used to describe something of high quality and which carries itself well.
Thirdly, these phrases engage in what Grieve et al. term 'Onomasiological Competition'. It describes the competition between two words that express much the same notion. If – instead of considering an emerging term in isolation – we consider the frequency of the emerging term and the pre-established term as compared to each other, we find a decrease in the amount of variance in the alternation between these two forms over time.
Buzzwords, as time goes on, have their multiple interpretations stripped away. We see that people start using buzzwords at the cost of other pre-established terms to express the same ideas and that they are not necessarily used to express their literal meaning.
Q. All of the following statements are true regarding the lifecycle of a buzzword EXCEPT:

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage.
The term "Deal Mechanics" denotes and connotes almost nothing: it conjures no concrete notions and images in our mind's eye. Phrases like these are known as buzzwords, named for the excitement, or buzz, they tend to generate when injected into spheres of discourse. Anyone other than a high-ranking businessman would likely be unable to express any sort of definition for these words.
Buzzwords have very little definitional significance and have a general pattern of life cycle. They are adopted rapidly across entire industries and socio-political strata and proliferate every nook and cranny of those spheres. Their use escalates until they become merely a cliché, and their prevalence begins to dilute their power.
Websites in which buzzwords abound in headlines get more and more page views every day, evangelical Silicon Valley CEOs all seem to use different permutations of the same words in their presentations and high-ranking businessmen all seem to engage in the same incomprehensible doublespeak. The debate over whether this is a beneficial shift has reached a stalemate of sorts. Some believe that buzzwords are linguistic parasites, latching onto an existing cultural sphere and draining it of its vitality, while others believe that language and buzzwords enjoy and thrive upon a mutual symbiotic relationship.
Given that buzzwords are a relatively new social phenomenon, a natural supposition might be that their effect on us is transitory, more a social phenomenon than a deeply rooted cognitive process. Literature generally supports the opposite, however. Pennycook et al.'s literary work, which explored this through computational linguistics, concluded that people tended to find meaningless, yet 'syntactically coherent' phrases at least somewhat profound. In conjunction, Kissler et al. demonstrated that our brains respond faster to words with emotional significance than they do to more mundane words, irrespective of whether those words convey a coherent idea. However, the vast majority of literature takes buzzwords as an axiom of culture without questioning their presence.
Grieve et al.'s paper identifies that the most widely adopted words tend to be slang phrases, extremely informal ways of capturing a common sentiment. They resonate with those most active in that particular sphere of discourse. As the words become more and more common and their novelty wears off, usage of the word becomes more casual, reinforcing its status as slang.
Secondly, as the word proliferates across conversation, its structure changes as well. This most commonly takes the form of phrase truncation to facilitate versatility of definition. For example, the phrase 'on fleek' was originally intended as a description of one's shapely eyebrows. Today, 'fleek' is used to describe something of high quality and which carries itself well.
Thirdly, these phrases engage in what Grieve et al. term 'Onomasiological Competition'. It describes the competition between two words that express much the same notion. If – instead of considering an emerging term in isolation – we consider the frequency of the emerging term and the pre-established term as compared to each other, we find a decrease in the amount of variance in the alternation between these two forms over time.
Buzzwords, as time goes on, have their multiple interpretations stripped away. We see that people start using buzzwords at the cost of other pre-established terms to express the same ideas and that they are not necessarily used to express their literal meaning.
Q. According to the text, Pennycook and Kissler agree that:

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage.
The term "Deal Mechanics" denotes and connotes almost nothing: it conjures no concrete notions and images in our mind's eye. Phrases like these are known as buzzwords, named for the excitement, or buzz, they tend to generate when injected into spheres of discourse. Anyone other than a high-ranking businessman would likely be unable to express any sort of definition for these words.
Buzzwords have very little definitional significance and have a general pattern of life cycle. They are adopted rapidly across entire industries and socio-political strata and proliferate every nook and cranny of those spheres. Their use escalates until they become merely a cliché, and their prevalence begins to dilute their power.
Websites in which buzzwords abound in headlines get more and more page views every day, evangelical Silicon Valley CEOs all seem to use different permutations of the same words in their presentations and high-ranking businessmen all seem to engage in the same incomprehensible doublespeak. The debate over whether this is a beneficial shift has reached a stalemate of sorts. Some believe that buzzwords are linguistic parasites, latching onto an existing cultural sphere and draining it of its vitality, while others believe that language and buzzwords enjoy and thrive upon a mutual symbiotic relationship.
Given that buzzwords are a relatively new social phenomenon, a natural supposition might be that their effect on us is transitory, more a social phenomenon than a deeply rooted cognitive process. Literature generally supports the opposite, however. Pennycook et al.'s literary work, which explored this through computational linguistics, concluded that people tended to find meaningless, yet 'syntactically coherent' phrases at least somewhat profound. In conjunction, Kissler et al. demonstrated that our brains respond faster to words with emotional significance than they do to more mundane words, irrespective of whether those words convey a coherent idea. However, the vast majority of literature takes buzzwords as an axiom of culture without questioning their presence.
Grieve et al.'s paper identifies that the most widely adopted words tend to be slang phrases, extremely informal ways of capturing a common sentiment. They resonate with those most active in that particular sphere of discourse. As the words become more and more common and their novelty wears off, usage of the word becomes more casual, reinforcing its status as slang.
Secondly, as the word proliferates across conversation, its structure changes as well. This most commonly takes the form of phrase truncation to facilitate versatility of definition. For example, the phrase 'on fleek' was originally intended as a description of one's shapely eyebrows. Today, 'fleek' is used to describe something of high quality and which carries itself well.
Thirdly, these phrases engage in what Grieve et al. term 'Onomasiological Competition'. It describes the competition between two words that express much the same notion. If – instead of considering an emerging term in isolation – we consider the frequency of the emerging term and the pre-established term as compared to each other, we find a decrease in the amount of variance in the alternation between these two forms over time.
Buzzwords, as time goes on, have their multiple interpretations stripped away. We see that people start using buzzwords at the cost of other pre-established terms to express the same ideas and that they are not necessarily used to express their literal meaning.
Q. '... we consider the frequency of the emerging term and the pre-established term as compared to each other, we find a decrease in the amount of variance in the alternation between these two forms over time,' This implies that:

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage.
For all the hype and the management charts and the impenetrable language, ultimately what the product consultancies sell is brains. Not the sort that have been schooled in a particular discipline, such as law or accountancy. But the kind that they hope could be set to resolving almost any business problem under the sun. No wonder, then that brains are at a premium; and no wonder that consultants are excited by what they call ''thought leadership''.
Ideas, they are convinced, are a source of competitive advantage. They help to attract customers. According to Richard Foster at McKinsey, consultancies now need to offer not just independent advice, but alternative ways of seeing the world. Bosses are endlessly curious about management theory, partly because they are always looking for ways of beating the competition, partly because more and more of them have studied management at business school.
Ideas are useful for attracting and keeping clever recruits. Many MBA students go into consultancy because they think it will be more intellectually demanding and varied than mainstream management. Mr Gupta recalls that he joined McKinsey after Harvard because it seemed to be a sort of ''super business school''. And many stay because they hope to produce a book or article that will turn them into gurus. Ideas are essential to corporate regeneration. Consultancies that merely apply people's ideas rapidly go downhill.
When it comes to producing those ground-breaking ideas, consultancies rely on a variety of techniques. First, they encourage their own people to be creative, using sabbaticals, promotions, prizes and pay rises as incentives. Gemini has established a ''thinking room'' in its Morristown headquarters where consultants can sit in isolation: booths, put on goggles and think deep thoughts. McKinsey is spending more money on intellectual capital, and is trying some structure on its traditionally laissez-faire approach to generating ideas. It is establishing research programmes on subjects such as growth, globalisation and the future shape of companies, and has set up a sort of internal mental Olympics in which 150 teams of junior McKinseyites compete to impress their seniors with their management thinking.
The consultancies' second line of approach is to form alliance with business schools and business thinkers. A.T. Kearney is sponsoring research on the future shape of companies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Booz-Allen on the changing social contract at the London Business School; and Anderson Consulting on learning at Northwestern University, to name but three of hundreds of projects. CSC Index puts on seminars at which outside gurus ponder issues such as creativity or the changing role of chief executives.
Yet the path to thought leadership is strewn with pitfalls. It is all very well to develop an eye-catching product such as re-engineering or Economic Value Added, and throw the weight of the organisation behind marketing it; but other companies, many of them with more resources, may pinch the lead and improve on it, and eventually the market for the product will cool, leaving its inventor desperate for something else to sell.
Establishing and retaining intellectual leadership clearly takes strong management skills. Curiously enough in the management consultancy business these appear to be in short supply.
Q. The author of the passage is LEAST likely to agree with which of the following statements?

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage.
For all the hype and the management charts and the impenetrable language, ultimately what the product consultancies sell is brains. Not the sort that have been schooled in a particular discipline, such as law or accountancy. But the kind that they hope could be set to resolving almost any business problem under the sun. No wonder, then that brains are at a premium; and no wonder that consultants are excited by what they call ''thought leadership''.
Ideas, they are convinced, are a source of competitive advantage. They help to attract customers. According to Richard Foster at McKinsey, consultancies now need to offer not just independent advice, but alternative ways of seeing the world. Bosses are endlessly curious about management theory, partly because they are always looking for ways of beating the competition, partly because more and more of them have studied management at business school.
Ideas are useful for attracting and keeping clever recruits. Many MBA students go into consultancy because they think it will be more intellectually demanding and varied than mainstream management. Mr Gupta recalls that he joined McKinsey after Harvard because it seemed to be a sort of ''super business school''. And many stay because they hope to produce a book or article that will turn them into gurus. Ideas are essential to corporate regeneration. Consultancies that merely apply people's ideas rapidly go downhill.
When it comes to producing those ground-breaking ideas, consultancies rely on a variety of techniques. First, they encourage their own people to be creative, using sabbaticals, promotions, prizes and pay rises as incentives. Gemini has established a ''thinking room'' in its Morristown headquarters where consultants can sit in isolation: booths, put on goggles and think deep thoughts. McKinsey is spending more money on intellectual capital, and is trying some structure on its traditionally laissez-faire approach to generating ideas. It is establishing research programmes on subjects such as growth, globalisation and the future shape of companies, and has set up a sort of internal mental Olympics in which 150 teams of junior McKinseyites compete to impress their seniors with their management thinking.
The consultancies' second line of approach is to form alliance with business schools and business thinkers. A.T. Kearney is sponsoring research on the future shape of companies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Booz-Allen on the changing social contract at the London Business School; and Anderson Consulting on learning at Northwestern University, to name but three of hundreds of projects. CSC Index puts on seminars at which outside gurus ponder issues such as creativity or the changing role of chief executives.
Yet the path to thought leadership is strewn with pitfalls. It is all very well to develop an eye-catching product such as re-engineering or Economic Value Added, and throw the weight of the organisation behind marketing it; but other companies, many of them with more resources, may pinch the lead and improve on it, and eventually the market for the product will cool, leaving its inventor desperate for something else to sell.
Establishing and retaining intellectual leadership clearly takes strong management skills. Curiously enough in the management consultancy business these appear to be in short supply.
Q. According to the author, the threat to the concept of "thought leadership" is that

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage.
For all the hype and the management charts and the impenetrable language, ultimately what the product consultancies sell is brains. Not the sort that have been schooled in a particular discipline, such as law or accountancy. But the kind that they hope could be set to resolving almost any business problem under the sun. No wonder, then that brains are at a premium; and no wonder that consultants are excited by what they call ''thought leadership''.
Ideas, they are convinced, are a source of competitive advantage. They help to attract customers. According to Richard Foster at McKinsey, consultancies now need to offer not just independent advice, but alternative ways of seeing the world. Bosses are endlessly curious about management theory, partly because they are always looking for ways of beating the competition, partly because more and more of them have studied management at business school.
Ideas are useful for attracting and keeping clever recruits. Many MBA students go into consultancy because they think it will be more intellectually demanding and varied than mainstream management. Mr Gupta recalls that he joined McKinsey after Harvard because it seemed to be a sort of ''super business school''. And many stay because they hope to produce a book or article that will turn them into gurus. Ideas are essential to corporate regeneration. Consultancies that merely apply people's ideas rapidly go downhill.
When it comes to producing those ground-breaking ideas, consultancies rely on a variety of techniques. First, they encourage their own people to be creative, using sabbaticals, promotions, prizes and pay rises as incentives. Gemini has established a ''thinking room'' in its Morristown headquarters where consultants can sit in isolation: booths, put on goggles and think deep thoughts. McKinsey is spending more money on intellectual capital, and is trying some structure on its traditionally laissez-faire approach to generating ideas. It is establishing research programmes on subjects such as growth, globalisation and the future shape of companies, and has set up a sort of internal mental Olympics in which 150 teams of junior McKinseyites compete to impress their seniors with their management thinking.
The consultancies' second line of approach is to form alliance with business schools and business thinkers. A.T. Kearney is sponsoring research on the future shape of companies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Booz-Allen on the changing social contract at the London Business School; and Anderson Consulting on learning at Northwestern University, to name but three of hundreds of projects. CSC Index puts on seminars at which outside gurus ponder issues such as creativity or the changing role of chief executives.
Yet the path to thought leadership is strewn with pitfalls. It is all very well to develop an eye-catching product such as re-engineering or Economic Value Added, and throw the weight of the organisation behind marketing it; but other companies, many of them with more resources, may pinch the lead and improve on it, and eventually the market for the product will cool, leaving its inventor desperate for something else to sell.
Establishing and retaining intellectual leadership clearly takes strong management skills. Curiously enough in the management consultancy business these appear to be in short supply.
Q. According to the author, in which of the following ways do ideas provide competitive advantage to organisations?

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage.
For all the hype and the management charts and the impenetrable language, ultimately what the product consultancies sell is brains. Not the sort that have been schooled in a particular discipline, such as law or accountancy. But the kind that they hope could be set to resolving almost any business problem under the sun. No wonder, then that brains are at a premium; and no wonder that consultants are excited by what they call ''thought leadership''.
Ideas, they are convinced, are a source of competitive advantage. They help to attract customers. According to Richard Foster at McKinsey, consultancies now need to offer not just independent advice, but alternative ways of seeing the world. Bosses are endlessly curious about management theory, partly because they are always looking for ways of beating the competition, partly because more and more of them have studied management at business school.
Ideas are useful for attracting and keeping clever recruits. Many MBA students go into consultancy because they think it will be more intellectually demanding and varied than mainstream management. Mr Gupta recalls that he joined McKinsey after Harvard because it seemed to be a sort of ''super business school''. And many stay because they hope to produce a book or article that will turn them into gurus. Ideas are essential to corporate regeneration. Consultancies that merely apply people's ideas rapidly go downhill.
When it comes to producing those ground-breaking ideas, consultancies rely on a variety of techniques. First, they encourage their own people to be creative, using sabbaticals, promotions, prizes and pay rises as incentives. Gemini has established a ''thinking room'' in its Morristown headquarters where consultants can sit in isolation: booths, put on goggles and think deep thoughts. McKinsey is spending more money on intellectual capital, and is trying some structure on its traditionally laissez-faire approach to generating ideas. It is establishing research programmes on subjects such as growth, globalisation and the future shape of companies, and has set up a sort of internal mental Olympics in which 150 teams of junior McKinseyites compete to impress their seniors with their management thinking.
The consultancies' second line of approach is to form alliance with business schools and business thinkers. A.T. Kearney is sponsoring research on the future shape of companies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Booz-Allen on the changing social contract at the London Business School; and Anderson Consulting on learning at Northwestern University, to name but three of hundreds of projects. CSC Index puts on seminars at which outside gurus ponder issues such as creativity or the changing role of chief executives.
Yet the path to thought leadership is strewn with pitfalls. It is all very well to develop an eye-catching product such as re-engineering or Economic Value Added, and throw the weight of the organisation behind marketing it; but other companies, many of them with more resources, may pinch the lead and improve on it, and eventually the market for the product will cool, leaving its inventor desperate for something else to sell.
Establishing and retaining intellectual leadership clearly takes strong management skills. Curiously enough in the management consultancy business these appear to be in short supply.
Q. "Thought Leadership" is not an easy job. As indicated in the passage, which of the following can be the best reason for this?

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage.
Our digital world depends on the interconnectivity between wireless devices, often battery-free with no direct power supply. Such devices include wireless passive sensors, designed to receive and respond to signals from the environment. These devices can be powered by electromagnetic waves, provided their antenna can efficiently convert waves to energy. When Alexander Graham Bell made the first-ever phone call in 1876, calling his assistant to meet him, the connectivity of today's world would have been well beyond his wildest dreams. Perhaps even in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when the internet as we know it started to emerge, the digital world we have since built would have been unimaginable. Today, we don't just use technology to communicate with each other: we are also finding ways to make devices communicate between themselves to allow us to control our environments. The 'Internet of Things', as it is now called, is the combination of the immense web of sensors, devices, apps, and other technology that are connected and sharing information between them.
To control our world, however, we need to be able to interconnect many devices which, for ease of installation and pleasing design, are usually wireless, including no power supply cables. For environmental reasons, it is also beneficial that these devices are battery-free. Battery-free devices can instead be powered by the electromagnetic waves they receive from the powered devices they are connected to. With the right equipment, the electromagnetic waves sent by the Wi-Fi router could be enough to supply the energy needed to power the motion sensor. Devices whose function is to detect and respond to physical signals from the surrounding environment are called passive sensors. The ability of a passive sensor to harvest energy from the environment depends heavily on the ability of its antenna – which receives electromagnetic waves – to efficiently turn waves into electricity that can power it. As such, a crucial part of improving this remote powering technology involves making the rectifier (the part of the antenna responsible for converting waves to power) work as efficiently as possible.
The rectifier performance can be measured in terms of its voltage conversion efficiency, or its power conversion efficiency, where 'voltage' refers to an electrical potential, and 'power' here refers to the rate at which electrical energy is transferred through an electrical circuit. However, these two quantities are closely interlinked in complex ways, to such an extent that optimising one of these parameters is often done at the expense of the other, and it is not possible to optimise both parameters simultaneously. Dominik Mair and his colleagues at the University of Innsbruck in Austria, have shown in a recent publication that using either voltage or power conversion efficiency as measures of rectifier performance is not feasible. Instead, the team demonstrated that the concept of a 'mean conversion efficiency' (the average of the voltage and power conversion efficiencies) allows optimisation algorithms to find optimum rectifier circuit designs much quicker. Not only that, but the resulting designs also show superior overall performance when compared to previous ones, even with very low power from incoming waves. The growing demand for 'intelligent' devices that are interconnected with each other, allowing us to control our environment, is pushing the development of wireless, battery-free sensors which can gather information and even make decisions or control actuators.
Q. Why does the author consider that it would have been impossible to imagine a digital world even in the late 20th century?

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage.
Our digital world depends on the interconnectivity between wireless devices, often battery-free with no direct power supply. Such devices include wireless passive sensors, designed to receive and respond to signals from the environment. These devices can be powered by electromagnetic waves, provided their antenna can efficiently convert waves to energy. When Alexander Graham Bell made the first-ever phone call in 1876, calling his assistant to meet him, the connectivity of today's world would have been well beyond his wildest dreams. Perhaps even in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when the internet as we know it started to emerge, the digital world we have since built would have been unimaginable. Today, we don't just use technology to communicate with each other: we are also finding ways to make devices communicate between themselves to allow us to control our environments. The 'Internet of Things', as it is now called, is the combination of the immense web of sensors, devices, apps, and other technology that are connected and sharing information between them.
To control our world, however, we need to be able to interconnect many devices which, for ease of installation and pleasing design, are usually wireless, including no power supply cables. For environmental reasons, it is also beneficial that these devices are battery-free. Battery-free devices can instead be powered by the electromagnetic waves they receive from the powered devices they are connected to. With the right equipment, the electromagnetic waves sent by the Wi-Fi router could be enough to supply the energy needed to power the motion sensor. Devices whose function is to detect and respond to physical signals from the surrounding environment are called passive sensors. The ability of a passive sensor to harvest energy from the environment depends heavily on the ability of its antenna – which receives electromagnetic waves – to efficiently turn waves into electricity that can power it. As such, a crucial part of improving this remote powering technology involves making the rectifier (the part of the antenna responsible for converting waves to power) work as efficiently as possible.
The rectifier performance can be measured in terms of its voltage conversion efficiency, or its power conversion efficiency, where 'voltage' refers to an electrical potential, and 'power' here refers to the rate at which electrical energy is transferred through an electrical circuit. However, these two quantities are closely interlinked in complex ways, to such an extent that optimising one of these parameters is often done at the expense of the other, and it is not possible to optimise both parameters simultaneously. Dominik Mair and his colleagues at the University of Innsbruck in Austria, have shown in a recent publication that using either voltage or power conversion efficiency as measures of rectifier performance is not feasible. Instead, the team demonstrated that the concept of a 'mean conversion efficiency' (the average of the voltage and power conversion efficiencies) allows optimisation algorithms to find optimum rectifier circuit designs much quicker. Not only that, but the resulting designs also show superior overall performance when compared to previous ones, even with very low power from incoming waves. The growing demand for 'intelligent' devices that are interconnected with each other, allowing us to control our environment, is pushing the development of wireless, battery-free sensors which can gather information and even make decisions or control actuators.
Q. Which of the following is the reason why Dominik Mair's designs show overall superior performance as compared to traditional designs?

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage.
Our digital world depends on the interconnectivity between wireless devices, often battery-free with no direct power supply. Such devices include wireless passive sensors, designed to receive and respond to signals from the environment. These devices can be powered by electromagnetic waves, provided their antenna can efficiently convert waves to energy. When Alexander Graham Bell made the first-ever phone call in 1876, calling his assistant to meet him, the connectivity of today's world would have been well beyond his wildest dreams. Perhaps even in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when the internet as we know it started to emerge, the digital world we have since built would have been unimaginable. Today, we don't just use technology to communicate with each other: we are also finding ways to make devices communicate between themselves to allow us to control our environments. The 'Internet of Things', as it is now called, is the combination of the immense web of sensors, devices, apps, and other technology that are connected and sharing information between them.
To control our world, however, we need to be able to interconnect many devices which, for ease of installation and pleasing design, are usually wireless, including no power supply cables. For environmental reasons, it is also beneficial that these devices are battery-free. Battery-free devices can instead be powered by the electromagnetic waves they receive from the powered devices they are connected to. With the right equipment, the electromagnetic waves sent by the Wi-Fi router could be enough to supply the energy needed to power the motion sensor. Devices whose function is to detect and respond to physical signals from the surrounding environment are called passive sensors. The ability of a passive sensor to harvest energy from the environment depends heavily on the ability of its antenna – which receives electromagnetic waves – to efficiently turn waves into electricity that can power it. As such, a crucial part of improving this remote powering technology involves making the rectifier (the part of the antenna responsible for converting waves to power) work as efficiently as possible.
The rectifier performance can be measured in terms of its voltage conversion efficiency, or its power conversion efficiency, where 'voltage' refers to an electrical potential, and 'power' here refers to the rate at which electrical energy is transferred through an electrical circuit. However, these two quantities are closely interlinked in complex ways, to such an extent that optimising one of these parameters is often done at the expense of the other, and it is not possible to optimise both parameters simultaneously. Dominik Mair and his colleagues at the University of Innsbruck in Austria, have shown in a recent publication that using either voltage or power conversion efficiency as measures of rectifier performance is not feasible. Instead, the team demonstrated that the concept of a 'mean conversion efficiency' (the average of the voltage and power conversion efficiencies) allows optimisation algorithms to find optimum rectifier circuit designs much quicker. Not only that, but the resulting designs also show superior overall performance when compared to previous ones, even with very low power from incoming waves. The growing demand for 'intelligent' devices that are interconnected with each other, allowing us to control our environment, is pushing the development of wireless, battery-free sensors which can gather information and even make decisions or control actuators.
Q. Each of the following statements can be inferred in context of the passage, EXCEPT:

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage.
Our digital world depends on the interconnectivity between wireless devices, often battery-free with no direct power supply. Such devices include wireless passive sensors, designed to receive and respond to signals from the environment. These devices can be powered by electromagnetic waves, provided their antenna can efficiently convert waves to energy. When Alexander Graham Bell made the first-ever phone call in 1876, calling his assistant to meet him, the connectivity of today's world would have been well beyond his wildest dreams. Perhaps even in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when the internet as we know it started to emerge, the digital world we have since built would have been unimaginable. Today, we don't just use technology to communicate with each other: we are also finding ways to make devices communicate between themselves to allow us to control our environments. The 'Internet of Things', as it is now called, is the combination of the immense web of sensors, devices, apps, and other technology that are connected and sharing information between them.
To control our world, however, we need to be able to interconnect many devices which, for ease of installation and pleasing design, are usually wireless, including no power supply cables. For environmental reasons, it is also beneficial that these devices are battery-free. Battery-free devices can instead be powered by the electromagnetic waves they receive from the powered devices they are connected to. With the right equipment, the electromagnetic waves sent by the Wi-Fi router could be enough to supply the energy needed to power the motion sensor. Devices whose function is to detect and respond to physical signals from the surrounding environment are called passive sensors. The ability of a passive sensor to harvest energy from the environment depends heavily on the ability of its antenna – which receives electromagnetic waves – to efficiently turn waves into electricity that can power it. As such, a crucial part of improving this remote powering technology involves making the rectifier (the part of the antenna responsible for converting waves to power) work as efficiently as possible.
The rectifier performance can be measured in terms of its voltage conversion efficiency, or its power conversion efficiency, where 'voltage' refers to an electrical potential, and 'power' here refers to the rate at which electrical energy is transferred through an electrical circuit. However, these two quantities are closely interlinked in complex ways, to such an extent that optimising one of these parameters is often done at the expense of the other, and it is not possible to optimise both parameters simultaneously. Dominik Mair and his colleagues at the University of Innsbruck in Austria, have shown in a recent publication that using either voltage or power conversion efficiency as measures of rectifier performance is not feasible. Instead, the team demonstrated that the concept of a 'mean conversion efficiency' (the average of the voltage and power conversion efficiencies) allows optimisation algorithms to find optimum rectifier circuit designs much quicker. Not only that, but the resulting designs also show superior overall performance when compared to previous ones, even with very low power from incoming waves. The growing demand for 'intelligent' devices that are interconnected with each other, allowing us to control our environment, is pushing the development of wireless, battery-free sensors which can gather information and even make decisions or control actuators.
Q. Why does the author state that rectifiers should work 'as efficiently as possible' to improve remote powering technology?