Daily Passage Test for CLAT - Aug 6 MCQs & solutions Free

Directions: Kindly read the passage carefully and answer the questions given beside.

To begin with, residual problems from the end of the earlier era of colonisation, usually the result of untidy departures by the colonial power, still remain dangerously stalemated. The dramatic events in East Timor in 1999 are no longer fresh in the memory, and the more recent woes of neither Afghanistan nor Myanmar, can be attributed to colonialism. But no closure seems in sight in western Sahara, Jammu and Kashmir or in those old standbys of Cyprus and Palestine, all messy legacies of colonialism. Fuses lit in the colonial era could ignite again, as they did in the Horn of Africa, between Ethiopia and Eritrea, where war broke out over a colonial border that the Italians of an earlier era of occupation had failed to define with enough precision, and, more recently still, between the government of Ethiopia and its Tigrayan minority.

But it is not just the direct results of colonialism that remain relevant: there are the indirect ones as well. The intellectual history of colonialism is littered with many a wilful cause of more recent conflict. One is, quite simply, careless anthropology: the Belgian classification of Hutus and Tutsis in Rwanda and Burundi, which reified a distinction that had not existed before, continues to haunt the region of the African Great Lakes. A related problem is that of motivated sociology: how much bloodshed do we owe, for instance, to the British invention of “martial races” in India, which skewed recruitment into the armed forces and saddled some communities (Punjabi Muslims, for instance) with the onerous burden of militarism? And one can never overlook the old colonial administrative habit of “divide and rule”, exemplified, again, by British policy in the subcontinent after 1857, systematically promoting political divisions between Hindus and Muslims, which led inexorably to the tragedy of Partition. Such colonial-era distinctions were not just pernicious; they were often accompanied by an unequal distribution of the resources of the state within the colonial society. Belgian colonialists favoured Tutsis, leading to Hutu rejection of them as alien interlopers; Sinhalese resentment of privileges enjoyed by the Tamils in the colonial era in Sri Lanka prompted the discriminatory policies after Independence, that in turn fuelled the Tamil revolt.

A “mixed” colonial history within one modern state is also a potential source of danger. When a state has more than one colonial past, its future is vulnerable. Secessionism, after all, can be prompted by a variety of factors, historical, geographical and cultural as well as “ethnic”. Ethnicity or language hardly seem to be a factor in the secessions (one recognised, the other not) of Eritrea from Ethiopia and the “Republic of Somaliland” from Somalia. Rather, it was different colonial experiences (Italian rule in Eritrea and British rule in Somaliland) that set them off, at least in their own self-perceptions, from the rest of their ethnic compatriots. A similar case can be made in respect of the former Yugoslavia, where parts of the country that had been under Austro-Hungarian rule for 800 years had been joined to parts that spent almost as long under Ottoman suzerainty. The war that erupted in 1991 was in no small measure a war that pitted those parts of Yugoslavia that had been ruled by German-speaking empires against those that had not (or had resisted such colonisation).

Q. What can be concluded about colonialism's legacy from this passage?

Directions: Kindly read the passage carefully and answer the questions given beside.

To begin with, residual problems from the end of the earlier era of colonisation, usually the result of untidy departures by the colonial power, still remain dangerously stalemated. The dramatic events in East Timor in 1999 are no longer fresh in the memory, and the more recent woes of neither Afghanistan nor Myanmar, can be attributed to colonialism. But no closure seems in sight in western Sahara, Jammu and Kashmir or in those old standbys of Cyprus and Palestine, all messy legacies of colonialism. Fuses lit in the colonial era could ignite again, as they did in the Horn of Africa, between Ethiopia and Eritrea, where war broke out over a colonial border that the Italians of an earlier era of occupation had failed to define with enough precision, and, more recently still, between the government of Ethiopia and its Tigrayan minority.

But it is not just the direct results of colonialism that remain relevant: there are the indirect ones as well. The intellectual history of colonialism is littered with many a wilful cause of more recent conflict. One is, quite simply, careless anthropology: the Belgian classification of Hutus and Tutsis in Rwanda and Burundi, which reified a distinction that had not existed before, continues to haunt the region of the African Great Lakes. A related problem is that of motivated sociology: how much bloodshed do we owe, for instance, to the British invention of “martial races” in India, which skewed recruitment into the armed forces and saddled some communities (Punjabi Muslims, for instance) with the onerous burden of militarism? And one can never overlook the old colonial administrative habit of “divide and rule”, exemplified, again, by British policy in the subcontinent after 1857, systematically promoting political divisions between Hindus and Muslims, which led inexorably to the tragedy of Partition. Such colonial-era distinctions were not just pernicious; they were often accompanied by an unequal distribution of the resources of the state within the colonial society. Belgian colonialists favoured Tutsis, leading to Hutu rejection of them as alien interlopers; Sinhalese resentment of privileges enjoyed by the Tamils in the colonial era in Sri Lanka prompted the discriminatory policies after Independence, that in turn fuelled the Tamil revolt.

A “mixed” colonial history within one modern state is also a potential source of danger. When a state has more than one colonial past, its future is vulnerable. Secessionism, after all, can be prompted by a variety of factors, historical, geographical and cultural as well as “ethnic”. Ethnicity or language hardly seem to be a factor in the secessions (one recognised, the other not) of Eritrea from Ethiopia and the “Republic of Somaliland” from Somalia. Rather, it was different colonial experiences (Italian rule in Eritrea and British rule in Somaliland) that set them off, at least in their own self-perceptions, from the rest of their ethnic compatriots. A similar case can be made in respect of the former Yugoslavia, where parts of the country that had been under Austro-Hungarian rule for 800 years had been joined to parts that spent almost as long under Ottoman suzerainty. The war that erupted in 1991 was in no small measure a war that pitted those parts of Yugoslavia that had been ruled by German-speaking empires against those that had not (or had resisted such colonisation).

Q. Which statement accurately sums up the author's tone in this passage?

Directions: Kindly read the passage carefully and answer the questions given beside.

To begin with, residual problems from the end of the earlier era of colonisation, usually the result of untidy departures by the colonial power, still remain dangerously stalemated. The dramatic events in East Timor in 1999 are no longer fresh in the memory, and the more recent woes of neither Afghanistan nor Myanmar, can be attributed to colonialism. But no closure seems in sight in western Sahara, Jammu and Kashmir or in those old standbys of Cyprus and Palestine, all messy legacies of colonialism. Fuses lit in the colonial era could ignite again, as they did in the Horn of Africa, between Ethiopia and Eritrea, where war broke out over a colonial border that the Italians of an earlier era of occupation had failed to define with enough precision, and, more recently still, between the government of Ethiopia and its Tigrayan minority.

But it is not just the direct results of colonialism that remain relevant: there are the indirect ones as well. The intellectual history of colonialism is littered with many a wilful cause of more recent conflict. One is, quite simply, careless anthropology: the Belgian classification of Hutus and Tutsis in Rwanda and Burundi, which reified a distinction that had not existed before, continues to haunt the region of the African Great Lakes. A related problem is that of motivated sociology: how much bloodshed do we owe, for instance, to the British invention of “martial races” in India, which skewed recruitment into the armed forces and saddled some communities (Punjabi Muslims, for instance) with the onerous burden of militarism? And one can never overlook the old colonial administrative habit of “divide and rule”, exemplified, again, by British policy in the subcontinent after 1857, systematically promoting political divisions between Hindus and Muslims, which led inexorably to the tragedy of Partition. Such colonial-era distinctions were not just pernicious; they were often accompanied by an unequal distribution of the resources of the state within the colonial society. Belgian colonialists favoured Tutsis, leading to Hutu rejection of them as alien interlopers; Sinhalese resentment of privileges enjoyed by the Tamils in the colonial era in Sri Lanka prompted the discriminatory policies after Independence, that in turn fuelled the Tamil revolt.

A “mixed” colonial history within one modern state is also a potential source of danger. When a state has more than one colonial past, its future is vulnerable. Secessionism, after all, can be prompted by a variety of factors, historical, geographical and cultural as well as “ethnic”. Ethnicity or language hardly seem to be a factor in the secessions (one recognised, the other not) of Eritrea from Ethiopia and the “Republic of Somaliland” from Somalia. Rather, it was different colonial experiences (Italian rule in Eritrea and British rule in Somaliland) that set them off, at least in their own self-perceptions, from the rest of their ethnic compatriots. A similar case can be made in respect of the former Yugoslavia, where parts of the country that had been under Austro-Hungarian rule for 800 years had been joined to parts that spent almost as long under Ottoman suzerainty. The war that erupted in 1991 was in no small measure a war that pitted those parts of Yugoslavia that had been ruled by German-speaking empires against those that had not (or had resisted such colonisation).

Q. What does the passage's usage of the word "reified" mean?

Directions: Kindly read the passage carefully and answer the questions given beside.

To begin with, residual problems from the end of the earlier era of colonisation, usually the result of untidy departures by the colonial power, still remain dangerously stalemated. The dramatic events in East Timor in 1999 are no longer fresh in the memory, and the more recent woes of neither Afghanistan nor Myanmar, can be attributed to colonialism. But no closure seems in sight in western Sahara, Jammu and Kashmir or in those old standbys of Cyprus and Palestine, all messy legacies of colonialism. Fuses lit in the colonial era could ignite again, as they did in the Horn of Africa, between Ethiopia and Eritrea, where war broke out over a colonial border that the Italians of an earlier era of occupation had failed to define with enough precision, and, more recently still, between the government of Ethiopia and its Tigrayan minority.

But it is not just the direct results of colonialism that remain relevant: there are the indirect ones as well. The intellectual history of colonialism is littered with many a wilful cause of more recent conflict. One is, quite simply, careless anthropology: the Belgian classification of Hutus and Tutsis in Rwanda and Burundi, which reified a distinction that had not existed before, continues to haunt the region of the African Great Lakes. A related problem is that of motivated sociology: how much bloodshed do we owe, for instance, to the British invention of “martial races” in India, which skewed recruitment into the armed forces and saddled some communities (Punjabi Muslims, for instance) with the onerous burden of militarism? And one can never overlook the old colonial administrative habit of “divide and rule”, exemplified, again, by British policy in the subcontinent after 1857, systematically promoting political divisions between Hindus and Muslims, which led inexorably to the tragedy of Partition. Such colonial-era distinctions were not just pernicious; they were often accompanied by an unequal distribution of the resources of the state within the colonial society. Belgian colonialists favoured Tutsis, leading to Hutu rejection of them as alien interlopers; Sinhalese resentment of privileges enjoyed by the Tamils in the colonial era in Sri Lanka prompted the discriminatory policies after Independence, that in turn fuelled the Tamil revolt.

A “mixed” colonial history within one modern state is also a potential source of danger. When a state has more than one colonial past, its future is vulnerable. Secessionism, after all, can be prompted by a variety of factors, historical, geographical and cultural as well as “ethnic”. Ethnicity or language hardly seem to be a factor in the secessions (one recognised, the other not) of Eritrea from Ethiopia and the “Republic of Somaliland” from Somalia. Rather, it was different colonial experiences (Italian rule in Eritrea and British rule in Somaliland) that set them off, at least in their own self-perceptions, from the rest of their ethnic compatriots. A similar case can be made in respect of the former Yugoslavia, where parts of the country that had been under Austro-Hungarian rule for 800 years had been joined to parts that spent almost as long under Ottoman suzerainty. The war that erupted in 1991 was in no small measure a war that pitted those parts of Yugoslavia that had been ruled by German-speaking empires against those that had not (or had resisted such colonisation).

Q. What is the main point made in the passage regarding the impact of colonialism?

Directions: Kindly read the passage carefully and answer the questions given beside.

To begin with, residual problems from the end of the earlier era of colonisation, usually the result of untidy departures by the colonial power, still remain dangerously stalemated. The dramatic events in East Timor in 1999 are no longer fresh in the memory, and the more recent woes of neither Afghanistan nor Myanmar, can be attributed to colonialism. But no closure seems in sight in western Sahara, Jammu and Kashmir or in those old standbys of Cyprus and Palestine, all messy legacies of colonialism. Fuses lit in the colonial era could ignite again, as they did in the Horn of Africa, between Ethiopia and Eritrea, where war broke out over a colonial border that the Italians of an earlier era of occupation had failed to define with enough precision, and, more recently still, between the government of Ethiopia and its Tigrayan minority.

But it is not just the direct results of colonialism that remain relevant: there are the indirect ones as well. The intellectual history of colonialism is littered with many a wilful cause of more recent conflict. One is, quite simply, careless anthropology: the Belgian classification of Hutus and Tutsis in Rwanda and Burundi, which reified a distinction that had not existed before, continues to haunt the region of the African Great Lakes. A related problem is that of motivated sociology: how much bloodshed do we owe, for instance, to the British invention of “martial races” in India, which skewed recruitment into the armed forces and saddled some communities (Punjabi Muslims, for instance) with the onerous burden of militarism? And one can never overlook the old colonial administrative habit of “divide and rule”, exemplified, again, by British policy in the subcontinent after 1857, systematically promoting political divisions between Hindus and Muslims, which led inexorably to the tragedy of Partition. Such colonial-era distinctions were not just pernicious; they were often accompanied by an unequal distribution of the resources of the state within the colonial society. Belgian colonialists favoured Tutsis, leading to Hutu rejection of them as alien interlopers; Sinhalese resentment of privileges enjoyed by the Tamils in the colonial era in Sri Lanka prompted the discriminatory policies after Independence, that in turn fuelled the Tamil revolt.

A “mixed” colonial history within one modern state is also a potential source of danger. When a state has more than one colonial past, its future is vulnerable. Secessionism, after all, can be prompted by a variety of factors, historical, geographical and cultural as well as “ethnic”. Ethnicity or language hardly seem to be a factor in the secessions (one recognised, the other not) of Eritrea from Ethiopia and the “Republic of Somaliland” from Somalia. Rather, it was different colonial experiences (Italian rule in Eritrea and British rule in Somaliland) that set them off, at least in their own self-perceptions, from the rest of their ethnic compatriots. A similar case can be made in respect of the former Yugoslavia, where parts of the country that had been under Austro-Hungarian rule for 800 years had been joined to parts that spent almost as long under Ottoman suzerainty. The war that erupted in 1991 was in no small measure a war that pitted those parts of Yugoslavia that had been ruled by German-speaking empires against those that had not (or had resisted such colonisation).

Q. What is the significance of having more than one colonial past in a modern state, as mentioned in the passage?