Directions for questions 106 to 110: The sentences given in each question, when properly sequenced, form a coherent paragraph. Each sentence is labelled with a letter. Choose the most logical order of sentences from among the given choices to construct a coherent paragraph.
106. A. Branded disposable diapers are available at many supermarkets and drug stores.
B. If one supermarket sets a higher price for a diaper, customers may buy that brand elsewhere.
C. By contrast, the demand for private-label products may be less price sensitive since it is available only at a corresponding supermarket chain.
D. So the demand for branded diapers at any particular store may be quite price sensitive.
E. For instance, only SavOn Drugs stores sell SavOn Drugs diapers.
F. Then stores should set a higher incremental margin percentage for private label diapers.
1. ABCDEF 2. ABCEDF 3. ADBCEF 4. AEDBCF
107. A. Having a strategy is a matter of discipline.
B. It involves the configuration of a tailored value chain that enables a company to offer unique value.
C. It requires a strong focus on profitability and a willingness to make tough tradeoffs in choosing what not to do.
D. Strategy goes far beyond the pursuit of best practices.
E. A company must stay the course even during times of upheaval, while constantly improving and extending its distinctive positioning.
F. When a company's activities fit together as a self-reinforcing system, any competitor wishing to imitate a strategy must replicate the whole system.
1. ACEDBF 2. ACBDEF 3. DCBEFA 4. ABCEDF
108. A. As officials, their vision of a country shouldn't run too far beyond that of the local people with whom they have to deal.
B. Ambassadors have to choose their words.
C. To say what they feel they have to say, they appear to be denying or ignoring part of what they know.
D. So, with ambassadors as with other expatriates in black Africa, there appears at a first meeting a kind of ambivalence.
E. They do a specialized job and it is necessary for them to live ceremonial lives.
1. BCEDA 2. BEDAC 3. BEADC 4. BCDEA
109. A. "This face-off will continue for several months given the strong convictions on either side," says a senior functionary of the high-powered task force on drought.
B. During the past week-and-half, the Central Government has sought to deny some of the earlier apprehensions over the impact of drought.
C. The recent revival of the rains had led to the emergence of a line of divide between the two.
D. The state governments, on the other hand, allege that the Centre is downplaying the crisis only to evade its full responsibility of financial assistance that is required to alleviate the damage.
E. Shrill alarm about the economic impact of an inadequate monsoon had been sounded by the Centre as well as most of the states, in late July and early August.
1. EBCDA 2. DBACE 3. BDCAE 4. ECBDA
110. A. This fact was established in the 1730s by French survey expeditions to Equador near the Equator and Lapland in the Arctic, which found that around the middle of the earth the arc was about a kilometer shorter.
B. One of the unsettled scientific questions in the late 18th century was that of exact nature of the shape of the earth.
C. The length of one-degree arc would be less near the equatorial latitudes than at the poles.
D. One way of doing that is to determine the length of the arc along a chosen longitude or meridian at one degree latitude separation.
E. While it was generally known that the earth was not a sphere but an 'oblate spheroid', more curved at the equator and flatter at the poles, the question of 'how much more' was yet to be established.
1. BECAD 2. BEDCA 3. EDACB 4. EBDCA
Directions for questions 111 to 116: Fill the gaps in the passages below with the most appropriate word from the options given for each gap. The right words are the ones used by the author. Be guided by the author's overall style and meaning when you choose the answers.
Von Nuemann and Morgenstern assume a decision framework in which all options are thoroughly considered, each option being independent of the others, with a numerical value derived for the utility of each possible
outcome (these outcomes reflecting, in turn, all possible combinations of choices). The decision is then made to maximize the expected utility.
... 111 ... such a model reflects major simplifications of the way divisions are made in the real world. Humans are not able to process information as quickly and effectively as the model assumes; they tend
not to think ... 112 ... as easily as the model calls for; they often deal with a particular option without really assessing its ... 113 ... and when they do assess alternatives, they may be extremely nebulous about their criteria of evaluation.
111. 1. Regrettably 2. Firstly 3. Obviously 4. Apparently
112. 1. quantitatively 2. systematically 3. scientifically 4. analytically
113. 1. implications 2. disadvantages 3. utility 4. alternatives
In a large company, ... 114 ... people is about as common as using a gun or a switch-blade to ... 115 ... an argument. As a result, most managers have little or no experience of firing people, and they find it emotionally traumatic; as result, they often delay the act interminably, much as an unhappy spouse will prolong a bad marriage. And when the firing is done, it's often done clumsily, with far worse side effects than are necessary.
Do the world-class software organizations have a different way of firing people? No, but they do the deed swiftly, humanely, and professionally.
The key point here is to view the fired employee as a 'failed product' and to ask how the process ... 116 ... such a phenomenon in the first place.
114. 1. dismissing 2. punishing 3. firing 4. admonishing
115. 1. resolve 2. thwart 3. defeat 4. close
116. 1. derived 2. engineered 3. produced 4. allowed
Directions for questions 117 to 120: In each of the questions below, four different ways of writing a sentence are indicated. Choose the best way of writing the sentence.
117. A. The main problem with the notion of price discrimination is that it is not always a bad thing, but that it is the monopolist who has the power to decide who is charged what price.
B. The main problem with the notion of price discrimination is not that it is always a bad thing, it is the monopolist who has the power to decide who is charged what price.
C. The main problem with the notion of price discrimination is not that it is always a bad thing, but that it is the monopolist who has the power to decide who is charged what price.
D. The main problem with the notion of price discrimination is not it is always a bad thing, but that it is the monopolist who has the power to decide who is charged what price.
1. A 2. B 3. C 4. D
118. A. A symbiotic relationship develops among the contractors, bureaucracy and the politicians, and by a large number of devices costs are artificially escalated and black money is generated by
underhand deals.
B. A symbiotic relationship develops among contractors, bureaucracy and politicians, and costs are artificially escalated with a large number of devices and black money is generated through underhand deals.
C. A symbiotic relationship develops among contractors, bureaucracy and the politicians, and by a large number of devices costs are artificially escalated and black money is generated on underhand deals.
D. A symbiotic relationship develops among the contractors, bureaucracy and politicians, and by large number of devices costs are artificially escalated and black money is generated by underhand deals.
1. A 2.B 3.C 4. D
119. A. The distinctive feature of tariffs and export subsidies is that they create difference of prices at which goods are traded on the world market and their price within a local market.
B. The distinctive feature of tarriffs and export subsidies is that they create a difference of prices at which goods are traded with the world market and their prices in the local market.
C. The distinctive feature of tariffs and export subsidies is that they create a difference between prices at which goods are traded on the world market and their prices within a local market.
D. The distinctive feature of tarriffs and export subsidies is that they create a difference across prices at which goods are traded with the world market and their prices within a local market.
1. A 2.B 3.C 4. D
120. A. Any action of government to reduce the systemic risk inherent in financial markets will alsomreduce the risks that private operators perceive and thereby encourage excessive hedging.
B. Any action by government to reduce the systemic risk inherent in financial markets will also reduce the risks that private operators perceive and thereby encourage excessive gambling.
C. Any action by government to reduce the systemic risk inherent in financial markets will also reduce the risks that private operators perceive and thereby encourages excessive gambling.
D. Any action of government to reduce the systemic risk inherent in financial markets will also reduce the risks that private operators perceive and thereby encourages excessive gambling.
1. A 2. B 3. C 4. D
Directions for questions 121 to 125: For each of the words below a context is provided. From the alternatives given pick the word or phrase that is closest in meaning in the given context.
121. Opprobrium: The police officer appears oblivious to the opprobrium generated by his blatantly partisan conduct.
1. Harsh criticism 2. Acute distrust 3. Bitter enmity 4. Stark oppressiveness
122. Portend: It appears to many that the US 'war on terrorism' portends trouble in the Gulf.
1. Introduces 2. Evokes 3. Spells 4. Bodes
123. Prevaricate: When a videotape of her meeting was played back to her and she was asked to explain her presence there, she started prevaricating.
1. Speaking evasively 2. Speaking violently 3. Lying furiously 4. Throwing a tantrum
124. Restive: The crowd became restive when the minister failed to appear even by 10 pm.
1. Violent 2. Angry 3. Restless 4. Distressed
125. Ostensible: Manohar's ostensible job was to guard the building at night.
1. Apparent 2. Blatant 3. Ostentatious 4. Insidious
Directions for questions 126 to 130: Each of the five passages given below is followed by questions. Choose the best answer for each question.
The production of histories of India has become very frequent in recent years and may well call for some explanation. Why so many and why this one in particular? The reason is a two-fold one: changes in the Indian scene requiring a re-interpretation of the facts and changes in attitudes of historians about the essential elements of Indian history. These two considerations are in addition to the normal fact of fresh information, whether in the form of archeological discoveries throwing fresh light on an obscure period or culture, or the revelations caused by the opening of archives or the release of private papers. The changes in the Indian scene are too obvious to need emphasis. Only two generations ago British rule seemed to most Indian as well as British observers likely to extend into an indefinite future; now there is a teenage generation which knows nothing of it. Changes in the attitudes of historians have occurred everywhere, changes in attitudes to the content of the subject as well as to particular countries, but in India there have been some special features. Prior to the British, Indian historiographers were mostly Muslims, who relied, as in the case of Sayyid Ghulam Hussain, on their own recollection of events and on information from friends and men of affairs. Only a few like Abu'l Fazl had access to official papers. These were personal narratives of events, varying in value with the nature of the writer. The early British writers were officials. In the 18th century they were concerned with some aspect of Company policy, or like Robert Orme in his Military Transactions gave a straight narrative in what was essentially a continuation of the Muslim tradition. In the early 19th century the writers were still, with two notable exceptions, officials, but they were now engaged in chronicling, in varying moods of zest, pride, and awe, the rise of the British power in India to supremacy. The two exceptions were James Mill, with his critical attitude to the Company and John Marchman, the Baptist missionary. But they, like the officials, were anglo-centric in their attitude, so that the history of modern India in their hands came to be the history of the rise of the British in India.
The official school dominated the writing of Indian history until we get the first professional historian's approach. Ramsay Muir and P. E. Roberts in England and H. H. Dodwell in India. Then Indian historians trained in the English school joined in, of whom the most distinguished was Sir Jadunath Sarkar and the other notable writers: Surendranath Sen, Dr Radhakumud Mukherji, and Professor Nilakanta Sastri. They, it may be said, restored India to Indian history, but their bias was mainly political. Finally have come the nationalists who range from those who can find nothing good or true in the British to sophisticated historical philosophers like K. M. Panikker.
Along the types of historians with their varying bias have gone changes in the attitude to the content of Indian history. Here Indian historians have been influenced both by their local situation and by changes of thought elsewhere. It is this field that this work can claim some attention since it seeks to break new ground, or perhaps to deepen a freshly turned furrow in the field of Indian history. The early official historians were content with the glamour and drama of political history from Plassey to the Mutiny, from Dupleix to the Sikhs. But when the raj was settled down, glamour departed from politics, and they turned to the less glorious but more solid ground of administration. Not how India was conquered but how it was governed was the theme of this school of historians. It found its archpriest in H. H. Dodwell, its priestess in Dame
Lilian Penson, and its chief shrine in the Volume VI of the Cambridge History of India. Meanwhile, in Britain other currents were moving, which led historical study into the economic and social fields. R. C. Dutt entered the first of these currents with his Economic History of India to be followed more recently by the whole group of Indian economic historians. W. E. Moreland extended these studies to the Mughal Period. Social history is now being increasingly studied and there is also of course a school of nationalist historians who see modern Indian history in terms of the rise and the fulfillment of the national movement.
All these approaches have value, but all share in the quality of being compartmental. It is not enough to remove political history from its pedestal of being the only kind of history worth having if it is merely to put other types of history in its place. Too exclusive an attention to economic, social, or administrative history can be as sterile and misleading as too much concentration on politics. A whole subject needs a whole treatment for understanding. A historian must dissect his subject into its elements and then fuse them together again into an integrated whole. The true history of a country must contain all the features just cited but must present them as parts of a single consistent theme.
126. Which of the following may be the closest in meaning to the statement 'restored India to Indian history'?
1. Indian historians began writing Indian history.
2. Trained historians began writing Indian history.
3. Writing India-centric Indian history began.
4. Indian history began to be written in India.
127. Which of the following is the closest implication of the statement 'to break new ground, or perhaps to deepen a freshly turned furrow'?
1. Dig afresh or dig deeper.
2. Start a new stream of thought or help establish a recently emerged perspective.
3. Begin or conduct further work on existing archeological sites to unearth new evidence.
4. Begin writing a history free of any biases.
128. Historians moved from writing political history to writing administrative history because
1. attitudes of the historians changed.
2. the raj was settled down.
3. politics did not retain its past glamour.
4. administrative history was based on solid ground.
129. According to the author, which of the following is not among the attitudes of Indian historians of Indian origin?
1. Writing history as personal narratives.
2. Writing history with political bias.
3. Writing non-political history due to lack of glamour.
4. Writing history by dissecting elements and integrating them again.
130. In the table given below, match the historians to the approaches taken by them.
A Administrative E Robert Orme
B Political F H .H.Dodwell
C Narrative G Radha Kumud Mukherji
D Economic H R.C. Dutt
1 2 3 4
A F A G A E A F
B G B F B F B H
C E C E C G C E
D H D H D H D G
Directions for questions 131 to 136: Each of the five passages given below is followed by questions. Choose the best answer for each question.
There are a seemingly endless variety of laws, restrictions, customs and traditions that affect the practice of abortion around the world. Globally, abortion is probably the single most controversial issue in the whole area of women's rights and family matters. It is an issue that inflames women's right groups, religious institutions, and the self-proclaimed 'guardians' of public morality. The growing worldwide belief is that the right to control one's fertility is a basic human right. This has resulted in a worldwide trend towards liberalization of abortion laws. Forty per cent of the world's population live in countries where induced abortion is permitted on request. An additional 25 per cent live in countries where it is allowed if the women's life would be endangered if she went to full term with her pregancy. The estimate is that between 26 and 31 million legal abortions were performed in that year. However, there were also between 10 and 22 million illegal abortions performed in that year.
Feminists have viewed the patriarchal control of women's bodies as one of the prime issues facing the contemporary women's movement. They observe that the defintion and control of women's reproductive freedom have always been the province of men. Patriarchal religion, as manifest in Islamic fundamentalism, traditionalist Hindu practice, orthodox Judaism, and Roman Catholicism, has been an important historical contributory factor for this and continues to be an important presence in contemporary societies. In recent times, govenments, usually controlled by men, have 'given' women the right to contraceptive use and abortion access when their countries were perceived to have an overpopulation problem. When these countries are perceived to be underpopulated, that right had been absent. Until the 19th century, a woman's rights to an abortion followed English common law; it could only be legally challenged if there was a 'quickening', when the first movements of the fetus could be felt. In 1800, drugs to induce abortions were widely advertised in local newpapers. By 1900, abortion was banned in every state except to save the life of the mother. The change was strongly influenced by medical profession, which focussed its campaign ostensibly on health and safety issues for pregnant women and the sancity of life. Its position was also a means of control of non-licensed medical practitioners such as midwives and women healers who practiced abortion.
The anti-abortion campaign was also influenced by political considerations. The large influx of eastern and southern European immigrants with their large families was seen as a threat to the population balance of the future United States. Middle and upper-classes Protestants were advocates of abortion as a form of birth control. By supporting abortion prohibitions the hope was that these Americans would have more children and thus prevent the tide of immigrant babies from overwhelming the demographic characteristics
of Protestant America.
The anti-abortion legislative position remained in effect in the United States through the first 65 years of the 20th century. In the early 1960s, even when it was widely known that the drug thalidomide taken during pregnancy to alleviate anxiety was shown to contribute to the formation of deformed 'flipper-like' hands or legs of children, abortion was illegal in the United States. A second health tragedy was the severe outbreak of rubella during the same time period, which also resulted in major birth defects. These tragedies combined with a change of attitude towards a woman's right to privacy led a number of states to pass abortionpermitting legislation.
On one side of the controversy are those who call themselves 'pro-life'. They view the foetus as a human life rather than as an unformed complex of cells; therefore, they hold to the belief that abortion is essentially murder of an unborn child. These groups cite both legal and religious reasons for their opposition to abortion. Pro-lifers point to the rise in legalised abortion figures and see this as morally intolerable. On the other side of the issue are those who call themselves 'pro-choice'. They believe that women, not legislators or judges, should have the right to decide whether and under what circumstances they will bear children. Pro-choicers are of the opinion that laws will not prevent women from having abortions and cite the horror stories of the past when many women died at the hands of 'backroom' abortionists and in desperate attempts to self-abort. They also observe that legalized abortion is especially important for rape victims and incest victims who became pregnant. They stress physical and mental health reasons why women should not have unwanted children.
To get a better understanding of the current abortion controversy, let us examine a very important work by Kristin Luker titled Abortion and the Politics of Motherhood. Luker argues that female pro-choice and prolife activists hold different world views regarding gender, sex, and the meaning of parenthood. Moral positions on abortions are seen to be tied intimately to views on sexual bahavior, the care of children, family life, technology, and the importance of the individual. Luker identified 'pro-choice' women as educated, affluent, and liberal. Their contrasting counterparts, 'pro-life' women, support traditional concepts of women as wives and mothers. It would be instructive to sketch out the differences in the world views of these two sets of women. Luker examines California, with its liberalized abortion law, as a case history. Public documents and newspaper accounts over a 26-year period were analysed and over 200 interviews were held with both pro-life and pro-choice activists.
Luker found that pro-life and pro-choice activists have intrinsically different views with respect to gender. Pro-life women have a notion of public and private life. The proper place for men is in the public sphere of work; for women, it is the private sphere of the home. Men benefit through the nurturance of women; women benefit through the protection of men. Children are seen to be the ultimate beneficiaries of this arrangement of having the mother as a full-time loving parent and by having clear role models. Pro-choice advocates reject the view of separate spheres. They object to the notion of the home being the 'women's sphere'. Women's reproductive and family roles are seen as potential barriers to full equality. Motherhood is seen as a voluntary, not a mandatory or 'natural' role.
In summarizing her findings, Luker believes that women become activists in either of the two movements as the end result of lives that centre around different conceptualizations of motherhood. Their beliefs and values are rooted to the concrete circumstances of their lives, their educations, incomes, occupations, and the different marital and family choices that they have made. They represent two different world views of women's roles in contemporary society and as such the abortion issues represent the battleground for the justification of their respective views.
131. According to your understanding of the author's arguments, which countries are more likely to allow abortion?
1. India and China 2. Australia and Mongolia
3. Cannot be inferred from the passage 4. Both (1) and (2)
132. Which amongst these was not a reason for banning of abortions by 1900?
1. Medical professionals stressing the health and safety of women
2. Influx of eastern and southern European immigrants
3. Control of unlicensed medical practitioners
4. A tradition of matriarchal control
133. A pro-life woman would advocate abortion if
1. the mother of an unborn child is suicidal.
2. bearing a child conflicts with a woman's career prospects.
3. the mother becomes pregnant accidentally.
4. None of these
134. Pro-choice women object to the notion of the home being the 'women's sphere' because they believe
1. that home is a 'joint sphere' shared between men and women.
2. that reproduction is a matter of choice for women
3. that men and women are equal
4. Both (2) and (3)
135. Two health tragedies affecting the US society in the 1960s led to
1. a change in attitude to women's right to privacy.
2. retaining the anti-abortion laws with some exceptions.
3. scrapping of anti-abortion laws.
4. strengthening of the pro-life lobby.
136. Historically, the pro-choice movements has got support from, among others,
1. major patriarchal religions.
2. countries with low population density.
3. medical profession.
4. None of these
Directions for questions 137 to 140: Each of the five passages given below is followed by questions. Choose the best answer for each question.
The conceptions of life and the world which we call 'philosophical' are a product of two factors: one inherited religious and ethical conceptions; the other, the sort of investigation which may be called 'scientific', using this word in its broadest sense. Individual philosophers have differed widely in regard to the proportions in which these two factors entered into their systems, but it is the presence of both, in some degree, that characterizes philosophy.
'Philosophy' is a word which has been used in many ways, some wider, some narrower. I propose to use it in a very wide sense, which I will now try to explain.
Philosophy, as I shall understand the word, is something intermediate between theology and science. Like theology, it consists of speculations on matters as to which definite knowledge has, so far, been unascertainable; but like science, it appeals to human reason rather than to authority, whether that of tradition or that of revelation. All definite knowledge so I should contend belongs to science; all dogma as to what surpasses definite knowledge belongs to thelogy. But between theology and science there is a 'No Man's Land', exposed to attack from both sides; this 'No Man's Land' is philosophy. Almost all the questions of most interest to speculative minds are such as science cannot answer, and the confident answers of theologians no longer seem so convincing as they did in former centuries. Is the world divided into mind and matter, and if so, what is mind and what is matter? Is mind subject to matter, or is it possessed of independent powers? Has the universe any unity or purpose? Is it evolving towards some goal? Are there really laws of nature, or do we believe in them only because of our innate love of order? Is man what he seems to the astronomer, a tiny lump of carbon and water impotently crawling on a small and unimportant planet? Or is he what he appears to Hamlet? Is he perhaps both at once? Is there a way of living that is noble and another that is base, or are all ways of living merely futile? If there is a way of living that is noble, in what does it consist, and how shall we achieve it? Must the good be eternal in order to deserve to be valued, or is it worth seeking even if the universe is inexorably moving towards death? Is there such a thing as wisdom, or is what seems such merely the ultimate refinement of folly? To such questions no answer can be found in the laboratory. Theologies have professed to give answers, all too definite; but their definiteness causes modern minds to view them with suspicion. The studying of these questions, if not the answering of them, is the business of philosophy.
Why, then, you may ask, waste time on such insoluble problems? To this one may answer as a historian, or as an individual facing the terror of cosmic loneliness.
The answer of the historian, in so far as I am capable of giving it, will appear in the course of this work. Ever since men became capable of free speculation, their actions in innumerable important respects, have depended upon their theories as to the world and human life, as to what is good and what is evil. This is as true in the present day as at any former time. To understand an age or a nation, we must understand its philosophy, and to understand its philosophy we must ourselves be in some degree philosophers. There is here a reciprocal causation: the circumstances of men's lives do much to determine their philosophy, but, conversely, their philosophy does much to determine their circumstances.
There is also, however, a more personal answer. Science tells us what we can know, but what we can know is little, and if we forget how much we cannot know we may become insensitive to many things of very great importance. Theology, on the other hand, induces a dogmatic belief that we have knowledge, where in fact we have ignorance, and by doing so generates a kind of impertinent insolence towards the universe. Uncertainty, in the presence of vivid hopes and fears, is painful, but must be endured if we wish to live without the support of comforting fairy tales. It is good either to forget the questions that philosophy asks, or to persuade ourselves that we have found indubitable answers to them. To teach how to live without certainty, and yet without being paralyzed by hesitation, is perhaps the chief thing that philosophy, in our age, can still do for those who study it.
137. The purpose of philosophy is to
1. reduce uncertainty and chaos.
2. help us to cope with uncertainty and ambiguity.
3. help us to find explanations for uncertainty.
4. reduce the terror of cosmic loneliness.
138. Based on the passage, what can be concluded about the relation between philosophy and science?
1. The two are antagonistic.
2. The two are complementary.
3. There is no relation between the two.
4. Philosophy derives from science.
139. From reading the passage, what can be concluded about the profession of the author? He is most likely not to be a
1. historian.
2. philosopher.
3. scientist.
4. theologian.
140. According to the author, which of the following statements about the nature of universe must be definitely true?
1. The universe has unity.
2. The universe has a purpose.
3. The universe is evolving towards a goal.
4. None of these
Directions for questions 141 to 145: Each of the five passages given below is followed by questions. Choose the best answer for each question.
Cells are the ultimate multi-taskers: they can switch on genes and carry out their orders, talk to each other, divide in two, and much more, all at the same time. But they couldn't do any of these tricks without a power source to generate movement. The inside of a cell bustles with more traffic than Delhi roads, and, like all vehicles, the cell's moving parts need engines. Physicists and biologists have looked 'under the hood' of the cell and laid out the nuts and bolts of molecular engines.
The ability of such engines to convert chemical energy into motion is amazing nanotechnology researchers are looking for ways to power molecule-sized devices. Medical researchers also want to understand how these engines work. Because these molecules are essential for cell division, scientists hope to shut down the rampant growth of cancer cells by deactivating certain motors. Improving motor-driven transport in nerve cells may also be helpful for treating diseases such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's or ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease.
We wouldn't make it far in life without motor proteins. Our muscles wouldn't contract. We couldn't grow, because the growth process requires cells to duplicate their machinery and pull the copies apart. And our genes would be silent without the services of messenger RNA, which carries genetic instructions over to the cell's protein-making factories. The movements that make these cellular activities possible occur along a complex network of threadlike fibers, or polymers, along which bundles of molecules travel like trams. The engines that power the cell's freight are three families of proteins, called myosin, kinesin and dynein. For fuel, these proteins burn molecules of ATP, which cells make when they break down the carbohydrates and fats from the foods we eat. The energy from burning ATP causes changes in the proteins' shape that allow them to heave themselves along the polymer track. The results are impressive: In one second, these molecules can travel between 50 and 100 times their own diameter. If a car with a five-foot-wide engine were as efficient, it would travel 170 to 340 kilometres per hour.
Ronald Vale, a researcher at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the University of California at San Francisco, and Ronald Milligan of the Scripps Research Institute have realized a long-awaited goal by reconstructing the process by which myosin and kinesin move, almost down to the atom. The dynein motor, on the other hand, is still poorly understood. Myosin molecules, best known for their role in muscle contraction, form chains that lie between filaments of another protein called actin. Each myosin molecule has a tiny head that pokes out from the chain like oars from a canoe. Just as rowers propel their boat by stroking their oars through the water, the myosin molecules stick their heads into the actin and hoist themselves forward along the filament. While myosin moves along in short strokes, its cousin kinesin walks steadily along a different type of filament called a microtubule. Instead of using a projecting head as a lever, kinesin walks on two 'legs'. Based on these differences, researchers used to think that myosin and kinesin were virtually unrelated. But newly discovered similarities in the motors' ATP-processing machinery now suggest that they share a common ancestor — molecule. At this point, scientists can only speculate as to what type of primitive cell-like structure this ancestor occupied as it learned to burn ATP and use the energy to change shape. "We'll never really know, because we can't dig up the remains of ancient proteins, but that was probably a big evolutionary leap," says Vale.
On a slightly larger scale, loner cells like sperm or infectious bacteria are prime movers that resolutely push their way through to other cells. As L. Mahadevan and Paul Matsudaira of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology explain, the engines in this case are springs or ratchets that are clusters of molecules, rather than single proteins like myosin and kinesin. Researchers don't yet fully understand these engines' fueling process or the details of how they move, but the result is a force to be reckoned with. For example, one such engine is a spring-like stalk connecting a single-celled organism called a vorticellid to the leaf fragment it calls home. When exposed to calcium, the spring contracts, yanking the vorticellid down at speeds approaching three inches (eight centimetres) per second.
Springs like this are coiled bundles of filaments that expand or contract in response to chemical cues. A wave of positively charged calcium ions, for example, neutralizes the negative charges that keep the filaments extended. Some sperm use spring-like engines made of actin filaments to shoot out a barb that penetrates the layers that surround an egg. And certain viruses use a similar apparatus to shoot their DNA into the host's cell. Ratchets are also useful for moving whole cells, including some other sperm and pathogens. These engines are filaments that simply grow at one end, attracting chemical building blocks from nearby. Because the other end is anchored in place, the growing end pushes against any barrier that gets in its way.
Both springs and ratchets are made up of small units that each move just slightly, but collectively produce a powerful movement. Ultimately, Mahadevan and Matsudaira hope to better understand just how these particles create an effect that seems to be so much more than the sum of its parts. Might such an understanding provide inspiration for ways to power artificial nano-sized devices in the future? "The short answer is absolutely," says Mahadevan. "Biology has had a lot more time to evolve enormous richness in design for different organisms. Hopefully, studying these structures will not only improve our understanding of the biological world, it will also enable us to copy them, take apart their components and recreate them for other purpose."
141. According to the author, research on the power source of movement in cells can contribute to
1. control over the movement of genes within human systems.
2. the understanding of nanotechnology.
3. arresting the growth of cancer in a human being.
4. the development of cures for a variety of diseases.
142. The author has used several analogies to illustrate his arguments in the article. Which of the following pairs of words are examples of the analogies used?
A. Cell activity and vehicular traffic
B. Polymers and tram tracks
C. Genes and canoes
D. Vorticellids and ratchets
1. A and B 2. B and C 3. A and D 4. A and C
143. Read the five statements below: A, B, C, D, and E. From the options given, select the one which includes a statement that is not representative of an argument presented in the passage.
A. Sperms use spring like engines made of actin filament.
B. Myosin and kinesin are unrelated.
C. Nanotechnology researchers look for ways to power molecule-sized devices.
D. Motor proteins help muscle contraction.
E. The dynein motor is still poorly understood.
1. A, B and C 2. C, D and E 3. A, D and E 4. A, C and D
144. Read the four statements below: A, B, C and D. From the options given, select the one which includes only statements that are representative of arguments presented in the passage.
A. Protein motors help growth processes.
B. Improved transport in nerve cells will help arrest tuberculosis and cancer.
C. Cells, together, generate more power than the sum of power generated by them separately.
D. Vorticellid and the leaf fragment are connected by a calcium engine.
1. A and B but not C 2. A and C but not D
3. A and D but not B 4. C and D but not B
145. Read the four statements below: A, B, C and D. From the options given, select the one which includes statements that are representative of arguments presented in the passage.
A. Myosin, kinesin and actin are three types of protein.
B. Growth processes involve a routine in a cell that duplicates their machinery and pulls the copies apart.
C. Myosin molecules can generate vibrations in muscles.
D. Ronald and Mahadevan are researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
1. A and B but not C and D 2. B and C but not A
3. B and D but not A and C 4. A, B and C but not D
Directions for questions 146 to 150: Each of the five passages given below is followed by questions. Choose the best answer for each question.
If translated into English, most of the ways economists talk among themselves would sound plausible enough to poets, journalists, businesspeople, and other thoughtful though non-economical folk. Like serious talk anywhere — among boat desingers and baseball fans, say — the talk is hard to follow when one has not made a habit of listening to it for a while. The culture of the conversation makes the words arcane. But the people in the unfamiliar conversation are not Martians. Underneath it all (the economist's favourite phrase) conversational habits are similar. Economics uses mathematical models and statistical tests and market arguments, all of which look alien to the literary eye. But looked at closely they are not so alien. They may be seen as figures of speech-metaphors, analogies, and appeals to authority.
Figures of speech are not mere frills. They think for us. Someone who thinks of a market as an 'invisible hand' and the organization of work as a 'production function' and his coefficients as being 'significant', as an economist does, is giving the language a lot of responsibility. It seems a good idea to look hard at his language.
If the economic conversation were found to depend a lot on its verbal forms, this would not mean that economics would be not a science, or just a matter of opinion, or some sort of confidence game. Good poets, though not scientists, are serious thinkers about symbols; good historians, though not scientists, are serious thinkers about data. Good scientists also use language. What is more (though it remains to be shown) they use the cunning of language, without particularly meaning to. The language used is a social object, and using language is a social act. It requires cunning (or, if you prefer, consideration), attention to the other minds present when one speaks.
The paying of attention to one's audience is called 'rhetoric', a word that I later exercise hard. One uses rhetoric, of course, to warn of a fire in a theatre or to arouse the xenophobia of the electorate. This sort of yelling is the vulgar meaning of the word, like the president's 'heated rhetoric' in a press conference or the 'mere rhetoric' to which our enemies stoop. Since the Greek flame was lit, though, the word has been used also in a broader and more amiable sense, to mean the study of all the ways of accomplishing things with language: inciting a mob to lynch the accused, to be sure, but also persuading readers of a novel that its characters breathe, or bringing scholars to accept the better argument and reject the worse.
The question is whether the scholar- who usually fancies himself an announcer of 'results' or a stater of 'conclusions' free of rhetoric — speaks rhetorically. Does he try to persuade? It would seem so. Language, I just said, is not a solitary accomplishment. The scholar doesn't speak into the void, or to himself. He speaks to a community of voices. He desires to be heeded, praised, published, imitated, honoured, en-Nobeled. These are the desires. The devices of language are the means.
Rhetoric is the proportioning of means to desires in speech. Rhetoric is an economics of language, the study of how scarce means are allocated to the insatiable desires of people to be heard. It seems on the face of it a reasonable hypothesis that economists are like other people in being talkers, who desire listeners whey they go to the library or the laboratory as much as when they go to the office or the polls. The purpose here is to see if this is true, and to see if it is useful: to study the rhetoric of economic scholarship.
The subject is scholarship. It is not the economy, or the adequacy of economic theory as a description of the economy, or even mainly the economist's role in the economy. The subject is the conversation economists have among themselves, for purposes of persuading each other that the interest elasticity of demand for investment is zero or that the money supply is controlled by the Federal Reserve.
Unfortunately, though, the conclusions are of more than academic interest. The conversations of classicists or of astronomers rarely affect the lives of other people. Those of economists do so on a large scale. A well known joke describes a May Day parade through Red Square with the usual mass of soldiers, guided missiles, rocket launchers. At last come rank upon rank of people in gray business suits. A bystander asks, "Who are those?" "Aha!" comes the reply, "Those are economists: you have no idea what damage they can do!" Their conversations do it.
146. According to the passage, which of the following is the best set of reasons for which one needs to'look hard' at an economist's language?
A. Economists accomplish a great deal through their language.
B. Economics is an opinion-based subject.
C. Economics has a great impact on other's lives.
D. Economics is damaging.
1. A and B 2. C and D 3. A and C 4. B and D
147. In the light of the definition of rhetoric given in the passage, which of the following will have the least element of rhetoric?
1. An election speech
2. An advertisement jingle
3. Dialogues in a play
4. Commands given by army officers
148. As used in the passage, which of the following is the closest meaning to the statement 'The culture of the conversation makes the words arcane'?
1. Economists belong to a different culture.
2. Only mathematicians can understand economists.
3. Economists tend to use terms unfamiliar to the lay person, but depend on familiar linguistic forms.
4. Economists use similes and adjectives in their analysis.
149. As used in the passage, which of the following is the closest alternative to the word 'arcane'?
1. Mysterious 2. Secret 3. Covert 4. Perfidious
150. Based on your understanding of the passage, which of the following conclusions would you agree with?
1. The geocentric and the heliocentric views of the solar system are equally tenable.
2. The heliocentric view is superior because of better rhetoric.
3. Both views use rhetoric to persuade.
4. Scientists should not use rhetoric.
106. A. Branded disposable diapers are available at many supermarkets and drug stores.
B. If one supermarket sets a higher price for a diaper, customers may buy that brand elsewhere.
C. By contrast, the demand for private-label products may be less price sensitive since it is available only at a corresponding supermarket chain.
D. So the demand for branded diapers at any particular store may be quite price sensitive.
E. For instance, only SavOn Drugs stores sell SavOn Drugs diapers.
F. Then stores should set a higher incremental margin percentage for private label diapers.
1. ABCDEF 2. ABCEDF 3. ADBCEF 4. AEDBCF
107. A. Having a strategy is a matter of discipline.
B. It involves the configuration of a tailored value chain that enables a company to offer unique value.
C. It requires a strong focus on profitability and a willingness to make tough tradeoffs in choosing what not to do.
D. Strategy goes far beyond the pursuit of best practices.
E. A company must stay the course even during times of upheaval, while constantly improving and extending its distinctive positioning.
F. When a company's activities fit together as a self-reinforcing system, any competitor wishing to imitate a strategy must replicate the whole system.
1. ACEDBF 2. ACBDEF 3. DCBEFA 4. ABCEDF
108. A. As officials, their vision of a country shouldn't run too far beyond that of the local people with whom they have to deal.
B. Ambassadors have to choose their words.
C. To say what they feel they have to say, they appear to be denying or ignoring part of what they know.
D. So, with ambassadors as with other expatriates in black Africa, there appears at a first meeting a kind of ambivalence.
E. They do a specialized job and it is necessary for them to live ceremonial lives.
1. BCEDA 2. BEDAC 3. BEADC 4. BCDEA
109. A. "This face-off will continue for several months given the strong convictions on either side," says a senior functionary of the high-powered task force on drought.
B. During the past week-and-half, the Central Government has sought to deny some of the earlier apprehensions over the impact of drought.
C. The recent revival of the rains had led to the emergence of a line of divide between the two.
D. The state governments, on the other hand, allege that the Centre is downplaying the crisis only to evade its full responsibility of financial assistance that is required to alleviate the damage.
E. Shrill alarm about the economic impact of an inadequate monsoon had been sounded by the Centre as well as most of the states, in late July and early August.
1. EBCDA 2. DBACE 3. BDCAE 4. ECBDA
110. A. This fact was established in the 1730s by French survey expeditions to Equador near the Equator and Lapland in the Arctic, which found that around the middle of the earth the arc was about a kilometer shorter.
B. One of the unsettled scientific questions in the late 18th century was that of exact nature of the shape of the earth.
C. The length of one-degree arc would be less near the equatorial latitudes than at the poles.
D. One way of doing that is to determine the length of the arc along a chosen longitude or meridian at one degree latitude separation.
E. While it was generally known that the earth was not a sphere but an 'oblate spheroid', more curved at the equator and flatter at the poles, the question of 'how much more' was yet to be established.
1. BECAD 2. BEDCA 3. EDACB 4. EBDCA
Directions for questions 111 to 116: Fill the gaps in the passages below with the most appropriate word from the options given for each gap. The right words are the ones used by the author. Be guided by the author's overall style and meaning when you choose the answers.
Von Nuemann and Morgenstern assume a decision framework in which all options are thoroughly considered, each option being independent of the others, with a numerical value derived for the utility of each possible
outcome (these outcomes reflecting, in turn, all possible combinations of choices). The decision is then made to maximize the expected utility.
... 111 ... such a model reflects major simplifications of the way divisions are made in the real world. Humans are not able to process information as quickly and effectively as the model assumes; they tend
not to think ... 112 ... as easily as the model calls for; they often deal with a particular option without really assessing its ... 113 ... and when they do assess alternatives, they may be extremely nebulous about their criteria of evaluation.
111. 1. Regrettably 2. Firstly 3. Obviously 4. Apparently
112. 1. quantitatively 2. systematically 3. scientifically 4. analytically
113. 1. implications 2. disadvantages 3. utility 4. alternatives
In a large company, ... 114 ... people is about as common as using a gun or a switch-blade to ... 115 ... an argument. As a result, most managers have little or no experience of firing people, and they find it emotionally traumatic; as result, they often delay the act interminably, much as an unhappy spouse will prolong a bad marriage. And when the firing is done, it's often done clumsily, with far worse side effects than are necessary.
Do the world-class software organizations have a different way of firing people? No, but they do the deed swiftly, humanely, and professionally.
The key point here is to view the fired employee as a 'failed product' and to ask how the process ... 116 ... such a phenomenon in the first place.
114. 1. dismissing 2. punishing 3. firing 4. admonishing
115. 1. resolve 2. thwart 3. defeat 4. close
116. 1. derived 2. engineered 3. produced 4. allowed
Directions for questions 117 to 120: In each of the questions below, four different ways of writing a sentence are indicated. Choose the best way of writing the sentence.
117. A. The main problem with the notion of price discrimination is that it is not always a bad thing, but that it is the monopolist who has the power to decide who is charged what price.
B. The main problem with the notion of price discrimination is not that it is always a bad thing, it is the monopolist who has the power to decide who is charged what price.
C. The main problem with the notion of price discrimination is not that it is always a bad thing, but that it is the monopolist who has the power to decide who is charged what price.
D. The main problem with the notion of price discrimination is not it is always a bad thing, but that it is the monopolist who has the power to decide who is charged what price.
1. A 2. B 3. C 4. D
118. A. A symbiotic relationship develops among the contractors, bureaucracy and the politicians, and by a large number of devices costs are artificially escalated and black money is generated by
underhand deals.
B. A symbiotic relationship develops among contractors, bureaucracy and politicians, and costs are artificially escalated with a large number of devices and black money is generated through underhand deals.
C. A symbiotic relationship develops among contractors, bureaucracy and the politicians, and by a large number of devices costs are artificially escalated and black money is generated on underhand deals.
D. A symbiotic relationship develops among the contractors, bureaucracy and politicians, and by large number of devices costs are artificially escalated and black money is generated by underhand deals.
1. A 2.B 3.C 4. D
119. A. The distinctive feature of tariffs and export subsidies is that they create difference of prices at which goods are traded on the world market and their price within a local market.
B. The distinctive feature of tarriffs and export subsidies is that they create a difference of prices at which goods are traded with the world market and their prices in the local market.
C. The distinctive feature of tariffs and export subsidies is that they create a difference between prices at which goods are traded on the world market and their prices within a local market.
D. The distinctive feature of tarriffs and export subsidies is that they create a difference across prices at which goods are traded with the world market and their prices within a local market.
1. A 2.B 3.C 4. D
120. A. Any action of government to reduce the systemic risk inherent in financial markets will alsomreduce the risks that private operators perceive and thereby encourage excessive hedging.
B. Any action by government to reduce the systemic risk inherent in financial markets will also reduce the risks that private operators perceive and thereby encourage excessive gambling.
C. Any action by government to reduce the systemic risk inherent in financial markets will also reduce the risks that private operators perceive and thereby encourages excessive gambling.
D. Any action of government to reduce the systemic risk inherent in financial markets will also reduce the risks that private operators perceive and thereby encourages excessive gambling.
1. A 2. B 3. C 4. D
Directions for questions 121 to 125: For each of the words below a context is provided. From the alternatives given pick the word or phrase that is closest in meaning in the given context.
121. Opprobrium: The police officer appears oblivious to the opprobrium generated by his blatantly partisan conduct.
1. Harsh criticism 2. Acute distrust 3. Bitter enmity 4. Stark oppressiveness
122. Portend: It appears to many that the US 'war on terrorism' portends trouble in the Gulf.
1. Introduces 2. Evokes 3. Spells 4. Bodes
123. Prevaricate: When a videotape of her meeting was played back to her and she was asked to explain her presence there, she started prevaricating.
1. Speaking evasively 2. Speaking violently 3. Lying furiously 4. Throwing a tantrum
124. Restive: The crowd became restive when the minister failed to appear even by 10 pm.
1. Violent 2. Angry 3. Restless 4. Distressed
125. Ostensible: Manohar's ostensible job was to guard the building at night.
1. Apparent 2. Blatant 3. Ostentatious 4. Insidious
Directions for questions 126 to 130: Each of the five passages given below is followed by questions. Choose the best answer for each question.
The production of histories of India has become very frequent in recent years and may well call for some explanation. Why so many and why this one in particular? The reason is a two-fold one: changes in the Indian scene requiring a re-interpretation of the facts and changes in attitudes of historians about the essential elements of Indian history. These two considerations are in addition to the normal fact of fresh information, whether in the form of archeological discoveries throwing fresh light on an obscure period or culture, or the revelations caused by the opening of archives or the release of private papers. The changes in the Indian scene are too obvious to need emphasis. Only two generations ago British rule seemed to most Indian as well as British observers likely to extend into an indefinite future; now there is a teenage generation which knows nothing of it. Changes in the attitudes of historians have occurred everywhere, changes in attitudes to the content of the subject as well as to particular countries, but in India there have been some special features. Prior to the British, Indian historiographers were mostly Muslims, who relied, as in the case of Sayyid Ghulam Hussain, on their own recollection of events and on information from friends and men of affairs. Only a few like Abu'l Fazl had access to official papers. These were personal narratives of events, varying in value with the nature of the writer. The early British writers were officials. In the 18th century they were concerned with some aspect of Company policy, or like Robert Orme in his Military Transactions gave a straight narrative in what was essentially a continuation of the Muslim tradition. In the early 19th century the writers were still, with two notable exceptions, officials, but they were now engaged in chronicling, in varying moods of zest, pride, and awe, the rise of the British power in India to supremacy. The two exceptions were James Mill, with his critical attitude to the Company and John Marchman, the Baptist missionary. But they, like the officials, were anglo-centric in their attitude, so that the history of modern India in their hands came to be the history of the rise of the British in India.
The official school dominated the writing of Indian history until we get the first professional historian's approach. Ramsay Muir and P. E. Roberts in England and H. H. Dodwell in India. Then Indian historians trained in the English school joined in, of whom the most distinguished was Sir Jadunath Sarkar and the other notable writers: Surendranath Sen, Dr Radhakumud Mukherji, and Professor Nilakanta Sastri. They, it may be said, restored India to Indian history, but their bias was mainly political. Finally have come the nationalists who range from those who can find nothing good or true in the British to sophisticated historical philosophers like K. M. Panikker.
Along the types of historians with their varying bias have gone changes in the attitude to the content of Indian history. Here Indian historians have been influenced both by their local situation and by changes of thought elsewhere. It is this field that this work can claim some attention since it seeks to break new ground, or perhaps to deepen a freshly turned furrow in the field of Indian history. The early official historians were content with the glamour and drama of political history from Plassey to the Mutiny, from Dupleix to the Sikhs. But when the raj was settled down, glamour departed from politics, and they turned to the less glorious but more solid ground of administration. Not how India was conquered but how it was governed was the theme of this school of historians. It found its archpriest in H. H. Dodwell, its priestess in Dame
Lilian Penson, and its chief shrine in the Volume VI of the Cambridge History of India. Meanwhile, in Britain other currents were moving, which led historical study into the economic and social fields. R. C. Dutt entered the first of these currents with his Economic History of India to be followed more recently by the whole group of Indian economic historians. W. E. Moreland extended these studies to the Mughal Period. Social history is now being increasingly studied and there is also of course a school of nationalist historians who see modern Indian history in terms of the rise and the fulfillment of the national movement.
All these approaches have value, but all share in the quality of being compartmental. It is not enough to remove political history from its pedestal of being the only kind of history worth having if it is merely to put other types of history in its place. Too exclusive an attention to economic, social, or administrative history can be as sterile and misleading as too much concentration on politics. A whole subject needs a whole treatment for understanding. A historian must dissect his subject into its elements and then fuse them together again into an integrated whole. The true history of a country must contain all the features just cited but must present them as parts of a single consistent theme.
126. Which of the following may be the closest in meaning to the statement 'restored India to Indian history'?
1. Indian historians began writing Indian history.
2. Trained historians began writing Indian history.
3. Writing India-centric Indian history began.
4. Indian history began to be written in India.
127. Which of the following is the closest implication of the statement 'to break new ground, or perhaps to deepen a freshly turned furrow'?
1. Dig afresh or dig deeper.
2. Start a new stream of thought or help establish a recently emerged perspective.
3. Begin or conduct further work on existing archeological sites to unearth new evidence.
4. Begin writing a history free of any biases.
128. Historians moved from writing political history to writing administrative history because
1. attitudes of the historians changed.
2. the raj was settled down.
3. politics did not retain its past glamour.
4. administrative history was based on solid ground.
129. According to the author, which of the following is not among the attitudes of Indian historians of Indian origin?
1. Writing history as personal narratives.
2. Writing history with political bias.
3. Writing non-political history due to lack of glamour.
4. Writing history by dissecting elements and integrating them again.
130. In the table given below, match the historians to the approaches taken by them.
A Administrative E Robert Orme
B Political F H .H.Dodwell
C Narrative G Radha Kumud Mukherji
D Economic H R.C. Dutt
1 2 3 4
A F A G A E A F
B G B F B F B H
C E C E C G C E
D H D H D H D G
Directions for questions 131 to 136: Each of the five passages given below is followed by questions. Choose the best answer for each question.
There are a seemingly endless variety of laws, restrictions, customs and traditions that affect the practice of abortion around the world. Globally, abortion is probably the single most controversial issue in the whole area of women's rights and family matters. It is an issue that inflames women's right groups, religious institutions, and the self-proclaimed 'guardians' of public morality. The growing worldwide belief is that the right to control one's fertility is a basic human right. This has resulted in a worldwide trend towards liberalization of abortion laws. Forty per cent of the world's population live in countries where induced abortion is permitted on request. An additional 25 per cent live in countries where it is allowed if the women's life would be endangered if she went to full term with her pregancy. The estimate is that between 26 and 31 million legal abortions were performed in that year. However, there were also between 10 and 22 million illegal abortions performed in that year.
Feminists have viewed the patriarchal control of women's bodies as one of the prime issues facing the contemporary women's movement. They observe that the defintion and control of women's reproductive freedom have always been the province of men. Patriarchal religion, as manifest in Islamic fundamentalism, traditionalist Hindu practice, orthodox Judaism, and Roman Catholicism, has been an important historical contributory factor for this and continues to be an important presence in contemporary societies. In recent times, govenments, usually controlled by men, have 'given' women the right to contraceptive use and abortion access when their countries were perceived to have an overpopulation problem. When these countries are perceived to be underpopulated, that right had been absent. Until the 19th century, a woman's rights to an abortion followed English common law; it could only be legally challenged if there was a 'quickening', when the first movements of the fetus could be felt. In 1800, drugs to induce abortions were widely advertised in local newpapers. By 1900, abortion was banned in every state except to save the life of the mother. The change was strongly influenced by medical profession, which focussed its campaign ostensibly on health and safety issues for pregnant women and the sancity of life. Its position was also a means of control of non-licensed medical practitioners such as midwives and women healers who practiced abortion.
The anti-abortion campaign was also influenced by political considerations. The large influx of eastern and southern European immigrants with their large families was seen as a threat to the population balance of the future United States. Middle and upper-classes Protestants were advocates of abortion as a form of birth control. By supporting abortion prohibitions the hope was that these Americans would have more children and thus prevent the tide of immigrant babies from overwhelming the demographic characteristics
of Protestant America.
The anti-abortion legislative position remained in effect in the United States through the first 65 years of the 20th century. In the early 1960s, even when it was widely known that the drug thalidomide taken during pregnancy to alleviate anxiety was shown to contribute to the formation of deformed 'flipper-like' hands or legs of children, abortion was illegal in the United States. A second health tragedy was the severe outbreak of rubella during the same time period, which also resulted in major birth defects. These tragedies combined with a change of attitude towards a woman's right to privacy led a number of states to pass abortionpermitting legislation.
On one side of the controversy are those who call themselves 'pro-life'. They view the foetus as a human life rather than as an unformed complex of cells; therefore, they hold to the belief that abortion is essentially murder of an unborn child. These groups cite both legal and religious reasons for their opposition to abortion. Pro-lifers point to the rise in legalised abortion figures and see this as morally intolerable. On the other side of the issue are those who call themselves 'pro-choice'. They believe that women, not legislators or judges, should have the right to decide whether and under what circumstances they will bear children. Pro-choicers are of the opinion that laws will not prevent women from having abortions and cite the horror stories of the past when many women died at the hands of 'backroom' abortionists and in desperate attempts to self-abort. They also observe that legalized abortion is especially important for rape victims and incest victims who became pregnant. They stress physical and mental health reasons why women should not have unwanted children.
To get a better understanding of the current abortion controversy, let us examine a very important work by Kristin Luker titled Abortion and the Politics of Motherhood. Luker argues that female pro-choice and prolife activists hold different world views regarding gender, sex, and the meaning of parenthood. Moral positions on abortions are seen to be tied intimately to views on sexual bahavior, the care of children, family life, technology, and the importance of the individual. Luker identified 'pro-choice' women as educated, affluent, and liberal. Their contrasting counterparts, 'pro-life' women, support traditional concepts of women as wives and mothers. It would be instructive to sketch out the differences in the world views of these two sets of women. Luker examines California, with its liberalized abortion law, as a case history. Public documents and newspaper accounts over a 26-year period were analysed and over 200 interviews were held with both pro-life and pro-choice activists.
Luker found that pro-life and pro-choice activists have intrinsically different views with respect to gender. Pro-life women have a notion of public and private life. The proper place for men is in the public sphere of work; for women, it is the private sphere of the home. Men benefit through the nurturance of women; women benefit through the protection of men. Children are seen to be the ultimate beneficiaries of this arrangement of having the mother as a full-time loving parent and by having clear role models. Pro-choice advocates reject the view of separate spheres. They object to the notion of the home being the 'women's sphere'. Women's reproductive and family roles are seen as potential barriers to full equality. Motherhood is seen as a voluntary, not a mandatory or 'natural' role.
In summarizing her findings, Luker believes that women become activists in either of the two movements as the end result of lives that centre around different conceptualizations of motherhood. Their beliefs and values are rooted to the concrete circumstances of their lives, their educations, incomes, occupations, and the different marital and family choices that they have made. They represent two different world views of women's roles in contemporary society and as such the abortion issues represent the battleground for the justification of their respective views.
131. According to your understanding of the author's arguments, which countries are more likely to allow abortion?
1. India and China 2. Australia and Mongolia
3. Cannot be inferred from the passage 4. Both (1) and (2)
132. Which amongst these was not a reason for banning of abortions by 1900?
1. Medical professionals stressing the health and safety of women
2. Influx of eastern and southern European immigrants
3. Control of unlicensed medical practitioners
4. A tradition of matriarchal control
133. A pro-life woman would advocate abortion if
1. the mother of an unborn child is suicidal.
2. bearing a child conflicts with a woman's career prospects.
3. the mother becomes pregnant accidentally.
4. None of these
134. Pro-choice women object to the notion of the home being the 'women's sphere' because they believe
1. that home is a 'joint sphere' shared between men and women.
2. that reproduction is a matter of choice for women
3. that men and women are equal
4. Both (2) and (3)
135. Two health tragedies affecting the US society in the 1960s led to
1. a change in attitude to women's right to privacy.
2. retaining the anti-abortion laws with some exceptions.
3. scrapping of anti-abortion laws.
4. strengthening of the pro-life lobby.
136. Historically, the pro-choice movements has got support from, among others,
1. major patriarchal religions.
2. countries with low population density.
3. medical profession.
4. None of these
Directions for questions 137 to 140: Each of the five passages given below is followed by questions. Choose the best answer for each question.
The conceptions of life and the world which we call 'philosophical' are a product of two factors: one inherited religious and ethical conceptions; the other, the sort of investigation which may be called 'scientific', using this word in its broadest sense. Individual philosophers have differed widely in regard to the proportions in which these two factors entered into their systems, but it is the presence of both, in some degree, that characterizes philosophy.
'Philosophy' is a word which has been used in many ways, some wider, some narrower. I propose to use it in a very wide sense, which I will now try to explain.
Philosophy, as I shall understand the word, is something intermediate between theology and science. Like theology, it consists of speculations on matters as to which definite knowledge has, so far, been unascertainable; but like science, it appeals to human reason rather than to authority, whether that of tradition or that of revelation. All definite knowledge so I should contend belongs to science; all dogma as to what surpasses definite knowledge belongs to thelogy. But between theology and science there is a 'No Man's Land', exposed to attack from both sides; this 'No Man's Land' is philosophy. Almost all the questions of most interest to speculative minds are such as science cannot answer, and the confident answers of theologians no longer seem so convincing as they did in former centuries. Is the world divided into mind and matter, and if so, what is mind and what is matter? Is mind subject to matter, or is it possessed of independent powers? Has the universe any unity or purpose? Is it evolving towards some goal? Are there really laws of nature, or do we believe in them only because of our innate love of order? Is man what he seems to the astronomer, a tiny lump of carbon and water impotently crawling on a small and unimportant planet? Or is he what he appears to Hamlet? Is he perhaps both at once? Is there a way of living that is noble and another that is base, or are all ways of living merely futile? If there is a way of living that is noble, in what does it consist, and how shall we achieve it? Must the good be eternal in order to deserve to be valued, or is it worth seeking even if the universe is inexorably moving towards death? Is there such a thing as wisdom, or is what seems such merely the ultimate refinement of folly? To such questions no answer can be found in the laboratory. Theologies have professed to give answers, all too definite; but their definiteness causes modern minds to view them with suspicion. The studying of these questions, if not the answering of them, is the business of philosophy.
Why, then, you may ask, waste time on such insoluble problems? To this one may answer as a historian, or as an individual facing the terror of cosmic loneliness.
The answer of the historian, in so far as I am capable of giving it, will appear in the course of this work. Ever since men became capable of free speculation, their actions in innumerable important respects, have depended upon their theories as to the world and human life, as to what is good and what is evil. This is as true in the present day as at any former time. To understand an age or a nation, we must understand its philosophy, and to understand its philosophy we must ourselves be in some degree philosophers. There is here a reciprocal causation: the circumstances of men's lives do much to determine their philosophy, but, conversely, their philosophy does much to determine their circumstances.
There is also, however, a more personal answer. Science tells us what we can know, but what we can know is little, and if we forget how much we cannot know we may become insensitive to many things of very great importance. Theology, on the other hand, induces a dogmatic belief that we have knowledge, where in fact we have ignorance, and by doing so generates a kind of impertinent insolence towards the universe. Uncertainty, in the presence of vivid hopes and fears, is painful, but must be endured if we wish to live without the support of comforting fairy tales. It is good either to forget the questions that philosophy asks, or to persuade ourselves that we have found indubitable answers to them. To teach how to live without certainty, and yet without being paralyzed by hesitation, is perhaps the chief thing that philosophy, in our age, can still do for those who study it.
137. The purpose of philosophy is to
1. reduce uncertainty and chaos.
2. help us to cope with uncertainty and ambiguity.
3. help us to find explanations for uncertainty.
4. reduce the terror of cosmic loneliness.
138. Based on the passage, what can be concluded about the relation between philosophy and science?
1. The two are antagonistic.
2. The two are complementary.
3. There is no relation between the two.
4. Philosophy derives from science.
139. From reading the passage, what can be concluded about the profession of the author? He is most likely not to be a
1. historian.
2. philosopher.
3. scientist.
4. theologian.
140. According to the author, which of the following statements about the nature of universe must be definitely true?
1. The universe has unity.
2. The universe has a purpose.
3. The universe is evolving towards a goal.
4. None of these
Directions for questions 141 to 145: Each of the five passages given below is followed by questions. Choose the best answer for each question.
Cells are the ultimate multi-taskers: they can switch on genes and carry out their orders, talk to each other, divide in two, and much more, all at the same time. But they couldn't do any of these tricks without a power source to generate movement. The inside of a cell bustles with more traffic than Delhi roads, and, like all vehicles, the cell's moving parts need engines. Physicists and biologists have looked 'under the hood' of the cell and laid out the nuts and bolts of molecular engines.
The ability of such engines to convert chemical energy into motion is amazing nanotechnology researchers are looking for ways to power molecule-sized devices. Medical researchers also want to understand how these engines work. Because these molecules are essential for cell division, scientists hope to shut down the rampant growth of cancer cells by deactivating certain motors. Improving motor-driven transport in nerve cells may also be helpful for treating diseases such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's or ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease.
We wouldn't make it far in life without motor proteins. Our muscles wouldn't contract. We couldn't grow, because the growth process requires cells to duplicate their machinery and pull the copies apart. And our genes would be silent without the services of messenger RNA, which carries genetic instructions over to the cell's protein-making factories. The movements that make these cellular activities possible occur along a complex network of threadlike fibers, or polymers, along which bundles of molecules travel like trams. The engines that power the cell's freight are three families of proteins, called myosin, kinesin and dynein. For fuel, these proteins burn molecules of ATP, which cells make when they break down the carbohydrates and fats from the foods we eat. The energy from burning ATP causes changes in the proteins' shape that allow them to heave themselves along the polymer track. The results are impressive: In one second, these molecules can travel between 50 and 100 times their own diameter. If a car with a five-foot-wide engine were as efficient, it would travel 170 to 340 kilometres per hour.
Ronald Vale, a researcher at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the University of California at San Francisco, and Ronald Milligan of the Scripps Research Institute have realized a long-awaited goal by reconstructing the process by which myosin and kinesin move, almost down to the atom. The dynein motor, on the other hand, is still poorly understood. Myosin molecules, best known for their role in muscle contraction, form chains that lie between filaments of another protein called actin. Each myosin molecule has a tiny head that pokes out from the chain like oars from a canoe. Just as rowers propel their boat by stroking their oars through the water, the myosin molecules stick their heads into the actin and hoist themselves forward along the filament. While myosin moves along in short strokes, its cousin kinesin walks steadily along a different type of filament called a microtubule. Instead of using a projecting head as a lever, kinesin walks on two 'legs'. Based on these differences, researchers used to think that myosin and kinesin were virtually unrelated. But newly discovered similarities in the motors' ATP-processing machinery now suggest that they share a common ancestor — molecule. At this point, scientists can only speculate as to what type of primitive cell-like structure this ancestor occupied as it learned to burn ATP and use the energy to change shape. "We'll never really know, because we can't dig up the remains of ancient proteins, but that was probably a big evolutionary leap," says Vale.
On a slightly larger scale, loner cells like sperm or infectious bacteria are prime movers that resolutely push their way through to other cells. As L. Mahadevan and Paul Matsudaira of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology explain, the engines in this case are springs or ratchets that are clusters of molecules, rather than single proteins like myosin and kinesin. Researchers don't yet fully understand these engines' fueling process or the details of how they move, but the result is a force to be reckoned with. For example, one such engine is a spring-like stalk connecting a single-celled organism called a vorticellid to the leaf fragment it calls home. When exposed to calcium, the spring contracts, yanking the vorticellid down at speeds approaching three inches (eight centimetres) per second.
Springs like this are coiled bundles of filaments that expand or contract in response to chemical cues. A wave of positively charged calcium ions, for example, neutralizes the negative charges that keep the filaments extended. Some sperm use spring-like engines made of actin filaments to shoot out a barb that penetrates the layers that surround an egg. And certain viruses use a similar apparatus to shoot their DNA into the host's cell. Ratchets are also useful for moving whole cells, including some other sperm and pathogens. These engines are filaments that simply grow at one end, attracting chemical building blocks from nearby. Because the other end is anchored in place, the growing end pushes against any barrier that gets in its way.
Both springs and ratchets are made up of small units that each move just slightly, but collectively produce a powerful movement. Ultimately, Mahadevan and Matsudaira hope to better understand just how these particles create an effect that seems to be so much more than the sum of its parts. Might such an understanding provide inspiration for ways to power artificial nano-sized devices in the future? "The short answer is absolutely," says Mahadevan. "Biology has had a lot more time to evolve enormous richness in design for different organisms. Hopefully, studying these structures will not only improve our understanding of the biological world, it will also enable us to copy them, take apart their components and recreate them for other purpose."
141. According to the author, research on the power source of movement in cells can contribute to
1. control over the movement of genes within human systems.
2. the understanding of nanotechnology.
3. arresting the growth of cancer in a human being.
4. the development of cures for a variety of diseases.
142. The author has used several analogies to illustrate his arguments in the article. Which of the following pairs of words are examples of the analogies used?
A. Cell activity and vehicular traffic
B. Polymers and tram tracks
C. Genes and canoes
D. Vorticellids and ratchets
1. A and B 2. B and C 3. A and D 4. A and C
143. Read the five statements below: A, B, C, D, and E. From the options given, select the one which includes a statement that is not representative of an argument presented in the passage.
A. Sperms use spring like engines made of actin filament.
B. Myosin and kinesin are unrelated.
C. Nanotechnology researchers look for ways to power molecule-sized devices.
D. Motor proteins help muscle contraction.
E. The dynein motor is still poorly understood.
1. A, B and C 2. C, D and E 3. A, D and E 4. A, C and D
144. Read the four statements below: A, B, C and D. From the options given, select the one which includes only statements that are representative of arguments presented in the passage.
A. Protein motors help growth processes.
B. Improved transport in nerve cells will help arrest tuberculosis and cancer.
C. Cells, together, generate more power than the sum of power generated by them separately.
D. Vorticellid and the leaf fragment are connected by a calcium engine.
1. A and B but not C 2. A and C but not D
3. A and D but not B 4. C and D but not B
145. Read the four statements below: A, B, C and D. From the options given, select the one which includes statements that are representative of arguments presented in the passage.
A. Myosin, kinesin and actin are three types of protein.
B. Growth processes involve a routine in a cell that duplicates their machinery and pulls the copies apart.
C. Myosin molecules can generate vibrations in muscles.
D. Ronald and Mahadevan are researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
1. A and B but not C and D 2. B and C but not A
3. B and D but not A and C 4. A, B and C but not D
Directions for questions 146 to 150: Each of the five passages given below is followed by questions. Choose the best answer for each question.
If translated into English, most of the ways economists talk among themselves would sound plausible enough to poets, journalists, businesspeople, and other thoughtful though non-economical folk. Like serious talk anywhere — among boat desingers and baseball fans, say — the talk is hard to follow when one has not made a habit of listening to it for a while. The culture of the conversation makes the words arcane. But the people in the unfamiliar conversation are not Martians. Underneath it all (the economist's favourite phrase) conversational habits are similar. Economics uses mathematical models and statistical tests and market arguments, all of which look alien to the literary eye. But looked at closely they are not so alien. They may be seen as figures of speech-metaphors, analogies, and appeals to authority.
Figures of speech are not mere frills. They think for us. Someone who thinks of a market as an 'invisible hand' and the organization of work as a 'production function' and his coefficients as being 'significant', as an economist does, is giving the language a lot of responsibility. It seems a good idea to look hard at his language.
If the economic conversation were found to depend a lot on its verbal forms, this would not mean that economics would be not a science, or just a matter of opinion, or some sort of confidence game. Good poets, though not scientists, are serious thinkers about symbols; good historians, though not scientists, are serious thinkers about data. Good scientists also use language. What is more (though it remains to be shown) they use the cunning of language, without particularly meaning to. The language used is a social object, and using language is a social act. It requires cunning (or, if you prefer, consideration), attention to the other minds present when one speaks.
The paying of attention to one's audience is called 'rhetoric', a word that I later exercise hard. One uses rhetoric, of course, to warn of a fire in a theatre or to arouse the xenophobia of the electorate. This sort of yelling is the vulgar meaning of the word, like the president's 'heated rhetoric' in a press conference or the 'mere rhetoric' to which our enemies stoop. Since the Greek flame was lit, though, the word has been used also in a broader and more amiable sense, to mean the study of all the ways of accomplishing things with language: inciting a mob to lynch the accused, to be sure, but also persuading readers of a novel that its characters breathe, or bringing scholars to accept the better argument and reject the worse.
The question is whether the scholar- who usually fancies himself an announcer of 'results' or a stater of 'conclusions' free of rhetoric — speaks rhetorically. Does he try to persuade? It would seem so. Language, I just said, is not a solitary accomplishment. The scholar doesn't speak into the void, or to himself. He speaks to a community of voices. He desires to be heeded, praised, published, imitated, honoured, en-Nobeled. These are the desires. The devices of language are the means.
Rhetoric is the proportioning of means to desires in speech. Rhetoric is an economics of language, the study of how scarce means are allocated to the insatiable desires of people to be heard. It seems on the face of it a reasonable hypothesis that economists are like other people in being talkers, who desire listeners whey they go to the library or the laboratory as much as when they go to the office or the polls. The purpose here is to see if this is true, and to see if it is useful: to study the rhetoric of economic scholarship.
The subject is scholarship. It is not the economy, or the adequacy of economic theory as a description of the economy, or even mainly the economist's role in the economy. The subject is the conversation economists have among themselves, for purposes of persuading each other that the interest elasticity of demand for investment is zero or that the money supply is controlled by the Federal Reserve.
Unfortunately, though, the conclusions are of more than academic interest. The conversations of classicists or of astronomers rarely affect the lives of other people. Those of economists do so on a large scale. A well known joke describes a May Day parade through Red Square with the usual mass of soldiers, guided missiles, rocket launchers. At last come rank upon rank of people in gray business suits. A bystander asks, "Who are those?" "Aha!" comes the reply, "Those are economists: you have no idea what damage they can do!" Their conversations do it.
146. According to the passage, which of the following is the best set of reasons for which one needs to'look hard' at an economist's language?
A. Economists accomplish a great deal through their language.
B. Economics is an opinion-based subject.
C. Economics has a great impact on other's lives.
D. Economics is damaging.
1. A and B 2. C and D 3. A and C 4. B and D
147. In the light of the definition of rhetoric given in the passage, which of the following will have the least element of rhetoric?
1. An election speech
2. An advertisement jingle
3. Dialogues in a play
4. Commands given by army officers
148. As used in the passage, which of the following is the closest meaning to the statement 'The culture of the conversation makes the words arcane'?
1. Economists belong to a different culture.
2. Only mathematicians can understand economists.
3. Economists tend to use terms unfamiliar to the lay person, but depend on familiar linguistic forms.
4. Economists use similes and adjectives in their analysis.
149. As used in the passage, which of the following is the closest alternative to the word 'arcane'?
1. Mysterious 2. Secret 3. Covert 4. Perfidious
150. Based on your understanding of the passage, which of the following conclusions would you agree with?
1. The geocentric and the heliocentric views of the solar system are equally tenable.
2. The heliocentric view is superior because of better rhetoric.
3. Both views use rhetoric to persuade.
4. Scientists should not use rhetoric.
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