Solutions - https://www.facebook.com/events/1736644779901761/
In each of the following questions, there are sentences or fragments
of sentences that form a paragraph. Identify the sentence(s) or
fragments of sentence(s) that is/are correct in terms of grammar and
usage
1. (A) In 2009, when James Cameron made "Avatar", he set his colonial
allegory not in an alien planet but in the moon of such a planet.
(B) Perhaps he felt that exoplanets themselves were passé as settings
for fiction, since in fact so many had being discovered.
(C) If so, he got in just in time, for reality may soon imitate art in
the matter of both moons as well as planets.
(D) That is because few astronomers are indeed beginning the search
for satellites around
(E) some of the thousands of known and suspected exoplanets.
2
(A) Shortly after returning to being the firm's chief executive in
2011, Larry Page said he wanted it to develop more services that
everyone would use at least twice a day, like a toothbrush.
(B) Its latest purchase is Nest Labs, a maker of sophisticated
thermostats and smoke detectors and Google has made an announcement
that it would pay $3.2 billion in cash for the firm.
(C) Now, with a string of recent acquisitions, Google seems to be
planning to become as big in hardware as it is in software, developing
"toothbrush" products in a variety of areas from robots to cars to
domestic-heating controls.
(D) At Google they call it the toothbrush test.
(E) Its search engine and its Android operating system for mobile
devices pass that test.
Three out of four sentences in the paragraph given below, when
correctly sequenced, form a coherent paragraph. Which of the following
sentences does not fit into the context?
3.
a)
The former will play a lot of video games and the like; the latter
will be deprived and left far behind.
b)
Many of the underlying causes of the growing gap between rich and poor
− fast technological change and the rapid globalization of the economy
− are deep-seated and likely to persist.
c)
Inequality is not impervious to government policy, but higher marginal
tax rates are not the only or the best way to address it.
d)
It is thought that the population will soon be divided into two
groups: those who are good at working with intelligent machines and
those who can be replaced by them.
Four alternative summaries are given below the text. Which of the
options best captures the essence of the text?
4.Traditionally, a "belief" is a state of mind of a certain sort. But
the behaviourists deny that there are states of mind, or at least that
they can be known; they therefore avoid the word "belief", and, if
they used it, would mean by it a characteristic of bodily behaviour.
There are cases in which this usage would be quite in accordance with
common sense. Suppose you set out to visit a friend whom you have
often visited before, but on arriving at your destination you find
that he has moved, you would say "I thought he was still living at his
old house." Yet it is highly probable that you did not think about it
at all, but merely pursued the usual route from habit. A "thought" or
"belief" may, therefore, in the view of common sense, be shown by
behaviour, without any corresponding "mental" occurrence. And even if
you use a form of words such as is supposed to express belief, you are
still engaged in bodily behaviour, provided you pronounce the words
out loud or to yourself. Shall we say, in such cases, that you have a
belief? Or is something further required?
a)
There is nothing called mind − it is all a complex interplay of
neurons which are physical in nature.
b)
Some of the behavioural traits in humans can be attributed to body
rather than mind.
c)
Behaviour acts at two different levels − body and mind and both are
significant in contributing to a man's actions.
d)
A belief is just a state of mind; and might be different from actions.
Our knowledge of human body and mind is limited and it needs further
research.
5.(A) Nowhere has captivated the minds of Western mapmakers as much as
fabled Cathay, finding a sea route to China inspired many of the great
explorers.
(B) In November last year they issued a map showing a new Chinese "air
defence identification zone" that includes the airspace around some
disputed islands, owned by Japan which calls them the Senkakus and
claimed by China which named them the Diaoyus.
(C) In the 19th century the navigators finally succeeded and Chinese
leaders are now flexing their own cartographic muscles.
(D) Maps can be tools for trade, but they can also be weapons of war;
for centuries cartographers have embraced both aims.
(E) European maps of the past 400 years tell the story of empire and
the efforts to prise China open for trade.
In each of the following questions, there are sentences or fragments
of sentences that form a paragraph. Identify the sentence(s) or
fragments of sentence(s) that is/are correct in terms of grammar and
usage,
6. (A) The SugarHouse Casino on Delaware river in Philadelphia was
packed on a recent federal holiday.
(B) The slot machines were all almost occupied. The betting tables
were busy. The car park was nearly full.
(C) SugarHouse, along with Pennsylvania's ten other casinos, have been
siphoning much of Atlantic City's gambling business.
(D) As much as, that Pennsylvania, which did not open a casino until
2006, is now the second-largest gambling market in America
(E) after Las Vegas, bypassing the "City by the Sea", which held a
monopoly on gambling in the north-east for nearly 30 years
7.(A) On top of this, atmospheric drag often brings them back to Earth
in an untimely fashion.
(B) Nanosatellites are spacecraft, little larger than a smartphone,
that can fly cheaply into orbit by piggybacking on rockets carrying
bigger payloads.
(C) Fitting them with their own rocket motors would give them
directional autonomy, and would also let them boost their orbits every
so often, to escape the atmosphere's clutches.
(D) But their dependence on other people's goodwill for their launch
means that their orbits are not completely under their owners'
control, which restricts their usefulness.
(E) The power of modern electronics means that such tiny vessels can
be equipped with lots of useful kits, including GPS trackers, cameras
and radios.
In each of the following questions, there are sentences or fragments
of sentences that form a paragraph. Identify the sentence(s) or
fragments of sentence(s) that is/are correct in terms of grammar and
usage,
8. (A) The two more popular words in the business lexicon are probably
"global" and "leadership".
(B) Put them together and people in a suit start to salivate.
(C) That is perhaps more than 1,000 corporate bosses are flocking to
Davos, a Swiss ski resort, this week.
(D) There, at the annual bash of the World Economic Forum (WEF), they
sip cocktails with some 50 heads of state and 300 cabinet ministers.
(E) Whatever the topic, between deficits to deadly diseases, the talk
is all of providing "global leadership".
9.(a) They make fundamentally differing assumptions about what exists
and about what constitutes secure knowledge.
(b) Philosophy sometimes is thought to offer the vantage point, but it
can only help to clarify the issues; naturalism can do at least as
well as religion in satisfying human needs for coherence and meaning.
(c) Stephen J. Gould takes the position that science and religion
cannot be in conflict, since they deal with separate domains.
(d) However, there may not be a higher vantage point from which to
answer the question of what system is best.
(e) This seems doubtful, since science and religion both make strong,
incompatible claims about the world we inhabit.
a)
bdcae
b)
bcead
c)
caedb
d)
ceadb
OMO
10.
a)
Saturday morning had arrived, and all the summer world was bright and
fresh, and brimming with life.
b)
He surveyed the fence, and all gladness left him and a deep melancholy
settled down upon his spirit.
c)
Thirty yards of board fence nine feet high; life to him seemed hollow,
and existence but a burden.
d)
Tom appeared on the sidewalk with a bucket of whitewash and a
long-handled brush.
11.The reality is that most newly privatized companies need dominant,
experienced shareholders to compensate for the weaknesses of managers
never before exposed to best business practice. Without the support
and prodding of such shareholders, Eastern companies tend to operate
very much along the lines learned in the days of central planning,
insider control, and relentless focus on production. Old-guard
managers simply lack the skills and experience to convert a company
from its old communist predilections to a genuine market orientation.
But when these same enterprises receive support from strong, capable −
most often Western − shareholders, they have shown that they can
perform to international standards and even outperform some leading
Western competitors.
Which of these statements cannot be inferred from the passage?
a)
The capability to adapt to market conditions is largely lacking in the
newly privatised companies in the East which tend to adhere strongly
to age-old practices like insider control and central planning.
b)
Dominant shareholders can turn around the fortune of a company.
c)
Eastern companies need to be pushed to perform to international
standards by shareholders.
d)
Western companies do not need to be prodded by shareholders into
outperforming competitors.
Four alternative summaries are given below the text. Which of the
options best captures the essence of the text?
12.A propeller is a machine that moves you forward through a fluid (a
liquid or gas) when you turn it. Since a ship propeller works in
water, the ship speed will normally be less than the theoretical
speed. The difference between the two speeds is known as the apparent
slip and is usually expressed as a ratio or percentage of the
theoretical speed. If the ship speed is measured relative to the
surrounding water, i.e. by means of a log line, the theoretical speed
will invariably exceed the ship speed, giving a positive apparent
slip. If, however, the ship speed is measured relative to the land,
then any movement of water will affect the apparent slip, and should
the vessel be travelling in a flowing current, the ship speed may
exceed the theoretical speed, resulting in a negative apparent slip.
a)
All the propellers work in water as a result of which the ship speed
is usually less than the theoretical speed. This means there is a
negative apparent slip as the apparent slip is the difference between
two speeds.
b)
Apparent slip is relative to how the ship speed is measured. Even the
movement of water will affect the apparent slip.
c)
The speed of a propeller driven vessel can be measured in different
ways, ship speed or theoretical speed, relative to surrounding water,
land, or flowing current. Apparent slip, the difference between the
theoretical speed and the actual ship speed, may be positive or
negative depending on the parameters and mode of measurement.
d)
Apparent slip is calculated by the difference between ship speed and
the theoretical speed. However, it varies with the method of measuring
the ship speed.
Three out of four sentences in the paragraph given below, when
correctly sequenced, form a coherent paragraph. Which of the following
sentences does not fit into the context?
13.
a)
But now the situation may have changed, and it is time to zero-base it again.
b)
Whenever you are involved in something that, knowing what you now
know, you wouldn't get into again, you experience ongoing stress,
aggravation, irritation and anger.
c)
Many decisions that you make will turn out to be wrong in the fullness of time.
d)
When you made the decision or commitment, it was probably a good idea,
based on the circumstances of the moment.
14.No archaeological excavation has ever excited so general and so
lasting an interest as that which brought to light the tomb of the
Pharaoh Tutankhamun. The tomb's importance was due, first and
foremost, to the amazing number of beautiful things which it contained
--an unparalleled contribution to the world's treasury of art which
the public was right to appreciate. On the other hand it must be
admitted that the discovery added nothing to what was known about the
history of Egypt. The tomb yielded no written documents other than the
stereotyped funerary inscriptions. The brief reign of this
insignificant boy Pharaoh (he was only eighteen years old when he
died) was not marked by any event of note -- that he renounced the
Aten worship proclaimed by his father-in-law Akhenaton and that under
his rule the priests of Amen at Thebes regained their old power were
facts already familiar to historians. Of course the tomb, the only
Egyptian royal tomb found virtually intact, did illustrate with
unsurpassed splendour the ritual of a Pharaoh's burial, but the ritual
was already known, too, from written documents, wall-paintings and
reliefs, and objects surviving in plundered graves; it was indeed
satisfactory to have the actual furniture instead of pictures of it,
but it taught us nothing new.
All of the following have resulted in stimulating or prompting a
general and lasting interest in Tutankhamun's tomb EXCEPT?
a)
Structure and opulence of the tomb.
b)
The presence of an amazing number of beautiful objects that
contributed to the world treasury of art.
c)
The tomb was found intact with actual furniture and pieces of art and
illustrated with unsurpassed splendour the ritual of a Pharaoh's
burial.
d)
Funerary inscriptions and written documents about the history of Egypt.
Four alternative summaries are given below the text. Which of the
options best captures the essence of the text?
15.There's a large body of medical literature showing that married
people tend to be healthier and live longer than singles. But newer
research adds an important caveat: the quality of the marriage
matters. Surveys show that couples that enjoy good marital
relationships are likely to share common interests when these shared
interests have existed in the individual prior to the marriage. One
should look for a spouse who shares common interests because marital
stress, logically enough, is not good for one's health. Other studies
have shown that happily married women have fewer blockages in their
aortas, and that happily married couples are less likely than unhappy
couples to suffer from heart disease.
a)
It is important to have a healthy and happy married life so as to have
a healthy body and life. The relationship between couples affects an
individual's health and stress between them can lead to problems,
especially where the heart is concerned. Hence, marital relation is a
factor important enough to be considered in case of heart disease.
b)
Most heart diseases are due to stress and most of the stress is due to
problems between spouses. Marital stress needs to be controlled and
considered in case of any heart disease. Couples who are happily
married are less prone to heart disease. All couples that share common
interests will enjoy good marital relationships.
c)
While we've often been told that married life prompts healthy life,
new research shows that happiness in marriage matters. Marital stress
can lead to heart disease, with those who are happy in their marriage
being healthier than those who aren't. Sharing of common interests
when these interests have existed prior to marriage helps in building
happy marriages.
d)
It is important to be happy to stay healthy. Relationship between the
spouses is a major factor governing the stress levels in individuals.
Happy married life is important. A couple that doesn't start with
common interests could develop them and have a happy relationship.
16.Outsourcing of services to India has become a major campaign issue
in the US. The future of US workers is said to be at stake. A lot of
economic nonsense has been peddled by presidential candidates. There
is an echo of the protests against globalization that we heard in
India ten years ago. Indian industry, it was said, would be crushed by
multinationals in the 1990s after the economy opened up to the world.
And what happened? I wouldn't even bother to answer.
It can be inferred from the passage that?
a)
Typically presidential campaigns in the US are high on rhetoric.
b)
American industry is facing the same crisis that Indian industry
faced, 10 years ago.
c)
Indian companies have done well since lowering of trade barriers in the 1990s.
d)
America does not practice free trade.
Four alternative summaries are given below the text. Which of the
options best captures the essence of the text?
17.There is no trick to motivating others. It requires a clear,
unbiased understanding of the situation at hand, deep insight into the
vagaries of human nature at both the individual and the group levels,
the establishment of appropriate and reasonable expectations and
goals, and the construction of a balanced set of tangible and
intangible incentives. It requires, in other words, hard thinking and
hard work. And when an organization is under strain or is in crisis,
the challenges-and the stakes-become that much higher. The questions
that managers have to grapple with as they try to inspire their people
are many and complex: How do you deal with individuals or groups at
different motivation levels that vary in different ways? How can you
influence the behavior of a single individual, let alone an
organization of hundreds or thousands? How can you help people feel
enthusiastic and committed, especially in difficult times?
a)
During periods of organization crisis, the challenges faced by
managers in corporates are magnified by issues of employee motivation.
b)
Employee motivation is the single most challenge that managers face.
c)
For organizations to succeed, it is critical to align goals of
individual employees with organizational goals.
d)
Due to heterogeneity in employee populations, large organizations are
difficult to manage.
Three out of four sentences in the paragraph given below, when
correctly sequenced, form a coherent paragraph. Which of the following
sentences does not fit into the context?
18.
a)
For there comes a time when choice, rather than freeing the
individual, becomes so complex, difficult and costly, that it turns
into its opposite.
b)
And technology, far from restricting our individuality, will multiply
our choices and our freedom exponentially.
c)
There comes a time, in short, when choice turns into overchoice and
freedom into un-freedom.
d)
Whether man is prepared to cope with the increased choice of material
and cultural wares available to him is, however, a totally different
question.
Do you have the emotional intelligence of a truly great professional?
Job seekers tend to focus only on their professional experience.
However, employers are constantly on the lookout for smart people who
are not only experts in their fields, but also have the emotional
intelligence to become a well-rounded worker and a fit within the
company's culture. Employees with emotional intelligence can instantly
take the temperature of the room and adjust to different
personalities. These are the people who find it easy to get along with
coworkers and who work well as part of integrated teams. According to
Goleman, great leaders are often distinguished by emotional
intelligence (E.I.), which includes "soft skills" like self-awareness,
self-regulation, motivation, empathy and social skills.
Staying flexible is also important to one's overall emotional
intelligence. Flexibility may mean different things to different
employers, from working cross-departmentally to completing tasks
remotely. In a job interview, one should show employers that one has
the ability to adapt to new environments and work with a wide variety
of people in order to communicate the flexibility of one's emotional
intelligence. Employers want to know whether one can adapt to anything
thrown one's way, and high levels of emotional intelligence can help
one succeed in a variety of situations. In a global marketplace, this
can be the difference between "You're hired!" and unemployment.
There are some widespread misunderstandings about emotional
intelligence. Emotional intelligence does not mean giving free rein to
feelings--"letting it all hang out" Rather, it means managing feelings
so that they are expressed appropriately, enabling people to work
together smoothly toward their common goals.
Also, women are not "smarter" than men when it comes to emotional
intelligence, nor are men superior to women. Each of us has a personal
profile of strengths and weaknesses in these capacities. Some of us
may be highly empathic but lack some abilities to handle our own
distress; others may be quite aware of the subtlest shift in our own
moods, yet be inept socially.
It is true that men and women as groups tend to have a shared,
gender-specific profile of strong and weak points. An analysis of
emotional intelligence in thousands of men and women found that women,
on average, are more aware of their emotions, show more empathy, and
are more adept interpersonally. Men, on the other hand, are more
self-confident and optimistic, adapt more easily, and handle stress
better.
In general, however, there are far more similarities than differences.
Some men are as empathic as the most interpersonally sensitive women,
while some women are every bit as able to withstand stress as the most
emotionally resilient men. Indeed, on average, looking at the overall
ratings for men and women, the strengths and weaknesses average out,
so that in terms of total emotional intelligence, there are no sex
differences.
Finally, our level of emotional intelligence is not fixed genetically,
nor does it develop only in early childhood. Unlike IQ, which changes
little after our teen years, emotional intelligence seems to be
largely learned, and it continues to develop as we go through life and
learn from our experiences--our competence in it can keep growing. In
fact, studies that have tracked people's level of emotional
intelligence through the years show that people get better and better
in these capabilities as they grow more adept at handling their own
emotions and impulses, at motivating themselves, and at honing their
empathy and social adroitness.
In the new, stripped-down, every-job-counts business climate; the need
for connection, for empathy, for open communication will matter more
than ever. Massive change is a constant; technical innovations, global
competition, and the pressures of institutional investors are
ever-escalating forces for flux.
Another reality makes emotional intelligence ever more crucial: As
organizations shrink through waves of downsizing, those people who
remain are more accountable--and more visible. Where earlier a
midlevel employee might easily hide a hot temper or shyness, now
competencies such as managing one's emotions, handling encounters
well, teamwork, and leadership, show--and count--more than ever.
19. DIRECTIONS for question 85: Type in your answer in the input box
provided below the question.
Which of the following statements can be deduced from the passage?
(A) Tests for emotional intelligence would assess the cognitive and
social abilities of individuals.
(B) The ability to work effectively with other people and resolve
conflicts can be an indicator of one's emotional intelligence.
(C) While emotional intelligence may not seem to be as important of a
skill as, say, technical expertise, it can be the key you need to
stand out in a competitive job market.
(D) None of the above
Identify all that apply and enter the corresponding letters in the
input box given below. You must enter your answer in alphabetical
order only. For example, if you think (A) and (B) apply, then enter AB
(but not BA) in the input box.
20. According to the author, unlike Emotional quotient, Intelligence
Quotient develops
a)
little in teens.
b)
mainly in early childhood.
c)
throughout teen years.
d)
continuously through life span.
21. As regards emotional intelligence, the author suggests that
a)
differences between men and women are negligible.
b)
there are absolutely no differences between men and women.
c)
there are more similarities than differences between men and women.
d)
none of the above.
22. All of the following can be inferred from the passage EXCEPT:
a)
E.I. is learned behaviour that can only be measured quantitatively.
b)
E.I. is invaluable for efficient workplace management today.
c)
E.I. is an ever growing dynamic competency.
d)
E.I. is learned behaviour that can be measured qualitatively.
It is a general weakness of men dealing with reason and delivering
ideas that they are able to convince themselves that their words
represent a break with the past and a new beginning. In the early
stages of a revolution, history is at its most malleable. Disorder and
optimism combine to wipe out those truths artificially manufactured by
the preceding regimes. At the same time, they usually wipe out the
memory of any inconvenient real event.
We have great difficulty dealing with philosophy in the context of
real events. These two categories seem to live on separate planets. We
are still convinced that violence is the product of fear and fear the
product of ignorance. And yet, since the beginning of the Age of
reason, there has been a parallel growth in both knowledge and
violence, culminating in the slaughters of the 20th century.
Also, revolutions do not begin on dates, although we constantly search
for that kind of reassuring touch point. An argument is sometimes made
that the assumptions and methods of applied reason where all the key
elements of modern intellectual thought can be found were first
developed by the Inquisition. The Inquisitors were the first to
formalize the idea that to every question there is a right answer. The
answer is known, but the question must be asked and correctly
answered. Relativism, humanism, common sense and moral beliefs were
all irrelevant to this process because they assume doubt. Since the
Inquisitors knew the answer, doubt was impossible. Process, however,
was essential for efficient governance and process required that
questions be asked in order to produce the correct answer.
When the Inquisition was created in the thirteenth century, no one,
least of all Pope Gregory, understood what was being set in motion.
Issuing a bull which made the persecution of heresy the special
function of the Dominicans hardly seemed a revolutionary step. The
Inquisitors' definition of truth was arrived at slowly, as was the
process which permitted them to establish it. But as each detail of
that process emerged, so the assumptions involved became clear.
Everything the Inquisition did -- except the execution, of the guilty
-- took place in secret. Public silence surrounded the work of the
travelling Inquisitors. Unlike judges, magistrates, nobles and kings,
who have always worn some symbolic costume, the Inquisitors wore the
simplest, most anonymous black, like the proverbial accountant. And
while their power permitted them to do their work on the basis of
accusations and denunciations, what they really wanted were complete
inquisitions. Being already in possession of the truth, they were
interested in the rational demonstration of it by each victim. Perhaps
the most telling detail was that each of these secret tribunals
included a notary. His job was to record every word of every question
and answer. These notarised manuscripts became the perpetual records
of truth. But again, the purpose of such exactitude was to glorify the
methodology, not the outcome. The notary was there to confirm the
relationship between a priori truth and assembled fact. On the surface
the Inquisitors were torturers and monsters. On a more profound level
they were moral auditors.
23. From the passage, one can understand that the revolutionary
aspects of the Inquisition involved
a)
asking questions and providing clear answers.
b)
the persecution of heresy and the execution of unbelievers and other
people found guilty.
c)
exploring the constitution of questions, answers and the truth.
d)
preserving certified and attested manuscripts which became the
perpetual record of truth.
24. Which of the following describes the key elements of the thought
developed during the Inquisition?
a)
Moral auditing, order and reason.
b)
Impossibility of dubiousness.
c)
Humanism, common sense and relationism.
d)
Process for efficient administration and control or exercise of authority.
25. After reading the passage, one can understand, from it, all of the
following sentences EXCEPT?
a)
The inquisitors executed their victims overtly.
b)
A likely consequence of correct answers would be the desired truth,
arrived at through the desired process.
c)
The Inquisitors promoted violence by feeding on fear and ignorance in
people's minds. The victims were tortured and thus revealed the truth
but were executed anyway.
d)
The notary was a bridge between the theoretical deduction and the
constructed actuality.
26. The word "exactitude" in the context of the passage means
a)
certainty of judgement and rational demonstration.
b)
the slow but steady details of the process by which the exact truth
was defined and established.
c)
notarizing word by word to achieve the end result.
d)
preciseness of the methodology involving framing questions, seeking
answers and establishing the truth.
For more than three millennia, human beings have invested some of
their best cognitive and affective resources in the spiritual and the
religious. That investment, in retrospect, might not have been
uniformly wise and uniformly creative. But it has not been uniformly
forgettable either. The investment in secular statecraft and secular
public life, on the other hand, has been relatively recent and, though
it has also often been immensely creative, it has been spectacularly
destructive, too. In any case, the second set of investments can never
compare with the three millennia of human achievement in the sphere of
religion. Civilisation, as we know it, is largely the achievement of
the religious way of life, though we try hard to forget that part of
the story. I say this as a non-believer who has invested some years of
life in the study of the psychological and cultural sources of human
creativity.
Can we ignore or bypass these achievements for the sake of a theory of
progress that seeks to wipe clean the pre-Enlightenment world or
freeze it as a museum piece? If the answer is 'no', how can we
acknowledge the achievements of a part of our self that the
Enlightenment vision has declared terra incognita? I leave the reader
with these questions in the hope that they will help me find an answer
to one of the most persistent puzzles of our times: why do we so
frequently and enthusiastically forget the secular world's capacity to
endorse evil, while at the same time being so fearful of religion and
its capacity to endorse evil? Is it because the secular world is more
transparent to us? Or, is it because we belong to the secular world
and read all accusations of its complicity with evil as moral
indictments of us? (Such defensive denial of complicity has become an
inescapable part of the career graph of many contemporary ideologies.
Despite the shoddy record of nationalism in the last century, there
are millions of nationalists all over the world, even in Europe and
Japan, who have paid an enormous price for their nationalist fervour.
Even today, there are more Stalinists in India than in the former
Soviet Union, even though these inane ad-mirers of the Georgian
psychopath have no need to defend his record of oppression and
genocide.) One suspects that the evil that grows out of religion is
alien territory to us and looks eerily like witchcraft and blood
sacrifice, while the death of millions in the hands of secular states
and secular despots look like necessary costs to pay for lofty ideals
such as nation-building, state formation, progress, development,
scientific rationality and history. Indeed, the emphasis on the
blood-thirstiness associated with religions helps the non-believers to
wipe clean the record of their own kind.
Perhaps things are not as simple as these questions suggest. The
secular study of religion, at one level, is the other side of the
secular use of religion in which many politicians specialise. Part of
the bitterness towards the political versions of Islam, Judaism,
Hinduism, Buddhism and Christianity come from a vague but threatening
awareness that those who deploy religion for personal or political
gains have the same instrumental concept of religion and use the same
set of psychological mechanisms that we use when we study religion
from outside, to produce a good ethnography or social history or to
write an acceptable doctoral dissertation.
31. The author uses the phrase 'in retrospect' (para 1) to refer to (?) .......
a)
the ability to look inwards.
b)
the expectation(s) in future based on an analysis of past.
c)
a comparison of the past and the present to resolve contentious issues.
d)
the review or the contemplation of the past from a different perspective.
32. All of the following can be deduced from the passage EXCEPT:
a)
There are more evils arising from religion than from secularism.
b)
Religion as object of research is often approached superficially.
c)
Secularism is not as blemish free and blame free as it is made out to be.
d)
Certain destructive acts are carried out in the name of high sounding ideals.
33. The author feels that the uneasiness with which people view evil
that appears to be endorsed by religion arises from?
a)
an attitude that denies that one is an accomplice of evil.
b)
the impression that these are not necessarily evils.
c)
short-sightedness and obeisance to transient fashions based on lofty
ideals like progress, nation-building, state formation and development
of a whole civilization.
d)
the fact that religion is not as transparent as secularism but is
synonymous to witchcraft, blood sacrifice and psychopathic violence.
34. Which of the following can be understood from the passage?
a)
Due to progress made by secularism, it is good to wipe clean the
contributions of religion to civilization.
b)
Terra incognita means known or discovered or explored territory.
c)
Ethno-religious nationalists who use religion as a pathway to power
would use the same religious concepts or psychological processes that
ethnographers or ardent secular nationalists would use.
d)
The investment of human cognitive and affective resources in secular
public life has always been wise and creative.
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