07.03 .16

07.03 .16

https://www.facebook.com/events/472091632996495/

OMO

1.
a)
Damascus has so far fared relatively well compared with Aleppo, where
restored souks and grand mosques have been reduced to rubble.
b)
On December 2nd, a mortar bomb landed beside the Omayad Mosque in
Damascus, the fourth holiest site in Islam and Krak des Chevaliers, a
Crusader outpost in the country's centre that T.E. Lawrence called
"the most wholly admirable castle in the world", suffered air strikes
in the summer.
c)
That comment may still be true, but the city's monuments are suffering.
d)
Mark Twain described Damascus, Syria's capital, as immortal. "She has
looked upon the dry bones of a thousand empires and will see the tombs
of a thousand more before she dies."



OMO

2.
a)
On the face of it, "Grand Theft Auto V", a video game released on
September 17th, is not obviously British.
b)
Yet play for a while and distinctively British humour comes through
and casual violence aside, the game's beauty is that it is a
particularly British parody of America.
c)
Its setting is a fictionalised Los Angeles; its (anti) heroes a trio
of American gangsters.
d)
Beneath the hype Britain's video-game industry is a shadow of what it
once was; the two main consoles – the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3 –
are both reaching the end of their life cycles.

TITA

3. (A) The latest shows a rabble of angry cavemen charging repeatedly
out of their caves only to be mown down by machine guns or blown up by
bombs while Western and Arab spectators look on nonchalantly.

(B) A character holding a Russian flag appears and hands the empty
poison canister to the applauding onlookers; the cavemen protest but
the slaughter resumes, now with bullets and bombs.

(C) It has since gained fame as a scruffy Hollywood-in-a-bomb-shelter,
turning out satirical videos about the war.

(D) When, after a third charge, these "savages" drop dead from a
chemical spray, the audience objects.

(E) For now at least, this seems a fairly accurate portrayal of how
things are going in Syria.

(F) Kafr Nabl, a small town in north-west Syria, fell under rebel
control early in the 30-month civil war.


4.(a) When they had got over the shock of their rapid and humiliating
military defeat, the Parisians noted that their occupiers were not, as
they had feared, brutal, rude or monstrous; on the contrary, they gave
up their seats to elderly women, opened doors and handed out sweets.

(b) In the summer of 1940, Johann was among the second wave of German
soldiers, as part of the auxiliary forces of the German Wehrmacht –
which consisted of the Heer (army), the Kriegsmarine (navy) and the
Luftwaffe (air force) – to reach Paris.

(c) Inspite of the sense of foreboding and possible shortages which
had left the the city and its inhabitants somewhat shabby and muted,
the Parisians did behave in a civilized way and the civility was much
appreciated.

(d) The May invasion of France had brought fighting troops, tall, fit,
healthy-looking men, goose-stepping victoriously down the
Champs-Elysées in their magnificent leather boots and grey-green
uniforms.

(e) They were, the occupied told one another, perfectly "correct".

(f) And though in their wake had come the shadowy and sinister forces
of the Gestapo, General von Stülpnagel, military governor of Paris,
had made it clear to his men that they must behave in a civilised
manner.
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SUMMARY

5. In the past, when a technology revolution threatened the wholesale
loss of jobs in an economic sector, a new sector emerged to absorb the
surplus labor. Earlier in the century, the fledgling manufacturing
sector was able to absorb many of the millions of farmhands and farm
owners who were displaced by the rapid mechanization of agriculture.
Between the mid-1950s and the early 1980s, the fast-growing service
sector was able to re-employ many of the blue collar workers displaced
by automation. Today, however, as all these sectors fall victim to
rapid restructuring and automation, no "significant" new sector has
developed to absorb the millions who are being displaced. The only new
sector on the horizon is the knowledge sector, an elite group of
industries and professional disciplines responsible for ushering in
the new high-tech automated economy of the future. The new
professionals – the so-called symbolic analysts or knowledge workers –
come from the fields of science, engineering, management, consultancy,
teaching, marketing, media, and entertainment. While their numbers
will continue to grow, they will remain small compared to the number
of workers displaced by the new generation of "thinking machines".
a)
In the past, workers in different sectors were interchangeable. Today,
the new technological revolution involving the application of genetic
engineering to agriculture, of robotization to manufacturing, and of
computerization of service industries will lead to new employment
opportunities if there is a well trained workforce available to
respond to the challenges of the "information age."
b)
In the past, workers in different sectors were interchangeable.
Technological change is the autonomous moving spirit that transforms
one stage to another until it comes to a catastrophic halt in the
present "service stage" of history beyond which there is no other
sector to absorb displaced workers. The knowledge sector proves to be
the only exception to the rule.
c)
Throughout history, job loss in a particular sector was mitigated by
absorption of labour in other sectors. But today, no "significant" new
sector has developed to absorb the "displaced millions" from
agriculture, manufacturing and service industries. The new kid on the
block is the knowledge sector with professionals from various fields
but their numbers will be small compared to the numbers displaced by
restructuring and automation. Your answer is correct
d)
The increasing automation of production, manufacturing and services
will eliminate the worker totally unless the worker keeps up with the
times and becomes a knowledge worker. Consequently there will be a
huge unemployment problem when the last service worker is replaced by
the latest ATM, virtual office machine, or heretofore unconceived
application of technology.

SUMMARY

6. A visit to a public hospital in any Indian city is not for the
faint-hearted. Healing is very clearly not a high priority, indeed it
would be impossible in the appallingly unhygienic conditions in most
of them. Though we have become inured to the lax standards in hospital
management, the recent report that a certain quantity of radioactive
material is missing from a Hyderabad hospital since the end of April
is chilling. This apathy extends to all hospital procedures, the most
worrying being waste disposal. The June 30, 2015 deadline set by the
Central Pollution Board for all big hospitals to put in place
effective waste management systems has, predictably, been ignored.
Today, open waste dumps behind all major public hospitals have become
a source of infection both to patients and staff. It is not uncommon
to see animals dragging away pieces of waste into neighbouring
residential localities. The courts have done their bit, repeatedly
directing hospitals to install incinerators. But rather than make a
one-time investment which would be in the public good, most prefer to
get rid of their waste in dangerous and unscientific ways – among them
being burning it in the open. This is done in the full knowledge that
hospital waste when burnt emits highly toxic substances like mercury
and dioxins which are potentially fatal to persons in the vicinity.
a)
The public hospitals in India are in a pitiable state. The management
is careless in public hospitals. A visit to a public hospital in any
Indian city is not for the faint-hearted.
b)
The number of public hospitals in India has increased phenomenally in
the past six months but the conditions are unhygienic and the
standards need improvement. Even though incinerators have been
installed, the hospital management continues to burn hospital waste in
the open.
c)
You have to kill all your emotions before you visit an Indian public
hospital. Unhygienic environments and apathetic officials are the
least of the problems as waste disposal has been completely ignored.
Waste when piled on the streets spreads infection and when burnt emits
toxic substances.
d)
One has to have a heart of steel to be able to visit an Indian public
hospital. The conditions are unhygienic, the standards are lax and
recently there was also an appalling case of missing radioactive
material. Effective waste management has not been enforced. So open
waste dumps are a major source of infections. Though courts have
directed public hospitals to install incinerators, hospitals dispose
of waste in unhealthy ways including burning the waste in the open.


7.OMO
a)
That makes it tempting to offer sneak peeks of the most flattering
ones, as Brazil's president, Dilma Rousseff, did recently when she
told El País, a Spanish newspaper, that a forthcoming statistical
revision would raise economic growth in 2014 from 0.9% to a less weak
1.5%.
b)
Rating agencies have said that without a change of course the country
risks being downgraded from its current position, a notch above the
lowest investment grade.
c)
A single economic figure can boost or batter a politician's standing.
d)
Nemesis is rarely so swift: on December 3rd the national statistics
institute said that it had indeed revised the 2014 figure up, but only
to 1% and it announced that GDP shrank by 0.5% in the third quarter
compared with the previous three months.

8.OMO
a)
I was a child of rationing, and a big part of my education about the
world and the people who inhabit it came from queuing for food.
b)
If you were a child of the rationing system, sooner or later you
learned that it wasn't just food that was rationed.
c)
The day you were lucky enough to get a basin of eggs, you also watched
a long line of strangers eyeing you with jealousy, even hatred: you
were not who you were, but what you were rationed to be and rationing
did not mean that you could always get your share.
d)
Queuing for food was part of most people's life in Beijing in the
1970s, and even most of the things on our table – rice, flour, oil,
pork, fish, eggs, milk, sugar, sesame paste, tofu – were rationed.

9.The human body responds to a microbial infection by producing
antibodies. When children are very small, they are prone to get more
infections especially cough, cold, fever etc but as they grow older
and have fallen sick a number of times the frequency of these
infections markedly decreases. Obviously, the large number of
infections inflicting the young children make the white blood cell
concentrations high enough to be able to produce antibodies to deal
with such infections. Hence, falling sick now and then is actually
beneficial to children as it raises the white blood cell
concentrations required to increase their immunity to disease.

Which of the following, if true, would most strengthen the argument
presented above?
a)
There are many strains of the cough, cold and fever viruses and
children when infected develop resistance naturally to individual
strains.
b)
Cough, common cold and fever are not amenable to any treatment and
children commonly spread viruses and bacteria when interacting in a
small closed environment.
c)
White blood cells help fight infections and their production levels
are stimulated by repeated infections.
d)
The use of Vitamin C increases resistance to the common cold and
decreases its frequency.

10.According to James R. Flynn, the environment will always be the
principal determinant of whether or not a particular genetic
predisposition gets to be fully expressed. "There is a strong tendency
for a genetic advantage or disadvantage to get more and more matched
to a corresponding environment," he writes. Flynn's most intriguing
claim concerns the preponderant influence of the environment over
genetic inheritance in determining intelligence. He stated that even
modest intellectual endowment can be overcome at any stage of life by
an enriched cognitive environment buttressed by ambition and
sustained, focused individual effort.

Which of the following sets of findings have to be true in order to
prove Flynn's hypothesis to be correct?
a)
(i) Children raised in solo-parent homes do not show any difference in
their IQ levels as compared to ones who are nurtured by both parents.
(ii) Children born of parents who have migrated to an advanced country
show little difference in IQ levels compared to the children of the
natives of that country.
b)
(i) IQ scores should decrease in response to unfavourable
environments. (ii) Genetic advantages that may have been quite modest
at birth have a huge effect on eventual skills when matched with
better environments.
c)
(i) Once a genetic trait is established, it remains more or less
constant throughout life. (ii) Lowering of an individual's IQ would
have an effect on the society in which he lives.
d)
(i) IQ drops three points because a larger number of affluent
middle-class children prefer wandering around shopping malls to
profiting from schooling. (ii) Twins with even a slight genetic IQ
advantage are more likely to be drawn toward learning, perform better
during their primary and secondary education, and thereby gain
acceptance into top-tier universities.

11 SC

Select all that are correct:

a)
The village of Shaoshan in the green hills of Hunan province in
east-central China is gearing for a big party on
b)
the 120th birthday of its most famous son, Mao Zedong. Debate rages in
China under Mao's historical role.
c)
Some call him a tyrant for the violence he put on the heart of his
rule, causing the deaths of
d)
ten of million of people. Others worship him almost as a god. In
Shaoshan he is a money-spinner,
e)
with the farmhouse where he was born attracting millions of Chinese
tourists every year.

12 SC

Select all that are correct:

a)
Abdelaziz Bouteflika, Algeria's head of state, is a man of diminutive
stature and legend staying power.
b)
The 76-year-old secured his first ministerial post in 1962, served as
foreign minister since 16 years and has occupied
c)
the presidential palace since 1999. But his hold seemed earlier to
slip at last this year.
d)
Mr Bouteflika suffered a stroke and was rushed to Paris for treatment
while corruption probes fingered
e)
close associates. The talk between pundits in Algiers, the capital,
was of inevitable turn to "debouteflikisation".

13 SC

13 SC

Select all that are correct:

a)
Half of the building outside Coventry, in West Midlands, looks like an
aircraft hangar, the
b)
other half as the offices of an investment bank or legal firm.
Businessmen in pinstripes, young researchers in white coats,
c)
machinists in high visibility jackets and bearded academics stride on
the polished corridors. In the
d)
main halls, they congregate around 3D printers, dummy manufacturing
lines and laser-welding devices.
e)
Some machines are boarded for confidential experiments by individual businesses.

14 SC

Select all that are correct:

a)
For the pragmatic Swedes to use the word "magic" is a measure of the
hold the Nobel prizes have still more than a century after their
foundation.
b)
These days, there are thousands of prizes in dozens of disciplines,
some with even bigger purses than the standard £800,000 per prize.
c)
The Nobels, set up in 1901 by a Swedish dynamite magnate, retain a
special hold for us because these distinguished prizes only go to the
most distinguished people.
d)
For the prizes for the sciences, the process of finding the most
worthy laureate begins with a call for nominations, sent to 3,000
scientists and
e)
affiliates of the academy. From this, a committee of five will come
with around 300 names and then the real investigations into the
achievements will begin.

PC

15. Whether vaccines are designed to prepare the immune system for the
encounter with a pathogen or with cancer, certain common challenges
need to be faced, such as what antigen (structural substance which
serves as a target for the receptors of an adaptive immune response)
and what adjuvant (a pharmacological and/or immunological agent that
modifies the effect of other agents) to use, what type of immune
response to generate and how to make it long lasting. Cancer,
additionally, presents several unique hurdles. Cancer vaccines must
overcome immune suppression exerted by the tumour, by previous therapy
or by the effects of advanced age of the patient. If used for cancer
prevention, vaccines must elicit effective long-term memory without
the potential of causing autoimmunity.
_____________________________________
a)
Understanding Immunology is, therefore, key to developing treatments
to help manage and reduce the debilitating effects disease brings.
b)
Vaccines that are designed to prepare the immune system for encounter
with either infectious pathogens or with cancer or mediators of
autoimmunity, all face certain common challenges.
c)
When a 'secondary' response (produced by a subsequent encounter with
the relevant pathogen) is provoked, memory cells become active, and
are then quickly able to deal with the threat by producing sufficient
quantities of antibody.
d)
Considering how refractory cancer has been to standard therapy,
efforts to achieve immune control of this disease are well justified.

PC

16. If you were an ice cream, what would you be? A Häagen-Dazs --
sinful, extravagant and something to savour and aspire for? Ben &
Jerry's -- quirky, fun-loving and full of goodness? Or Wall's --
predictable, a little boring, but oh-so-dependable? If you were able
to identify -- after you stopped laughing, of course -- with this
analogy, you clearly understand the power of brands. After all,
ultimately, what is ice cream? Just a frozen confection of milk and
sugar, with some additional flavours thrown in. Do a blind taste test
of these brands for, say, vanilla ice cream, and I bet seven out of 10
people won't be able to tell their Häagen-Dazs from Vadilal. But such
is the lure of the images brands help create that just the name is
evocative of a distinctive attribute: be it class, quality or cost.
But then, you'd have to be really naïve to still believe -- if ever
you did -- that the brand is about the product. Branding is all about
product perception. It's about creating an identity and image to help
customers and stakeholders -- investors, distributors, retailers,
marketers, financiers ... the works -- reach a decision, preferably
favourable. _________________
a)
Fulsome praise, indeed, but it begs the question: what is a personal brand?
b)
The purpose of creating a personal brand is not to make you famous,
it's about enhancing your sphere of influence, because that's what
generates wealth.
c)
And when that product is you, it's even more critical the branding
process be so perfect that the decision can't be anything but in your
favour.
d)
Several strategies, from the obvious (send targeted press releases,
maintain a Web site and pay personal attention to customers) to the
unusual (create a personal brochure and use it instead of business
cards, send out personal postcards instead of the usual direct
mailers) could be used.

TITA

17. (A) At one point the hapless Mr Cameron had even planned to
deliver his speech in Germany on the same day as the commemoration of
the 50th anniversary of the Elysée treaty that sealed the partnership
of France and Germany in 1963.

(B) Even as France and Germany agonise about their future, Britain is
rethinking its relations with them.

(C) His call for renegotiation, followed by a British referendum,
provides France and Germany with more reason to avoid a new treaty.

(D) Just a day after German Chancellor Mrs Angela Merkel and French
President Mr François Hollande cheered Europe's ever closer union, the
British prime minister, David Cameron, set out his vision of an ever
looser relationship.

(E) Although the two leaders may give Mr Cameron something, he could
be overestimating his bargaining position: a joint article by their
foreign ministers declared that an "à la carte Europe" is out of the
question.



#RC

EXTRACT 1

Gender is a large part of our identity that is often defined by our
psychological difference as men and women. There is no scrap of
evidence for a physical difference between brains of men and women.
But men and women do not behave in the same ways. Men rarely share
their feelings, are more aggressive and prefer detective stories and
science. Women are more emotional, sensitive to pain and like poetry
and history.
Next, there is evidence of intelligence test results. Women do better
in verbally biased items in tests, and men in numerical, diagrammatic
items and in occupations requiring good visio-spacial ability.

The male-science/ female-arts split (seen in schools), may, as A. Heim
suggests, be a congenital difference rather than a social artifact but
it is hard to tell as long as society continues to treat women as
intellectually inferior to men. Out of 10212 students admitted to
engineering and technology courses in England in 1980, only 243 were
girls.

This male-female difference might really be due to culture. In Russia,
where women have more equal opportunities, about a third of engineers
and lawyers and two-thirds of lecturers are women. Girls in western
societies are given dolls and dish-washers rather than model
aeroplanes, and are encouraged to be passive and responsive. Boys are
brought up with the idea that their goal in life is a successful
stimulating career.

When applied to individuals these laws sometimes break down because
they only apply to the average part of the curve for genetic
variation. Some women seem to develop a rather masculine temperament
and some men are the reverse of 'what is expected.' But this is part
of the range of variation which makes sexuality lie on a continuum.
This is created not only by the XX-XY chromosomes but also by all
chromosomes playing their part in delineating the whole character of a
man or a woman. So a sound general principle could be applied to the
intelligence of the sexes with advantage: equal but possibly
different. But let Samuel Johnson have the last word. When asked which
are more intelligent, men or women, he replied, "Which man, Sir, which
woman?'.

EXTRACT 2

Sex differences are true in neurological terms – how the brain is
wired up to create them – and wiring differences underlie some of the
variations in male and female cognitive skills.

Neurology has been revolutionised by many techniques that can scan
living brains. The technique of choice for Ragini Verma (University of
Pennsylvania) is diffusion tensor imaging. This follows water
molecules around the brain. Because the fibres that connect nerve
cells have fatty sheaths, the water in them can diffuse only along a
fibre, not through the sheath. _______________________________

The "thinking" cerebrum and "acting" cerebellum of the brain are each
divided into right and left hemispheres. The dominant connections in
the cerebrum are within hemispheres in men and between hemispheres in
women. In the cerebellum, it is the other way around.

The left and right sides of the cerebrum are specialised for logical
and intuitive thought respectively. Linguistic skills and perception
of visual/ spatial relationships are lateralized in the left and right
hemispheres respectively. Beneficial collaboration between hemispheres
in women means better memories, social adeptness and multitasking
ability. In men, within-hemisphere links let them focus on things that
do not need complex inputs from both hemispheres. Hence the monomania.
In case of the cerebellum, extra cross-links between hemispheres in
men serve to co-ordinate the activity of the whole sub-organ. Each
half controls only one half of the body. Men have better motor
abilities.

Dr Verma's other finding is that sex differences in brains develop
with age. The brains of boys and girls aged 8 to 13 demonstrated few
differences, which later became pronounced. Adolescents (aged 13 to
17) showed more. Young adults, over 17, more still.

Dr. Verma also found that irrespective of gender, when learning
occurs, neurochemical communication between neurons is facilitated. In
early learning stages, neural circuits are activated piecemeal and
weakly, but less input is required to activate established connections
over time. The flow of neural activity is not unidirectional, from
simple to complex; it also goes from complex to simple. Higher order
neural circuits that are activated by contextual information
associated with the word 'cat' can prime the lower order circuit
associated with the sound 'cat', so the word 'cat' can be retrieved
with little direct input. Complex circuits can be activated at the
same time as simple circuits as the brain receives input from multiple
external sources--auditory, visual, spatial.



19. With reference to Extract 2 of the passage, which of the following
set of facts or inferences DOES NOT EXPLAIN the significant
differences between the male and female brain and therefore the
cognitive differences between the two genders?
a)
Men have better motor and spatial abilities than women, and more
monomaniacal patterns of thought. Women have better memories, are more
socially adept, and are better at dealing with several things at once.
b)
The male brain is highly specialized using specific parts of one
hemisphere or the other to accomplish specific tasks. The female brain
is more diffused and utilizes significant portions of both hemispheres
enabling women to divide their attention among multiple tasks or
activities.
c)
Men are able to focus on narrow issues and block out unrelated
information and distractions. They are able to separate information,
stimuli, emotions and relationships into separate compartments in
their brains. Women see everyday things from a broader "big-picture"
vantage point. They tend to link everything together.
d)
In men, the dominant connections in the cerebellum are within
hemispheres, while in women, they are between hemispheres. Men see
individual issues with parts of their brain while women look at
holistic or multiple issues with their whole brain. Most of the sex
differences in the male and female brain that Dr. Verma found were
congenital.

20

Select one or more answer choices according to the directions given in
the question.

All of the following statements can be understood to be logically
consistent with Extract 2 of the passage EXCEPT?


Select all that apply:

a)
Extract 2 is similar to extract 1 in primarily addressing the
question: In what ways do the brains and intelligence of men and women
differ?
b)
The last sentence in para 2 of extract 2 can be completed by – So,
diffusion tensor imaging is able to detect bundles of such fibres, and
see where they are going.
c)
As connections are formed among adjacent neurons to form circuits,
connections also begin to form with neurons in other regions of the
brain, both in the left and right hemispheres, that are associated
with visual, tactile, and even olfactory information.
d)
For a kindergarten student, learning will comprise incomplete ideas
and disconnected notions.
e)
The auditory circuit in the brain for the word 'horse' and the visual
circuit associated with the sight of a horse are activated in quick
sequence.

21

At the end of Extract 1, the author
a)
strikes a diplomatic note, subscribing to the view that we can't make
generalized statements relating intelligence to gender.
b)
adopts a non-committal stance, and stating that the answer to Samuel
Johnson's response is anybody's guess as subjectivity plays a role in
assessing intelligence.
c)
supports an objective view that intelligence is gender specific.
d)
presents an enigmatic opinion, reiterating that intelligent men and
women are a rare species.


22
According to Extract 1, it is difficult to accept A. Heim's view on
gender difference with regard to intelligence because
a)
of our preconceived notions.
b)
of societal practices and conventional mindsets.
c)
the laws on genetic variations do not seem to work on some men and women.
d)
of research findings which have suggested otherwise.





#RC

Our relationship to reality is more complicated than we realize. This
holds true for humankind in general. American society in particular
has developed some specific deficiencies in its attitude to reality.
By reality I mean everything that actually exists or happens. All
conscious human beings, their thoughts and actions are part of
reality. This fact, that our thinking forms part of what we think
about, has far reaching implications both for our thinking and for
reality. It sets some insuperable obstacles to understanding reality
and it also renders reality different from what we understand it to
be. The latter distinction does not necessarily apply to all of
reality. Some aspects of reality permit us to acquire knowledge but
others are not amenable to dispassionate understanding, and reality as
a whole belongs to that category. Exactly where the dividing line lies
between what can be known and cannot be known itself is one of the
things that cannot be known. Scientific method keeps making inroads
into areas that were previously considered impenetrable. For instance,
consciousness previously belonged to the realm of philosophy but now
it has become the subject of scientific study.

Knowledge is represented by true statements. According to the
correspondence theory of truth, statements are true if they correspond
to the facts. To establish correspondence the facts and the statements
which refer to them must be independent of each other. It is this
requirement that cannot be fulfilled when our thinking is part of what
we think about. This complication does not arise with regard to other
aspects of reality. The movement of heavenly bodies and the hatching
of eggs occur no matter what we think about them. They are the objects
of knowledge.

Our brains evolved to connect the dots of our world into meaningful
patterns that can explain reality or why things happen. These
meaningful patterns become beliefs and these beliefs shape our
understanding of reality. Once beliefs are formed, the brain begins to
look for and find confirmatory evidence in support of those beliefs,
which adds an emotional boost of further evidence in the beliefs and
thereby accelerates the process of reinforcing them (positive feedback
loop of belief confirmation). This process of belief-dependent realism
is patterned after the philosophy of science called "model-dependent
realism", based on the idea that our brains interpret the input from
our sensory organs by making a model of the world. When such a model
is successful at explaining events, we tend to attribute to it, and to
the elements and concepts that constitute it, the quality of reality
or absolute truth. Belief-dependent realism is a higher-order form of
model-dependent realism.

All models of the world, not just scientific models, are foundational
to our beliefs, and belief-dependent realism means that we cannot
escape this epistemological trap. We can employ the tools of science,
which are designed to test whether belief-dependent realism or not a
particular model or belief about reality matches observations made not
just by ourselves but by others as well. Although there is no
Archimedean point outside of ourselves from which we can view the
truth about reality, science is the best tool ever designed for
fashioning provisional truths about conditional realities. Thus
Belief-dependent realism is not epistemological relativism where all
truths are equal and everyone's reality deserves respect. The universe
really did begin with a big bang, the earth really is billions of
years old, and evolution really happened, and someone's belief to the
contrary is really wrong. Even though the Ptolemaic earth-centered
system can render observations equally well as the Copernician
sun-centered system, no one today holds that these models are equal
because we know from additional lines of evidence that heliocentrism
more closely matches reality than geocentrism, even if we cannot
declare this to be an Absolute Truth about Reality.






31. All of the following can be understood from the passage EXCEPT?

(a) The equations of quantum mechanics work very well; they just don't
seem to make sense.

(b) Superposition is a fundamental principle of quantum mechanics and
"Probability waves" are not real but merely have the capability of
becoming real when an observer makes a measurement.

(c) An illustration of 'non-locality' as discussed in the passage is –
Alpha Centauri is about 4 light years away, and while things are
certainly happening there "right now", it won't matter to us at all
for another four years.

(d) When one gains knowledge about the position of very small atomic
nuclei and electrons, one is always bound to gain knowledge about the
moments of the same.

(e) Schrödinger's Cat is both alive and dead until its box is opened.
But if, the box has already been opened and the Cat is found to be
alive, then the Cat was always alive. Things like superposition and
all of the usual awesomeness of quantum mechanics go away.
a)
c and d
b)
b and d
c)
a, b and e
d)
a and c


32. Those who adopt the "shut up and calculate" attitude .....
a)
are not bothered to go beyond the quantum theory and believe that
critics of the quantum theory are unduly fussy.
b)
are satisfied with the answers provided by the quantum theory.
c)
feel that challenging the validity of the quantum theory is a futile exercise.
d)
opine that our incapability to comprehend the quantum theory makes us
raise unwarranted questions.


33. The discomfort that Einstein experienced when he declared that
"God does not play dice" could be due to all of the following EXCEPT?
a)
The inability to explain some inexplicable phenomena in the universe.
b)
The uneasiness in understanding random happenings.
c)
The difficulty in making quantum theory intelligible and the failure
to account for the several gaps in the principles underlying quantum
theory.
d)
The struggle to theorise the principles of quantum mechanism.


34. It can be inferred from the passage that Erwin Schrodinger (and
physicists who aimed to understand greater truths) considered the
concept of 'superposition' to be
a)
funny.
b)
incredible.
c)
absurd.
d)
spooky.