Directions for questions 35 and 36: The passage given below is followed by a set of two questions.
Choose the most appropriate answer to each question.
Civilization cannot exist without spoken language, but it can without written communication. The Greek
poetry of Homer was at first transmitted orally, stored in the memory, as were the Vedas, the Sanskrit
hymns of the ancient Hindus, which were unwritten for centuries. The South American Empire of the Incas
managed its administration without writing. Yet eventually, almost every complex society – ancient and
modern – has required a script or scripts. Writing, though not obligatory, is a defining marker of civilization.
Without writing, there can be no accumulation of knowledge, no historical record, no science (though
simple technology may exist), and of course no books, newspapers, emails, or World Wide Web.
The creation of writing in Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq) and Egypt in the late 4th millennium BC permitted
the command and seal of a ruler like the Babylonian Hammurabi, the Roman Julius Caesar, or the Mongol
Kublai Khan, to extend far beyond his sight and voice and even to survive his death. If the Rosetta Stone
had never been inscribed, for example, the world would be virtually unaware of the nondescript Greco-
Egyptian king Ptolemy V Epiphanes, whose priests promulgated his decree upon the Rosetta Stone in 196
BC written in three scripts: sacred hieroglyphic, administrative demotic, and Greek alphabetic.
Writing and literacy are generally seen as forces for good. All modern parents want their children to be able
to read and write. But there is a negative side to the spread of writing that is present throughout its more
than 5,000-year history, if somewhat less obvious. In the 5th century BC, the Greek philosopher Socrates
(who famously never published a word) pinpointed our ambivalence towards 'visible speech' in his story of
the Egyptian god Thoth, the mythical inventor of writing.
Thoth came to see the king seeking royal blessing on his enlightening invention. But instead of praising it,
the king told Thoth: "You have invented an elixir not of memory, but of reminding; and you offer your pupils the appearance
of wisdom, not true wisdom, for they will read many things without instruction and will therefore seem to
know many things, when they are for the most part ignorant."
In a 21st-century world saturated with written information and surrounded by information technologies of
astonishing speed, convenience, and power, these words of Socrates recorded by his disciple Plato have
a distinctly contemporary ring.
35. Author has used the examples of Homer and The South American Empire of the Incas to illustrate
which of the following?
1. The inevitability of resorting to written communication.
2. The importance of spoken language.
3. The possibility of civilization without the tool of written form of language.
(a) Only 1 (b) Both 1 and 2 (c) Only 3 (d) Only 2
36. According to the passage, which of the following is true?
(a) Writing is a tool not of knowledge but of reminding.
(b) Socrates was against the written mode of communication.
(c) The teachings of Socrates are timeless and are still relevant.
(d) Writing has an important place in modern world.
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