DAILY EXERCISES: RC#3

Many Americans have a vague sense that their lives have been distorted by a giant cultural bias. They live

in a society that prizes the development of career skills but is inarticulate when it comes to the things that

matter most. The young achievers are tutored in every soccer technique and calculus problem, but when it

comes to their most important decisions—whom to marry and whom to befriend, what to love and what to

despise—they are on their own. Nor, for all their striving, do they understand the qualities that lead to the

highest achievement. Intelligence, academic performance, and prestigious schools don't correlate well

with fulfillment, or even with outstanding accomplishment. The traits that do make a difference are poorly

understood, and can't be taught in a classroom, no matter what the tuition: the ability to understand and

inspire people; to read situations and discern the underlying patterns; to build trusting relationships; to

recognize and correct one's shortcomings; to imagine alternate futures. In short, these achievers have a

sense that they are shallower than they need to be.

Help comes from the strangest places. We are living in the middle of a revolution in consciousness. Over

the past few decades, geneticists, neuroscientists, psychologists, sociologists, economists, and others

have made great strides in understanding the inner working of the human mind. They are giving us a better

grasp of emotions, intuitions, biases, longings, predispositions, character traits, and social bonding, precisely

those things about which our culture has least to say. Brain science helps fill the hole left by the atrophy

of theology and philosophy.

A core finding of this work is that we are not primarily the products of our conscious thinking. The conscious

mind gives us one way of making sense of our environment. But the unconscious mind gives us other, more

supple ways. The cognitive revolution of the past thirty years provides a different perspective on our lives,

one that emphasizes the relative importance of emotion over pure reason, social connections over individual

choice, moral intuition over abstract logic, and perceptiveness over I.Q. It allows us to tell a different sort of

success story, an inner story to go along with the conventional surface one.

Deciding whom to love is not an alien form of decision-making, a romantic interlude in the midst of normal

life. Instead, decisions about whom to love are more intense versions of the sorts of decisions we make

throughout the course of our existence, from what kind of gelato to order to what career to pursue. Living is

an inherently emotional business.

40. The primary purpose of the author is to

(a) analyze the process of decision making in the human mind.

(b) argue that the process of making a decision, whether about a gelato or a career, remains the

same.

(d) critique research studies on the human mind.

41. Which of the following is true according to the passage?

(a) The author believes that success in one's career does not lead to happiness.

(b) The author believes that the achievers in America are shallower than they need to be.

(d) The author believes that developments in brain science help in understanding traits needed for

personal fulfillment.

42. The author mentions the instance of the decision of whom to love in order to

(a) highlight the different types of decision making one comes across in life.

(b) highlight the problems one faces in making decisions.

(d) demonstrate the intensity of love.

DAILY EXERCISES