Such was his strength that he could _______the head of the enemy with a single blow of his scimitar
- severe
- sever
0 voters
The limpid stream I remembered from my childhood was no more; in its place a ____, polluted, rivulet wound sullenly down to the sea
RC
The house of fiction has many windows, but only two or three doors. I can tell a story in the third person or in the first person, and perhaps in the second person singular, or in the first person plural, though successful examples of these latter two are rare indeed. In reality, we are stuck with third- and first-person narration. The common idea is that there is a contrast between reliable narration (thirdperson omniscience) and unreliable narration (the unreliable first-person narrator, who knows less about himself than the reader eventually does). On one side, Tolstoy, say; and on the other, Nabokov's narrator Humbert Humbert or Italo Svevo's Zeno Cosini, or Wodehouse's Bertie Wooster.
Authorial omniscience, people assume, has had its day. W. G. Sebald once said, 'I think that fiction writing which does not acknowledge the uncertainty of the narrator himself is a form of imposture which I find very, very difficult to take. In Jane Austen's world there were set standards of propriety which were accepted by everyone. I think it is legitimate, within that context, to be a narrator who knows what the rules are and who knows the answers to certain questions. But I think these certainties have been taken from us by the course of history, and that we have to acknowledge our own sense of ignorance and insufficiency in these matters and therefore try and write accordingly.' For Sebald, and for many writers like him, standard third-person omniscient narration is a kind of antique cheat. But both sides of this division have been caricatured.
Actually, first-person narration is generally more reliable than unreliable; and third-person 'omniscient' narration is generally more partial than omniscient. The first-person narrator is often highly reliable; Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre, a highly reliable first-person narrator, for instance, tells us her story from a position of belated enlightenment. Even the apparently unreliable narrator is more often than not reliably unreliable. Think of Kazuo Ishiguro's butler in The Remains of the Day, or of Bertie Wooster, or even of Humbert Humbert. We know that the narrator is being unreliable because the author is alerting us, through reliable manipulation, to that narrator's unreliability. A process of authorial flagging is going on; the novel teaches us how to read its narrator.
Unreliably unreliable narration is very rare, actually - about as rare as a genuinely mysterious, truly bottomless character. The nameless narrator of Knut Hamsun's Hunger is highly unreliable, and finally unknowable (it helps that he is insane); Dostoevsky's narrator in Notes from Underground is the model for Hamsun. Italo Svevo's Zeno Cosini may be the best example of truly unreliable narration. He imagines that by telling us his life story he is psychoanalysing himself (he has promised his analyst to do this). But his self-comprehension, waved confidently before our eyes, is as comically perforated as a bullet-holed flag.
What is the author's opinion of third-person omniscient narration?
1) He thinks that it is not necessarily omniscient, and that the view about it among certain writers is exaggerated.
2) He considers it acceptable only if one is deliberately trying to imitate older writers such as Jane Austen.
3) He thinks it is only acceptable in a world with a greater degree of certainty about the rules than in the present time.
4) He does not offer his own opinion of it; he merely mentions certain writers who dislike it.
Based on the definition in this passage, which of the following hypothetical first-person narrators could be considered an unreliable narrator?
i] At the beginning of the story, the narrator promises to explain a particular mystery in the course of the story; but the mystery remains unexplained till the end.
ii] The narrator tells the readers about certain past events at the beginning of the story; but as the story progresses, it becomes clear that these events never actually occurred.
iii]The narrator presents herself as smart and knowledgeable; but as the story progresses, it becomes clear to the reader that the narrator doesn't know or understand what is going on around her.
iv] Throughout the story, the narrator deliberately fails to mention the fact that he is blind; the revelation of this (through another character) near the end sheds a completely different light on the narrator's personality and actions.
1) Only [iii]
2) [i] and [ii]
3) [iii] and [iv]
4) [i], [ii], [iii] and [iv]
If this passage were to continue, what would it most likely go on to discuss?
1) Examples of 'reliably unreliable' narrators
2) The many 'windows' of the house of fiction
3) So-called omniscient narrators who are not necessarily omniscient
4) Books that are written in the second person singular or in the first person plural
Choose the option in which the author and his/her character respectively are correctly paired.
1)Tolstoy - Humbert Humbert
2) Zeno Cosini - Italo Svevo
3) Dostoevsky - Knut Hamsun
4) Kazuo Ishiguro - butler
-IMS
The irradiation of food kills bacteria and thus retards spoilage. However, it also lowers the nutritional value of many foods. For example, irradiation destroys a significant percentage of whatever vitamin B1 a food may contain. Proponents of irradiation point out that irradiation is no worse in this respect that cooking. However, this fact is either besides the point, since much of irradiated food is eaten raw, or else misleading, since____
Three out of four sentences in the options, when correctly sequenced, form a coherent paragraph. Which of the following sentences does not fit into the context?
1) Pop-up shops are the future of retail.
2) These stores are often about experiences of the hands-on kind.
3) The holidays have long been a prime season for retailers.
4) Some retailers are even integrating them with their brick-and-mortar locations.
Among the emotions on display in the negotiating room were anger for repeatedly raising the issue over and over again and preventing the raw wounds from earlier battles from ever beginning to heal.
(A) were anger for repeatedly raising the issue over and over again and preventing the raw wounds from earlier battles from ever beginning to heal
(B) was anger for repeatedly raising the issue and preventing the raw wounds from earlier battles from ever beginning to heal
(C) were anger over repeatedly raising the issue and preventing the raw wounds from earlier battles to begin healing
(D) was anger about the issue, which was raised over and over, and preventing the wounds from earlier battles, still raw, to begin healing
(E) were anger about the issue, which was raised repeatedly, and preventing the raw wounds from earlier battles to begin to heal
Although the bite of brown recluse spiders are rarely fatal, they cause chronic flesh wounds, posing the greatest danger to the infant and elderly, who are particularly vulnerable to its poison.
(A) brown recluse spiders are rarely fatal, they cause chronic flesh wounds, posing the greatest danger to the infant and elderly, who are particularly vulnerable to its
(B) brown recluse spiders are rarely fatal, they cause chronic flesh wounds and pose the greatest danger to the infant and elderly, who are particularly vulnerable to their
(C) the brown recluse spider is rarely fatal, it causes chronic flesh wounds, posing the greatest danger to the infant and elderly, who are particularly vulnerable to their
(D) the brown recluse spider is rarely fatal, it causes chronic flesh wounds and poses the greatest danger to infants and the elderly, who are particularly vulnerable to its
(E) the brown recluse spider is rarely fatal, they cause chronic flesh wounds, posing the greatest danger to the infant and elderly, who are particularly vulnerable to its
A Labor Department study states that the numbers of women employed outside the home grew by more than a thirty-five percent increase in the past decade and accounted for more than sixty-two percent of the total growth in the civilian work force.
(A) numbers of women employed outside the home grew by more than a thirty-five percent increase
(B) numbers of women employed outside the home grew more than thirty-five percent
(C) numbers of women employed outside the home were raised by more than thirty-five percent
(D) number of women employed outside the home increased by more than thirty-five percent
(E) number of women employed outside the home was raised by more than a thirty-five percent increase
Three out of four sentences in the options, when correctly sequenced, form a coherent paragraph. Which of the following sentences does not fit into the context?
1) Clocks didn't just become more ornate; they also got smaller and cheaper.
2) The need for tighter scheduling and synchronization of work, transport, devotion and even leisure provided the impetus for rapid progress in clock technology.
3) Units of time became standardized – seconds, minutes, hours – and clock mechanisms were fine-tuned to measure those units with much greater accuracy.
4) By the fourteenth century, the mechanical clock had become commonplace, a near-universal tool for coordinating the intricate workings of the new urban society.
-IMS
RC
Nearly a century ago, biologists found that if they separated an invertebrate animal embryo into two parts at an early stage of its life, it would survive and develop as two normal embryos. This led them to believe that the cells in the early embryo are undetermined in the sense that each cell has the potential to develop in a variety of different ways. Later biologists found that the situation was not so simple. It matters in which plane the embryo is cut. If it is cut in a plane different from the one used by the early investigators, it will not form two whole embryos. A debate arose over what exactly was happening. Which embryo cells are determined, just when do they become irreversibly committed to their fates, and what are the "morphogenetic determinants" that tell a cell what to become? But the debate could not be resolved because no one was able to ask the crucial questions in a form in which they could be pursued productively. Recent discoveries in molecular biology, however, have opened up prospects for a resolution of the debate. Now investigators think they know at least some of the molecules that act as morphogenetic determinants in early development. They have been able to show that, in a sense, cell determination begins even before an egg is fertilized. Studying sea urchins, biologist Paul Gross found that an unfertilized egg contains substances that function as morphogenetic determinants. They are located in the cytoplasm of the egg cell; i.e., in that part of the cell's protoplasm that lies outside of the nucleus. In the unfertilized egg, the substances are inactive and are not distributed homogeneously. When the egg is fertilized, the substances become active and, presumably, govern the behavior of the genes they interact with. Since the substances are unevenly distributed in the egg, when the fertilized egg divides, the resulting cells are different from the start and so can be qualitatively different in their own gene activity. The substances that Gross studied are maternal messenger RNA's-products of certain of the maternal genes. He and other biologists studying a wide variety of organisms have found that these particular RNA's direct, in large part, the synthesis of histones, a class of proteins that bind to DNA. Once synthesized, the histones move into the cell nucleus, where section of DNA wrap around them to form a structure that resembles beads, or knots, on a string. The beads are DNA segments wrapped around the histones; the string is the intervening DNA. And it is the structure of these beaded DNA strings that guide the fate of the cells in which they are located.
1. The passage is most probably directed at which kind of audience?
(A) State legislators deciding about funding levels for a state-funded biological laboratory
(B) Scientists specializing in molecular genetics
(C) Readers of an alumni newsletter published by the college that Paul Gross attended
(D) Marine biologists studying the processes that give rise to new species
(E) Undergraduate biology majors in a molecular biology course
2. It can be inferred from the passage that the morphogenetic determinants present in the early embryo are
(A) located in the nucleus of the embryo cells
(B) evenly distributed unless the embryo is not developing normally
(C) inactive until the embryo cells become irreversibly committed to their final function
(D) identical to those that were already present in the unfertilized egg
(E) present in larger quantities than is necessary for the development of a single individual
3. The main topic of the passage is
(A) the early development of embryos of lower marine organisms
(B) the main contribution of modern embryology to molecular biology
(C) the role of molecular biology in disproving older theories of embryonic development
(D) cell determination as an issue in the study of embryonic development
(E) scientific dogma as a factor in the recent debate over the value of molecular biology
4. According to the passage, when biologists believed that the cells in the early embryo were undetermined, they made which of the following mistakes?
(A) They did not attempt to replicate the original experiment of separating an embryo into two parts.
(B) They did not realize that there was a connection between the issue of cell determination and the outcome of the separation experiment.
(C) They assumed that the results of experiments on embryos did not depend on the particular animal species used for such experiments.
(D) They assumed that it was crucial to perform the separation experiment at an early stage in the embryo's life.
(E) They assumed that different ways of separating an embryo into two parts would be equivalent as far as the fate of the two parts was concerned.
5. It can be inferred from the passage that the initial production of histones after an egg is fertilized takes place
(A) in the cytoplasm
(B) in the maternal genes
(C) throughout the protoplasm
(D) in the beaded portions of the DNA strings
(E) in certain sections of the cell nucleus
6. It can be inferred from the passage that which of the following is dependent on the fertilization of an egg?
(A) Copying of maternal genes to produce maternal messenger RNA's
(B) Synthesis of proteins called histones
(C) Division of a cell into its nucleus and the cytoplasm
(D) Determination of the egg cell's potential for division
(E) Generation of all of a cell's morphogenetic determinants
7. According to the passage, the morphogenetic determinants present in the unfertilized egg cell are which of the following?
(A) Proteins bound to the nucleus
(B) Histones
(C) Maternal messenger RNA's
(D) Cytoplasm
(E) Nonbeaded intervening DNA
8. The passage suggests that which of the following plays a role in determining whether an embryo separated into two parts will develop as two normal embryos?
(A) The stage in the embryo's life at which the separation occurs
(B) The instrument with which the separations is accomplished
(C) . The plane in which the cut is made that separates the embryo
(D) I only
(E) II only
9. Which of the following circumstances is most comparable to the impasse biologists encountered in trying to resolve the debate about cell determination (lines 12-18)?
(A) The problems faced by a literary scholar who wishes to use original source materials that are written in an unfamiliar foreign language
(B) The situation of a mathematician who in preparing a proof of a theorem for publication detects a reasoning error in the proof
(C) The difficulties of a space engineer who has to design equipment to function in an environment in which it cannot first be tested
(D) The predicament of a linguist trying to develop a theory of language acquisition when knowledge of the structure of language itself is rudimentary at best
(E) The dilemma confronting a foundation when the funds available to it are sufficient to support one of two equally deserving scientific projects but not both
is it a spam ??
http://cat.testbag.com/exam-analysis.php?tp=3&eid=CAT&val=CAT-Exam-Analysis-and-cut-off
We are living through a period of intense population turbulence, caused by all the things that fall under the umbrella term 'globalization'. New technologies, cheap transport, liberal politics ruthless economics and sudden wars have all sponsored a sharp increase in the number of mobile or displaced people. A century ago, a volcano in Montserral, war in Somalia and Sri Lanka or a religious coup in Afghanistan wouldn't have propelled exiles. _____ (1) Modern life has brought such trips into the mass market.
(2) Foreign born people comprise a whisker of the work force
. (3) Railing against them is like railing against old age.
(4) Just as weather isn't uniform, neither is immigration.
(5) Whether globalisation is a blessing or curse is debatable
choose correct
A. Having had abandoned the notion of a cosmic judge, we feel free to pursue our greed with all vigour, to abdicate our responsibility with an easy cliché like - "That's just how the world is!".
B. With abandonment of the notion of a cosmic judge, we feel free to pursue our greed with all vigour, to abdicate our responsibility with an easy cliché like - "That's just how the world is".
C. Abandoning the notion of a cosmic judge, we feel free to pursue our greed with all vigour, abdicated our responsibility with an easy cliché - "That's just how the world is!'
D. Having abandoned the notion of a cosmic judge, we feel free to pursue our greed with all vigour, abdicating our responsibility with an easy cliché -"That's just how the world is!"
E. Abandon the notion of a cosmic judge, and feel free to pursue greed with all vigour, abdicating our responsibility with an easy cliché of "That's just how the world is !"
Can someone explain the difference between proletariat and
bourgeoisie? Also what is the meaning of Solipsism ? checked dictionary for these words,not able to understand.
The following question has a paragraph from which the last sentence has been deleted. From the given options, choose the sentence that completes the paragraph in the most appropriate way.
Mind control is the successful control of the thoughts and actions of another without his or her consent. Generally, the term implies that the victim has given up some basic political, social, or religious beliefs and attitudes, and has been made to accept contrasting ideas. ‘Brainwashing’ is often used loosely to refer to being persuaded by propaganda. There are many misconceptions about mind control. Some people consider mind control to include the efforts of parents to raise their children according to social, cultural, moral and personal standards.
Interestingly, Descartes would agree that experiential resources cannot solve the problem. By the Sixth Meditation, however, Descartes purports to have theinnate resources he needs to solve it—namely, the innate ideas of mind and body. Among the metaphysical theses he develops is that mind and body have wholly distinct essences: the essence of thinking substance is pure thought; the essence of body is pure extension. In a remarkable maneuver, Descartes invokes this distinction to refute the skeptical worry that sensations are produced by a subconscious faculty of the mind: “nothing can be in me, that is to say, in my mind, of which I am not aware,” and this “follows from the fact that the soul is distinct from the body and that its essence is to think”. This result allows Descartes to supplement the involuntariness argument, thereby strengthening the inference from line one to line two. ______________________________
Country X has been marred by war. The situation has forced 3 million civilians out of their homes to seek refuge in neighbouring countries and these numbers are only expected to rise.
As a humanitarian, which course of action would you recommend to tackle the situation ?
Source : TF
Jardine was a tall, hard boned, personality, having none of the unction often associated in his period with cricket. On the field, even a Harlequin cap did not lighten or brighten his pervading air of relentless purpose. His was a realpolitik. He determined in the early 1930s to wrest back the “ashes” from Australia, and to put Bradman in a reasonable, if still high, place
It’s a research which might spoil your craving for the delicious crab meat - the creatures not only suffer pain..........................................................
Odd one out