RC Discussion for CAT 2013

MBA CAT 2022
421
RC-6 (tough one)

Furthermore, insofar as any conclusion about its author can be drawn from five or six plays attributed to him, the Wakefield Master is without exception considered to be a man of sharp contemporary observation. He was, probably clerically educated, as indicated by his Latin and music, his Biblical and patristic lore. Even today he is remembered for his his quick sympathy for the oppressed and forgotten man, his sharp eye for character, a ready ear for colloquial, vernacular turns of speech and a humor alternately rude and boisterous, coarse and happy. Therefore in spite of his conscious artistry as can be seen in his feeling for intricate metrical and stanza forms, he is regarded as a kind of medieval Steinbeck, indignantly angry at, uncompromisingly and even brutally realistic in presenting the plight of the agricultural poor.

It is now fairly accepted to regard the play as a kind of ultimate point in the secularization of the medieval drama. Therefore more stress has been laid on it as depicting realistically humble manners and pastoral life in the bleak of the west riding of Yorkshire on a typically cold night of December 24th. After what are often regarded as almost ''documentaries'' given in the three successive monologues of the three shepherds, critics go on to affirm that the realism is then intensified into a burlesque mock-treatment of the Nativity. Finally as a sort of epilogue or after-thought in deference to the Biblical origins of the materials, the play slides back into an atavistic mood of early innocent reverence. In actuality, the final scene is the culminating scene and also the raison d'être of the introductory ''realism.''

Superficially the present play supports the conventional view of its mood of secular realism. At the same time, the ''realism'' of the Wakefield Master is of a paradoxical turn. His wide knowledge of people, as well as books indicates no cloistered contemplative but one in close relation to his times. Still, that life was after all a predominantly religious one, a time which never neglected the belief that man was a rebellious and sinful creature in need of redemption . So deeply (one can hardly say ''naively'' of so sophisticated a writer) and implicitly religious is the Master that he is less able (or less willing) to present actual history realistically than is the author of the Brome Abraham and Isaac. His historical sense is even less realistic than that of Chaucer who just a few years before had done for his own time ''costume romances,'' such as The Knight's Tele, Troilus and Cressida, etc. Furthermore, used highly romantic materials, which could excuse his taking liberties with history.


1) Of the following statements, which is not true of Wakefield Master?
A. He and Chaucer were contemporaries.
B. Wakefield Master is remembered as having written five or six realistic plays.
C. His plays realistically portray the plight of the country folk of his day.
D. His writing was similar to that of John Steinbeck.
E. He was an accomplished artist.

2) The word 'patristic' in the first paragraph is used to mean:
A. patriotic
B. superstitious
C. folk
D. relating to the Christian Fathers
E. realistic

3) The statement about the ''secularization of the medieval drama'' (opening sentence of the second paragraph) refers to the:
A. Introduction of religious themes in the early days.
B. Presentation of erudite material.

C. Use of contemporary materials.
D. Return to early innocent reverence at the end of the play.
E. Introduction of mundane matters in religious plays.

4) From the following what would the writer be expected to do in the subsequent paragraphs:
A. Make a justification for his comparison with Steinbeck.
B. Put forth a view point, which would take up the thought of the second paragraph.
C. Point out the anachronisms in the play.
D. Discuss the works of Chaucer.
E. Talk about the lack of realism in the works of the Wakefield Master.



Only OA available. 😐


422

In Long RC passages I can easily Score 7/8 (in case) 😛 But when i solve Short RCs 1/3 😟 😠 sometimes not a single Question goes Correct embarrased and Secondly I'm not satisfied the OAs Given in CL Mocks 😠😠 ,this is taking a Toll on me 😠

*Help Needed splatMocks are about to Start 😐
423
RC-7

In any country, the wages commanded by the laborers who have comparable skills but who work in various industries are determined by the productivity of the least productive unit of labour, i.e. the unit of labour which works in the industry which has catatest economic disadvantages. We will represent the various opportunities of employment in a country like united states by Symbols. A standing for a group of industries in which we have exceptional economic advantage over foreign countries; B for a group in which our advantages are less; E , one in which they are still less; D, the group of industries in which they are the least of all.

When our population is so small that all our labour can be engaged in the group represented by A, productivity of labour and (therefore wages) will be at their maximum. when our population increases so that some of the labour will have to work in group B, the wages of all labour must decline to the level of productivity in that group. But no employer, without government aid, will yet be able to afford to hire labour to exploit the opportunities, represented by E and D, unless there is a further increase in population.

But suppose that the political party in power holds the belief that we should produce everything that we consume, that the opportunities represented by E and D should also be exploited. The commodities, that the industries composing C and D will produce have been hitherto obtained from abroad in exchange for commodities produce by A and B. The government now renders this difficult by imposing high duties upon the former class of commodities. This means that workers in A and B must pay higher prices for what they buy, but do not receive higher prices for what they sell.

After the duty has gone into effect and the prices of commodities that can be produced by C and D have risch sufficiently enterprises will be able to hire labour at the wages prevailing in A and B and establish industries in C and D. So far as the remaining labours in A and B buy the products of C and D ,the difference between the price which they pay for these product and the price they would pay it they were permitted to import those products duty-free is a tax paid not to the government, but to the producers in C and D, to enable the later to remain in business. It is on uncompensated deduction from the natural earnings of the labourers in A and B. nor are the workers in C and D paid as much, estimated in purchasing power as they would have received if they had been allowed to remain in A and B under the earlier conditions.


1)The authors main point is that:

A.The government ought to subsidize C and D.

B.Wages ought to be independent of international trade.

C.It is impossible to attain national self sufficiency.

D.The varying productivity of the various industries leads tot he inequalities in wages of workers in these industries.

E.A policy that draws labour from the fields of catater natural productiveness to fields of lower natural productiveness tends to redirect purchasing power.



2)No employer, without government aid will yet be able to afford to hire labour to exploit the opportunities represented by C and D because:

A.The population has increased.

B.Productivity of labour is not at the maximum.

C.Productivity would drop correspondingly with the wages of labour.

D.We cannot produce everything we consume.

E.Enterprises would have to pay wages equivalent to those obtained by workers in A and B while producing under catater disadvantages.



3)When C and D are established, workers in these industries:

A.Receives wages equal to those workers in A and B.

B.Receives higher wages than do the workers in A and B.

C.Are not affected so adversely by the levying of duties as are workers in A and B.

D.Must be paid by government funds collected from the duties on imports.

E,Receive lower wages than do the workers in A and B.



4)We cannot exploit C and D unless:

A.The producers in E and D are compensated for the disadvantages under which they operate.

B.We export large quantities of commodities produced by A and B.

C.The prices of commodities produced by A and B are raised.

D.The productivity of labour in all industries is increased.

E.We allow duties to be paid to the producers in C and D rather than to the government.



424

With the explosion of the technology industry in the late 1990s, the US ushered in the so-called ―new economy.‖ Based largely on speculation and a ―cash in‖ mentality, the new economy bustled along until the bottom fell out and it came crashing back to earth. But what set the stage for this collapse to happen was put into motion years earlier.

The growth of productivity is defined as the rate of growth in product less the rate of growth in the labour used in production. Productivity can be affected by factors such as: amount of capital invested in production, methods used in production, educational or demographic composition of the labour force, business climate, global competition, and cost of environmental and safety regulations. Capital investment was booming in the U.S. in the post-1995 period. Furthermore, that part of capital invested in information technology, including computers, software, and communications equipment, rose to more than fifty times what it had been in 1975. Because of its high gross rate of return in improving methods of production, capital investment in information technology should have a particularly large impact on overall productivity.

For the past five years the big news for the U.S. economy has been a noticeable productivity growth spurt, which many have attributed to new information and communication technologies. The rate of growth in U.S. productivity had not been so high since the period extending from the end of World War II through the 1960s. In the early 1970s, productivity growth dropped suddenly. Apart from normal cyclical movements low productivity growth continued until the mid-1990s. Then, performance of the U.S. economy accelerated to a truly extraordinary level. From 1995 to 1999 real gross domestic product grew at an average rate of about 4 percent per year, and the rate of growth in labour productivity returned to the pre-1970 rate of increase.

The revolution in technology is, at least in some sense, a worldwide phenomenon. Therefore, one would expect the recent trend in the rate of growth in productivity in the U.S. to be shared by other developed countries. However, marked differences exist. Although the U.S. had the lowest rate of overall productivity growth in the 1981-95 period, in the post-1995 period the U.S. rate of productivity rose to third among the countries, behind only Ireland and Australia. In several other developed countries, including France, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Spain, overall productivity growth slowed quite sharply.

The questions then arise: Why are these trends in productivity growth so different; and does this difference illuminate anything about the role of the new technologies? Regression analysis of the rate of growth in productivity in each of these countries in the late 1990s, both as a function of the country's share of spending devoted to information technology and as a function of its number of internet servers, reveals a positive correlation that passes the test for statistical significance. Therefore, with due deference to the problems of international comparison, the data appears to reinforce the view that utilization of the new technologies has been important in raising productivity in the U.S. in recent years.

1. According to the passage, a resurgence in productivity occurred in:

I. the U.S. in the late 1990s.

II. Ireland in the late 1990s.

III. developed countries other than the U.S. in the 1981-95 period.

A. I only B. II only C. III only D. I, II, and III E. I and II only

2. If the passage were to continue, the next topic the author would discuss would most probably be:

A. what factors caused the drop in the growth of U.S. productivity in the early 1970s.

B. what factors prevented the productivity growth spurt in the U.S. from continuing.

C. the relative importance of other factors in fostering productivity growth in the U.S

D. why different developed countries invested different shares of total spending on capital investment in new technologies.

E. what will happen to productivity growth in the US in the next five years 3.

3. In paragraph 2, the author is primarily concerned with:

A. defining productivity and identifying the types of factors that can affect its growth.

B. noting a correlation between a peak in capital investment and a peak in the growth of productivity. C. emphasizing the impact of the amount of capital invested on the degree of improvement in methods used for production.

D. introducing a explanation that will then be tested by further investigation.

E. criticise an explanation that was later proved correct

425
RC-8

Nevertheless, Dumont's magnum opus remains his Homo hierarchicus published in French in 1967 (1970 and 1972 for the English translations). It is an impressive synthetic work with a strong theoretical background, in which the author presented his understanding of the Indian caste society as a whole. According to Dumont, people were ascribed an unequal status from birth and ranked from the Untouchables (who did not then call themselves Dalits) at the bottom to the Brahmins at the top according to the degree of purity attached to each caste collectively as well as to each individual.

After this publication, Dumont distanced himself from the sociology of India, feeling that he had achieved what he wanted to say on the caste system. He started a new field of research that dealt with the genesis of the modern individualism grounded on an egalitarian basis, which he contrasted with the inegalitarian caste system. It was the subject of his Homo aequalis (1977), followed by Essays on individualism (1983), and German Ideology: From France to Germany and Back (1991). However, these works belonged to the traditional history of political and philosophical ideas and have no empirical grounding.

Dumont's oeuvre has been discussed and debated by anthropologists in Europe as well as in India. His sociological interpretation of the caste system is both widely acclaimed and highly criticised. The most radical criticism emphasised that Dumont's brilliant analysis of the caste system is taken from a dominant internal viewpoint, whether from its priests (Brahmins) or its princes (Kshatriya), which is well expressed in and legitimised by the classical Sanskrit texts that Dumont widely used. From a sociological point of view, however, scholars need to question, first, the social conditions of the production of these representations that cannot be taken for granted, and, second, their social usages. The relations of power and domination that structure the Hindu caste system, which are partly denied from a textual viewpoint (and this, of course, cannot be ignored), have to be clearly recognised and analysed. Furthermore, the comparative sociology that Dumont developed was quite often reduced to a binary opposition between individualism and holism, or to a radical confrontation between the equalitarian West and the hierarchical traditional pre- modern societies, like India, towards which the anthropologist publicly confessed to having a nostalgic inclination.

Nevertheless, the Indian part of his oeuvre stands for a rare coherent sociological enterprise that cannot be ignored or brushed away if one wants to understand the social making of contemporary India.


1. The style of the passage is:
(a) discursive
(b) narrative
(c) analytical
(d) theoretical



2. Which of the following can be inferred from the passage?
(a) Dumont strongly disagreed with the caste system in India.
(b) Dumont strongly agreed with the caste system in India.
(c) Dumont had an inclination towards hierarchical traditional pre-modern societies.
(d) None of the above



3. Which of the following can be inferred from the passage?
(a) Dumont's magnum opus on the caste system in India was well-received.
(b) Dumont's magnum opus on the caste system in India was the subject of much deliberation.
(c) Dumont was not satisfied with his magnum opus on the caste system in India and avoided all future reference to the subject.
(d) Dumont's magnum opus was the most brilliant analysis on the caste system in India.


426
RC-9

Those who opine lose their impunity when the circumstances in which they pontificate are such that generate from their expression a positive instigation of some mischievous act. An opinion that corn dealers are starvers of the poor, or that owning private property is robbery, ought to be unmolested when simply circulated through the press, but may justly incur punishment when delivered orally to an excited mob assembled before the house of a corn dealer, or when handed about among the same mob in the form of a placard. Acts, of whatever kind, which without justifiable cause do harm to others, may be, and in the more important cases are absolutely required to be, controlled by the unfavourable sentiments, and, when needful, by the active interference of mankind. The liberty of the individual must be thus far limited; he must not make himself a nuisance to other people. But if he refrains from molesting others in matters that concern them, and merely acts according to his own inclination and judgment in matters which concern himself he should be allowed, without molestation, to carry his opinions into practice at his own cost. As it is useful that while mankind are imperfect there should be different opinions, so it is that there should be different experiments of living, that free scope should be given to varieties of character, short of injury to others, and that the worth of different modes of life should be proved practically, when anyone thinks fit to try them. Where not the person's own character but the traditions and customs of other people are the rule of conduct, there is wanting one of the principal ingredients of individual and social progress.


It would be absurd to pretend that people ought to live as if nothing whatever had been known in the world before they came into it; as if experience had as yet done nothing toward showing that one mode of existence, or of conduct, is preferable to another. Nobody denies that people should be so taught and trained in youth as to know and benefit by the ascertained results of human experience. But it is the privilege and proper condition of a human being, arrived at the maturity of his faculties, to use and interpret experience in his own way. It is for him to find out what part of recorded experience is properly applicable to his own circumstances and character. The traditions and customs of other people are, to a certain extent, evidence of what their experience has taught them—presumptive evidence, and as such, have a claim to his deference—but, in the first place, their experience may be too narrow, or they may have not interpreted it rightly. Secondly, their interpretation of experience may be correct, but unsuited to him. Customs are made for customary circumstances and customary characters, and his circumstances or his character may be uncustomary. Thirdly, though the customs be both good as customs and suitable to him, yet to conform to custom merely as custom does not educate him or develop in him any of the qualities which are the distinctive endowments of a human being. He gains no practice either in discerning or desiring what is best.


1. Based on information in the passage, with which of the following statements about opinions would the author most likely NOT disagree?
A. Different opinions exist because people are imperfect.
B. An opinion can be relatively harmless in one context and dangerous in another.
C. Opinions directed specifically against fellow human beings should be punished.
D. All expressions of opinion should really be considered actions.
E. An opinion always has an additional unintended effect


2. The author holds that one should not necessarily defer to the traditions and customs of other people. The author supports his position by arguing that:
I. traditions and customs are usually the result of misinterpreted experiences.
II. customs are based on experiences in the past, which are different from modern experiences.
III. customs can stifle one's individual development.
A. II only
B. III only
C. I and III only
D. II and III only
E. None of the above 3.


3. The existence of which of the following phenomena would most strongly challenge the author's argument about "conforming to custom merely as custom"?
A. A class in morality taught at a parochial high school.
B. An important discovery made by a researcher who uses unconventional methods.
C. A culture in which it is traditional to let children make their own decisions.
D. A custom that involves celebrating a noteworthy historical event.
E. a culture in which only the senior-most person takes the important decisions.



427

can someone pls upload RC 99 book? TIA

428

RC-10

Few areas of neuron behavioral research seemed more promising is the early sixties than that investigating the relationship between protein synthesis and learning. The conceptual framework for the research was derived directly from molecular biology, which had shown that genetic information is stored in nucleic acids and expressed in proteins why not acquired information as well.

The first step towards establishing a connection between protein synthesis and learning seemed to be to block memory (cause adhesion) by interrupting the production of proteins. We were fortunate in finding a non lethal dosage of puromycin that could, it first appealed, thoroughly inhibit brain protein synthesis as well as reliability produce amnesia.

Before the actual connection between protein synthesis and learning could be established however we began to have douche about whether inhibition of protein synthesis was in fact the method by which puromycin produced amnesia. First, ocher drugs, glutavimides themselves potent protein synthesis inhibitors either failed to cause amnesia in some situations where it could easily be induced by puromycin or produced an amnesia with a different time course from that of puromycin. Second, puromycin was found to inhabit protein synthesis by breaking certain amino acid chaim, and the resulting fragments were suspected of being the actual cause of amnesia is some eases. Third, puromycin was reported to cause abnormalities in the train, including seizures. Thus, not only were decreased protein synthesis and amnesia dissociated, but alternative mechanism for the amnestic action of puromycin were readily suggested.


So, puromycin turned out to be a disappointment. It came to be regarded as a poor agent for amnesia studies, although, of course, it was poor only in the context of our original paradigm of protein synthesis inhibition. In our frustration, our initial response was simply to change dregs rather than our conceptual orientation. After many such disappointments, however, it now appears unlikely, that we will make a firm connection between protein synthesis and learning merely by pursuing the approaches of the past our experience with drugs has shown that all the amnestic agents, often interfere with memory in ways that seem unrelated to their inhibition of protein synthesis. More importantly, the notion that the interruption or intensification of protein production in the train can be related in cause and affect fashion to learning non seems simplistic and unproductive. Remove the battery from a car and the car will not go. Drive the car a long distance at high speed and the battery will become more highly charged. Neither of these facts proves that the battery power the car, only knowledge of the overall automotive system will reveal it mechanism of locomotion and the role of the battery with in the system.


1) The primary purpose a the passage is to show that extensive experimentation has :
A. Most supported the hypothesis that learning is directly dependent on protein synthesis
B. Cast doubt on the value of puromycin in the newer behavioral study of learning
C. Revealed the importance of amnesia in the neuron behavioral study of learning
D. Demonstrated the importance of amino acid fragmentation in the induction of amnesia.
E. Not yet demonstrated the applicability of molecular biology to behavioral research.


2) It can be inferred from the passage that after puromycin was perceived to be a disappointment, researches did which of the following? .
A. They continued to experiment with puromycin until a neuron anatomical framework was developed.
B. They continued to experiment with puromycin, but also tried other protein synthesis inhibitors
C. They ceased to experiment with puromycin and shifted to other promising protein synthesis inhibitors.

D. They ceased to experiment with puromycin and reexamined through experiments the relationship between genetic information and acquired information.
E. They continued to experiment with puromycin, but applied their results to other facts of memory research.



3)The passage all of the following as effects of puromycin except:

A.Fragmentation of amino-acid chaim.

B.Inhibition of protein synthesis

C.Brain seizures

D.Memory loss

E.Destruction of genetic information



4)Which of the following statements would be most likely to come after the last sentences of the passage?

A.It is important in the future, therefore for behavioral bio- chemist to focus on the several components of the total learning system.

B.The ambivalent status of current research, however should not deter neuron behaviorists from exploring the deeper connection between protein production and learning.

C.The failures of the past, however must not impede further research into the amnestic of protein-synthesis inhibitors.

D.It is important in the future, therefore, for behavioral biochemist to emphasize more strongly place of their specific findings within the overall protein synthesis model of learning.

E.It is a legacy of this research, therefore, that molecular biology's genetic models have led to disagreement among neuron behaviorists.



429

@ChanderIIM

can someone pls upload RC 99 book? TIA



here is the book 😃

430

Harold Bloom of Yale, an interpretive scholar of English and American romanticism, has for years been propounding a view of literary history and its relation to creative originality quite antithetical to the allied formulations of Eliot and Pound. Along with his own teachers, Northrop Frye and Meyer H. Abrams, but in very different ways, Bloom has helped to make the study of Romantic poetry as intellectually and spiritually challenging a branch of literary studies as one may find. The recent study of the romantic tradition has corrected the modernist dogmas about romanticism--the very word evoked the imprecise, the vague, the rhetorical--and argued for the centrality of the major English poetic line which modernism rejected. Eliot hankered after the Christian orthodoxy, classicism and royalty; the tradition he turned away from, the line running from Spenser, to Milton through the romantic poets to Browning, Tennyson and Yeats, was protestant, visionary and, save at its terminus, revolutionary.

Now in a remarkable, short, frequently difficult book, Bloom has gone beyond tracing the ways in which this tradition descended from one major poet to another (a question beautifully handled by W. J. Bate in his "The Burden of the Past and the English Poet"). He has extended it to a general theory of what he calls "poetic influence." "The Anxiety of Influence" may outrage and perplex many literary scholars, poets and psychologists; in any event, its first effect will be to astound, and only later may it become quite influential, though in a different mode from the one it studies.

Bloom's book is true to its subtitle, "A Theory of Poetry," primarily in its association of a theory of creativity (usually calling for something like a depth psychology), with a theory of the dynamic of poetic history. This is an area where will, personality and the presences of the dead in the legacy of their works are all engaged in a struggle. For Eliot, the dead, the last of these, banished the first two: in the proper development of a true poet's career, he said, "What happens is a continual surrender of himself as he is at the moment to something which is more valuable. The progress of an artist is a continual self-sacrifice, a continual extinction of personality."

But here is one of Bloom's central principles: "Poetic Influence--when it involves two strong, authentic poets--always proceeds by a misreading of the prior poet, an act of creative correction that is actually and necessarily a misinterpretation. The history of fruitful poetic influence, which is to say the main traditions of Western poetry since the Renaissance, is a history of anxiety and self-saving caricature of distortion, of perverse, willful revisionism without which modern poetry as such could not exist."


Q1. The author mentions 'modernism' primarily in order to :

a) invoke the literary tradition of the middle ages

b) trace the formative role of those in literary history in creating poetic craft

c) restore the romantic tradition to its former glory

d) determine the contribution of romantic precursors to modernist poetry

Q2. The author of the passage suggests which of the following about Eliot?

a) He advocated the theory that the burden of the past extinguished the creative genius of the poet

b) he turned away from classical literature and emulated the tradition of romantic poets

c) he argued that the poet had to sacrifice his/her self to conform to the standards set by his/her predecessors

d) He maintained that the work of a poet is merely a reflection of his/her consciousness of the poetic tradition

Plz answer with explanations, able to narrow down to 2, not able to choose1 !


431

Can anyone suggest: How to improve on RC ?

I am really feeling low, not able to solve even Easiest. 😞

432

To improve English , everyone suggests to read and read and read and read ......But puys please answer a stupid question "What to read ?????" 😠 😠 😠

433

READING COMPREHENSION PASSAGES:

1999—2006 Subject-Wise Summary of CAT RC Passages


PHILOSOPHY

1. [CAT-2002] The Nature and Role of Philosophy

2. [CAT-2006] Dogmatic and Critical Attitude

3. [CAT-2006] A Conception of Justice


POLITICAL SCIENCE & HISTORY

1. [CAT-1999] The Concept of the Nation-State

2. [CAT-2001] Democracy: A Perspective

3. [CAT-2002] Histories of India: Different Approaches

4. [CAT-Nov 03] Why did The British Give Up India?

5. [CAT-Feb 04] Indian Federalism: Panchayati Raj System

6. [CAT-2006] Condemning the Crimes of Communism


ECONOMICS & HISTORY

1. [CAT-1999] The Creation of WTO

2. [CAT-2000] TRIPs—Impact on Indian Agriculture

3. [CAT-2004] The Viability of the Multinational Corporate System

4. [CAT-2005] The Second Age of Globalization


ARTS & LITERATURE


PART-A: Theory, Concepts, & Trends


1. [CAT-1999] Human Perception and Creation

2. [CAT-1999] Abstract and Representational Art

3. [CAT-2000] Classical Music: Indian and Western

4. [CAT-2000] Abstractionism: Does it Have a Future?

5. [CAT-Feb 04] Greek Architecture

6. [CAT-2004] Painters and their Subject Matter

7. [CAT-2005] Derrida's Deconstructive Approach


PART-B: An Obituary, A Film Review, & A poem


1. [CAT-2001] Billie Holiday: An Obituary

2. [CAT-2001] The Narrative of Dersu Uzala (A Film Review)

3. [CAT-Nov 03] In Search of Ithaka (A Poem)


SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, & SOCIETY

1. [CAT-2000] New Developments in Computer Hardware

2. [CAT-2001] Quasars Throw Light on Cosmic Dark Age

3. [CAT-2002] Human Cells: A Marvel of Nature's Design

4. [CAT-Nov 03] The Controversy over Genetically-Modified Foods

5. [CAT-Nov 03] Modern Science: Galileo and Newton

6. [CAT-Feb 04] The History of Aviation Technology

7. [CAT-2004] Malnutrition: Major Cause of Degenerative Diseases


SOCIETY, CULTURE, & HUMAN BEHAVIOUR


1. [CAT-2000] Impact of New Technology on Society

2. [CAT-2001] Racial and Caste-based Discrimination

3. [CAT-2002] The Practice of Abortion

4. [CAT-Nov 03] The Usefulness of Social Life

5. [CAT-Feb 04] Cultural Differences: My Father and Me

6. [CAT-2004] Lack of Real Change


MISCELLANEOUS

1. [CAT-1999] The Art of War: Eastern and Western

2. [CAT-2001] Phonological Skills

3. [CAT-2002] The Rhetoric of Economists

4. [CAT-Nov 03] Wine Consumption

5. [CAT-Feb 04] Secularization of Education: Twelfth Century Europe

6. [CAT-2004] The Maneless Tsavo Lions

7. [CAT-2005] The Game of Strategy


Source- BYJU'S CLASSES 😁


The most irritating Question people generally ask 😠 'What to read and From where' ? p

In verbal Ability section they check your language Understanding (Especially RC ) 😁


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1-

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2-

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Exclusive Opinion, Commentary and Op-ed from today s Top Economists and Public Intellectuals - Project Syndicate latest articles on World Economics. ( My favourite ) 😁

4-

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy For Philosophy Reading ( Isko Samjh Dala to RC Jhingalala ) 😛

5-

Arts & Letters Daily - ideas, criticism, debate Random articles and Newspapers 😁


@fighter21 @hiteshpratap Saar 😁 and All Folks 😁

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434

My time to contribute to this thread 😃 A brilliant RC,especially the questions !!
RC -12

A country road. A tree.Evening.Estragon, sitting on a low mound, is trying to take off his boot. He pulls at it with both hands, panting. He gives up, exhausted, rests, tries again. As before. Enter Vladimir.

ESTRAGON:(giving up again). Nothing to be done.

VLADIMIR:(advancing with short, stiff strides, legs wide apart). I'm beginning to come round to that opinion. All my life I've tried to put it from me, saying Vladimir, be reasonable, you haven't yet tried everything. And I resumed the struggle. (He broods, musing on the struggle. Turning to Estragon.) So there you are again.

ESTRAGON:Am I?

VLADIMIR:I'm glad to see you back. I thought you were gone forever.

ESTRAGON:Me too.

VLADIMIR:Together again at last! We'll have to celebrate this. But how? (He reflects.)Get up till I embrace you.

ESTRAGON:(irritably). Not now, not now.

VLADIMIR:(hurt, coldly). May one inquire where His Highness spent the night?

ESTRAGON:In a ditch.

VLADIMIR:(admiringly). A ditch! Where?

ESTRAGON:(without gesture). Over there.

VLADIMIR:And they didn't beat you?

ESTRAGON:Beat me? Certainly they beat me.

VLADIMIR:The same lot as usual?

ESTRAGON:The same? I don't know.

VLADIMIR:When I think of it . . . all these years . . . but for me . . . where would you be . . .(Decisively.) You'd be nothing more than a little heap of bones at the present minute, no doubt about it.

ESTRAGON:And what of it?

VLADIMIR:(gloomily). It's too much for one man. (Pause. Cheerfully.) On the other hand what's the good of losing heart now, that's what I say. We should have thought of it a million years ago, in the nineties.

ESTRAGON:Ah stop blathering and help me off with this bloody thing.

VLADIMIR:Hand in hand from the top of the Eiffel Tower, among the first. We were respectable in those days. Now it's too late. They wouldn't even let us up. (Estragon tears at his boot.) What are you doing?

ESTRAGON:Taking off my boot. Did that never happen to you?

VLADIMIR:Boots must be taken off every day, I'm tired telling you that. Why don't you listen to me?

ESTRAGON:(feebly). Help me!

VLADIMIR:It hurts?

ESTRAGON:(angrily). Hurts! He wants to know if it hurts!

VLADIMIR:(angrily). No one ever suffers but you. I don't count. I'd like to hear what you'd say if you had what I have.

ESTRAGON:It hurts?

VLADIMIR:(angrily). Hurts! He wants to know if it hurts!

ESTRAGON:(pointing). You might button it all the same.

VLADIMIR:(stooping). True. (He buttons up.) Never neglect the little things of life.

ESTRAGON:What do you expect, you always wait till the last moment.

VLADIMIR:(musingly). The last moment . . . (He meditates.) Hope deferred maketh the something sick, who said that?

ESTRAGON:Why don't you help me?

VLADIMIR:Sometimes I feel it coming all the same. Then I go all queer. (He takes off his hat, peers inside it, feels about inside it, shakes it, puts it on again.) How shall I say? Relieved and at the same time . . . (he searches for the word) . . . appalled. (With emphasis.) AP-PALLED. (He takes off his hat again, peers inside it.) Funny. (He knocks on the crown as though to dislodge a foreign body, peers into it again, puts it on again.) Nothing to be done. (Estragon with a supreme effort succeeds in pulling off his boot. He peers inside it, feels about inside it, turns it upside down, shakes it, looks on the ground to see if anything has fallen out, finds nothing, feels inside it again, staring sightlessly before him.) Well?

ESTRAGON:Nothing.

VLADIMIR:Show me.

ESTRAGON:There's nothing to show


Q1According to the passage the characters are discussing :

aThe scope of the boots

bThe art of taking off boots

cThe process of taking off boots

dThe feeble man vs the mighty universe

eThe little things of life


Q.2What best describes Vladimir's reaction to Estragon's comment “Nothing to be done”?

aThat he shared the view

bThat the struggle must go on

cThat one must not lose hope

dThat the struggle must cease

eThat he declined the view


Q.3Which phrase best establishes Vladimir and Estragon's relationship?

a “Get up till I embrace you.”

b“Why don't you listen to me?”

c“… a little heap of bones at the present…”

d“Never neglect the little things of life. “

e“Ah stop blathering and help me of with this bloody thing”.

Q.4 Which one of these is true according to the extract?

aVladimir and Estragon seem interchangeable

bVladimir and Estragon are interdependent

cVladimir and Estragon are brothers

dVladimir and Estragon are thieves

eVladimir and Estragon are settlers


Q.5The overall tone of the extract is one of

aComedy

bTragi- comedy

cEnnui

dSatire

eApathy


435

MATCHES and even salt were in short supply as the Soviet empire's planned economies collapsed two decades ago. But blame was plentiful then and now. Millions of people—chiefly men in late middle age—died earlier than their counterparts in other countries. That drop, of fully five years in male life expectancy between 1991 and 1994, demands explanation. A newly published article in the Lancet, a British medical journal that in recent years has used epidemiological analysis to examine political and social questions, argues that the clear culprit was mass privatisation (distributing vouchers that could be swapped for shares in state-owned enterprises). A statistical analysis, it says, shows that this element of the economic-reform package, nicknamed “shock therapy”, clearly correlates with higher mortality rates.

That, says the Lancet, was a shocking failure. It argues that advocates of free-market economics (it cites an What is to be done? in this newspaper by the economist Jeffrey Sachs) ignored the human costs of the policies they were promoting. These included unemployment and human misery, leading to early death. In effect, mass privatisation was mass murder. Had Russia adopted more gradual reforms, those lives would have been saved.

In fact the blame game must start at the beginning. Why was the Soviet economy in ruins by 1991? Partly because planned economies don't work (blame Lenin and Stalin for that). Partly because the gerontocratic leadership of Leonid Brezhnev failed to start reforms in the early 1970s, when gradualism might have had a chance of succeeding. By the time Mikhail Gorbachev initiated perestroika and glasnost in the late 1980s, the Soviet Union was all but bust. Worse, by running the printing presses red-hot, his government created a colossal monetary overhang. Russians may have thought that their savings evaporated when prices were liberalised at the start of 1992; in truth, their cash was already worthless.

The second question is the effect of all this on mortality. Soviet public-health statistics show a clear decline from 1965 to the early 1980s, with rising deaths from circulatory diseases (because of poor diet, smoking and, especially, drinking). Mr Gorbachev's anti-booze campaign—although hugely unpopular—raised life expectancy by fully three years between 1985 and 1987. After 1992 the state monopoly on alcohol (and health checks on its quality) collapsed. As anybody who lived in Russia at the time will recall, the effect was spectacular—and catastrophic. Death rates returned to their long-term trend.

The thorniest question is about economic policy mistakes after 1991. In retrospect, the West failed to prepare for the Soviet collapse. It took too long to recognise that Boris Yeltsin's first government deserved trust, pressing it too hard on debt repayments and being too stingy with aid. Then it made the opposite mistake, being too trusting and generous when Russia was becoming more hawkish and looting was endemic. Mass privatisation broke the planners' grip but failed to create the hoped-for shareholder democracy.

Yet the Lancet paper seriously misunderstands both the timing and the effects of economic reform. It states quite wrongly that “Russia fully implemented shock therapy by 1994”. As it happens, in that year life expectancy started rising. But in any case reforms were by then bogged down and advisers such as Mr Sachs had quit in despair. Moreover, mass privatisation had little immediate effect on jobs—or much else. Most Russians exchanged their vouchers for trivial amounts of cash, or even vodka. That may have been marginally bad for their health—but it does not explain the huge jump in the death rate.

Correlation is not causation. Mass privatisation was not the most important or effective part of “shock therapy” and the rise in death rates is out of synch with efforts at economic reform. Furthermore, countries that successfully applied shock therapy, such as Poland, saw improved life expectancy. So did the then Czechoslovakia, which plumped for mass privatisation, albeit not very successfully. Mistakes were made, but Russia's tragedy was that reform came too slowly, not too fast.

Q1. The author is primarily concerned with

a) expressing the opinion that economic reforms are not the answer for the well being of Russians
b) arguing that Russia should have smoothed in reforms in a calibrated manner
c) exploring the relationship between the economic collapse in Russia and the health of its people
d)exploring the relationship between economic reforms and male life expectancy in Russia between 1991 and 1994.

Q2. Which of the foll. can be understood from the passage?
a) Russians squandered their equity on alcohol and vandalism
b)Oversupply of Russian currency spurred its devaluation
c) Gorbachev's teetotal policies had only a marginal effect on life expectancy
d) The supply of essential commodities declined and hastened the collapse of Russia

Q3. Which of the foll. statements about shock therapy acc. to the author are true?
1)It refers to the transfer of equity from the state to the people, among other reforms.
2)Russia had implemented shock therapy by the mid 1990s
3)Shock therapy resulted in unemployment
4)the fall in life expectancy during shock therapy was not proportional to the efforts of economic reform
a)1,3 b)2,3,4 c) 3,4 d)1,3,4

436

guyz... plz suggest some good source from where i can read a "VARIETY" of RC topics for CAT... namely science, history, law, politics and of course business n eco...


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Thx in advance!
👍
437

In response to the increasing environmental damage wrought by

poachers, authorities placed a ban on ivory in the 1980s. Although the

ban resulted in an initial decrease in the sale and trade of illegal ivory

and a concurrent increase in the elephant population, more pressing

needs caused most Western nations to withdraw funding for poaching

prevention programs. Without significant financial support, poorer

countries were unable to effectively combat poachers. The resulting

explosion in the ivory trade has seen prices increase to nearly 10 times

the $45 per pound price at the beginning of the decade.

Unfortunately, the countries with the worst poaching problems

have also tended to be the ones least able to combat the problem

due to unstable political systems, corruption, lack of comprehensive

enforcement programs, or some combination of all these factors. One

primary hindrance to better enforcement of the ivory ban came from

an inability to definitively identify the country of origin of illegal ivory.

Countries used this uncertainty to avoid responsibility for curbing

illegal poaching in their territories by attempting to blame other countries

for the oversights in enforcement. Now, though, zoologists have

perfected a new DNA identification system. First, scientists gathered

genetic data from the population of African elephants, an arduous

effort that ultimately resulted in a detailed DNA-based map of the

distribution of African elephants. Then, the researchers developed a

method to extract DNA evidence from ivory, allowing them to match

the ivory with elephant populations on the map. Zoologists hope this

new method will pinpoint the exact origin of poached ivory and force

countries to accept their responsibility in enforcing the ban.

1. The passage suggests which of the following about the ivory ban?

A. It has been mostly unsuccessful in reducing the trade of illegal

ivory.

B. It will be successful now that the DNA-based map has been

developed.

C. Western countries will increase their funding of the program now

that countries are forced to take responsibility for the poaching

occurring within their borders.

D. Western monetary support was a major factor in its success.

E. It will continue to be ineffective unless the problems of political

corruption are solved.

2. The response of the countries with the worst poaching problems to

the situation was most analogous to

A. a criminal who argues that it is not he but one of his accomplices

who is guilty of a crime

B. a tax evader who uses deceptive accounting practices to hide her

income from auditors

C. a white collar criminal who believes that his actions are not a

crime because no one has been hurt

D. an embezzler who steals from her company by pilfering small

amounts of money over a long period of time

E. a con artist who convinces his victim that it is in the victim's best

interest to help him

3. The passage suggests which of the following about the DNA-based

map created by zoologists?

A. The map is able to pinpoint the exact elephant from which

poached ivory was obtained.

B. Its assemblage involved a great deal of work on the part of the

researchers.

C. Its creation will force countries to accept responsibility for the

ivory poached from within their borders.

D. It allows zoologists to keep track of the migration patterns of

African elephants.

E. It must be updated constantly to account for changes in elephant

populations.

4. The passage is chiefly concerned with

A. exposing the weaknesses of the ivory ban

B. criticizing countries for failing to accept responsibility for the

proliferation of poachers

C. pleading with Western countries to reinstitute financing for the

ivory ban

D. advocating a course of action for countries with poaching problems

E. detailing a way to overcome a problem that has lessened the

effectiveness of the ivory ban


438

After the end of World War II, a pervasive, but unfortunately

fallacious, economic perspective took hold. Based on the United

States' successful emergence from the Depression, the idea that war

was good for an economy became fashionable. However, linking the

United States economic recovery with its entry into World War II is

a prime example of flawed economic thinking.

Supporters of the war benefits economy theory hold that a country

at war is a country with a booming economy. Industry must produce

weapons, supplies, food, and clothing for the troops. The increased

production necessitates the hiring of more people, reducing unemployment.

More employment means more money in the pockets of

citizens, who are then likely to go out and spend that money, helping

the retail sector of the economy. Retail shops experience an increase

in business and may need to hire more workers, further reducing

unemployment and adding to the economic momentum. While this

scenario sounds good in theory, it does not accurately represent what

truly happens in a war time economy.

In reality, the government can fund a war in a combination of

three ways. It can raise taxes, cut spending on other areas, or increase

the national debt. Each of these strategies has a negative impact on

the economy. An increase in taxes takes money out of an individual's

hands, leading to a reduction in consumer spending. Clearly,

there is no net benefit to the economy in that case. Cutting spending

in other areas has its costs as well, even if they are not as obvious.

Any reduction in government spending means the imposition

of a greater burden on the benefactors of that government spending.

Cutbacks in a particular program mean that the people who

normally depend on that program now must spend more of their

money to make up for the government cuts. This also takes money out

of consumers' hands and leaves the economy depressed. Of course,

a government could go into debt during the war, but such a strategy

simply means that at some point in the future, taxes must be

increased or spending decreased. Plus, the interest on the debt must

be paid as well.

1. The “pervasive…economic perspective” mentioned in line 1 took hold

because

A. observers took the appearance of one phenomenon with another

to indicate that one caused the other

B. the U.S. would not have emerged from the Depression had it not

entered World War II

C. the booming economy during wartime created thousands of jobs

in the U.S.

D. most people are not trained to think in economic terms

E. economists confused an event that was necessary for an outcome

to occur with one that is merely sufficient to bring about that outcome


2. Which of the following situations best mirrors the effect that

cutting spending in government programs has, as detailed in the

passage?

A. Government cutbacks on public works maintenance lead to a

deterioration of roads, which creates more work for private

construction firms.

B. A decrease in the federal education budget causes certain schools

to close, which forces families to send their children to schools

that are farther away.

C. A federal decrease in unemployment payments causes some individuals

who would otherwise remain on unemployment to seek

jobs.

D. Government cuts in housing subsidies results in fewer houses

being built.

E. A reduction in the federal spending on food safety inspections

leads to a rash of illnesses and an increase in the amount of money

spent on medicine.


3. The passage implies which of the following about a government that

funds a war by increasing the national debt?

A. It is no worse off than it would be funding a war by cutting

spending or increasing taxes.

B. The initial costs it incurs are less than with the other two methods,

but the future costs are greater.

C. It must increase taxes in order to pay off the interest on the debt.

D. If the government does not increase taxes or decrease spending,

its economy will not recover.

E. It receives a net benefit to the economy greater than it would

achieve with either of the other two methods.


4. The second paragraph of the passage performs which of the following

functions?

A. It describes the common economic benefits of a wartime economy.

B. It provides the background information necessary to understand

the information in the third paragraph.

C. It explains what happened to the United States' economy during

World War II.

D. It presents a possible objection to the author's main thesis.

E. It helps explain why individuals might hold the viewpoint presented

in the first paragraph.

439

guys can you share any site where i can practice for RC(Cat Level)👼with questions

,...i went through TESTFUNDA's RC passages and they are not even close to CAT standard.. any Suggestions.o_0.
Thank YOu!
440

Dr. Schilling: Those who advocate replacing my country's private health insurance system with nationalized health insurance because of the rising costs of medical care fail to consider the high human costs that consumers pay in countries with nationalized insurance: access to high-technology medicine is restricted and kidney transplants and open-heart surgery is rationed. People are denied their right to treatments they want and need.

Dr. Laforte: Your country's reliance on private health insurance denies access even to basic, conventional medicine to the many people who cannot afford adequate health coverage. With nationalized insurance, rich and poor have equal access to life-saving medical procedures, and people's right to decent medical treatment regardless of income is not violated.


Dr. Schilling's and Dr. Laforte's statements provide the most support for holding that they would disagree about the truth of which one of the following?


  • (C) In countries that rely primarily on private health insurance to pay for medical costs, most people who would benefit from a kidney transplant receive one.
  • (D) In countries with nationalized health insurance, no one who needs a familiar medical treatment in order to stay alive is denied that treatment.
  • (E) Anyone who wants a particular medical treatment has a right to receive that treatment.
  • (A) People's rights are violated less when they are denied an available medical treatment they need because they lack the means to pay for it than when they are denied such treatment on noneconomic grounds.
  • (B) Where health insurance is provided by private insurance companies, people who are wealthy generally receive better health care than do people who are unable to afford health insurance.

0 voters