Para Summary - Previous Year CAT/MBA Questions
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The passage given below is followed by four alternate summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage.
When the tradwife puts on that georgic, pinstriped dress, she is not just admiring the visual cues of a fantastical past. She takes these dreams of storybook bliss literally, tracing them backward in time until she reaches a logical conclusion that satisfies her. And by doing so, she ends up delivering an unhappy reminder of just how much our lives consist of artifice and playacting. The tradwife outrages people because of her deliberately regressive ideals. And yet her behaviour is, on some level, indistinguishable from the nontradwife’s. The tradwife’s trollish genius is to beat us at our own dress-up game. By insisting that the idyllic cottage daydream should be real, right down to the primitive gender roles, she leaves others feeling hollow, cheated. The hullabaloo and headaches she causes may be the price we pay for taking too many things at face value: our just deserts, served Instagram-perfect by a manicured hand on a gorgeous ceramic dish, with fat, mouthwatering maraschino cherries on top.
- (a)
By promoting an idealized past, the tradwife exposes the artifice of contemporary values and mocks societal norms.
- (b)
The tradwife, with her vintage dress and traditional roles, highlights the superficiality of modern life and challenges current societal norms.
- (c)
The tradwife’s vintage dress and adherence to traditional roles reveal the artificial nature of modern life and its superficial values.
- (d)
The tradwife’s commitment to outdated gender roles and retro fashion critiques the superficiality of today's societal ideals
Solution
Discuss
ReportThe passage given below is followed by four alternate summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage.
Humans have managed to tweak the underlying biology of various plants and animals to produce high-tech crops and microbes. But regulating these entities is complicated,
as the framework of policies and procedures are outdated and not flexible enough to adapt to emerging technology. The question is whether regulation will ever be able to
keep up with human innovation, to regulate living things, which are apt to be unpredictable and unique; to capture all the potential risks when new biological entities are introduced, or when they pass on variations of their genes?
- (a)
The mercurial nature of biological entities calls for scientists to shape the regulations governing emerging technology, with regular calibration to handle variations in the field.
- (b)
The problem with formulating regulation for innovation in the scientific arena it that it is impossible to imagine the outcomes or risks related to the outcomes of all the research.
- (c)
Current regulation of biotechnology is outdated, but it is debatable if we can create a framework, imaginative and flexible, to cover all contingencies in this fast-changing area.
- (d)
A new framework of rules and procedures for regulating the most recent research emerging from biotechnology is urgently needed, to keep up with this rapidly changing discipline.
The passage given below is followed by four alternate summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage.
Lyric poetry is a genre of private meditation rather than public commitment. The impulse in Marxism toward changing a society deemed unacceptable in its basic design would seem to place demands on lyric poetry that such poetry, with its tendency toward the personal, the small scale, and the idiosyncratic, could never answer. There is within Marxism, however, also a strand of thought that would locate in lyric poetry alternative modes of perception and description that call forth a vision of worlds at odds with a repressive reality or that draw attention to the workings of ideology within the hegemonic culture. The poetic imagination may indeed deflect larger social concerns, but it may also be implicitly critical and utopian.
- (a)
The focus of lyric poetry as personal may not seem compatible with Marxism. However, it is possible to envisage lyric poetry as a symbol of resistance against an oppressive culture.
- (b)
Marxism has internal contradictions due to which one strand of Marxism sees no merit in lyric poetry while another appreciates the alternative modes of perception in poetry.
- (c)
Marxism makes unreasonable demands on lyric poetry. However, lyric poetry has its own merits that are largely ignored by Marxism due to its personal nature.
- (d)
The focus of lyric poetry is largely personal while that of Marxism is bringing change in society. Unless the difference is resolved, poetry will remain largely utopian.
The passage given below is followed by four alternate summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage.
Manipulating information was a feature of history long before modern journalism established rules of integrity. A record dates back to ancient Rome, when Antony met Cleopatra and his political enemy Octavian launched a smear campaign against him with “short, sharp slogans written upon coins.” The perpetrator became the first Roman Emperor and “fake news had allowed Octavian to hack the republican system once and for all”. But the 21st century has seen the weaponization of information on an unprecedented scale. Powerful new technology makes the fabrication of content simple, and social networks amplify falsehoods peddled by States, populist politicians, and dishonest corporate entities. The platforms have become fertile ground for computational propaganda, ‘trolling’ and ‘troll armies’.
- (a)
Disinformation, which is mediated by technology today, is not new and has existed since ancient times.
- (b)
People need to become critical of what they read, since historically, weaponization of information has led to corruption.
- (c)
Octavian used fake news to manipulate people and attain power and influence, just as people do today.
- (d)
Use of misinformation for attaining power, a practice that is as old as the Octavian era, is currently fueled by technology.
The passage given below is followed by four alternate summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage.
Colonialism is not a modern phenomenon. World history is full of examples of one society gradually expanding by incorporating adjacent territory and settling its people on newly conquered territory. In the sixteenth century, colonialism changed decisively because of technological developments in navigation that began to connect more remote parts of the world. The modern European colonial project emerged when it became possible to move large numbers of people across the ocean and to maintain political control in spite of geographical dispersion. The term colonialism is used to describe the process of European settlement, violent dispossession and political domination over the rest of the world, including the Americas, Australia, and parts of Africa and Asia.
- (a)
Colonialism surged in the 16th century due to advancements in navigation, enabling British settlements abroad and global dominance.
- (b)
As a result of developments in navigation technology, European colonialism, led to the displacement of indigenous populations and global political changes in the 16th century.
- (c)
Technological advancements in navigation in the 16th century, transformed colonialism, enabling Europeans to establish settlements and exert political dominance over distant regions.
- (d)
Colonialism, conceptualized in the 16th century, allowed colonizers to expand their territories, establish settlements, and exercise political power.
The passage given below is followed by four alternate summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage.
Heatwaves are becoming longer, frequent and intense due to climate change. The impacts of extreme heat are unevenly experienced; with older people and young children, those with pre-existing medical conditions and on low incomes significantly more vulnerable. Adaptation to heatwaves is a significant public policy concern. Research conducted among at-risk people in the UK reveals that even vulnerable people do not perceive themselves as at risk of extreme heat; therefore, early warnings of extreme heat events do not perform as intended. This suggests that understanding how extreme heat is narrated is very important. The news media play a central role in this process and can help warn people about the potential danger, as well as about impacts on infrastructure and society
- (a)
People are vulnerable to heatwaves caused due to climate change, measures taken are ineffective.
- (b)
News stories help in warning about heatwaves, but they have to become more effective.
- (c)
Heatwaves pose an enormous risk; the media plays a pivotal role in alerting people to this danger.
- (d)
Protection from heat waves is important but current reports and public policies seem ineffective.
The passage given below is followed by four alternate summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage.
People spontaneously create counterfactual alternatives to reality when they think “if only” or “what if” and imagine how the past could have been different. The mind computes counterfactuals for many reasons. Counterfactuals explain the past and prepare for the future, they implicate various relations including causal ones, and they affect intentions and decisions. They modulate emotions such as regret and relief, and they support moral judgments such as blame. The ability to create counterfactuals develops throughout childhood and contributes to reasoning about other people's beliefs, including their false beliefs.
- (a)
Counterfactual alternatives to reality are created for a variety of reasons and is part of one's developmental process.
- (b)
People create counterfactual alternatives to reality for various reasons, including reasoning about other people's beliefs.
- (c)
Counterfactuals help people to prepare for the future by understanding intentions and making decisions.
- (d)
Counterfactual thinking helps to reverse past and future actions and reason out false beliefs.
The passage given below is followed by four alternate summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage.
The weight of society’s expectations is hardly a new phenomenon but it has become particularly draining over recent decades, perhaps because expectations themselves are so multifarious and contradictory. The perfectionism of the 1950s was rooted in the norms of mass culture and captured in famous advertising images of the ideal white American family that now seem self-satirising. In that era, perfectionism meant seamlessly conforming to values, behaviour and appearance: chiselled confidence for men, demure graciousness for women. The perfectionist was under pressure to look like everyone else, only more so. The perfectionists of today, by contrast, feel an obligation to stand out through their idiosyncratic style and wit if they are to gain a foothold in the attention economy.
- (a)
The desire to attract attention is so deep-rooted in individual consciousness that people are willing to go to any lengths to achieve it.
- (b)
Though long-standing, the pressure to appear perfect and thereby attract attention, has evolved over time from one of conformism to one of non-conformism.
- (c)
The image of perfectionism is reflected in and perpetuated by the media; and people do their best to adhere to these ideals.
- (d)
The pressure to appear perfect has been the cause of tension and conflict because the idea itself has been in a state of flux and hard to define.
The passage given below is followed by four alternate summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage.
Gradually, life for the island’s birds is improving. Antarctic prions and white-headed petrels, which also nest in burrows, had managed to cling on in some sites while pests were on the island. Their numbers are now increasing. “It’s fantastic and so exciting,” Shaw says. As birds return to breed, they also poo. This adds nutrients to the soil, which in turn helps the plants to grow back stronger. Tall plants then help burrowing birds hide from predatory skuas. “It’s this wonderful feedback loop,” Shaw says. Today, the “pretty paddock” that Houghton first experienced has been transformed. “The tussock is over your head, and you’re dodging all these penguin tunnels,” she says. The orchids and tiny herb that had been protected by fencing have started turning up all over the place.
- (a)
In the absence of pests, life on the island is now protected, and there has been a revival of a variety of birds and plants.
- (b)
There is an increasing number of predatory birds and plants on the island despite the presence of pests which is a positive development.
- (c)
There is a huge positive transformation of the ecosystem of the island when broughtunder environmental protection.
- (d)
Flowering plants, herbs and birds are now being protected on this wonderful Antarctic island.
The passage given below is followed by four alternate summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage.
Petitioning is an expeditious democratic tradition, used frequently in prior centuries, by which citizens can bring issues directly to governments. As expressions of collective voice, they support procedural democracy by shaping agendas. They can also recruit citizens to causes, give voice to the voteless, and apply the discipline of rhetorical argument that clarifies a point of view. By contrast, elections are limited in several respects: they involve only a few candidates, and thus fall far short of a representative democracy. Further, voters’ choices are not specific to particular policies or laws, and elections are episodic, whereas the voice of the people needs to be heard and integrated constantly into democratic government.
- (a)
By giving citizens greater control over shaping political and democratic agendas, political petitions are invaluable as they represent an ideal form of a representative democracy.
- (b)
Petitioning is definitely more representative of the collective voice, and the functioning of democratic government could improve if we relied more on petitioning rather than holding periodic elections.
- (c)
Citizens become less inclined to petitioning as it enables vocal citizens to shape political agendas, but this needs to change to strengthen democracies today.
- (d)
Petitioning has been important to democratic functioning, as it supplements the electoral process by enabling ongoing engagement with the government.
The passage given below is followed by four alternate summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage.
It’s not that modern historians of medieval Africa have been ignorant about contacts between Ethiopia and Europe; they just had the power dynamic reversed. The traditional narrative stressed Ethiopia as weak and in trouble in the face of aggression from external forces, so Ethiopia sought military assistance from their fellow Christians to the north. But the real story, buried in plain sight in medieval diplomatic texts, simply had not yet been put together by modern scholars. Recent research pushes scholars of medieval Europe to imagine a much more richly connected medieval world: at the beginning of the so-called Age of Exploration, there is evidence that the kings of Ethiopia were sponsoring their own missions of diplomacy, faith and commerce.
- (a)
Historians were under the illusion that Ethiopia needed military protection from their neighbours, but in fact the country had close commercial and religious connections with them.
- (b)
Medieval texts have been ‘cherry-picked’ to promote a view of Ethiopia as weak and in need of Europe’s military help with aggressive neighbours, but recent studies reveal it was a well-connected and outward-looking culture.
- (c)
Medieval historical sources selectively promoted the narrative that powerful European forces were called on to protect weak African civilisations such as Ethiopia, but this is far from reality.
- (d)
Medieval texts have documented how strong connections between the Christian communities of Ethiopia and Europe were invaluable in establishing military and trade links between the two civilisations.
The passage given below is followed by four alternate summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage.
All that we think we know about how life hangs together is really some kind of illusion that we have perpetrated on ourselves because of our limited vision. What appear to be inanimate objects such as stones turn out not only to be alive in the same way that we are, but also in many infinitesimal ways to be affected by stimuli just as humans are. The distinction between animate and inanimate simply cannot be made when you enter the world of quantum mechanics and try to determine how those apparent subatomic particles, of which you and everything else in our universe is composed, are all tied together. The point is that physics and metaphysics show there is a pattern to the universe that goes beyond our capacity to grasp it with our brains.
- (a)
Arbitrary distinctions between inanimate and animate objects disappear at the scale at which quantum mechanics works.
- (b)
The inanimate world is both sentient and cognizant like its animate counterpart.
- (c)
The effect of stimuli is similar in inanimate objects when compared to animate objects or living beings.
- (d)
Quantum physics indicates that an astigmatic view of reality results in erroneous assumptions about the universe.
The passage given below is followed by four alternate summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage.
Several of the world’s earliest cities were organised along egalitarian lines. In some regions, urban populations governed themselves for centuries without any indication of the temples and palaces that would later emerge; in others, temples and palaces never emerged at all, and there is simply no evidence of a class of administrators or any other sort of ruling stratum. It would seem that the mere fact of urban life does not, necessarily, imply any particular form of political organization, and never did. Far from resigning us to inequality, the picture that is now emerging of humanity’s past may open our eyes to egalitarian possibilities we otherwise would have never considered.
- (a)
The lack of hierarchical administration in ancient cities can be deduced by the absence of religious and regal structures such as temples and palaces.
- (b)
Contrary to our assumption that urban settlements have always involved hierarchical political and administrative structures, ancient cities were not organised in this way.
- (c)
The emergence of a class of administrators and ruling stratum transformed the egalitarian urban life of ancient cities to the hierarchical civic organisations of today.
- (d)
We now have the evidence in support of the existence of an egalitarian urban life in some ancient cities, where political and civic organisation was far less hierarchical.
The passage given below is followed by four alternate summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage.
There's a common idea that museum artworks are somehow timeless objects available to admire for generations to come. But many are objects of decay. Even the most venerable Old Master paintings don't escape: pigments discolour, varnishes crack, canvases warp. This challenging fact of art-world life is down to something that sounds more like a thread from a morality tale: inherent vice. Damien Hirst's iconic shark floating in a tank – entitled The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living – is a work that put a spotlight on inherent vice. When he made it in 1991, Hirst got himself in a pickle by not using the right kind of pickle to preserve the giant fish. The result was that the shark began to decompose quite quickly – its preserving liquid clouding, the skin wrinkling, and an unpleasant smell wafting from the tank.
- (a)
Museums have to guard timeless art treasures from intrinsic defects such as the deterioration of paint, polish and canvas.
- (b)
The role of museums has evolved to ensure that the artworks are preserved forever in addition to guarding and displaying them.
- (c)
Artworks may not last forever; they may deteriorate with time, and the challenge is to slow down their degeneration.
- (d)
Museums are left with the moral responsibility of restoring and preserving the artworks since artists cannot preserve their works beyond their life.
The passage given below is followed by four alternate summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage.
Today, many of the debates about behavioural control in the age of big data echo Cold War-era anxieties about brainwashing, insidious manipulation and repression in the ‘technological society’. In his book Psychopolitics, Han warns of the sophisticated use of targeted online content, enabling ‘influence to take place on a pre-reflexive level’. On our current trajectory, “freedom will prove to have been merely an interlude.” The fear is that the digital age has not liberated us but exposed us, by offering up our private lives to machine-learning algorithms that can process masses of personal and behavioural data. In a world of influencers and digital entrepreneurs, it’s not easy to imagine the resurgence of a culture engendered through disconnect and disaffiliation, but concerns over the threat of online targeting, polarisation and big data have inspired recent polemics about the need to rediscover solitude and disconnect.
- (a)
The notion of freedom and privacy is at stake in a world where artificial intelligence is capable of influencing behaviour through data gathered online.
- (b)
The role of technology in influencing public behaviour is reminiscent of the manner in which behaviour was manipulated during the Cold War.
- (c)
With big data making personal information freely available, the debate on the nature of freedom and the need for privacy has resurfaced.
- (d)
Rather than freeing us, digital technology is enslaving us by collecting personal information and influencing our online behaviour.
The passage given below is followed by four alternate summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage.
To defend the sequence of alphabetisation may seem bizarre, so obvious is its application that it is hard to imagine a reference, catalogue or listing without it. But alphabetical order was not an immediate consequence of the alphabet itself. In the Middle Ages, deference for ecclesiastical tradition left scholars reluctant to categorise things according to the alphabet — to do so would be a rejection of the divine order. The rediscovery of the ancient Greek and Roman classics necessitated more efficient ways of ordering, searching and referencing texts. Government bureaucracy in the 16th and 17th centuries quickened the advance of alphabetical order, bringing with it pigeonholes, notebooks and card indexes.
- (a)
Unlike the alphabet, once the efficacy of the alphabetic sequence became apparent to scholars and administrators, its use became widespread.
- (b)
While adoption of the written alphabet was easily accomplished, it took scholars several centuries to accept the alphabetic sequence as a useful tool in their work.
- (c)
The ban on the use by scholars of any form of categorisation - but the divinely ordained one - delayed the adoption of the alphabetic sequence by several centuries.
- (d)
The alphabetic order took several centuries to gain common currency because of religious beliefs and a lack of appreciation of its efficacy in the ordering of things.
The passage given below is followed by four alternate summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage.
“It does seem to me that the job of comedy is to offend, or have the potential to offend, and it cannot be drained of that potential,” Rowan Atkinson said of cancel culture. “Every joke has a victim. That’s the definition of a joke. Someone or something or an idea is made to look ridiculous.” The Netflix star continued, “I think you’ve got to be very, very careful about saying what you’re allowed to make jokes about. You’ve always got to kick up? Really?” He added, “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
- (a)
Cancel culture does not understand the role and duty of comedians, which is to deride and mock everyone.
- (b)
Victims of jokes must not only be politicians and royalty, but also arrogant people from lower classes should be mentioned by comedians.
- (c)
Every joke needs a victim and one needs to include people from lower down the society and not just the upper class.
- (d)
All jokes target someone and one should be able to joke about anyone in the society, which is inconsistent with cancel culture.
The passage given below is followed by four alternate summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage.
Tamsin Blanchard, curator of Fashion Open Studio, an initiative by a campaign group showcasing the work of ethical designers says, “We're all drawn to an exquisite piece of embroidery, a colourful textile or even a style of dressing that might have originated from another heritage. [But] this magpie mentality, where all of culture and history is up for grabs as 'inspiration', has accelerated since the proliferation of social media... Where once a fashion student might research the history and traditions of a particular item of clothing with care and respect, we now have a world where images are lifted from image libraries without a care for their cultural significance. It's easier than ever to steal a motif or a craft technique and transfer it on to a piece of clothing that is either mass produced or appears on a runway without credit or compensation to their original communities."
- (a)
Cultural collaboration is the need of the hour. Beautiful design ideas of indigenous people need to be showcased and shared worldwide.
- (b)
Taking fashion ideas from any cultural group without their consent is a form of appropriation without giving due credit, compensation, and respect.
- (c)
Media has encouraged mass production; images are copied effortlessly without care or concern for the interests of ethnic communities.
- (d)
Copying an embroidery design or pattern of textile from native communities who own
them is tantamount to stealing and they need to be compensated.
Directions for Summary: A paragraph is followed by four options which have summarized the passage in their own way. Pick the option that best summarizes the passage:
McGurk and MacDonald (1976) reported a powerful multisensory illusion occurring with audio-visual speech. They recorded a voice articulating a consonant 'ba-ba-ba' and dubbed it with a face articulating another consonant 'ga-ga-ga'. Even though the acoustic speech signal was well recognized alone, it was heard as another consonant after dubbing with incongruent visual speech i.e., 'da-da-da'. The illusion, termed as the McGurk effect, has been replicated many times, and it has sparked an abundance of research. The reason for the great impact is that this is a striking demonstration of multisensory integration, where that auditory and visual information is merged into a unified, integrated percept.
- (a)
When the quality of auditory information is poor, the visual information wins over the auditory information.
- (b)
When the auditory speech signal does not match the visual speech movements, the acoustic speech signal is confusing and integration of the two is imperfect.
- (c)
The McGurk effect which is a demonstration of multisensory integration has been replicated many times.
- (d)
Visual speech mismatched with auditory speech can result in the perception of an entirely different message: this illusion is known as the McGurk effect.
Directions for Summary: A paragraph is followed by four options which have summarized the passage in their own way. Pick the option that best summarizes the passage:
Foreign peacekeepers often exist in a bubble in the poor countries in which they are deployed; they live in posh compounds, drive fancy vehicles, and distance themselves from locals. This may be partially justified as they are outsiders, living in constant fear, performing a job that is emotionally draining. But they are often despised by the locals, and many would like them to leave. A better solution would be bottom-up peacebuilding, which would involve their spending more time working with communities, understanding their grievances and earning their trust, rather than only meeting government officials.
- (a)
The environment in poor countries has tended to make foreign peacekeeping forces live in enclaves, but it is time to change this scenario.
- (b)
Extravagant lifestyles and an aloof attitude among the foreigners working as peacekeepers in poor countries have justifiably make them the target of local anger.
- (c)
Peacekeeping forces in foreign countries have tended to be aloof for valid reasons but would be more effective if they worked more closely with local communities.
- (d)
Peacekeeping duties would be more effectively performed by local residents given their better understanding, knowledge and rapport with their own communities.
Directions for Summary: A paragraph is followed by four options which have summarized the passage in their own way. Pick the option that best summarizes the passage:
Developing countries are becoming hotbeds of business innovation in much the same way as Japan did from the 1950s onwards. They are reinventing systems of production and distribution, and experimenting with entirely new business models. Why are countries that were until recently associated with cheap hands now becoming leaders in innovation? Driven by a mixture of ambition and fear they are relentlessly climbing up the value chain. Emerging-market champions have not only proved highly competitive in their own backyards, they are also going global themselves.
- (a)
Developing countries are being forced to invent new business models which challenge the old business models, so they can remain competitive domestically.
- (b)
Production and distribution models are going through rapid innovations worldwide as developed countries are being challenged by their earlier suppliers from the developing world.
- (c)
Competition has driven emerging economies, once suppliers of cheap labour, to become innovators of business models that have enabled them to move up the value chain and go global.
- (d)
Innovations in production and distribution are helping emerging economies compete with countries to which they once supplied cheap labour.
The passage given below is followed by four alternate summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage.
Biologists who publish their research directly to the Web have been labelled as “rogue”, but physicists have been routinely publishing research digitally (“preprints”), prior to submitting in a peer-reviewed journal. Advocates of preprints argue that quick and open dissemination of research speeds up scientific progress and allows for wider access to knowledge. But some journals still don’t accept research previously published as a preprint. Even if the idea of preprints is gaining ground, one of the biggest barriers for biologists is how they would be viewed by members of their conservative research community.
- (a)
One of the advantages of digital preprints of research is they hasten the dissemination process, but these are not accepted by most scientific communities.
- (b)
Preprints of research are frowned on by some scientific fields as they do not undergo a rigourous reviewing process but are accepted among biologists as a quick way to disseminate information.
- (c)
Compared to biologists, physicists are less conservative in their acceptance of digital pre-publication of research papers, which allows for faster dissemination of knowledge.
- (d)
While digital publication of research is gaining popularity in many scientific disciplines, almost all peer-reviewed journals are reluctant to accept papers that have been published before.
The passage given below is followed by four alternate summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage.
Creativity is now viewed as the engine of economic progress. Various organizations are devoted to its study and promotion; there are encyclopedias and handbooks surveying creativity research. But this proliferating success has tended to erode creativity’s stable identity: it has become so invested with value that it has become impossible to police its meaning and the practices that supposedly identify and encourage it. Many people and organizations committed to producing original thoughts now feel that undue obsession with the idea of creativity gets in the way of real creativity
- (a)
The industry that has built up around researching what comprises and encourages creativity has destroyed the creative process itself.
- (b)
Creativity has proliferated to the extent that is no longer a stable process, and its mutating identity has stifled the creative process.
- (c)
The value assigned to creativity today has assumed such proportions that the concept itself has lost its real meaning and this is hampering the engendering of real creativity.
- (d)
The obsession with original thought, how it can be promoted and researched, has made it impossible for people and organizations to define the concept anymore.
The passage given below is followed by four alternate summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage.
The unlikely alliance of the incumbent industrialist and the distressed unemployed worker is especially powerful amid the debris of corporate bankruptcies and layoffs. In an economic downturn, the capitalist is more likely to focus on costs of the competition emanating from free markets than on the opportunities they create. And the unemployed worker will find many others in a similar condition and with anxieties similar to his, which will make it easier for them to organize together. Using the cover and the political organization provided by the distressed, the capitalist captures the political agenda.
- (a)
An unlikely alliance of the industrialist and the unemployed happens during an economic downturn in which they come together to unite politically and capture the political agenda.
- (b)
In an economic downturn, the capitalists use the anxieties of the unemployed and their political organisation to set the political agenda to suit their economic interests.
- (c)
An economic downturn creates competition because of which the capitalists capture the political agenda created by the political organisation provided by the unemployed.
- (d)
The purpose of an unlikely alliance between the industrialist and the unemployed during an economic downturn is to stifle competition in free markets.
Directions for Summary: A paragraph is followed by four options which have summarized the passage in their own way. Pick the option that best summarizes the passage:
The human mind is wired to see patterns. Not only does the brain process information as it comes in, it also stores insights from all our past experiences. Every interaction, happy or sad, is catalogued in our memory. Intuition draws from that deep memory well to inform our decisions going forward. In other words, intuitive decisions are based on data, and not contrary to data as many would like to assume. When we subconsciously spot patterns, the body starts firing neurochemicals in both the brain and gut. These "somatic markers" are what give us that instant sense that something is right... or that it's off. Not only are these automatic processes faster than rational thought, but our intuition draws from decades of diverse qualitative experience (sights, sounds, interactions, etc.) - a wholly human feature that big data alone could never accomplish.
- (a)
Intuition is infinitely richer than big data which is based on rational thought and accomplishes more than what big data can.
- (b)
Intuitions are automatic processes and are therefore faster than rational thought, and so decisions based on them are better.
- (c)
Intuition draws from deep memory, and may not be related to data, but to decades of diverse qualitative experience.
- (d)
Intuitions are neuro-chemical firings based on pattern recognition and draw upon a rich and vast database of experiences.