We can infer from the passage that medieval crafts guilds resembled mass production in that both
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The passage below is accompanied by four questions. Based on the passage, choose the best answer for each question.
. . . [T]he idea of craftsmanship is not simply nostalgic. . . . Crafts require distinct skills, an allround approach to work that involves the whole product, rather than individual parts, and an attitude that necessitates devotion to the job and a focus on the communal interest. The concept of craft emphasises the human touch and individual judgment.
Essentially, the crafts concept seems to run against the preponderant ethos of management studies which, as the academics note, have long prioritised efficiency and consistency. . . . Craft skills were portrayed as being primitive and traditionalist.
The contrast between artisanship and efficiency first came to the fore in the 19th century when British manufacturers suddenly faced competition from across the Atlantic as firms developed the “American system” using standardised parts. . . . the worldwide success of the Singer sewing machine showed the potential of a mass-produced device. This process created its own reaction, first in the form of the Arts and Crafts movement of the late 19th century, and then again in the “small is beautiful” movement of the 1970s. A third crafts movement is emerging as people become aware of the environmental impact of conventional industry.
There are two potential markets for those who practise crafts. The first stems from the existence of consumers who are willing to pay a premium price for goods that are deemed to be of extra quality. . . . The second market lies in those consumers who wish to use their purchases to support local workers, or to reduce their environmental impact by taking goods to craftspeople to be mended, or recycled.
For workers, the appeal of craftsmanship is that it allows them the autonomy to make creative choices, and thus makes a job far more satisfying. In that sense, it could offer hope for the overall labour market. Let the machines automate dull and repetitive tasks and let workers focus purely on their skills, judgment and imagination. As a current example, the academics cite the “agile” manifesto in the software sector, an industry at the heart of technological change. The pioneers behind the original agile manifesto promised to prioritise “individuals and interactions over processes and tools”. By bringing together experts from different teams, agile working is designed to improve creativity.
But the broader question is whether crafts can create a lot more jobs than they do today. Demand for crafted products may rise but will it be easy to retrain workers in sectors that might get automated (such as truck drivers) to take advantage? In a world where products and services often have to pass through regulatory hoops, large companies will usually have the advantage.
History also suggests that the link between crafts and creativity is not automatic. Medieval craft guilds were monopolies which resisted new entrants. They were also highly hierarchical with young men required to spend long periods as apprentices and journeymen before they could set up on their own; by that time the innovative spirit may have been knocked out of them. Craft workers can thrive in the modern era, but only if they don’t get too organised.
We can infer from the passage that medieval crafts guilds resembled mass production in that both
Option A is the correct answer.
The passage mentions that medieval craft guilds were monopolies that resisted new entrants and required long apprenticeship periods, which could stifle innovative spirit. Similarly, the ethos of mass production prioritizes efficiency and consistency, which often comes at the expense of creativity. Therefore, Option A could be inferred.
Option B: While it is true that medieval guilds restricted entry through strict rules, the passage does not suggest that mass production involves such restrictions.
Option C: The passage does not discuss whether mass production or medieval guilds employed egalitarian processes.
Option D: The passage does not mention that medieval guilds or mass production focused excessively on product quality.
Which one of the following statements is NOT inconsistent with the views stated in the passage?
Option B is the correct answer.
The passage mentions that medieval craft guilds were monopolistic and hierarchical, resisting new entrants and imposing long apprenticeships, which could stifle innovation. It also warns that modern craft workers “can thrive... only if they don’t get too organised,” supporting option B.
Option A: This is an extreme interpretation. The passage does not argue that supporting crafts is the only way to retain the creativity intrinsic to their production.
Option C: The Arts and Crafts movement is described as a reaction against the “American system” and the rise of mass production, not an inspiration drawn from it.
Option D: Agile movement is praised for prioritizing creativity and collaboration, whereas medieval craft guilds are described as hierarchical and restrictive, which stifled innovation. These are contrasting ideas. Therefore, agile movement cannot be a throwback to the tenets (principles) of medieval craft guilds)
The author questions the ability of crafts to create substantial employment opportunities presently because
Option B is the correct answer.
The author says "In a world where products and services often have to pass through regulatory hoops, large companies will usually have the advantage." From this, we can infer that the author doubts whether crafts can create substantial employment opportunities because smaller craft businesses may struggle to compete with larger companies due to regulatory barriers.
Option A: The passage does not focus on the low scale of crafts production as the primary obstacle. Instead, the author emphasizes regulatory challenges and not the scale.
Option C: The passage does not argue that workers wouldn’t want to pursue crafts-related work, just that retraining them for these roles might be difficult.
Option D: The passage mentions that craft guilds resisted new entrants, but it does not suggest that they are unlikely to accept large number of trainees. The passage suggests that craft workers can thrive in the modern era, but the challenge lies in how modern crafts are organized and their potential to scale up in a competitive market.
The most recent revival in interest in the crafts is a result of the emergence of all of the following EXCEPT:
Option A is the correct answer.
While the passage mentions the premium for high-quality crafted goods and the contrast between mass production and craftsmanship, it does not mention that there is support for "individual creations" as opposed to mass-produced goods. The focus is on quality and sustainability rather than explicitly advocating for individuality in products.
Option B: This is mentioned. The passage talks about consumers wanting to reduce environmental impact by supporting local workers or recycling goods, which reflects growing concerns over mass production.
Option C: This is mentioned. The passage describes a market of consumers who pay a premium for high-quality, hand-crafted goods.
Option D: This is mentioned. The passage highlights a market where consumers buy from local workers to support the community and reduce environmental impact.
The passage given below is followed by four alternate summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage.
Scientific research shows that many animals are very intelligent and have sensory and motor abilities that dwarf ours. Dogs are able to detect diseases such as cancer and diabetes and warn humans of impending heart attacks and strokes. Elephants, whales, hippopotamuses, giraffes, and alligators use low-frequency sounds to communicate over long distances, often miles. Many animals also display wide-ranging emotions, including joy, happiness, empathy, compassion, grief, and even resentment and embarrassment. It’s not surprising that animals share many emotions with us because we also share brain structures, located in the limbic system, that are the seat of our emotions.
Option B is the correct answer.
The paragraph states that animals share many emotions with humans, such as joy, happiness, empathy, and grief, because of shared brain structures, particularly in the limbic system, which is responsible for emotions in both humans and animals. This is the key point that ties together animals' intelligence and emotional capacity, as discussed in the passage.
Option A: The passage does not attribute emotions to sensory and motor abilities. The emphasis is on brain structures, not sensory abilities.
Option C: While the passage states that animals share emotions with humans, this option fails to capture the reason behind this, i.e. shared brain structures. It misses the point that makes the emotional similarity possible, which is central to the passage's message.
Option D: The passage discusses animals' sensory abilities but does not suggest that their intelligence is superior to humans'.
The passage below is accompanied by four questions. Based on the passage, choose the best answer for each question.
Oftentimes, when economists cross borders, they are less interested in learning from others than in invading their garden plots. Gary Becker, for instance, pioneered the idea of human capital. To do so, he famously tackled topics like crime and domesticity, applying methods honed in the study of markets to domains of nonmarket life. He projected economics outward into new realms: for example, by revealing the extent to which humans calculate marginal utilities when choosing their spouses or stealing from neighbors. At the same time, he did not let other ways of thinking enter his own economic realm: for example, he did not borrow from anthropology or history or let observations of nonmarket economics inform his homo economicus. Becker was a picture of the imperial economist in the heyday of the discipline’s bravura.
Times have changed for the once almighty discipline. Economics has been taken to task, within and beyond its ramparts. Some economists have reached out, imported, borrowed, and collaborated—been less imperial, more open. Consider Thomas Piketty and his outreach to historians. The booming field of behavioral economics—the fusion of economics and social psychology—is another case. Having spawned active subfields, like judgment, decisionmaking and a turn to experimentation, the field aims to go beyond the caricature of Rational Man to explain how humans make decisions….
It is important to underscore how this flips the way we think about economics. For generations, economists have presumed that people have interests—“preferences,” in the neoclassical argot—that get revealed in the course of peoples’ choices. Interests come before actions and determine them. If you are hungry, you buy lunch; if you are cold, you get a sweater. If you only have so much money and can’t afford to deal with both your growling stomach and your shivering, which need you choose to meet using your scarce savings reveals your preference.
Psychologists take one look at this simple formulation and shake their heads. Increasingly, even some mainstream economists have to admit that homo economicus doesn’t always behave like the textbook maximizer; irrational behavior can’t simply be waved away as extraeconomic expressions of passions over interests, and thus the domain of other disciplines…. This is one place where the humanist can help the economist. If narrative economics is going to help us understand how rivals duke it out, who wins and who loses, we are going to need much more than lessons from epidemiological studies of viruses or intracranial stimuli.
Above all, we need politics and institutions. Shiller [the Nobel prize winning economist] connects perceptions of narratives to changes in behavior and thence to social outcomes. He completes a circle that was key to behavioral economics and brings in storytelling to make sense of how perceptions get framed. This cycle (perception to behavior to society) was once mediated or dominated by institutions: the political parties, lobby groups, and media organizations that played a vital role in legitimating, representing, and excluding interests. Yet institutions have been stripped from Shiller’s account, to reveal a bare dynamic of emotions and economics, without the intermediating place of politics.
We can infer from the passage that the term '‘homo economicus” refers to someone who
Option C is the correct answer.
The passage suggests that the idea of 'homo economicus' assumes that people have “preferences” that determine their choices. Deciding whether to spend limited money on food or warmth illustrates this rational decision-making based on individual preferences. This aligns with option C
Option A: The passage does not suggest that 'homo economicus' is not influenced by others’ preferences. It only states that this model assumes people have their own preferences that determine their actions.
Option B: This is wrong as the passage states that economists like Gary Becker, associated with the homo economicus model, did not borrow or collaborate with other disciplines.
Option D: The passage mentions applying economic reasoning to nonmarket domains but does not tie this specifically to homo economicus.
“Times have changed for the once almighty discipline.” We can infer from this statement and the associated paragraph that the author is being
Option A is the correct answer.
The tone of the phrase “almighty discipline” suggests mild sarcasm regarding economics' earlier dominance and self-containment. The statement reflects a shift in economics from being insular and self-assured to being more open to interdisciplinary borrowing. The author describes earlier economists, like Gary Becker, as imperialistic and unwilling to incorporate ideas from other disciplines. In contrast, contemporary economists like Thomas Piketty are portrayed as reaching out and collaborating.
Option B: The passage mentions that economists are now collaborating with other disciplines, but it does not suggest this is due to their inability to predict market behaviour. The focus is on how the discipline has shifted over time, not any predictive failures.
Option C: The author does not criticize economic tools for managing crises or say that economics as a discipline has fallen. The passage highlights a transformation toward openness, not a downfall.
Option D: The author is not critical of economists collaborating with other disciplines. Instead, the passage presents this shift as a positive change, contrasting it with the earlier insularity of the discipline.
The author critiques Schiller’s approach to behavioural economics for
Option C is the correct answer.
The author critiques Schiller for focusing on the direct relationship between emotions, perceptions, and behaviour while excluding the mediating role of institutions such as political parties, media organizations, and lobby groups. The passage states that these institutions historically played a vital role in framing perceptions and legitimizing interests, which Schiller’s narrative leaves out.
Option A: The passage suggests that media and politics are key intermediaries in shaping perceptions and behaviour and not a marginal role.
Option B: The passage does not suggest that Shiller actively denigrates or diminishes the role of institutions. The issue is his omission of institutions, not his critique of their importance.
Option D: The passage mentions that storytelling is part of Schiller’s approach but does not critique him for relying excessively on it. The critique is about the exclusion of institutions, not the use of storytelling.
In the first paragraph the author is making the point that economists like Becker
Option C is the correct answer.
The first paragraph describes how Becker projected economics into non-market domains like crime and domesticity, analyzing them with economic tools. It also states that he did not borrow ideas or perspectives from fields such as anthropology or history. Option C aligns with this.
Option A: The passage mentions that Becker applied economic principles to non-market phenomena like crime and domesticity, but it does not state or imply that he benefitted from this.
Option B: The passage explicitly contradicts this idea, stating: “At the same time, he did not let other ways of thinking enter his own economic realm: for example, he did not borrow from anthropology or history.” Becker did not borrow from other disciplines, so this option is incorrect.
Option D: The passage does not state that Becker actively guarded economics against outside influence. Instead, it focuses on Becker’s one-sided application of economics to other areas, without accepting external perspectives.
There is a sentence that is missing in the paragraph below. Look at the paragraph and decide where (option 1, 2, 3, or 4) the following sentence would best fit.
Sentence: Comprehending a wide range of emotions, Renaissance music nevertheless portrayed all emotions in a balanced and moderate fashion.
Paragraph: A volume of translated Italian madrigals were published in London during the year of 1588. This sudden public interest facilitated a surge of English Madrigal writing as well as a spurt of other secular music writing and publication. ___(1)___. This music boom lasted for thirty years and was as much a golden age of music as British literature was with Shakespeare and Queen Elizabeth I. ___(2)___. The rebirth in both literature and music originated in Italy and migrated to England; the English madrigal became more humorous and lighter in England as compared to Italy. Renaissance music was mostly polyphonic in texture. ___(3)___. Extreme use of and contrasts in dynamics, rhythm, and tone colour do not occur. ___(4)___. The rhythms in Renaissance music tend to have a smooth, soft flow instead of a sharp, well-defined pulse of accents.
The sentence would best fit in B) Option 3.
Option 3 is the most logical position because it continues the description of Renaissance music’s characteristics, which was mentioned in the sentence before blank 3. The missing sentence fits perfectly here, as it discusses how Renaissance music handles emotions in a balanced and moderate manner, aligning with the flow and tone of the preceding sentences.
The sentences around Option 1 and Option 2 discuss the historical context of English madrigals and their cultural significance, so adding the sentence there would disrupt the historical narrative.
Option 4 may appear plausible, but the sentence discussing the balanced and moderate nature of music after asserting that extremes do not occur would be redundant. The given sentence should precede the one addressing extremes to maintain logical flow.
There is a sentence that is missing in the paragraph below. Look at the paragraph and decide where (option 1, 2, 3, or 4) the following sentence would best fit.
Sentence: Understanding central Asia’s role helps developments make more sense not only across Asia but in Europe, the Americas and Africa.
Paragraph: The nations of the Silk Roads are sometimes called ‘developing countries’, but they are actually some of the world’s most highly developed countries, the very crossroads of civilization, in advanced states of disrepair. ___(1)___. These countries lie at the centre of global affairs: they have since the beginning of history. Running across the spine of Asia, they form a web of connections fanning out in every direction, routes along which pilgrims and warriors, nomads and merchants have travelled, goods and produce have been bought and sold, and ideas exchanged, adapted and refined. ___(2)___ .They have carried not only prosperity, but also death and violence, disease and disaster. ___(3)___. The Silk Roads are the world’s central nervous system, connecting otherwise far-flung peoples and places…. ___(4)___. It allows us to see patterns and links, causes and effects that remain invisible if one looks only at Europe, or North America.
We can observe that the only spot where the given sentence would fit is Blank 4. This sentence in question emphasises the broader, global significance of Central Asia's role; it reflects the idea that understanding the Silk Roads provides clarity on historical and global interconnectedness.
Since the given sentence shifts focus from describing the historical and cultural importance of the Silk Roads to their global implications, which is broader than the current discussion, placing it in any of Blanks 1, 2, or 3 interrupts the flow between the statements outlining certain features linked to the Silk Roads. For example, Blank 1 is a poor fit since the succeeding sentence mentions “These countries,” which refers to the “developing countries” mentioned in the sentence preceding the blank. Similarly, “They” in the sentence after Blank 2 refers to routes/Silk Roads described earlier. We can eliminate Blank 3 using a similar logic; the sentence after this blank establishes the metaphor of the Silk Roads as a central nervous system, emphasizing their global connectivity. The given sentence doesn’t align with the focus on the Silk Roads’ tangible impacts or the metaphorical depiction of their connectivity; therefore, placing it in Blank 3 would shift the focus prematurely to understanding their role globally.
Five jumbled up sentences (labelled 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5), related to a topic, are given below. Four of them can be put together to form a coherent paragraph. Identify the odd sentence and key in the number of that sentence as your answer.
1. Urbanites also have more and better options for getting around: Uber is ubiquitous; easy-to-rent dockless bicycles are spreading; battery-powered scooters will be next.
2. When more people use buses or trains the service usually improves because public-transport agencies run more buses and trains.
3. Worsening services on public transport, terrorist attacks in some urban metros and a rise in fares have been blamed for this trend.
4. It seems more likely that public transport is being squeezed structurally as people’s need to travel is diminishing as a result of smartphones, videoconferencing, online shopping and so on.
5. There has been a puzzling decline in the use of urban public transport in many countries in the west, despite the growth in urban populations and rising employment.
Sentence 2 is the odd one out.
The sequence 5-3-4-1 forms a coherent paragraph.
Sentence 5 introduces the issue of the puzzling decline in public transport despite growing urban populations and employment.
Sentence 3, then explains some of the reasons for the decline, like worsening services, terrorist attacks, and rising fares.
Sentence 4 adds a structural explanation, stating that public transport is being squeezed as people travel less due to technology.
Sentence 1 provides more details about the alternatives to public transport, which are contributing to the decline in usage.
Sentence 2 talks about how more people using buses or trains improves the service, but this idea is not directly relevant to the overall discussion in the passage, which focuses on the decline of public transport usage. It shifts the focus toward an increase in usage improving services, which contradicts the central theme of decline.
The passage below is accompanied by four questions. Based on the passage, choose the best answer for each question.
Landing in Australia, the British colonists weren’t much impressed with the small-bodied, slender-snooted marsupials called bandicoots. “Their muzzle, which is much too long, gives them an air exceedingly stupid,” one naturalist noted in 1805. They nicknamed one type the “zebra rat” because of its black-striped rump.
Silly-looking or not, though, the zebra rat—the smallest bandicoot, more commonly known today as the western barred bandicoot—exhibited a genius for survival in the harsh outback, where its ancestors had persisted for some 26 million years. Its births were triggered by rainfall in the bone-dry desert. It carried its breath-mint-size babies in a backward-facing pouch so mothers could forage for food and dig shallow, camouflaged shelters.
Still, these adaptations did not prepare the western barred bandicoot for the colonial-era transformation of its ecosystem, particularly the onslaught of imported British animals, from cattle and rabbits that damaged delicate desert vegetation to ravenous house cats that soon developed a taste for bandicoots. Several of the dozen-odd bandicoot species went extinct, and by the 1940s the western barred bandicoot, whose original range stretched across much of the continent, persisted only on two predator-free islands in Shark Bay, off Australia’s western coast.
“Our isolated fauna had simply not been exposed to these predators,” says Reece Pedler, an ecologist with the Wild Deserts conservation program.
Now Wild Deserts is using descendants of those few thousand island survivors, called Shark Bay bandicoots, in a new effort to seed a mainland bandicoot revival. They’ve imported 20 bandicoots to a preserve on the edge of the Strzelecki Desert, in the remote interior of New South Wales. This sanctuary is a challenging place, desolate much of the year, with one of the world’s most mercurial rainfall patterns—relentless droughts followed by sudden drenching floods.
The imported bandicoots occupy two fenced “exclosures,” cleared of invasive rabbits (courtesy of Pedler’s sheepdog) and of feral cats (which slunk off once the rabbits disappeared). A third fenced area contains the program’s Wild Training Zone, where two other rare marsupials (bilbies, a larger type of bandicoot, and mulgaras, a somewhat fearsome fuzzball known for sucking the brains out of prey) currently share terrain with controlled numbers of cats, learning to evade them. It’s unclear whether the Shark Bay bandicoots, which are perhaps even more predator-naive than their now-extinct mainland bandicoot kin, will be able to make that kind of breakthrough.
For now, though, a recent surge of rainfall has led to a bandicoot joey boom, raising the Wild Deserts population to about 100, with other sanctuaries adding to that number. There are also signs of rebirth in the landscape itself. With their constant digging, the bandicoots trap moisture and allow for seed germination so the cattle-damaged desert can restore itself.
They have a new nickname—a flattering one, this time. “We call them ecosystem engineers,” Pedler says.
According to the text, the western barred bandicoots now have a flattering name because they have
Option A is the correct answer.
The passage mentions how bandicoots contribute to the ecosystem by digging, which traps moisture and aids in seed germination. This activity helps restore the desert ecosystem damaged by cattle. Their role as "ecosystem engineers" stems from these positive environmental impacts.
Option B: Although efforts to preserve the bandicoot species are ongoing, the passage does not link their new nickname to these efforts. The name "ecosystem engineers" specifically reflects their environmental contributions rather than conservation measures.
Option C: While the passage mentions a population increase due to rainfall, the new nickname is unrelated to this growth. Instead, it is tied to their environmental engineering role.
Option D: This is a wrong interpretation because there is no mention in the passage of the bandicoots affecting rainfall.
Which one of the following options does NOT represent the characteristics of the western barred bandicoot?
Option B is the correct answer.
The passage does not mention the bandicoots' use of camouflage as a survival technique. While their shelters may be camouflaged (hidden), the bandicoots themselves are not described as using camouflage directly.
Option A: This is correct. The passage mentions their long, slender snouts and their digging behaviour, which allows them to create shallow shelters in the desert.
Option C: This is correct. The nickname "zebra rat" comes from their appearance, and their slender snout and backward-facing pouch for carrying joeys are described in the passage.
Option D: This is also correct. The passage mentions these features as characteristics of the western barred bandicoot.
The text uses the word ‘exclosures’ because Wild Deserts has adopted a measure of
Option D is the correct answer.
The 'exclosures' are mentioned as fenced areas cleared of invasive rabbits and feral cats. The term "exclosures" points to the intentional exclusion of these invasive species to create a safe environment for the bandicoots and other native animals.
Option A: While the bandicoots help in restoring the cattle damaged landscape, the term 'exclosure' does not relate to it.
Option B: The exclosures are cleared of feral cats, but the passage does not mention removing large bilbies, which are actually part of the controlled environment. The exclosures themselves are specifically to protect the bandicoots from cats and rabbits, not bilbies.
Option C: The exclosures are not about making an area entirely predator-free for all species. Instead, the purpose is to create controlled environments where invasive species like rabbits and feral cats are removed. Predators are still present in the Wild Training Zone, where bandicoots and other marsupials learn to coexist and evade predators.
Which one of the following statements provides a gist of this passage?
Option D is the correct answer.
Option D captures the main idea of the passage. It reflects the near-extinction of the western barred bandicoot due to invasive species and highlights the conservation efforts using survivors from Shark Bay islands.
Option A: This is not entirely true. The western barred bandicoot did not go extinct; instead, it survived in small numbers on two predator-free islands. This option incorrectly asserts total extinction and ignores the ongoing efforts to revive the species.
Option B: This is a distortion. While the colonists' negligence and the nicknames they gave reflect their disregard, the passage clearly attributes the near-extinction of bandicoots to ecological disruptions caused by invasive species, not merely the colonists' attitudes.
Option C: This generalizes the issue and does not focus specifically on the western barred bandicoot, the subject of the passage. Furthermore, it does not highlight the rescue efforts which are central to the passage.
The passage given below is followed by four alternate summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage.
Cartographers design and create maps to communicate information about phenomena located somewhere on our planet. In the past, cartographers did not worry too much about who was going to read their maps. Although some simple “usability” research was done—like comparing whether circle or bar symbols worked best—cartographers knew how to make maps. This has changed now, however, due to all kinds of societal and technological developments. Today, map readers are more demanding—mostly because of the tools they use to read maps. Cartographers, who are also influenced by these trends, are now more interested in seeing if their products are efficient, effective, and appreciated.
Option A is the correct answer.
The passage emphasizes that cartographers now should pay attention to the usability of maps due to the evolving expectations of map readers. The key point is that technological developments have made users more demanding, leading cartographers to focus on how efficient, effective, and appreciated their maps are.
Option B: While it is true that cartographers are focused on usability, the passage does not mention specific experiments or evaluation methods.
Option C: This option suggests that maps are being used for a variety of reasons, which is not mentioned in the passage. The focus of the passage is on the demanding nature of modern map readers and not on the reasons for which maps are used.
Option D: While new technological developments are mentioned, the passage does not state that cartographers are experimenting with these innovations in their maps.
There is a sentence that is missing in the paragraph below. Look at the paragraph and decide where (option 1, 2, 3, or 4) the following sentence would best fit.
Sentence: The brain isn’t organized the way you might set up your home office or bathroom medicine cabinet.
Paragraph: ___(1)___. You can’t just put things anywhere you want to. The evolved architecture of the brain is haphazard and disjointed, and incorporates multiple systems, each of which has a mind of its own. ___(2)___. Evolution doesn’t design things and it doesn’t build systems—it settles on systems that, historically, conveyed a survival benefit. There is no overarching, grand planner engineering the systems so that they work harmoniously together. ___(3)___. The brain is more like a big, old house with piecemeal renovations done on every floor, and less like new construction. ___(4)___.
Let’s evaluate each option:
Option 1: The given sentence works well as an introduction. It sets the stage by comparing the brain’s organization to familiar spaces like a home office or medicine cabinet. This analogy smoothly transitions into the next sentence about the brain's "haphazard and disjointed" architecture, making it a natural fit here.
Option 2: Inserting the sentence here would disrupt the flow. This part focuses on the brain's evolved systems and how evolution works. The analogy to home offices feels out of place and does not connect coherently with the subsequent sentences.
Option 3: This gap already includes a metaphor—the brain as "a big, old house with piecemeal renovations." Adding the sentence here would be redundant, as it repeats the idea of disorganization without adding new insight.
Option 4: This section discusses how evolution doesn’t design harmonious systems. The sentence about the brain’s organization doesn’t align well with this abstract explanation, making it feel disjointed and out of context.
Option 1 is the best fit as it introduces the idea clearly, aligns with the paragraph's theme, and transitions seamlessly into the discussion of the brain's complexity.
The passage given below is followed by four alternate summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage.
Certain codes may, of course, be so widely distributed in a specific language community or culture, and be learned at so early an age, that they appear not to be constructed - the effect of an articulation between sign and referent - but to be ‘naturally’ given. Simple visual signs appear to have achieved a ‘near-universality’ in this sense: though evidence remains that even apparently ‘natural’ visual codes are culture specific. However, this does not mean that no codes have intervened; rather, that the codes have been profoundly naturalized. The operation of naturalized codes reveals not the transparency and ‘naturalness’ of language but the depth, the habituation and the near-universality of the codes in use. They produce apparently ‘natural’ recognitions. This has the (ideological) effect of concealing the practices of coding which are present.
Option C is the correct answer.
This option captures the main idea of the passage that some codes, like language and visual signs, are so commonly used that they appear natural and conceal the process of how they were created.
Option A: The passage does not suggest that early learning is why codes appear natural. The cause-and-effect relationship is incorrectly stated here.
Option B: This option misinterprets two key aspects of the passage. First, the idea that certain codes are "made to appear universal" is somewhat misleading because the passage doesn't claim that codes are deliberately made universal; instead, it describes how codes, through habituation and widespread use, come to feel "natural". Second, the phrase "Ideology aims to hide the mechanism of coding" is not supported by the passage. The passage suggests that the naturalization of codes leads to the illusion of transparency and naturalness, which conceals the mechanisms of coding, but it doesn't explicitly discuss ideology as a force that intentionally hides these mechanisms
Option D: This option is incorrect because the passage doesn’t claim that all codes have a natural origin. It states that codes become naturalized through use, not that they were naturally originating from the start.
Five jumbled up sentences (labelled 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5), related to a topic, are given below. Four of them can be put together to form a coherent paragraph. Identify the odd sentence and key in the number of that sentence as your answer.
1. Animals have an interest in fulfilling their basic needs, but also in avoiding suffering, and thus we ought to extend moral consideration.
2. Singer viewed himself as a utilitarian, and presents a direct moral theory concerning animal rights, in contrast to indirect positions, such as welfarist views.
3. He argued for extending moral consideration to animals because, similar to humans, animals have certain significant interests.
4. The event that publicly announced animal rights as a legitimate issue within contemporary philosophy was Peter Singer’s Animal Liberation text in 1975.
5. As such, we ought to view their interests alongside and equal to human interests, which results in humans having direct moral duties towards animals.
Sentence 1 is the odd sentence.
The correct sequence is 4-2-3-5.
Sentence 4 introduces the historical significance of Peter Singer’s Animal Liberation, which set the stage for the discussion of animal rights in contemporary philosophy.
Sentence 2 expands on Singer’s philosophy, explaining his utilitarian view and how it contrasts with other indirect moral views on animal rights.
Sentence 3 then explains the core of Singer’s argument, that animals, like humans, have significant interests and deserve moral consideration.
Sentence 5 concludes Singer's argument by stating that humans should treat animal interests equally to human interests, leading to moral duties towards animals.
Sentence 1 is the odd one out because it does not focus on Peter Singer's views on animal rights and the moral obligations humans have towards animals, which is the main theme of the paragraph.
The passage below is accompanied by four questions. Based on the passage, choose the best answer for each question.
In the summer of 2022, subscribers to the US streaming service HBO MAX were alarmed to discover that dozens of the platform’s offerings - from the Covid-themed heist thriller Locked Down to the recent remake of The Witches - had been quietly removed from the service . . . The news seemed like vindication to those who had long warned that streaming was more about controlling access to the cultural commons than expanding it, as did reports (since denied by the show’s creators) that Netflix had begun editing old episodes of Stranger Things to retroactively improve their visual effects.
What’s less clear is whether the commonly prescribed cure for these cultural ills - a return to the material pleasures of physical media - is the right one. While the makers of Blu-ray discs claim they have a shelf life of 100 years, such statistics remain largely theoretical until they come to pass, and are dependent on storage conditions, not to mention the continued availability of playback equipment. The humble DVD has already proved far less resilient, with many early releases already beginning to deteriorate in quality Digital movie purchases provide even less security. Any film “bought” on iTunes could disappear if you move to another territory with a different rights agreement and try to redownload it. It’s a bold new frontier in the commodification of art: the birth of the product recall. After a man took to Twitter to bemoan losing access to Cars 2 after moving from Canada to Australia, Apple clarified that users who downloaded films to their devices would retain permanent access to those downloads, even if they relocated to a hemisphere where the [content was] subject to a different set of rights agreements. Thanks to the company’s ironclad digital rights management technology, however, such files cannot be moved or backed up, locking you into watching with your Apple account.
Anyone who does manage to acquire Digital Rights Management free (DRM-free) copies of their favourite films must nonetheless grapple with ever-changing file format standards, not to mention data decay - the gradual process by which electronic information slowly but surely corrupts. Only the regular migration of files from hard drive to hard drive can delay the inevitable, in a sisyphean battle against the ravages of digital time.
In a sense, none of this is new. Charlie Chaplin burned the negative of his 1926 film A Woman of the Sea as a tax write-off. Many more films have been lost through accident, negligence or plain indifference. During a heatwave in July 1937, a Fox film vault in New Jersey burned down, destroying a majority of the silent films produced by the studio.
Back then, at least, cinema was defined by its ephemerality: the sense that a film was as good as gone once it left your local cinema. Today, with film studios keen to stress the breadth of their back catalogues (or to put in Hollywood terms, the value of their IPs), audiences may start to wonder why those same studios seem happy to set the vault alight themselves if it’ll help next quarter’s numbers.
Which one of the following statements about art best captures the arguments made in the passage?
Option B is the correct answer.
The passage argues that, despite the advances in digital distribution and storage of films (via streaming services or digital purchases), access to art is becoming more fragile. It mentions how content can disappear from platforms, how digital files deteriorate over time, and how rights agreements can limit access based on geographical location. The idea that technology and platform control lead to difficulties in maintaining access captured in Option B
Option A: The passage does not advocate changing the understanding of art as immutable or easily available. Hence, this is wrong.
Option C: This is an overstatement of the passage’s argument. While the passage briefly touches on the idea of retroactive changes to works like Stranger Things, it does not present these changes as inherently "dangerous."
Option D: The passage does not argue for the availability of art in the cultural commons in perpetuity. Instead, it highlights how access is controlled by platforms and technological challenges rather than making a broader ideological statement about cultural commons.
Which one of the following statements, if true, would best invalidate the main argument of the passage?
Option B is the correct answer.
Option B would invalidate the main argument because it directly addresses the issue raised in the passage, i.e., the lack of permanent access to digital content. The passage highlights concerns about the temporary and restricted nature of digital ownership. If studios and streaming services committed to providing perpetual and platform-independent access, it would resolve the problem of content being removed or restricted, making the author's argument about the instability of digital media irrelevant.
Option A: This would not invalidate the argument because the passage mentions that Blu-ray discs have a theoretical shelf life but acknowledges that their durability depends on storage conditions and the availability of playback equipment.
Option C: This option doesn't directly invalidate the argument either. While VPNs might help users bypass geo-restrictions, it doesn't address the broader issue of digital ownership and the fragility of digital rights, especially the fear of losing access to content due to different rights agreements. The passage focuses on the unreliability and restrictions of digital ownership, not just geographical access.
Option D: While this option touches on the potential for preserving digital content, it doesn't directly address the problem raised in the passage: the lack of permanent, independent access to content.
Which of the following statements is suggested by the sentence “Back then, at least, cinema was defined by its ephemerality: the sense that a film was as good as gone once it left your local cinema”?
Option B is the correct answer.
The passage contrasts the past and present by mentioning that, in the past, films were considered “as good as gone” once they left the cinema, meaning they were ephemeral and not readily accessible afterwards. Whereas, today's audience expects ongoing access to films well beyond their initial cinema run, thanks to technological advancements like streaming services and digital media. This shift in expectations is what the passage implies when referencing the previous era's ephemerality versus today's more lasting availability.
Option A: This is not the main point. While it may be true that people accepted films as temporary, the passage emphasizes today's expectations rather than discussing past acceptance.
Option C: The passage does not mention technology improvements. It focuses more on audience expectations or belief that films should now be available beyond just the cinema.
Option D: While the passage suggests that audiences may expect films to remain accessible, it does not claim there is no reason for studios to remove access. The passage acknowledges that financial motives may lead to films being removed from platforms.
“Netflix had begun editing old episodes of Stranger Things to retroactively improve their visual effects.” What is the purpose of this example used in the passage?
Option C is the correct answer.
The passage highlights that the practice of streaming services, like Netflix, editing old episodes of Stranger Things retroactively raised concerns. Altering a popular show’s content without consent or transparency supports the concern that such platforms can tamper with or erase parts of culture at their discretion rather than preserve them as they were originally created.
Option A: This option doesn't fully address the specific concern raised by the Stranger Things editing example. The example focuses on altering the content, not controlling access.
Option B: The example concerns the possibility and practice of editing content on streaming platforms, not whether unsubstantiated reports cause distrust.
Option D: The example of Stranger Things is not necessarily about changing films to suit new tastes or technology. Rather, it’s about the platform’s ability to alter existing content without transparency or input from the original creators.
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