CMAT Reading Comprehension Questions

Read the following passage and answer the question that follow:

Urbanization - the demographic shift from country to city - began with industrialization, and it has not let up. In 1900, fewer than 15 percent of the world’s population lived in cities. Fifty years later, that number had doubled to 30 percent of the world’s population of 750 million. By 2000, 2.9 billion people, or 47 percent of the world’s population, were living in urban areas, with the greatest growth occurring in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. In 2007, for the first time in history, the urban population exceeded 50 percent, and by 2050, according to World Health Organization (WHO), seven out of ten people will call urban areas home….

Contrary to common belief, fewer than 10 percent of urban dwellers are residents of megacities with populations of over ten million. A megacity consists of the city proper and its adjoining suburban centers. An example is the New York-Newark aggregation, which in 1950 was the world’s only megacity; by 2011, it was the sixth largest of 21 megacities. The population of Greater Tokyo, the world’s largest urban area and home to 36.7 million residents, is forecast to exceed 37 million by 2020.Megaciites Mumbai, Delhi, Dhaka, and Lagos, which do not yet appear on the Top Ten list, are steadily moving up the ladder. About half of the world’s urban dwellers live in cities of under half a million people, and these cities continue to outpace megacities in growth.

While the benefits of developed infrastructure, public transportation system, employment opportunities, better health care, and education, plus a wide range of services, make cities the place to live, work, and enjoy, they are plagued with enormous problems. As engines of growth, cities have also become engines of pollution, traffic congestion, waste production, and environmental destruction….

In the 1960s, the concept of urban ecology emerged from the growing awareness of cities’ impact on the environment. In 1975, the nonprofit organization Urban Ecology was founded in Berkeley, California, with the purpose of rebuilding cities in balance with nature. The 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro established Agenda 21, a plan for the sustainable development of cities, and in 2002, 1,200 representatives (including 200 slum dwellers) from 80 countries participated in the first World Urban Forum, making urban ecology and sustainable eco-cities based on environment, economy, education, equity more than just a nice idea.

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Philosophy of Education is a label applied to the study of the purpose, process, nature and ideals of education. It can be considered a branch of both philosophy and education. Education can be defined as the teaching and learning of specific skills and imparting of knowledge, judgment and wisdom, is something broader than the societal institution of education we often speak of.

Many educationalists consider it a weak and woolly field, too far removed from the practical applications of the real world to be useful. But philosophers dating back to Plato and the Ancient Greeks have given the area much thought and emphasis, and there is little doubt that their work has helped shape the practice of education over the millennia.

Plato is the earliest important educational thinker, and education is an essential element in "The Republic" (his most important work on philosophy and political theory, written around 360 B.C.). In it, he advocates some rather extreme methods: removing children from their mothers' care and raising them as wards of the state, and differentiating children suitable to the various castes, the highest receiving the most education, so that they could act as guardians of the city and care for the less able. He believed that education should be holistic, including facts, skills, physical discipline, music and art. Plato believed that talent and intelligence is not distributed genetically and thus is to be found in children born to all classes, although his proposed system of selective public education for an educated minority of the population does not really follow a democratic model.

Aristotle considered human nature, habit and reason to be equally important forces to be cultivated in education, the ultimate aim of which should be to produce good and virtuous citizens. He proposed that teachers lead their students systematically, and that repetition be used as a key tool to develop good habits, unlike Socrates’ emphasis on questioning his listeners to bring out their own ideas. He emphasized the balancing of the theoretical and practical aspects of subjects taught, among which he explicitly mentions reading, writing, mathematics, music, physical education,literature, history, and a wide range of sciences, as well as play, which he also considered important.

During the Medieval period, the idea of Perennialism was first formulated by St. Thomas Aquinas in his work "De Magistro". Perennialism holds that one should teach those things deemed to be of everlasting importance to all people everywhere, namely principles and reasoning, not just facts (which are apt to change over time), and that one should teach first about people, not machines or techniques. It was originally religious in nature, and it was only much later that a theory of secular perennialism developed.

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Few doctor have any time for the study of philosophy, for their profession is an exacting one, and it is all they can do to keep abreast of its advances. What is true of Medical Science is also true of the whole civilized world. Men at present are so engrossed in their various occupations, in manufacturing goods, in buying and selling, in accumulating wealth or in struggling merely to maintain themselves that they have no time left to wonder what living is all about.

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Education is not only an instrument for enhancing efficiency but also an effective tool of augmenting and widening democratic participation and upgrading the overall quality of individual and society. India has a vast population and to capture the potential demographic dividend to remove the acute regional, social and gender imbalances. the government is committed to make concerted efforts for improving the quality of education as mere quantitative expansion will not deliver the desired results in view of the fast changing domestic and global scenario.

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The human body is nothing but a set of chemical reactions in some form or the other. The religious scriptures believe that man was made out of the image of the creator of the universe. Does this mean that Oxygen was pumped into the human body and carbon dioxide pumped out to create this being? Is life just the process of oxygenation and decarburization? If the human body is managed by these two processes, then we can safely believe that life came into existence due to these chemical reactions. The highly complex chemicals compounds present in the human body are not evident in lower animals or plants. These substances were born because of the synthesis of other smaller molecules.

A large number of recognized chemicals has been observed and provedto be involved in the transmission of impulses from one tissue or cell to another. Some examples of such chemicals are adrenaline, dopamine, acetylcholine, endorphins and encephalin. The increase or decrease of any one of these chemicals, interferes with the normal functioning of cells and tissues. This creates diseases in the body, and the restoration of their supply cures the diseases. The deficiency of acetylcholine leads to Alzheimer’s disease, while a decrease in dopamine leads to Parkinson’s disease and its increase causes schizophrenia, a mental disorder. Endorphins and encephalon work like a drug to produce sensations like pleasure and reduce pain. In depressed persons, lower levels of serotonin and adrenaline are observed. Exercise and meditation help release endorphins in order to produce a scene of calmness and pleasure. As for love, the brain releases a chemical substance called phenyl ethylene which acts like an amphetamineto increase mental alertness and physical energy. People with low levels of these chemicals develop a craving for foods such as chocolates, which are rich in such compounds.

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Our government has taken/ propose a number of major initiatives during the eleventh Five Year Plan. Some of the new initiative in the school and literacy sector and higher and technical education sector include : right of children to free and compulsory education, launching a Saakshar Bharat, ICT in secondary school and in open and distance learning. evolving a national curriculum framework for teacher education, examination reform in accordance with NCF- 2005, introducing a system of replacement of marks by grades at the secondary stage in school affiliated to CBSE. recommendation of Yash Pal Committee and National Knowledge Commission, establishment of 14 innovation Universities aiming at world class standards, setting up 10 new national institutes of technology. launching of new scheme of interest. subsidy on educational loan taken for professional courses by the economically weaker students, scheme for setting up of 374 model degree colleges in districts, 150 women’s hostels for women of weaker sections and minorities, academic reforms like semester system, choice based credit system, regular revision of syllabi, impetus to research etc.

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Human beings are connected at the level of feeling and emotion: in such a degree that there is practically a subterranean network of the psyche in which some encounters are damaging, some nourishing. This emotional exchange is typically at a subtle. almost imperceptible level. The way a colleague says ‘thank you’ can leave one feeling ignored, resented or genuinely welcomed and appreciated. We catch feelings from one another as though they were some kind of social virus. Every space is full of emotional signals and every time people connect, they transmit and receive those signals. These emotional encounters have an effect on all the people in that particular circle. Those who are socially skillful can control these emotional messages. A civil and polite society is able to regulate and control these emotional relationships in less damaging ways. The Emotional Quotient of a society is the sum total of the emotional intelligence of its citizens. When we compliment others for being considerate, we are actually acknowledging their emotional intelligence. The company of such people is a relaxing experience and they are a valuable and enriching presence in any society. Whether we like it or not, we are all interdependent in terms of our feelings and emotions and our emotional intelligence form the framework of society.

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The reformer must know that what moves people is the authentic life, not mere writing. The newspaper and journals that Tilak and other reformers ran, the books they wrote, sold little, but had an enormous effect. Their writing was known to reflect and be just an extension of, their exemplary lives. It was the authenticity of their lives which lent weight to their message, to their example. All knew that their lives were an integral whole - they were not moral in public life and lacking in private, not vice versa. They were not full of pious thoughts and sacred resolutions within the walls of a temple.

A writer who is merely entertaining his readers, even one who is merely informing them, can do what he wants with the rest of his life. But the writer, who sets out to use his pen to reform public life, can not afford such dualities. Here is the testimony of one great man - about the influence of another, Lokmanya Tilak.

“I believe that an editor who has anything worth saying and who commands a clientele cannot easily be hushed. He delivered his finished message as soon as he is put under duress. Tilak spoke more eloquently from the Mandalay fortress than through columns of the printed Kesari. His influence was multiplied a thousandfold by his imprisonment and his speech and his pen had acquired much greater power after he was discharged than before his imprisonment. By his death we have been editing his paper without pen and speech through the sacred resolution of the people to realize his life’s dream.

He could possibly have done more if he were today in flesh preaching his view. Critics like me would perhaps be still finding fault in the expression of this or that. Today, his message rules millions of hearts which are determined to raise permanent a living memorial by the fulfilment of his ambition in their lives”.

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Steve Jobs was an enigma. He was quirky. I would like to share a few little known facts about the man who pretty much changed the world with one small technological device. Steve Jobs liked to work bare foot (even while in corporate environments and during million dollar negotiations). He was vegan and often went on diets where he would only eat orange things. He was a Zen Buddhist and extensively travelled India during his youth. He was such a perfectionist that there was a period when he had no furniture in his house at all, because he could not decide what to buy. He used to read his favourite book of all time, every single year 'Autobiography of a yogi, by Paramhansa Yogananda. This man was not affraid to be himself. "Remembering that I'll be dead soon, is the most imporatant tool, I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Almost everything ... all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrasment or failure ... these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truely important" Jobs, used to say "Remenbering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason, not to follow your heart. No one wants to die. Even people who wants to go to heaven, do not want to die to get there. And yet, death is the destination, we all share. No one has ever escaped it, and that is how it should be, because death is very likely the single best invention of life. It is life's change agent It clears out the old to make way for the new."

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An endangered language is one that is likely to become extinct in the near future. Many languages are falling out of use and being replaced by others that are more widely used in the region or nation, such as English in the U.S. or Spanish in Mexico. Unless current trends are reversed, these endangered languages will become extinct within the next century. Many other languages are no longer being learned by new generations of children or by new adult speakers ; these languages will become extinct when their last speaker dies. Infact, dozens of languages today have only one native speaker still living, and that person's death will mean the extinction of the language : It will no longer be spoken, or known, by anyone. Ancient Greek and Latin languages are considered dead because they are no longer spoken in the form in which we find them in ancient writings. But they weren't abruptly replaced by other languages ; instead, Ancient Greek slowly evolved into modem Greek, and Latin slowly evolved into modem Italian, Spanish, French, Romanian, and other languages. In the same way, the Middle English of Chauceis day is no longer spoken, but it has evolved into Modern English

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There are no World Trade Organisation (WTO) definitions of "developed" and "developing" countries. Members announce for themselves whether they are "developed" or "developing" countries. However, other members can challenge the decision of a member to make use of provisions available to developing countries. Developing country status in the WTO brings certain rights. There are for example provisions in some WTO Agreements which provide developing countries with longer transaction periods before they are required to fully implement the agreement and developing countries can receive technical assistance. That a WTO member announces itself as a developing country does not automatically mean that it will benefit from the unilateral preference schemes of some of the developed country members such as the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP). In practice, it is the preference giving country which decides the list of developing countries.

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When a child is born, her first connection to the world is established through her mother, or in a broader sense, her parents. An infant sees the world through her parent's eyes ; she tries to imbibe everything she recognises in her parents. Thus, a parent-child relationship lays the foundation of the 'building of her life'. Parenting is the bringing up of a child. It is like the nourishment that is necessary for a sapling to grow into a big and fruitful tree. Hence, for a child to grow into a wonderful human being, good parenting is essential. Parenting styles vary from culture to culture. The world is a big place comprising of a variety of people having different ways of living. Although culture is the key ingredient, the economic situation and standard of living also have an impact on parenting. While there are a common set of values in different cultures like honesty and integrity, the value system stands divided on some of the major facets of parenting, exemplified by the comparison of the Indian style with that of the West.

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Passage IV
Smokejumpers are often asked to address to organizations and the public groups about the importance of fire
protection, particularly fire deterrence and detection. Because smoke detectors reduce the risk of dying in a fire by half, smokejumpers often provide audiences with information on how to fix these protective devices in their homes. Specifically, they tell them these things: A smoke detector should be placed on each floor of a home. While sleeping, people are in particular risk of a surfacing fire, and there must be a detector outside each sleeping area. A good site for a detector would be a hallway that runs between living spaces and bedrooms. Because of the dead-air space that might be missed by turbulent hot air bouncing around above a fire, smoke detectors should be installed either on the ceiling at least four inches from the adjoining wall, or high on a wall at least four, but no further than twelve, inches from the ceiling. Detectors should not be mounted near windows, exterior doors, or other places where drafts might direct the smoke away from the unit. Nor should they be placed in kitchens and garages, where cooking and gas fumes are likely to cause bogus alarms.

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Passage IV
Excerpt from Delhi Daily

‘Delhi Belly’ restaurant provides a dining experience like no other! A rustic atmosphere, along with delicious
food, it provides an opportunity to soak up the local flavor. Recently relocated to the old market area, Delhi
Belly is especially popular for lunch. At the counter, you can place your order for one of Delhi Belly’s three daily lunch specials or one of several Delhi snacks, all at reasonable prices. Once you get your food, choose a seat at one of the four charming communal tables. By the time you are ready to carry your leaf plate to the trash bin, you have experienced some of the best food and one of the most charming companies our city has to offer.
Restaurant review

Yesterday, I was exposed to what has been called “a dining experience like no other.”At lunchtime, Delhi Belly
is so crowded; I wondered when the authorities had last visited the establishment. The line snaked out of the
door to the corner, and by the time I reached the counter, I was freezing. I decided on the ‘Delhi Belly lunch
special’. It turned out to be the blandest food I have ever eaten. At Delhi Belly, you sit at one of four long tables. The couple sitting across from me was having an argument. The truck driver next to me told me more than I wanted to know about highway taxes. After I had tasted all of the food on my plate, I rose to leave, whereupon one of the people working behind the counter yelled at me to clean up after myself. Throwing away that plate of food was the most enjoyable part of dining at Delhi Belly.

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Passage I
I once made a statement in a room full of college students that the most important thing a young person could
acquire in college might be a sense of her own limitations. I realised when I said it that it was not a very
fashionable thing to say. Popular books on how to therapy, stress the glorious potential of every human being
and urge us to accept ourselves, finally, as being only a little lower than the angels. I heartily approve of any celebration of human potential, but I believe that we must acknowledge our potential for limitless evil as well. We must understand what we can do in the way of evil before we can even pretend to be good. This is the
beginning of morality, the psychological or spiritual or, in a religious tradition, the mythical basis that makes morality possible. One of the most moral book of the past century is Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, because Conrad faces the problem of evil in people. He tells us that we must recognize in ourselves the ability to put the head of our enemy on stick and dance around a fire with it, and only when we recognize that can we even begin to deal with any moral question at all. Students who have been nourished on pop psychology and told “I’ m O.K.” have some trouble dealing with Conrad, and some of them regard him as perverse.
I am amazed at the number of educated people who believe that we are somehow better , more moral, than our
ancestors were. I have seen otherwise intelligent people grow red in the face at the suggestion that human
beings are not better now - less cruel , more considerate , less animalistic , more humane- than they were when
Nero ruled Rome or when the Pharaohs ruled Egypt or , when the Druids at Stonehenge readied their sacrifices.
In one way we are more likely to have become dull to our potential for evil (and so discover it suddenly and with disastrous consequences) today than we were a few centuries ago. This is because we actively suppress the
kind of self-knowledge that makes intelligent moral decisions possible. Sin and guilt are such old -fashioned
terms that most of us are embarrassed by the very words.

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Passage I
All of us play but we are not athletes. We are homo ludens (Latin for play) and our playfulness is unproductive. But athletes play for profit and contest for prizes. It is the transformation of our play and games into athletics that leads to medals. What makes Haryana such a fine place for athletics in India? With barely 2% of India's population, people from Haryana won around 40% of the gold medals in the recently concluded CWG 2010.
People in Haryana tend to count the gold medals of the Hyderabadi shuttler, Saina Nehwal and the
Delhi wrestler, Sushil Kumar, in their tally. This is because both of them are Jats. People of this dominant caste form more than 20% of Haryana's population and, therefore, in popular perception, Haryana is Jat-land. All sports are oriented towards the Olympic slogan 'higher, faster, and stronger’. But the ones in which Haryana got medals stand for plain force and aggression like wrestling, boxing and shooting. Anthropologists call them contact sports because the opponents have bodily contact in them. Shooting is a combative sport because opponents use a combat weapon. Such sports are a substitute of war or training for it.
Haryana is India's pride in contact and combative games. I can think of t hree reasons for it, viz.
historical geography, peasant culture of perseverance and a feeble government policy. Firstly, the province has
a volatile history of continuous aggression due to its geographical location on the frontier. Secondly, the people of Haryana have valued physical strength and perseverance due to its peasant culture. Thirdly, the sports policy since 2006 has honed the killer athletic spirit in Haryana. The half-hearted policy does not create achievers but supports the successful ones among them. Punjab was divided on religious lines in 1947. The non-Sikh majority parts of this truncated Punjab were constituted as Haryana in 1966. Like a horseshoe, Haryana encircles Delhi from three sides and the culture of both is similar. At the popular level, people are rough and tough - meaning 'rough by tongue and tough in body'. In the medieval times, Haryana flourished when weak rulers ruled Delhi.
Most of the area remained under Delhi's tutelage but small principalities also dotted the arid
landscape of Haryana. Mostly, people of the region joined the Mughals and Marathas in repulsing invaders. But
the same locals did not mind plundering Delhi or looting the retreating armies sometimes. The British
colonialists expanded from the east. They conquered most of India with the help of soldiers from western UP
and Bihar. But, in the late 19th century, the colonial strategists honored ordinary peasant castes by calling them 'martial races' in united Punjab. This was a clever way of taming the aggression in this frontier region.
This smart move was also to recruit rural Punjabis in the colonial army so that they could be used
to thwart the southward expansion of Tsarist Russia. There is a family resemblance between military/hunting
activities and wrestling, shooting, races, riding or archery. For the military serving population of Haryana,
therefore, such sports come easily. Secondly, before the advent of machinery, agriculture was a backbreaking
occupation. The size of agricultural income had a direct relation with the quantity of sweat produced during
one's toil.

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Passage II
Science made some progress in the middle Ages but the spirit of modern science was born with the
Renaissance. Science in the middle ages struggled against restrictions and there were many fetters to be
destroyed before it could continue unhampered. Superstitions were common and to the masses were much
more acceptable then were scientific explanations. The Renaissance brought about an interest in all things
pertaining to men and the thirst for new achievements led to a critical observation of natural phenomena. The
spirit of learning was manifested in science. Scientists of the 16th century made the first effective protest
against the medieval scientific method of accepting theories before investigation had verified them. Francis
Bacon pointed out that classical scientific conclusions did not represent mature knowledge and implored men to
explore the realms of nature. Descartes brought out the necessity of questioning everything. He was the
forerunner of science.

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Passage III
How can an organization’s sales operations be improved? One of the keys to becoming more effective is to first determine the type of “selling process” which needs to be used. In other words, the role the salesperson must play has to be identified. 

There are three different processes sales staff can adopt: narrative, suggestive and consultative. The narrative approach depends on the salesperson moving quickly into a standardized presentation. Every buyer receives the same presentation. Emphasis is on highlighting benefits and how the product or service can help the buyer. This is an effective approach if the buying motive for all customers is the same. This process is well suited where there are a great number of prospectuses to be called on.

The suggestive approach depends on the seller being in a position to offer alternative recommendations. This is quite different from the narrative approach as the presentation is tailored to the individual customer. Here, the salesperson must initiate some discussion in order to get the buyer in a positive frame of mind.

An example of this process would be a restaurant wine steward who has checked with the waiter what food the customer has ordered and then opens by saying that either “this or that” particular wine would go best with the food ordered. This is an excellent approach where one doesn’t have much time with the customer but is able to acquire some basic information and then offer a particular recommendation. This process is well suited for products and services. However, it does require the salesperson to acquire basic information from the customer before moving on to the presentation.

The consultative approach requires the salesperson to have a thorough understanding of the customer and what the customer is trying to achieve. The role of the salesperson is to become an adviser or consultant and she must acquire a great deal of information from the customer. With this information, the salesperson can plan what to offer the customer. In this case, the salesperson must tailor the presentation to highlight how the salesperson’s product or service can be of help. This approach will usually require a number of sales calls as the buying process may be complex. The consultative approach requires a wide variety of skills, including probing, listening, analysis, creativity and persuasiveness. 

The other two approaches typically require fewer skills. Hiring, training, motivating and rewarding sales people needs to be linked to the type of sales process being used and this is where the problem starts. 

Many organizations, which should be using a consultative approach, use a narrative approach. They use standardized methods and do not tailor presentations to individual customers. You see this in many industries. When this is the case, price becomes a key criterion for the customer. 

A key issue in developing a professional sales organization is first establishing the sales process. When that decision has been made, all other sales decision, including hiring, training and rewards can be linked to it.

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Passage II
Putting a final lid on the Planning era, the Niti Aayog is gearing up to launch the three-year action plan
from April 1 after the end of 12th Five Year Plan on March 31.
Under the new system, sources said states will be encouraged to meet the targets of various schemes or
face the prospects of drying up of the fund flows.
“The 12th five years plan is coming to an end on March 31. The three-year action plan to be unveiled this
month will come in force from April 1, which will also end the prevailing system of the centre patiently waiting (for) the state governments to implement the schemes.
“Now, you either meet the target or you will face the prospects of the fund flow drying up,” a senior
Niti Aayog official said.
The official said ,“We have patiently waited for the state governments to adopt a number of reform oriented legislative bills. But our experiences have largely been negative... therefore, the reform agenda arrived
at after consensus will need to be adopted by them, and the states doing so will get incentives”.
Niti Aayog has also been entrusted the work on the 15-year Vision Document and a seven year
strategy, which would guide the government’s development works till 2030.

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Passage III
Twenty years ago on Thursday, Moscow started what it thought would be a "blitzkrieg" against
secular separatists in Chechnya, a tiny, oil-rich province in Russia's North Caucasus region that had declared its independence.

But the first Chechen war became Russia's Vietnam; the second war was declared a victory only in
2009. The two conflicts have reshaped Russia, Chechnya, their rulers - and those who oppose them. In 1994, shortly after Moscow invaded Chechnya in an effort to restore its territorial integrity, Akhmad Kadyrov, a bearded, barrel-chested Muslim scholar turned guerrilla commander, declared jihad on all Russians and said each Chechen should kill at least 150 of them.

That was the proportion of the populations on each side of the conflict: some 150 million Russians
and less than a million Chechens in a small, landlocked province, which the separatists wanted to carve out of Russia. Western media and politicians dubbed the Chechens "freedom fighters" - an army of Davids fighting the Russian Goliath.

Moscow was lambasted internationally for disproportionate use of force and rolling back on the
democratic freedoms that former leader Boris Yeltsin was so eager to introduce after the 1991 Soviet Union collapse. Tens of thousands died amid atrocities committed by both sides - and many more were displaced before 1996, when the Russians retreated, leaving Chechnya essentially independent. Retreating was a humiliation for Russia's military machine that less than a decade earlier had presented a seemingly formidable threat to the entire Western world.