Advanced Reading Comprehension

What is the author least likely to agree with?

Directions: Answer the question based on the following passage.

Fashion, much like the society that it is an integral part of, is an ever evolving organism with many interdependent and complemental roles and myriad rules that are assayed within the framework devised by the numerous constituents of the same. Over the ages, the mindset of allegedly the most intelligent race on the planet has been transfigured sometimes gleefully and with vociferous cries of ayes and at times grudgingly and involuntarily. The movement has sometimes found favor with the teeming multitudes while at others antagonizing a sizable component those that have to be dragged, kicking, screaming and protesting into accepting the writing on the wall about the impermanence of the order of things. What is meat and potatoes for someone turns into over fermented vinegar for others and herein lies both the rub and the beauty of the turn of events. The fifties and sixties were perhaps epitomized by the Wild West, the rough and ready apparel, the Blue Levis, the cocked hat and the loaded gun. People like Clint Eastwood, John Wayne and Gregory Peck came to be the vanguard of the cowboy tribe, the one of frequent brawls and infrequent baths. The seventies are known as ‘Swinging’ not without a legitimate cause. Suddenly, macho was not the only buzz word and with the advent of psychedelic hued clothes (would not be surprised at all if Hawaiian print shirts- the loud ones-made an appearance during this period), headbands, free and universal love, booze, drugs and aspirations of world peace, the fashion scene changed once again. In the backdrop of the ill-fated Vietnam War, it was the on screen rebels like James Dean, the celluloid Mafia dons like Marlon Brando and Al Pacino that stole the thunder and ruled the roost. Eighties saw the emergence of cult figures like the Ray-Ban adorned Tom Cruise, Nicholas Cage and Clark Kent as Superman- without the shades but with the addition of a cape. It is really surprising that both hot and cool mean similar things at times even when the trusted dictionary tells us that they are locked in mortal combat. Something that is rakish and swank can and does often turn dowdy faster than one can say the magic word - abracadabra! It is really nothing to get one’s knickers in a twist over when a fashion iconoclast like Farah Fawcett Majors is thought of to be so eighties now. The curl, the wave and the bang, made so famous by the Goldilocks evokes now a sigh of nostalgia in some and a whistle of disbelief in others. Alas, fashion, like the divas that represent it on the promenade, can hardly be called the cornerstone of reliability and dependability, changing moods with the speed and the fickleness of the earth changing moods, the chameleon changing colors, and most aptly, like the models who, in the time between one swirl on the stage and the next pirouette, change clothes so fast that one would be forgiven for harboring the belief that Superman must have taken lessons from them.

How does the author narrate the possible economic scenario?

Directions: Answer the question based on the following passage.

While there is no denying the fact that the world economy is limping out of its worst doldrums faced in the last few decades, a sudden stiff breeze cannot be taken to be the guarantee of the availability of sustainable energy to fill the sails. For starters, nothing can be said with certainty about the system having been decisively purged of the ills that have been plaguing it for the last few years. While many, including the optimists and the salespersons believe and preach that the worst is over, one should not lose sight of another disquieting fact which avers that the gullible will be taken for a ride every time by the unscrupulous elements amongst us. With many a corporate lie exposed, and the financial battlefield littered with the corpses of the erstwhile giants of the arena, one would not be called paranoid if one stopped and tried to read between the lines of the statements of capital bonhomie given by the ones with an axe to grind and with smiles that never reach their eyes.

While the postulations of the happy-go-lucky and those of the doomsday conspirators gyrate wildly between the two extremes, there can be no doubt that any of the two extremes, and many, many intervening scenarios are possible and perhaps all that it will take for the fickle beast to turn either way will be such a small trigger that might just go unnoticed till the time its repercussions hit us with gale force. A major impediment sometimes in reading the writing on the wall is not the inability to read, but the sheer mule headedness in not acknowledging the same. For starters, the lack of connect with old times and time tested values has proven to be the waterloo of many individuals and institutions and one of the fundamental rules is to stay solvent. With the economies across the developed world teetering on the brink, the political masters and bureaucrats are scrambling to provide fiscal stimuli in an almost vain hope of finding a silver bullet for the werewolf prowling on the horizon. With interest rates at their lowest ebb, the powers-that-be are borrowing heavily in order to prop up the faltering businesses in the hope that someday, when things get better, the debtors will be knocking the doors down in a mad stampede to repay their financial obligations. All is hunky dory as long as the story meanders along predictable lines but if there is a default by the retail borrowers going ahead, this David could really bring Goliath down in a jiffy. With everything being felt in rippling after-effects, suddenly the malaise could spread to financial organizations. With them gone, the State could be left hanging in thin air with no safety net. With just one default on the part of the State, an avalanche of redemptions will hit the treasuries and the situation will turn very sticky indeed. If the creditors lose faith in the system, it could result in mass redemptions of the bonds and debentures which, if the state is interested in protecting whatever is left of its dignity, will spark off borrowings at higher rates of interest and that would awaken the scepter of sky-rocketing inflation. What would go up from bottom, will knock down many more dominoes on its way back and the resultant recession might just make the Great Depression look like a jaunt in the park.

What according to the passage is primarily responsible for the present day imbroglio?

Directions: Answer the question based on the following passage.

While there is no denying the fact that the world economy is limping out of its worst doldrums faced in the last few decades, a sudden stiff breeze cannot be taken to be the guarantee of the availability of sustainable energy to fill the sails. For starters, nothing can be said with certainty about the system having been decisively purged of the ills that have been plaguing it for the last few years. While many, including the optimists and the salespersons believe and preach that the worst is over, one should not lose sight of another disquieting fact which avers that the gullible will be taken for a ride every time by the unscrupulous elements amongst us. With many a corporate lie exposed, and the financial battlefield littered with the corpses of the erstwhile giants of the arena, one would not be called paranoid if one stopped and tried to read between the lines of the statements of capital bonhomie given by the ones with an axe to grind and with smiles that never reach their eyes.

While the postulations of the happy-go-lucky and those of the doomsday conspirators gyrate wildly between the two extremes, there can be no doubt that any of the two extremes, and many, many intervening scenarios are possible and perhaps all that it will take for the fickle beast to turn either way will be such a small trigger that might just go unnoticed till the time its repercussions hit us with gale force. A major impediment sometimes in reading the writing on the wall is not the inability to read, but the sheer mule headedness in not acknowledging the same. For starters, the lack of connect with old times and time tested values has proven to be the waterloo of many individuals and institutions and one of the fundamental rules is to stay solvent. With the economies across the developed world teetering on the brink, the political masters and bureaucrats are scrambling to provide fiscal stimuli in an almost vain hope of finding a silver bullet for the werewolf prowling on the horizon. With interest rates at their lowest ebb, the powers-that-be are borrowing heavily in order to prop up the faltering businesses in the hope that someday, when things get better, the debtors will be knocking the doors down in a mad stampede to repay their financial obligations. All is hunky dory as long as the story meanders along predictable lines but if there is a default by the retail borrowers going ahead, this David could really bring Goliath down in a jiffy. With everything being felt in rippling after-effects, suddenly the malaise could spread to financial organizations. With them gone, the State could be left hanging in thin air with no safety net. With just one default on the part of the State, an avalanche of redemptions will hit the treasuries and the situation will turn very sticky indeed. If the creditors lose faith in the system, it could result in mass redemptions of the bonds and debentures which, if the state is interested in protecting whatever is left of its dignity, will spark off borrowings at higher rates of interest and that would awaken the scepter of sky-rocketing inflation. What would go up from bottom, will knock down many more dominoes on its way back and the resultant recession might just make the Great Depression look like a jaunt in the park.

Why does the author use the words, “an almost vain hope of finding a silver bullet for the werewolf prowling on the horizon”?

Directions: Answer the question based on the following passage.

While there is no denying the fact that the world economy is limping out of its worst doldrums faced in the last few decades, a sudden stiff breeze cannot be taken to be the guarantee of the availability of sustainable energy to fill the sails. For starters, nothing can be said with certainty about the system having been decisively purged of the ills that have been plaguing it for the last few years. While many, including the optimists and the salespersons believe and preach that the worst is over, one should not lose sight of another disquieting fact which avers that the gullible will be taken for a ride every time by the unscrupulous elements amongst us. With many a corporate lie exposed, and the financial battlefield littered with the corpses of the erstwhile giants of the arena, one would not be called paranoid if one stopped and tried to read between the lines of the statements of capital bonhomie given by the ones with an axe to grind and with smiles that never reach their eyes.

While the postulations of the happy-go-lucky and those of the doomsday conspirators gyrate wildly between the two extremes, there can be no doubt that any of the two extremes, and many, many intervening scenarios are possible and perhaps all that it will take for the fickle beast to turn either way will be such a small trigger that might just go unnoticed till the time its repercussions hit us with gale force. A major impediment sometimes in reading the writing on the wall is not the inability to read, but the sheer mule headedness in not acknowledging the same. For starters, the lack of connect with old times and time tested values has proven to be the waterloo of many individuals and institutions and one of the fundamental rules is to stay solvent. With the economies across the developed world teetering on the brink, the political masters and bureaucrats are scrambling to provide fiscal stimuli in an almost vain hope of finding a silver bullet for the werewolf prowling on the horizon. With interest rates at their lowest ebb, the powers-that-be are borrowing heavily in order to prop up the faltering businesses in the hope that someday, when things get better, the debtors will be knocking the doors down in a mad stampede to repay their financial obligations. All is hunky dory as long as the story meanders along predictable lines but if there is a default by the retail borrowers going ahead, this David could really bring Goliath down in a jiffy. With everything being felt in rippling after-effects, suddenly the malaise could spread to financial organizations. With them gone, the State could be left hanging in thin air with no safety net. With just one default on the part of the State, an avalanche of redemptions will hit the treasuries and the situation will turn very sticky indeed. If the creditors lose faith in the system, it could result in mass redemptions of the bonds and debentures which, if the state is interested in protecting whatever is left of its dignity, will spark off borrowings at higher rates of interest and that would awaken the scepter of sky-rocketing inflation. What would go up from bottom, will knock down many more dominoes on its way back and the resultant recession might just make the Great Depression look like a jaunt in the park.

All of the following, if true, would be arrows in the bow of the faithful except

Directions: Answer the question based on the following passage.

A simple theory in support of belief is the contention that the onus is on the believer to prove the existence of God, in the absence of which, the atheist is justified in disbelieving and advocating the same. The more forceful and choleric atheists not just hold back from assenting to the presence of God, but actively refute the claims made by theists about a supreme power responsible for creating and controlling the world, as indeed the entire universe. They cite logic to support their claims for the absence of God as evinced from the state of the world around us. While a theist talks of a heavenly kingdom, hell and the yet to come resurrection of the dead, the atheist scoffs at these abstract assertions and claims that the evil that we see around us negates the possibility of the existence of a omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent and perfectly good God. When it is contended by the theists that God not only created the universe, but also supports life and wants only the best for his creations, the atheists take the present state of worldly affairs and hold it like a mirror in the face of theist rhetoric. Consolidating further, the atheists say that while evil is all around us, all pervasive and always in our face, the goodness of the supposedly perfect and perfectly good God is visible only in a few distant patches. Another line of reasoning for the atheist is that if God is perfect, his creations should reflect his perfection, to which the theists reply with the ‘choice of free will’ argument that even though God created humans in his own likeness, he left them with a free will to decide what they want to do and that the evil that we see is a result of our misuse of the freedom. To the charge of the presence of natural evil, the existence of natural calamities, disease et cetera, the theists counter with the explanation that evil must exist to quantify good, that the two are relative and one can’t exist without the other. A similar argument proposed by theists is that evil allows the existence of values and forces that oppose it to exist and opens up avenues for compassion, love, mutual dependence and human kindness. Without suffering and trials, the world will lack such higher planes of consciousness which would make it tawdry in comparison to the world as we know it today.

The passage, on the whole, implies which of the following about human psychological constitution?

Directions: Answer the question based on the following passage.

The best thing that happens when you learn cooking is that the results can be seen within a short period of time as against having to wait for five years or more to find out if you are going to be a lousy lawyer or doctor. Human beings traditionally have not been blessed with great amounts of patience and waiting often turns out to be hardest part of any process, even if the waiting for results part is just a small part of the overall process of ideation, conception, feasibility, initiation and conclusion. Cooking beans is a much more enjoyable and watch-worthy process for most humans than the process of sowing, growing and harvesting them. One could be mistaken for thinking that the entire human race is infected with the Attention Deficit Disorder because of the transient and ephemeral nature of our attention. With so many distractions and delusions that we find ourselves afflicted with, it is not surprising that only something that threatens to fall apart upon us is able to keep us riveted. Food, more specifically, the process of preparing it - specifically for a recent initiate into the arcane world of culinary skills, gives that edge of the seat excitement, that suspense of a Wilbur Smith thriller and that strange mixture of anticipation and dread that threatens to blow us away even while keeping us glued to our seats. Of course, there is a certain amount of ego involved also, as with anything else in life, when we want to prove ourselves better than the best in all walks of life that we choose to walk upon. The difference between a long drawn project and something that will fructify or explode in one’s face (depending upon one’s perspective) in a relatively shorter period of time is mainly of the credibility diffusion and dispersion that the behemoth project offers, where it becomes easy to blame other extraneous factors for a lack of desired outcomes. Given the reasoning in the previous sentence, one would be justified in thinking that because an enterprise offers more avenues of hegira, a vast multitude would be more interested in the pursuit of grandness of scale but when both options are weighed for their pros and cons, attention disorder syndrome wins out because frame-for-frame, it offers more potshots at pursuit of perfection and food, after all, is a deliciously enticing offering.

What according to the author is the secret of enthralling engagements?

Directions: Answer the question based on the following passage.

The best thing that happens when you learn cooking is that the results can be seen within a short period of time as against having to wait for five years or more to find out if you are going to be a lousy lawyer or doctor. Human beings traditionally have not been blessed with great amounts of patience and waiting often turns out to be hardest part of any process, even if the waiting for results part is just a small part of the overall process of ideation, conception, feasibility, initiation and conclusion. Cooking beans is a much more enjoyable and watch-worthy process for most humans than the process of sowing, growing and harvesting them. One could be mistaken for thinking that the entire human race is infected with the Attention Deficit Disorder because of the transient and ephemeral nature of our attention. With so many distractions and delusions that we find ourselves afflicted with, it is not surprising that only something that threatens to fall apart upon us is able to keep us riveted. Food, more specifically, the process of preparing it - specifically for a recent initiate into the arcane world of culinary skills, gives that edge of the seat excitement, that suspense of a Wilbur Smith thriller and that strange mixture of anticipation and dread that threatens to blow us away even while keeping us glued to our seats. Of course, there is a certain amount of ego involved also, as with anything else in life, when we want to prove ourselves better than the best in all walks of life that we choose to walk upon. The difference between a long drawn project and something that will fructify or explode in one’s face (depending upon one’s perspective) in a relatively shorter period of time is mainly of the credibility diffusion and dispersion that the behemoth project offers, where it becomes easy to blame other extraneous factors for a lack of desired outcomes. Given the reasoning in the previous sentence, one would be justified in thinking that because an enterprise offers more avenues of hegira, a vast multitude would be more interested in the pursuit of grandness of scale but when both options are weighed for their pros and cons, attention disorder syndrome wins out because frame-for-frame, it offers more potshots at pursuit of perfection and food, after all, is a deliciously enticing offering.

The above passage is an attempt to:

Directions: Answer the question based on the following passage.

A simple theory in support of belief is the contention that the onus is on the believer to prove the existence of God, in the absence of which, the atheist is justified in disbelieving and advocating the same. The more forceful and choleric atheists not just hold back from assenting to the presence of God, but actively refute the claims made by theists about a supreme power responsible for creating and controlling the world, as indeed the entire universe. They cite logic to support their claims for the absence of God as evinced from the state of the world around us. While a theist talks of a heavenly kingdom, hell and the yet to come resurrection of the dead, the atheist scoffs at these abstract assertions and claims that the evil that we see around us negates the possibility of the existence of a omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent and perfectly good God. When it is contended by the theists that God not only created the universe, but also supports life and wants only the best for his creations, the atheists take the present state of worldly affairs and hold it like a mirror in the face of theist rhetoric. Consolidating further, the atheists say that while evil is all around us, all pervasive and always in our face, the goodness of the supposedly perfect and perfectly good God is visible only in a few distant patches. Another line of reasoning for the atheist is that if God is perfect, his creations should reflect his perfection, to which the theists reply with the ‘choice of free will’ argument that even though God created humans in his own likeness, he left them with a free will to decide what they want to do and that the evil that we see is a result of our misuse of the freedom. To the charge of the presence of natural evil, the existence of natural calamities, disease et cetera, the theists counter with the explanation that evil must exist to quantify good, that the two are relative and one can’t exist without the other. A similar argument proposed by theists is that evil allows the existence of values and forces that oppose it to exist and opens up avenues for compassion, love, mutual dependence and human kindness. Without suffering and trials, the world will lack such higher planes of consciousness which would make it tawdry in comparison to the world as we know it today.

Which of the following statements would explain the phrase “dug its own grave” in the above context?

Directions: Answer the question based on the following passage.

The reduction in personal and corporate tax rates came as a Christmas present for the common man. People believe that high taxes were hindering growth of industry and business and added to the miseries of the common man. The government is not enthused by the public response and feels that in trying to earn public goodwill it has dug its own grave.