Main Idea - 1 (Short Text)

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The Chinese also speak of a great thing (the greatest thing) called the Tao. It is the reality beyond all predicates, the abyss that was before the Creator Himself. It is Nature, it is the way, the road. It is the way in which the universe goes on, the way in which things everlastingly emerge, stilly and tranquilly, into space and time. It is also the way which every man should tread in imitation of that cosmic and supercosmic progression, conforming all activities to that great exemplar. 'In ritual,' say the Analects, 'it is harmony with Nature that is prized'. The ancient Jews likewise praise the law as being 'true.'

What is the theme of the passage?

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The lesson for the rest of the world, especially India, is that there can be no 'free' trade with the US. America, the biggest champion of free trade for most part of the century is turning protectionist. The US continues still to be one of the most trade friendly countries in the world. But one thing is clear if India wishes to continue to have access to the American market, it will have to give concessions in return. The Chinese have fought for several months, surrendering a lot to the Americans. So long as you are a small fry in the world trade market responsible for a small fraction of American trade deficit or better still a net importer of US goods, you are safe. The big brother won't bully you. But the moment you are seen to be getting big, the axe will fall.

What is the theme of the passage?

Directions: The short passage below is followed by a question based on its content. Answer the question on the basis of what is stated or implied in the passage.

The message in the form of numerical data came to the Inca on pieces of string called quipus. The quipu only records numbers (as knots arranged like our decimal system) and I would dearly like to say, as a mathematician, that numbers are as informative and human a symbolism as words; but they are not. The numbers that described the life of a man in Peru were collected on a kind of punched card in reverse, a Braille computer card laid out as a knotted piece of string. When he married, the piece of string was moved to another place in the kinship bundle. Everything that was stored in the Inca's armies, granaries and warehouses was noted on these quipus. The fact is that Peru was already the dreaded metropolis of the future, the memory stone in which an empire lists the acts of every citizen, sustains him, assigns him his labors, and puts it all down impersonally as number.

What is the theme of the passage?

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It remains to explain what this separation is, this disengaging of consciousness which conditions every negation. If we consider the prior consciousness envisaged as motivation, we see suddenly and evidently that nothing has just slipped in between that state and the present state. There has been no break in continuity within the flux of the temporal development, for that would force us to return to the inadmissible concept of the infinite divisibility of time and of the temporal point or instant as the limit of the division. Neither has there been an abrupt interpolation of an opaque element to separate prior from subsequent in the way that a knife blade cuts a piece of fruit in two.

What is the theme of the passage?

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All over India tenants from all walks of life and particularly bureaucrats and politicians have bought their rented premises from the owners for a pittance in distress sale. Who is the gainer? Only the treacherous tenants. If an inquiry is ordered in all such cases the Government can gain millions of rupees by correctly assessing the market price and then charge the transfer fees. These laws have created mind boggling black money in the shape of pagri. There is no need for any rent laws. No person should occupy or continue to occupy any premises without a proper agreement with the owner. Unauthorized occupation should be made a criminal offence just as bouncing of cheques has been made. The police should be given the powers as in the USA to throw out the belongings of a person who is an unauthorized occupant.

The passage is

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Do you have difficulty keeping resolutions? Do you ever feel overwhelmed by a goal? Many people have unrealistic expectations of what they can accomplish within a period of time. The problem is that they usually have taken on too many responsibilities at once. Does this ever happen to you? You find yourself rushing around each day in order to get projects done.
In order to achieve success with your goals you need to narrow your scope of how many projects you can take on at a time. This requires prioritizing. In order to prioritize you must first get clear on what it is you truly want to achieve. When you pursue a goal you make a decision to put a certain amount of time, energy and effort into an endeavor. If that goal is not in line with what you truly want, you may find your inner self unconsciously sabotaging your efforts in some way.

What is the theme of the passage?

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Intelligence probably depends on the efficiency of the electrical circuits in the brain, on being able to try out many connections quickly and select the best. Like memory, intelligence will probably be susceptible to improvement by drugs: the idea of an intelligence pill has been suggested so often that it is becoming more than a joke. We are unlikely ever to produce a drug for transforming a moron into a genius but a pill to improve intelligence may well be feasible. Rats clever at threading mazes apparently have more cholinesterase in their brains than duller rats; so intelligent and dull humans may have significant differences in the chemical compositions of their brain fluids. If so, the dull ones might be much brighter with the right mixture.

What is the theme of the passage?

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The very act of placing our assets in the hands of other people requires immense trust. An untrustworthy stockbroker or insurance agent, like an untrustworthy physician or attorney, finds few takers for his or her services. Financial scandals shock us precisely because they involve people and institutions that we should be able to trust. Finance is not a clearly identifiable occupation or profession and involves a highly technical body of knowledge, but people who are trained in finance engage in a much wider range of activities. Accountants, by contrast, do much the same work in every setting, and the different accounting functions — public and management accounting or external and internal auditing — raise similar ethical problems that can be identified and addressed in a code of ethics.

What is the primary purpose of the passage?

Directions: The short passage below is followed by a question based on its content. Answer the question on the basis of what is stated or implied in the passage.

Year by year this contrast with the past becomes more marked as, I think, every college teacher, everyone who is brought into contact with the development of thoughtful young men and women, must note. For nearly twenty years I have been giving a course on the history of religions. I remember with what hesitancy and with what precaution, in the first years of my teaching, I turned from China, India, and Persia, and approached the religion of the Old Testament. The transition had to be made with all the sympathetic skill I could muster; and never a year went by but some of my students came to me after sleepless nights, wearied with inner struggle, sometimes with indignant voices, to talk out, after class, the implications involved in the Higher Criticism and in the attempt to deal with the Hebrew religion in the same historical light as we had studied Hinduism and Buddhism. All this is change now.

Which of the following options best represents the theme of the passage?

Directions: The short passage below is followed by a question based on its content. Answer the question on the basis of what is stated or implied in the passage.

One of our hopes for the New Year is that Congress and the Bush administration will jointly and urgently address the manifold problems plaguing America's coastal waters. Two important panels, one private, one commissioned by Congress itself, have warned that the oceans simply cannot sustain prolonged abuse from industrial and recreational overfishing, from unchecked coastal development as well as polluted agricultural and urban runoff. Last month the White House released its formal response to the findings of the Congressional commission. The most that can be said about this 39-page report is that it is earnest; a summons to the barricades it is not. Though billed as an action plan, the report is actually an invitation to paralysis by analysis, calling for more committees and more research into problems that have been committee-ed and researched to death.
We do not, for instance, need more science to tell us that industrial fishing has strip-mined the oceans of valuable fish species, that pollution is killing coral reefs and causing dead zones in the Gulf of Mexico. What we need are concrete regulatory initiatives to discipline the commercial fishing industry (letting scientists, not fishermen, set quotas), to control residential development, reform farming practices and provide enough money to get the job done.

What is the primary purpose of the passage?

What, according to you, would be the appropriate title of the passage?

Directions: The short passage below is followed by a question based on its content. Answer the question on the basis of what is stated or implied in the passage.

Many of you have long experienced in your manufacturing operations the advantages of substantial, well-contrived, and well-executed machinery.
Experience has also shown you the difference of the results between mechanism which is    neat, clean, well arranged, and always in a high state of repair; and that which is allowed to be dirty, in disorder, and without the means of preventing unnecessary friction, and which therefore becomes, and works, much out of repair. In the first case the whole economy and management are good, every operation proceeds with ease, order, and success.
In the last, the reverse must follow, and dissatisfaction among all the agents and instruments interested or occupied in the general process, which cannot fail to create great loss.
If, then, due care as to the state of your inanimate machines can produce such beneficial results, what may not be expected if you devote equal attention to your vital machines, which are far more wonderfully constructed?
When you shall acquire a right knowledge of these, of their curious mechanism, of their self-adjusting powers; when the proper mainspring shall be applied to their various movements— you will become conscious of their real value, and you will readily be induced to turn your thoughts more frequently from your inanimate to your living machines; and you will discover that the latter may be easily trained and directed to procure a large increase of pecuniary gain, while you may also derive from them a high and substantial satisfaction.

What is the central point made out in the passage?

Directions: The short passage below is followed by a question based on its content. Answer the question on the basis of what is stated or implied in the passage.

Many of you have long experienced in your manufacturing operations the advantages of substantial, well-contrived, and well-executed machinery.
Experience has also shown you the difference of the results between mechanism which is    neat, clean, well arranged, and always in a high state of repair; and that which is allowed to be dirty, in disorder, and without the means of preventing unnecessary friction, and which therefore becomes, and works, much out of repair. In the first case the whole economy and management are good, every operation proceeds with ease, order, and success.
In the last, the reverse must follow, and dissatisfaction among all the agents and instruments interested or occupied in the general process, which cannot fail to create great loss.
If, then, due care as to the state of your inanimate machines can produce such beneficial results, what may not be expected if you devote equal attention to your vital machines, which are far more wonderfully constructed?
When you shall acquire a right knowledge of these, of their curious mechanism, of their self-adjusting powers; when the proper mainspring shall be applied to their various movements— you will become conscious of their real value, and you will readily be induced to turn your thoughts more frequently from your inanimate to your living machines; and you will discover that the latter may be easily trained and directed to procure a large increase of pecuniary gain, while you may also derive from them a high and substantial satisfaction.