General English - 4

It can be inferred from the passage that

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage:

A Close Reading of the Supreme Court's August 6, 2003 judgment in T. K. Rangarajan vs Government of Tamil Nadu and Others shows that the Court has, following in the footsteps of a string of illiberal verdicts on Government servants beginning in 1962, got hold of the wrong end of the stick. The Attorney General for India, Soli Sorabjee, has done a public service by speaking up against the apex court's observation that there was no moral or equitable right to go on strike. Characterising this as "uncalled for" and "beyond comprehension," he has pointed out that the right of collective bargaining, including the right to strike, was an invaluable entitlement of workers and employees won through years of toil and struggle. Further, there could be "horrendous situations in which the employees have no effective mechanism for redressal of their grievances and are left with no option, but to resort to strike." Implicit in this opinion is a distinction between the merits of particular strikes and the legal and moral status of the right to strike. Here is the voice not merely of law and order and the tenets of `strong' governance — but of democratic entitlement and a sense of history. There were two core issues before the two–member bench. The first was the constitutionality, legality and rightness of the summary dismissal of about 170,000 State Government employees in Tamil Nadu under the State's Essential Services Maintenance Act (ESMA), as amended post facto by an ordinance conferring on the Government the divine right of dismissal, without any application of mind and without giving the employees an opportunity to be heard. The second issue was the status of the right of workers and employees to freedom of association and collective bargaining, including the right to agitate and strike.

In response, the apex court resorted to the technique of providing practical relief in place of a determination of the issues of justice. The relief came through the Court's success in pressuring and persuading the Tamil Nadu Government "gracefully" to agree to reinstate the overwhelming majority of the dismissed employees - not unconditionally, of course, but on submission of an apology and an undertaking not to strike or indulge in "similar activities" in future. The Court rightly found fault with the Madras High Court for not properly construing its power under Article 226 of the Constitution (the power of High Courts to issue certain writs) to "exercise its extraordinary jurisdiction to meet [an] unprecedented extraordinary situation having no parallel." Referring to the High Court's totally impractical ruling that over 170,000 employees should first exhaust the "alternative remedy" of going to the one–member State Administrative Tribunal for justice, the Supreme Court found "no justifiable reason for the High Court not to entertain the petitions on the ground of alternative remedy provided under the statute." There is no doubt that getting the Tamil Nadu Government to agree to having three retired High Court Judges decide on the fate of 6072 dismissed or suspended employees within approximately a month is a much better way of providing practical relief than what the High Court offered. The fact that the retired Judges would be nominated by the Chief Justice of the Madras High Court and not by the State Government, that they would decide the representations by the employees without taking into consideration the amended Section 7 of the Act, that the retired Judges' decision would be binding on the State Government, and that aggrieved employees would be free to challenge the decisions before "an appropriate forum" must also be welcomed. However, there is a disturbing implication in the double standards that apply to Ministers and ordinary Government employees facing criminal proceedings. It is unfortunate that the Supreme Court has not ruled against the injustice in the Tamil Nadu Government's stand that 6072 employees could not claim "a right to be reinstated" because First Information Reports (FIRs) - which merely set the investigative ball in motion — had purportedly been filed by the State police against them. This contrasts glaringly with a situation where powerful politicians in government, at the Centre and in the States, remain in office unfazed by the fact that charge–sheets have been filed against them in grave criminal cases after the investigations have been completed, and charges have even been framed against them, in some cases, by a court of law.

What is most disturbing about the Supreme Court's judgment in the Tamil Nadu Government employees' case is the a–historical, iniquitous and democratically unsustainable position taken against the right to strike as a part of internationally recognised basic democratic rights. At one level, the judgment seems to revolve round the question whether Government employees have a constitutional or statutory right or moral and equitable justification to go on strike. However, the Court's observations in a case relating exclusively to Government employees go well beyond the immediate issues into status quoits absolutism in the social and philosophical domain. Such absolutism flies in the face of modern India's historical experience of worker agitations and strikes, and the assertion of the right to strike — an experience that begins in the late nineteenth century. Not just Communist organisers, but a range of freedom movement leaders supported the right to agitate and strike as an inalienable democratic right of workers and employees. This newspaper, which will soon be celebrating the 125th anniversary of its founding, may be allowed to recall that during the militant 1921 strike by 10,000 workers of the Buckingham & Carnatic Mills in Chennai, its proprietor and Editor, Kasturi Ranga Iyengar, boldly championed their cause - in The Hindu's columns and through direct involvement in the relief and solidarity efforts. The Supreme Court's latest stance contrasts sadly with both the substance and spirit of earlier progressive rights–led rulings by the apex court, delivered by outstanding jurists of the stature of V. R. Krishna Iyer, Y. V. Chandrachud, A. C. Gupta, D. A. Desai, Jagannatha Shetty and A. M. Ahmadi. Contrary to the impression given by the two–member bench's citation of judgments relating to Government employees, the Supreme Court from the early 1960s has generally upheld the justifiability of, and the moral reasons behind, strikes as legitimate actions by the working class. It is this stream of judicial pronouncements that Mr. Sorabjee was drawing on in criticising the Court's new–fangled observation that there was "no moral or equitable right to go on strike." In the recent case, the Court has cited, not always in context, various judgments to the effect that "employees have no fundamental right to strike," that there is no constitutionally guaranteed right to "effective collective bargaining," that strikes cannot be justified "in the present–day situation" either for a "just or unjust cause," and that the strike weapon "does more harm than any justice." If these quotations were to match the ground reality, then India in 2003 could not claim to be a democracy with any kind of regard for its working people. It would be an authoritarian state out of step with the International Labour Organisation's Conventions on "Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise" and "The Application of the Principles of the Right to Organise and to Bargain Collectively", neither of which India has ratified. Undoing the damage done by the Supreme Court's observations in the Tamil Nadu case is the challenge before democratic, political India and it is heartening that the Attorney General has shown the way.

What figure of speech is used by the author to describe the humming bird?

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage:

Central and South America have some of the world’s most unique species of wildlife. Perhaps, some are more familiar than others. Central and South America has many different groups of species, which include: mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish, and insects. These groups of animals need to live in specific types of climates and habitats in order to ensure their survivorship.

South America is the home to some of the strangest, some of the loveliest and some of the most horrifying animals in the world. There can be few creatures more improbable than the sloth which spends its life in a permanent state of mute slow motion, hanging upside down in the tall forest trees: few more bizarre than the giant ant eater of the Savannahs, its tail enlarged into a shaggy banner and its jaws elongated into a curved and toothless tube.  On the other hand, beautiful birds are so common as to become almost unremarkable. Gaudy macaws flap through the forest, their splendid plumage contrasting incongruously with their harsh cries; and humming–birds, like tiny jewels, flit from flower to flower sipping nectar, their iridescent feathers flashing the colors of the rainbow as they fly.

The Amazonian rain forest, in Brazil alone, is the largest rain forest in the world. Many species of mammals, reptiles, amphibians, insects, and birds occupy the canopy of this magnificent rain forest. The iguana lives in the trees high above from the ground. It has flattened sides and a long, strong tail, which gives it balance and stability when it leaps. It also has clawed feet, which allows the iguana to grip branches.

The poison dart frog is a tree frog that secretes poison when it gets attacked. Even a small amount of the toxin can be lethal to humans. Today, South American Indians use the poison to tip their arrowheads before hunting.

What is the main purpose of the passage?

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage:

Mother Teresa will soon become a saint. But this celebration of the divine in a human being has turned out to be as good a moment as any to fight about all the worldly things that usually get fought about in the Balkans: namely, religion, ethnicity and history. The conflict centres on an attempt, so far unsuccessful, to donate a statue of Mother Teresa to the city of Rome. It is a simple enough dispute on one level, but on another, reflects the strains that have made it so hard to stitch together Balkan societies. The tale begins with a solitary fact that no one disputes: Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu, who became the world's most famous Roman Catholic missionary, universally known as Mother Teresa, was born in August 1910 in Skopje. (As for the exact date, some say she was born on Aug. 26, others Aug. 27.) The city was then an especially mixed corner of the Ottoman Empire, home to Turks, Greeks, Serbs, Bulgarians, Macedonians, Gypsies, Jews, Vlachs and Albanians, which is what Mother Teresa always said she was.

After Mother Teresa's death in 1997, one of Macedonia's most famous artists, Tome Serafimovski, fashioned a 9–ft bronze statue of her that now stands in downtown Skopje. As the Vatican moved to make her a saint, Mr. Serafimovski decided to donate a copy to Rome. Its delivery was to coincide with her expected beatification, the last step before sainthood, in October. But then last month, an Albanian newspaper in Skopje, Fakti, carried a sensational scoop: the statue, it reported from Italy, was to have an inscription identifying her as "a Macedonian daughter." Albanian leaders were outraged. This was an attempt, they said, by the Macedonians to claim Mother Teresa as one of their own. The inscription, one Albanian political party charged, "undermines the Albanian national identity and represents usurpation of Mother Teresa's origin." Ethnic Albanians make up perhaps a quarter, though some say a third or more, of Macedonia's 2 million people. (No one knows for certain and, like much else, it is argued over bitterly.) The largest national group here are often considered Slavs. But many Macedonians contend hotly that they are in fact not Slavs, but have descended from ancient Macedonians like Alexander the Great. Whatever their descent, they fought a brief conflict with ethnic Albanians seeking greater political rights in 2001.

Mother Teresa has now emerged as yet another strain in this larger tug of war. What complicates matters further is that she was Roman Catholic, while most Albanians are Muslim, and this has opened a crack for speculation about Mother Teresa's actual ethnic roots. Jasmina Mironski, a prominent Macedonian journalist who has written two books on Mother Teresa, says there is no doubt that Mother Teresa's own mother, Dranafila Bernaj, was an ethnic Albanian. But her father, Nikola Bojaxhiu, was "the tricky combination." She says the "u" that ends his name made him more likely a Vlach, a non–Slavic Orthodox people also called Walachians. Plus, she said, Mother Teresa "didn't speak Albanian, that's for sure. She only knew five words of Albanian." Moreover, her brother's name was Lazar, the name of Serbia's most famous prince. This is heresy to Albanians, who say they have been repeatedly persecuted by Serbs. The debate has leached out from Macedonia to intellectuals in Albania proper, who in July wrote in anger to the Mayor of Rome urging him to resist the effort "to usurp the figure and deeds of Mother Teresa," as well as to Internet chat rooms read by Macedonians around the world. All sides say, naturally, that their only interest is to see Mother Teresa's life celebrated, but with the maximum truth possible.

With the argument still raging, Mayor Risto Penov of Skopje, who is overseeing the donation of the statue, said there was never a plan for an inscription that mentioned a "Macedonian daughter." He said the idea is now the same as it always was, for an inscription that reads simply: "Born Skopje 26 August 1910. Died Calcutta 5 September 1997." "Now we have a person who can put us together again — and we're dividing ourselves," he said. But the editors at Fakti insist their report was right.

Mr. Serafimovski said he has had it with all the bickering. No statue will be donated, he said, until the issue was resolved. He opposes anything that even hints that Mother Teresa was Macedonian (even if he believes her father was Vlach). At Mother Teresa's own order in Skopje, yet another view seemed to prevail about this woman who left Skopje at the age of 18. An Italian nun who declined to be named said that Mother Teresa unquestionably spoke Albanian, among other languages, but felt the strongest affinity with another part of the world entirely.

The Savannahs are found generally in _______.

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage:

Central and South America have some of the world’s most unique species of wildlife. Perhaps, some are more familiar than others. Central and South America has many different groups of species, which include: mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish, and insects. These groups of animals need to live in specific types of climates and habitats in order to ensure their survivorship.

South America is the home to some of the strangest, some of the loveliest and some of the most horrifying animals in the world. There can be few creatures more improbable than the sloth which spends its life in a permanent state of mute slow motion, hanging upside down in the tall forest trees: few more bizarre than the giant ant eater of the Savannahs, its tail enlarged into a shaggy banner and its jaws elongated into a curved and toothless tube.  On the other hand, beautiful birds are so common as to become almost unremarkable. Gaudy macaws flap through the forest, their splendid plumage contrasting incongruously with their harsh cries; and humming–birds, like tiny jewels, flit from flower to flower sipping nectar, their iridescent feathers flashing the colors of the rainbow as they fly.

The Amazonian rain forest, in Brazil alone, is the largest rain forest in the world. Many species of mammals, reptiles, amphibians, insects, and birds occupy the canopy of this magnificent rain forest. The iguana lives in the trees high above from the ground. It has flattened sides and a long, strong tail, which gives it balance and stability when it leaps. It also has clawed feet, which allows the iguana to grip branches.

The poison dart frog is a tree frog that secretes poison when it gets attacked. Even a small amount of the toxin can be lethal to humans. Today, South American Indians use the poison to tip their arrowheads before hunting.

The passage does not answer which one of the following questions?

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage:

Mother Teresa will soon become a saint. But this celebration of the divine in a human being has turned out to be as good a moment as any to fight about all the worldly things that usually get fought about in the Balkans: namely, religion, ethnicity and history. The conflict centres on an attempt, so far unsuccessful, to donate a statue of Mother Teresa to the city of Rome. It is a simple enough dispute on one level, but on another, reflects the strains that have made it so hard to stitch together Balkan societies. The tale begins with a solitary fact that no one disputes: Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu, who became the world's most famous Roman Catholic missionary, universally known as Mother Teresa, was born in August 1910 in Skopje. (As for the exact date, some say she was born on Aug. 26, others Aug. 27.) The city was then an especially mixed corner of the Ottoman Empire, home to Turks, Greeks, Serbs, Bulgarians, Macedonians, Gypsies, Jews, Vlachs and Albanians, which is what Mother Teresa always said she was.

After Mother Teresa's death in 1997, one of Macedonia's most famous artists, Tome Serafimovski, fashioned a 9–ft bronze statue of her that now stands in downtown Skopje. As the Vatican moved to make her a saint, Mr. Serafimovski decided to donate a copy to Rome. Its delivery was to coincide with her expected beatification, the last step before sainthood, in October. But then last month, an Albanian newspaper in Skopje, Fakti, carried a sensational scoop: the statue, it reported from Italy, was to have an inscription identifying her as "a Macedonian daughter." Albanian leaders were outraged. This was an attempt, they said, by the Macedonians to claim Mother Teresa as one of their own. The inscription, one Albanian political party charged, "undermines the Albanian national identity and represents usurpation of Mother Teresa's origin." Ethnic Albanians make up perhaps a quarter, though some say a third or more, of Macedonia's 2 million people. (No one knows for certain and, like much else, it is argued over bitterly.) The largest national group here are often considered Slavs. But many Macedonians contend hotly that they are in fact not Slavs, but have descended from ancient Macedonians like Alexander the Great. Whatever their descent, they fought a brief conflict with ethnic Albanians seeking greater political rights in 2001.

Mother Teresa has now emerged as yet another strain in this larger tug of war. What complicates matters further is that she was Roman Catholic, while most Albanians are Muslim, and this has opened a crack for speculation about Mother Teresa's actual ethnic roots. Jasmina Mironski, a prominent Macedonian journalist who has written two books on Mother Teresa, says there is no doubt that Mother Teresa's own mother, Dranafila Bernaj, was an ethnic Albanian. But her father, Nikola Bojaxhiu, was "the tricky combination." She says the "u" that ends his name made him more likely a Vlach, a non–Slavic Orthodox people also called Walachians. Plus, she said, Mother Teresa "didn't speak Albanian, that's for sure. She only knew five words of Albanian." Moreover, her brother's name was Lazar, the name of Serbia's most famous prince. This is heresy to Albanians, who say they have been repeatedly persecuted by Serbs. The debate has leached out from Macedonia to intellectuals in Albania proper, who in July wrote in anger to the Mayor of Rome urging him to resist the effort "to usurp the figure and deeds of Mother Teresa," as well as to Internet chat rooms read by Macedonians around the world. All sides say, naturally, that their only interest is to see Mother Teresa's life celebrated, but with the maximum truth possible.

With the argument still raging, Mayor Risto Penov of Skopje, who is overseeing the donation of the statue, said there was never a plan for an inscription that mentioned a "Macedonian daughter." He said the idea is now the same as it always was, for an inscription that reads simply: "Born Skopje 26 August 1910. Died Calcutta 5 September 1997." "Now we have a person who can put us together again — and we're dividing ourselves," he said. But the editors at Fakti insist their report was right.

Mr. Serafimovski said he has had it with all the bickering. No statue will be donated, he said, until the issue was resolved. He opposes anything that even hints that Mother Teresa was Macedonian (even if he believes her father was Vlach). At Mother Teresa's own order in Skopje, yet another view seemed to prevail about this woman who left Skopje at the age of 18. An Italian nun who declined to be named said that Mother Teresa unquestionably spoke Albanian, among other languages, but felt the strongest affinity with another part of the world entirely.

'Familiarity breeds contempt'. In the passage an illustration of this proverb can be found in the phrase __________.

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage:

Central and South America have some of the world’s most unique species of wildlife. Perhaps, some are more familiar than others. Central and South America has many different groups of species, which include: mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish, and insects. These groups of animals need to live in specific types of climates and habitats in order to ensure their survivorship.

South America is the home to some of the strangest, some of the loveliest and some of the most horrifying animals in the world. There can be few creatures more improbable than the sloth which spends its life in a permanent state of mute slow motion, hanging upside down in the tall forest trees: few more bizarre than the giant ant eater of the Savannahs, its tail enlarged into a shaggy banner and its jaws elongated into a curved and toothless tube.  On the other hand, beautiful birds are so common as to become almost unremarkable. Gaudy macaws flap through the forest, their splendid plumage contrasting incongruously with their harsh cries; and humming–birds, like tiny jewels, flit from flower to flower sipping nectar, their iridescent feathers flashing the colors of the rainbow as they fly.

The Amazonian rain forest, in Brazil alone, is the largest rain forest in the world. Many species of mammals, reptiles, amphibians, insects, and birds occupy the canopy of this magnificent rain forest. The iguana lives in the trees high above from the ground. It has flattened sides and a long, strong tail, which gives it balance and stability when it leaps. It also has clawed feet, which allows the iguana to grip branches.

The poison dart frog is a tree frog that secretes poison when it gets attacked. Even a small amount of the toxin can be lethal to humans. Today, South American Indians use the poison to tip their arrowheads before hunting.

Which among the following statements can be inferred from the passage?

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage:

Mother Teresa will soon become a saint. But this celebration of the divine in a human being has turned out to be as good a moment as any to fight about all the worldly things that usually get fought about in the Balkans: namely, religion, ethnicity and history. The conflict centres on an attempt, so far unsuccessful, to donate a statue of Mother Teresa to the city of Rome. It is a simple enough dispute on one level, but on another, reflects the strains that have made it so hard to stitch together Balkan societies. The tale begins with a solitary fact that no one disputes: Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu, who became the world's most famous Roman Catholic missionary, universally known as Mother Teresa, was born in August 1910 in Skopje. (As for the exact date, some say she was born on Aug. 26, others Aug. 27.) The city was then an especially mixed corner of the Ottoman Empire, home to Turks, Greeks, Serbs, Bulgarians, Macedonians, Gypsies, Jews, Vlachs and Albanians, which is what Mother Teresa always said she was.

After Mother Teresa's death in 1997, one of Macedonia's most famous artists, Tome Serafimovski, fashioned a 9–ft bronze statue of her that now stands in downtown Skopje. As the Vatican moved to make her a saint, Mr. Serafimovski decided to donate a copy to Rome. Its delivery was to coincide with her expected beatification, the last step before sainthood, in October. But then last month, an Albanian newspaper in Skopje, Fakti, carried a sensational scoop: the statue, it reported from Italy, was to have an inscription identifying her as "a Macedonian daughter." Albanian leaders were outraged. This was an attempt, they said, by the Macedonians to claim Mother Teresa as one of their own. The inscription, one Albanian political party charged, "undermines the Albanian national identity and represents usurpation of Mother Teresa's origin." Ethnic Albanians make up perhaps a quarter, though some say a third or more, of Macedonia's 2 million people. (No one knows for certain and, like much else, it is argued over bitterly.) The largest national group here are often considered Slavs. But many Macedonians contend hotly that they are in fact not Slavs, but have descended from ancient Macedonians like Alexander the Great. Whatever their descent, they fought a brief conflict with ethnic Albanians seeking greater political rights in 2001.

Mother Teresa has now emerged as yet another strain in this larger tug of war. What complicates matters further is that she was Roman Catholic, while most Albanians are Muslim, and this has opened a crack for speculation about Mother Teresa's actual ethnic roots. Jasmina Mironski, a prominent Macedonian journalist who has written two books on Mother Teresa, says there is no doubt that Mother Teresa's own mother, Dranafila Bernaj, was an ethnic Albanian. But her father, Nikola Bojaxhiu, was "the tricky combination." She says the "u" that ends his name made him more likely a Vlach, a non–Slavic Orthodox people also called Walachians. Plus, she said, Mother Teresa "didn't speak Albanian, that's for sure. She only knew five words of Albanian." Moreover, her brother's name was Lazar, the name of Serbia's most famous prince. This is heresy to Albanians, who say they have been repeatedly persecuted by Serbs. The debate has leached out from Macedonia to intellectuals in Albania proper, who in July wrote in anger to the Mayor of Rome urging him to resist the effort "to usurp the figure and deeds of Mother Teresa," as well as to Internet chat rooms read by Macedonians around the world. All sides say, naturally, that their only interest is to see Mother Teresa's life celebrated, but with the maximum truth possible.

With the argument still raging, Mayor Risto Penov of Skopje, who is overseeing the donation of the statue, said there was never a plan for an inscription that mentioned a "Macedonian daughter." He said the idea is now the same as it always was, for an inscription that reads simply: "Born Skopje 26 August 1910. Died Calcutta 5 September 1997." "Now we have a person who can put us together again — and we're dividing ourselves," he said. But the editors at Fakti insist their report was right.

Mr. Serafimovski said he has had it with all the bickering. No statue will be donated, he said, until the issue was resolved. He opposes anything that even hints that Mother Teresa was Macedonian (even if he believes her father was Vlach). At Mother Teresa's own order in Skopje, yet another view seemed to prevail about this woman who left Skopje at the age of 18. An Italian nun who declined to be named said that Mother Teresa unquestionably spoke Albanian, among other languages, but felt the strongest affinity with another part of the world entirely.

Which among the following statements can be inferred from the passage?
I. Mother Teresa was actually a Serbian.
II. People are fighting against the basic place where Mother Teresa lived.
III. The controversy around Mother's states actually highlights the underlying ethnic strains in the Balban Society.

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage:

Mother Teresa will soon become a saint. But this celebration of the divine in a human being has turned out to be as good a moment as any to fight about all the worldly things that usually get fought about in the Balkans: namely, religion, ethnicity and history. The conflict centres on an attempt, so far unsuccessful, to donate a statue of Mother Teresa to the city of Rome. It is a simple enough dispute on one level, but on another, reflects the strains that have made it so hard to stitch together Balkan societies. The tale begins with a solitary fact that no one disputes: Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu, who became the world's most famous Roman Catholic missionary, universally known as Mother Teresa, was born in August 1910 in Skopje. (As for the exact date, some say she was born on Aug. 26, others Aug. 27.) The city was then an especially mixed corner of the Ottoman Empire, home to Turks, Greeks, Serbs, Bulgarians, Macedonians, Gypsies, Jews, Vlachs and Albanians, which is what Mother Teresa always said she was.

After Mother Teresa's death in 1997, one of Macedonia's most famous artists, Tome Serafimovski, fashioned a 9–ft bronze statue of her that now stands in downtown Skopje. As the Vatican moved to make her a saint, Mr. Serafimovski decided to donate a copy to Rome. Its delivery was to coincide with her expected beatification, the last step before sainthood, in October. But then last month, an Albanian newspaper in Skopje, Fakti, carried a sensational scoop: the statue, it reported from Italy, was to have an inscription identifying her as "a Macedonian daughter." Albanian leaders were outraged. This was an attempt, they said, by the Macedonians to claim Mother Teresa as one of their own. The inscription, one Albanian political party charged, "undermines the Albanian national identity and represents usurpation of Mother Teresa's origin." Ethnic Albanians make up perhaps a quarter, though some say a third or more, of Macedonia's 2 million people. (No one knows for certain and, like much else, it is argued over bitterly.) The largest national group here are often considered Slavs. But many Macedonians contend hotly that they are in fact not Slavs, but have descended from ancient Macedonians like Alexander the Great. Whatever their descent, they fought a brief conflict with ethnic Albanians seeking greater political rights in 2001.

Mother Teresa has now emerged as yet another strain in this larger tug of war. What complicates matters further is that she was Roman Catholic, while most Albanians are Muslim, and this has opened a crack for speculation about Mother Teresa's actual ethnic roots. Jasmina Mironski, a prominent Macedonian journalist who has written two books on Mother Teresa, says there is no doubt that Mother Teresa's own mother, Dranafila Bernaj, was an ethnic Albanian. But her father, Nikola Bojaxhiu, was "the tricky combination." She says the "u" that ends his name made him more likely a Vlach, a non–Slavic Orthodox people also called Walachians. Plus, she said, Mother Teresa "didn't speak Albanian, that's for sure. She only knew five words of Albanian." Moreover, her brother's name was Lazar, the name of Serbia's most famous prince. This is heresy to Albanians, who say they have been repeatedly persecuted by Serbs. The debate has leached out from Macedonia to intellectuals in Albania proper, who in July wrote in anger to the Mayor of Rome urging him to resist the effort "to usurp the figure and deeds of Mother Teresa," as well as to Internet chat rooms read by Macedonians around the world. All sides say, naturally, that their only interest is to see Mother Teresa's life celebrated, but with the maximum truth possible.

With the argument still raging, Mayor Risto Penov of Skopje, who is overseeing the donation of the statue, said there was never a plan for an inscription that mentioned a "Macedonian daughter." He said the idea is now the same as it always was, for an inscription that reads simply: "Born Skopje 26 August 1910. Died Calcutta 5 September 1997." "Now we have a person who can put us together again — and we're dividing ourselves," he said. But the editors at Fakti insist their report was right.

Mr. Serafimovski said he has had it with all the bickering. No statue will be donated, he said, until the issue was resolved. He opposes anything that even hints that Mother Teresa was Macedonian (even if he believes her father was Vlach). At Mother Teresa's own order in Skopje, yet another view seemed to prevail about this woman who left Skopje at the age of 18. An Italian nun who declined to be named said that Mother Teresa unquestionably spoke Albanian, among other languages, but felt the strongest affinity with another part of the world entirely.

A shoal of fish can be substituted by ________.

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage:

Central and South America have some of the world’s most unique species of wildlife. Perhaps, some are more familiar than others. Central and South America has many different groups of species, which include: mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish, and insects. These groups of animals need to live in specific types of climates and habitats in order to ensure their survivorship.

South America is the home to some of the strangest, some of the loveliest and some of the most horrifying animals in the world. There can be few creatures more improbable than the sloth which spends its life in a permanent state of mute slow motion, hanging upside down in the tall forest trees: few more bizarre than the giant ant eater of the Savannahs, its tail enlarged into a shaggy banner and its jaws elongated into a curved and toothless tube.  On the other hand, beautiful birds are so common as to become almost unremarkable. Gaudy macaws flap through the forest, their splendid plumage contrasting incongruously with their harsh cries; and humming–birds, like tiny jewels, flit from flower to flower sipping nectar, their iridescent feathers flashing the colors of the rainbow as they fly.

The Amazonian rain forest, in Brazil alone, is the largest rain forest in the world. Many species of mammals, reptiles, amphibians, insects, and birds occupy the canopy of this magnificent rain forest. The iguana lives in the trees high above from the ground. It has flattened sides and a long, strong tail, which gives it balance and stability when it leaps. It also has clawed feet, which allows the iguana to grip branches.

The poison dart frog is a tree frog that secretes poison when it gets attacked. Even a small amount of the toxin can be lethal to humans. Today, South American Indians use the poison to tip their arrowheads before hunting.

The second paragraph of the passage opens with a striking sentence. What method does the author employ to achieve its effect?

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage:

Central and South America have some of the world’s most unique species of wildlife. Perhaps, some are more familiar than others. Central and South America has many different groups of species, which include: mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish, and insects. These groups of animals need to live in specific types of climates and habitats in order to ensure their survivorship.

South America is the home to some of the strangest, some of the loveliest and some of the most horrifying animals in the world. There can be few creatures more improbable than the sloth which spends its life in a permanent state of mute slow motion, hanging upside down in the tall forest trees: few more bizarre than the giant ant eater of the Savannahs, its tail enlarged into a shaggy banner and its jaws elongated into a curved and toothless tube.  On the other hand, beautiful birds are so common as to become almost unremarkable. Gaudy macaws flap through the forest, their splendid plumage contrasting incongruously with their harsh cries; and humming–birds, like tiny jewels, flit from flower to flower sipping nectar, their iridescent feathers flashing the colors of the rainbow as they fly.

The Amazonian rain forest, in Brazil alone, is the largest rain forest in the world. Many species of mammals, reptiles, amphibians, insects, and birds occupy the canopy of this magnificent rain forest. The iguana lives in the trees high above from the ground. It has flattened sides and a long, strong tail, which gives it balance and stability when it leaps. It also has clawed feet, which allows the iguana to grip branches.

The poison dart frog is a tree frog that secretes poison when it gets attacked. Even a small amount of the toxin can be lethal to humans. Today, South American Indians use the poison to tip their arrowheads before hunting.

Which of the following inferences can be drawn from the content of the passage?

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage:

The productivity figures represent the number of machines per year produced at the plant in an average year during the late 1990s divided by the total manpower associated with that plant including both direct and indirect labour. All design staff and all sales and service staff are excluded. All managerial and supervisory staff are included. It might be expected that production volumes per man of the smaller type should be expected to be about double that of the medium type in a plant of equal productivity, but this ratio is a crude estimate and should be applied cautiously. If we accept this crude estimate for the appropriate correction factor, then the range between the maximum of 2 (smaller machines) and the minimum of 0.15 (medium machines) indicates a corrected ratio between the maximum and minimum productivity levels.

The figures for Taiwan which relate to standard machines are 2.6 (medium machines) and 5 (smaller machines) respectively. In the latter case, a high proportion of components are bought in. If, once again, we use the crude correction factor of 2 for machine size, then the ratio between the lowest Taiwanese score and the highest Indian score is a factor. This ratio should be compared to the corresponding ratio in wage rates; a comparison between the hourly rate paid to qualified machinists in the two countries suggests a wage ratio of about 6:1 for Taiwan relative to India at current exchange rates.

Now another aspect of the complete scenario: imports.

Today the import duty on a complete machine is 30% for all practical purpose, whereas the import duty on raw materials and components ranges from 35.85%. The story does not end here. After paying such high import duties on component, once a machine is made, it suffers excise duty from 5% – 10% (including on the customs duty already paid). At the time of sale, the machine tools suffer further taxation, i.e. central sales tax or State sales taxes which range from 4% – 16%. This much for the tax angle. Another factor, which pushes the cost of manufacture of machine tools, is the very high rate of interest payable to banks ranging up to 22%, as against 4%–7% prevailing in advanced countries.

The production of machine tools in India being not of the same scale as it is in other countries, the price which India's machine tool builders have to pay for components is more or less based on pattern of high pricing applicable to the prices of spares.

The machines tool industry in India has an enviable record of very quick technology absorption, assimilation and development. There are a number of success stories about how machine tool builders were of help at the most critical times. It will be a pity, in fact a tragedy, if we allow this industry to die and disappear from the scene.

It is to be noted that India is at least 6500 km away from any dependable source of supply of machine tools. The Government of India has always given a great deal of importance to the development of small scale and medium scale industries. This industry has also performed pretty well. Today, they are in need of help from India's machine tool industry to enable them to produce quality components at reduced costs. Is it anybody's case that the needs of the fragile sector (which needs tender care) will be met from 6500 km away?

Then, what is it that the industry request from the Government? It wants a level playing field. In fact, all of us must have a deep introspection and recognize the fact that the machine tool industry has a very special place in the country from the point of strategic and vital interest of the nation. Most important, it requests for the Government's consideration and understanding. It is therefore high time that the government gives the due attention to this industry which has a good potential.

Which of the following groups of statements is definitely true in the context of the passage?

Statement (I) The vital role of India's machine tool industry has not been duly recognized by the Government.
Statement (II) Small scale industry's performance can be further improved with the help of the Indian machine tool industry.
Statement (III) The author of the passage has not discussed all the factors which are responsible for high cost of Indian machines.

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage:

The productivity figures represent the number of machines per year produced at the plant in an average year during the late 1990s divided by the total manpower associated with that plant including both direct and indirect labour. All design staff and all sales and service staff are excluded. All managerial and supervisory staff are included. It might be expected that production volumes per man of the smaller type should be expected to be about double that of the medium type in a plant of equal productivity, but this ratio is a crude estimate and should be applied cautiously. If we accept this crude estimate for the appropriate correction factor, then the range between the maximum of 2 (smaller machines) and the minimum of 0.15 (medium machines) indicates a corrected ratio between the maximum and minimum productivity levels.

The figures for Taiwan which relate to standard machines are 2.6 (medium machines) and 5 (smaller machines) respectively. In the latter case, a high proportion of components are bought in. If, once again, we use the crude correction factor of 2 for machine size, then the ratio between the lowest Taiwanese score and the highest Indian score is a factor. This ratio should be compared to the corresponding ratio in wage rates; a comparison between the hourly rate paid to qualified machinists in the two countries suggests a wage ratio of about 6:1 for Taiwan relative to India at current exchange rates.

Now another aspect of the complete scenario: imports.

Today the import duty on a complete machine is 30% for all practical purpose, whereas the import duty on raw materials and components ranges from 35.85%. The story does not end here. After paying such high import duties on component, once a machine is made, it suffers excise duty from 5% – 10% (including on the customs duty already paid). At the time of sale, the machine tools suffer further taxation, i.e. central sales tax or State sales taxes which range from 4% – 16%. This much for the tax angle. Another factor, which pushes the cost of manufacture of machine tools, is the very high rate of interest payable to banks ranging up to 22%, as against 4%–7% prevailing in advanced countries.

The production of machine tools in India being not of the same scale as it is in other countries, the price which India's machine tool builders have to pay for components is more or less based on pattern of high pricing applicable to the prices of spares.

The machines tool industry in India has an enviable record of very quick technology absorption, assimilation and development. There are a number of success stories about how machine tool builders were of help at the most critical times. It will be a pity, in fact a tragedy, if we allow this industry to die and disappear from the scene.

It is to be noted that India is at least 6500 km away from any dependable source of supply of machine tools. The Government of India has always given a great deal of importance to the development of small scale and medium scale industries. This industry has also performed pretty well. Today, they are in need of help from India's machine tool industry to enable them to produce quality components at reduced costs. Is it anybody's case that the needs of the fragile sector (which needs tender care) will be met from 6500 km away?

Then, what is it that the industry request from the Government? It wants a level playing field. In fact, all of us must have a deep introspection and recognize the fact that the machine tool industry has a very special place in the country from the point of strategic and vital interest of the nation. Most important, it requests for the Government's consideration and understanding. It is therefore high time that the government gives the due attention to this industry which has a good potential.

If the bank's rate of interest in India is made at par with that in advanced countries, the cost of manufacturing of machine tools _______.

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage:

The productivity figures represent the number of machines per year produced at the plant in an average year during the late 1990s divided by the total manpower associated with that plant including both direct and indirect labour. All design staff and all sales and service staff are excluded. All managerial and supervisory staff are included. It might be expected that production volumes per man of the smaller type should be expected to be about double that of the medium type in a plant of equal productivity, but this ratio is a crude estimate and should be applied cautiously. If we accept this crude estimate for the appropriate correction factor, then the range between the maximum of 2 (smaller machines) and the minimum of 0.15 (medium machines) indicates a corrected ratio between the maximum and minimum productivity levels.

The figures for Taiwan which relate to standard machines are 2.6 (medium machines) and 5 (smaller machines) respectively. In the latter case, a high proportion of components are bought in. If, once again, we use the crude correction factor of 2 for machine size, then the ratio between the lowest Taiwanese score and the highest Indian score is a factor. This ratio should be compared to the corresponding ratio in wage rates; a comparison between the hourly rate paid to qualified machinists in the two countries suggests a wage ratio of about 6:1 for Taiwan relative to India at current exchange rates.

Now another aspect of the complete scenario: imports.

Today the import duty on a complete machine is 30% for all practical purpose, whereas the import duty on raw materials and components ranges from 35.85%. The story does not end here. After paying such high import duties on component, once a machine is made, it suffers excise duty from 5% – 10% (including on the customs duty already paid). At the time of sale, the machine tools suffer further taxation, i.e. central sales tax or State sales taxes which range from 4% – 16%. This much for the tax angle. Another factor, which pushes the cost of manufacture of machine tools, is the very high rate of interest payable to banks ranging up to 22%, as against 4%–7% prevailing in advanced countries.

The production of machine tools in India being not of the same scale as it is in other countries, the price which India's machine tool builders have to pay for components is more or less based on pattern of high pricing applicable to the prices of spares.

The machines tool industry in India has an enviable record of very quick technology absorption, assimilation and development. There are a number of success stories about how machine tool builders were of help at the most critical times. It will be a pity, in fact a tragedy, if we allow this industry to die and disappear from the scene.

It is to be noted that India is at least 6500 km away from any dependable source of supply of machine tools. The Government of India has always given a great deal of importance to the development of small scale and medium scale industries. This industry has also performed pretty well. Today, they are in need of help from India's machine tool industry to enable them to produce quality components at reduced costs. Is it anybody's case that the needs of the fragile sector (which needs tender care) will be met from 6500 km away?

Then, what is it that the industry request from the Government? It wants a level playing field. In fact, all of us must have a deep introspection and recognize the fact that the machine tool industry has a very special place in the country from the point of strategic and vital interest of the nation. Most important, it requests for the Government's consideration and understanding. It is therefore high time that the government gives the due attention to this industry which has a good potential.

Which of the following options best explains the sentence, 'It wants a level playing field' as used in the passage? The machine tool industry in India ________.

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage:

The productivity figures represent the number of machines per year produced at the plant in an average year during the late 1990s divided by the total manpower associated with that plant including both direct and indirect labour. All design staff and all sales and service staff are excluded. All managerial and supervisory staff are included. It might be expected that production volumes per man of the smaller type should be expected to be about double that of the medium type in a plant of equal productivity, but this ratio is a crude estimate and should be applied cautiously. If we accept this crude estimate for the appropriate correction factor, then the range between the maximum of 2 (smaller machines) and the minimum of 0.15 (medium machines) indicates a corrected ratio between the maximum and minimum productivity levels.

The figures for Taiwan which relate to standard machines are 2.6 (medium machines) and 5 (smaller machines) respectively. In the latter case, a high proportion of components are bought in. If, once again, we use the crude correction factor of 2 for machine size, then the ratio between the lowest Taiwanese score and the highest Indian score is a factor. This ratio should be compared to the corresponding ratio in wage rates; a comparison between the hourly rate paid to qualified machinists in the two countries suggests a wage ratio of about 6:1 for Taiwan relative to India at current exchange rates.

Now another aspect of the complete scenario: imports.

Today the import duty on a complete machine is 30% for all practical purpose, whereas the import duty on raw materials and components ranges from 35.85%. The story does not end here. After paying such high import duties on component, once a machine is made, it suffers excise duty from 5% – 10% (including on the customs duty already paid). At the time of sale, the machine tools suffer further taxation, i.e. central sales tax or State sales taxes which range from 4% – 16%. This much for the tax angle. Another factor, which pushes the cost of manufacture of machine tools, is the very high rate of interest payable to banks ranging up to 22%, as against 4%–7% prevailing in advanced countries.

The production of machine tools in India being not of the same scale as it is in other countries, the price which India's machine tool builders have to pay for components is more or less based on pattern of high pricing applicable to the prices of spares.

The machines tool industry in India has an enviable record of very quick technology absorption, assimilation and development. There are a number of success stories about how machine tool builders were of help at the most critical times. It will be a pity, in fact a tragedy, if we allow this industry to die and disappear from the scene.

It is to be noted that India is at least 6500 km away from any dependable source of supply of machine tools. The Government of India has always given a great deal of importance to the development of small scale and medium scale industries. This industry has also performed pretty well. Today, they are in need of help from India's machine tool industry to enable them to produce quality components at reduced costs. Is it anybody's case that the needs of the fragile sector (which needs tender care) will be met from 6500 km away?

Then, what is it that the industry request from the Government? It wants a level playing field. In fact, all of us must have a deep introspection and recognize the fact that the machine tool industry has a very special place in the country from the point of strategic and vital interest of the nation. Most important, it requests for the Government's consideration and understanding. It is therefore high time that the government gives the due attention to this industry which has a good potential.

Which of the following statements is true in the context of the passage?

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage:

The productivity figures represent the number of machines per year produced at the plant in an average year during the late 1990s divided by the total manpower associated with that plant including both direct and indirect labour. All design staff and all sales and service staff are excluded. All managerial and supervisory staff are included. It might be expected that production volumes per man of the smaller type should be expected to be about double that of the medium type in a plant of equal productivity, but this ratio is a crude estimate and should be applied cautiously. If we accept this crude estimate for the appropriate correction factor, then the range between the maximum of 2 (smaller machines) and the minimum of 0.15 (medium machines) indicates a corrected ratio between the maximum and minimum productivity levels.

The figures for Taiwan which relate to standard machines are 2.6 (medium machines) and 5 (smaller machines) respectively. In the latter case, a high proportion of components are bought in. If, once again, we use the crude correction factor of 2 for machine size, then the ratio between the lowest Taiwanese score and the highest Indian score is a factor. This ratio should be compared to the corresponding ratio in wage rates; a comparison between the hourly rate paid to qualified machinists in the two countries suggests a wage ratio of about 6:1 for Taiwan relative to India at current exchange rates.

Now another aspect of the complete scenario: imports.

Today the import duty on a complete machine is 30% for all practical purpose, whereas the import duty on raw materials and components ranges from 35.85%. The story does not end here. After paying such high import duties on component, once a machine is made, it suffers excise duty from 5% – 10% (including on the customs duty already paid). At the time of sale, the machine tools suffer further taxation, i.e. central sales tax or State sales taxes which range from 4% – 16%. This much for the tax angle. Another factor, which pushes the cost of manufacture of machine tools, is the very high rate of interest payable to banks ranging up to 22%, as against 4%–7% prevailing in advanced countries.

The production of machine tools in India being not of the same scale as it is in other countries, the price which India's machine tool builders have to pay for components is more or less based on pattern of high pricing applicable to the prices of spares.

The machines tool industry in India has an enviable record of very quick technology absorption, assimilation and development. There are a number of success stories about how machine tool builders were of help at the most critical times. It will be a pity, in fact a tragedy, if we allow this industry to die and disappear from the scene.

It is to be noted that India is at least 6500 km away from any dependable source of supply of machine tools. The Government of India has always given a great deal of importance to the development of small scale and medium scale industries. This industry has also performed pretty well. Today, they are in need of help from India's machine tool industry to enable them to produce quality components at reduced costs. Is it anybody's case that the needs of the fragile sector (which needs tender care) will be met from 6500 km away?

Then, what is it that the industry request from the Government? It wants a level playing field. In fact, all of us must have a deep introspection and recognize the fact that the machine tool industry has a very special place in the country from the point of strategic and vital interest of the nation. Most important, it requests for the Government's consideration and understanding. It is therefore high time that the government gives the due attention to this industry which has a good potential.

Which of the following options is the principal focus of the content of the passage?

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage:

The productivity figures represent the number of machines per year produced at the plant in an average year during the late 1990s divided by the total manpower associated with that plant including both direct and indirect labour. All design staff and all sales and service staff are excluded. All managerial and supervisory staff are included. It might be expected that production volumes per man of the smaller type should be expected to be about double that of the medium type in a plant of equal productivity, but this ratio is a crude estimate and should be applied cautiously. If we accept this crude estimate for the appropriate correction factor, then the range between the maximum of 2 (smaller machines) and the minimum of 0.15 (medium machines) indicates a corrected ratio between the maximum and minimum productivity levels.

The figures for Taiwan which relate to standard machines are 2.6 (medium machines) and 5 (smaller machines) respectively. In the latter case, a high proportion of components are bought in. If, once again, we use the crude correction factor of 2 for machine size, then the ratio between the lowest Taiwanese score and the highest Indian score is a factor. This ratio should be compared to the corresponding ratio in wage rates; a comparison between the hourly rate paid to qualified machinists in the two countries suggests a wage ratio of about 6:1 for Taiwan relative to India at current exchange rates.

Now another aspect of the complete scenario: imports.

Today the import duty on a complete machine is 30% for all practical purpose, whereas the import duty on raw materials and components ranges from 35.85%. The story does not end here. After paying such high import duties on component, once a machine is made, it suffers excise duty from 5% – 10% (including on the customs duty already paid). At the time of sale, the machine tools suffer further taxation, i.e. central sales tax or State sales taxes which range from 4% – 16%. This much for the tax angle. Another factor, which pushes the cost of manufacture of machine tools, is the very high rate of interest payable to banks ranging up to 22%, as against 4%–7% prevailing in advanced countries.

The production of machine tools in India being not of the same scale as it is in other countries, the price which India's machine tool builders have to pay for components is more or less based on pattern of high pricing applicable to the prices of spares.

The machines tool industry in India has an enviable record of very quick technology absorption, assimilation and development. There are a number of success stories about how machine tool builders were of help at the most critical times. It will be a pity, in fact a tragedy, if we allow this industry to die and disappear from the scene.

It is to be noted that India is at least 6500 km away from any dependable source of supply of machine tools. The Government of India has always given a great deal of importance to the development of small scale and medium scale industries. This industry has also performed pretty well. Today, they are in need of help from India's machine tool industry to enable them to produce quality components at reduced costs. Is it anybody's case that the needs of the fragile sector (which needs tender care) will be met from 6500 km away?

Then, what is it that the industry request from the Government? It wants a level playing field. In fact, all of us must have a deep introspection and recognize the fact that the machine tool industry has a very special place in the country from the point of strategic and vital interest of the nation. Most important, it requests for the Government's consideration and understanding. It is therefore high time that the government gives the due attention to this industry which has a good potential.

Why do small and medium scale industries look for help from India's machine tool industry?

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage:

The productivity figures represent the number of machines per year produced at the plant in an average year during the late 1990s divided by the total manpower associated with that plant including both direct and indirect labour. All design staff and all sales and service staff are excluded. All managerial and supervisory staff are included. It might be expected that production volumes per man of the smaller type should be expected to be about double that of the medium type in a plant of equal productivity, but this ratio is a crude estimate and should be applied cautiously. If we accept this crude estimate for the appropriate correction factor, then the range between the maximum of 2 (smaller machines) and the minimum of 0.15 (medium machines) indicates a corrected ratio between the maximum and minimum productivity levels.

The figures for Taiwan which relate to standard machines are 2.6 (medium machines) and 5 (smaller machines) respectively. In the latter case, a high proportion of components are bought in. If, once again, we use the crude correction factor of 2 for machine size, then the ratio between the lowest Taiwanese score and the highest Indian score is a factor. This ratio should be compared to the corresponding ratio in wage rates; a comparison between the hourly rate paid to qualified machinists in the two countries suggests a wage ratio of about 6:1 for Taiwan relative to India at current exchange rates.

Now another aspect of the complete scenario: imports.

Today the import duty on a complete machine is 30% for all practical purpose, whereas the import duty on raw materials and components ranges from 35.85%. The story does not end here. After paying such high import duties on component, once a machine is made, it suffers excise duty from 5% – 10% (including on the customs duty already paid). At the time of sale, the machine tools suffer further taxation, i.e. central sales tax or State sales taxes which range from 4% – 16%. This much for the tax angle. Another factor, which pushes the cost of manufacture of machine tools, is the very high rate of interest payable to banks ranging up to 22%, as against 4%–7% prevailing in advanced countries.

The production of machine tools in India being not of the same scale as it is in other countries, the price which India's machine tool builders have to pay for components is more or less based on pattern of high pricing applicable to the prices of spares.

The machines tool industry in India has an enviable record of very quick technology absorption, assimilation and development. There are a number of success stories about how machine tool builders were of help at the most critical times. It will be a pity, in fact a tragedy, if we allow this industry to die and disappear from the scene.

It is to be noted that India is at least 6500 km away from any dependable source of supply of machine tools. The Government of India has always given a great deal of importance to the development of small scale and medium scale industries. This industry has also performed pretty well. Today, they are in need of help from India's machine tool industry to enable them to produce quality components at reduced costs. Is it anybody's case that the needs of the fragile sector (which needs tender care) will be met from 6500 km away?

Then, what is it that the industry request from the Government? It wants a level playing field. In fact, all of us must have a deep introspection and recognize the fact that the machine tool industry has a very special place in the country from the point of strategic and vital interest of the nation. Most important, it requests for the Government's consideration and understanding. It is therefore high time that the government gives the due attention to this industry which has a good potential.

The overriding tone in the passage is ________.

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage:

Man, It would seem has descended from arboreal apes. They lived a happy life in tropical forests, eating coconuts when they were hungry, and throwing them at each other when they were not. They were perpetually occupied in gymnastics, and acquired an agility that, to us, is truly, astonishing. But after some millions of years of this arboreal paradise, their numbers increased to the point where the supply of coconuts was no longer adequate. The population problem set in, and was dealt with in two different ways: those who lived in the middle of the forest learned to throw coconuts with such accuracy as to disable adversaries, whose consequent death relieved the pressure of population, but those who lived on the edge of the forest found another method; they looked out over the fields and discovered that they yielded delicious fruits of various kinds quite as pleasant as coconuts, and gradually they came down from the trees and spent more and more time in the open on the ground. They soon discovered that if you live on the ground it is easy to soul, which are more effective missiles than coconuts.

I am not myself in any degree ashamed of having changed my opinions. What physicist who was already active in 1900 would dream of boasting that his opinions had not changed during the last half century? In science men change their opinions when new knowledge becomes available, but philosophy in the minds of many is assimilated rather to theology than to science. A theologian proclaims eternal truths, the creeds remain unchanged since the Council of Nicea. Where nobody knows anything, there is no point in changing your mind.

Owing to the identification of religion with virtue, together with the fact that the most religious men are not the most intelligent, a religious education gives courage to the stupid to resist the authority of educated men, as has happened, for example, where the teaching of evolution has been made illegal. So far I can remember there is not own word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence; and in this respect ministers of religion follow gospel authority more closely than in some other.

If you think that your belief is based upon reason, you will support it by argument, rather than by persecution, and will abandon it if the argument goes against you. But if your belief is based on faith, you will realise that argument is useless, and will therefore resort to force either in the form of persecution or by stunting and distorting the minds of the young in what is called education. This last is peculiarly dastardly, since it takes advantage of the defenselessness of immature minds. Unfortunately it is practised in a greater or less degree in the school of every civilised country.

Punctuality is a quality the need of which is bound up with social cooperation. It has nothing to do with the relation of the soul to God or with mystic insight, or with any of the mailers with which the more elevated and spiritual moralists are concerned. One would be surprised to find a saint getting drunk, but one would not be surprised to find him late for an engagement. And yet in the ordinary business of life punctuality is absolutely necessary.

To modern educated people, it seems obvious that matters of fact are to be ascertained by observation, not by consulting ancient authorities. But this is an entirely modern conception, which hardly existed before the seventeenth century. Aristotle maintained that women have fewer teeth than men; although he was twice married, it never occurred to him to verify this statement by examining his wives' mouths. He said also that children would be healthier if conceived when the wind is in the north. One gathers that the two Mrs. Aristotles both had to run out and look at the weathercock every evening before going to bed. He states that a man bitten by a mad dog will not go mad, but any other animal will: that the bite of the shrew mouse is dangerous to horses, especially if the mouse is pregnant; that elephants suffering from insomnia can be cured by rubbing their shoulders with salt, olive oil, and warm water; and so on and so on. Nevertheless, classical dons, who have never observed any animal except the cat and the dog, continue to praise Aristotle for his fidelity to observation.

It is not altogether true that persuasion is one thing and force is another. Many forms of persuasion – even many of which everybody approves - are really a kind of force. Consider what we do to our children. We do not say to them: 'Some people think the earth is round, and others think it flat; when you grow up, you can, if you like, examine the evidence and form your own conclusion. 'Instead of this we say; ' The earth is round.' By the time our children are old enough to examine the evidence, our propaganda has closed their minds, and the most persuasive arguments of the Flat Earth Society make no impression. The same applies to the moral precepts that we consider really important, such as 'don't pick your nose' or 'don't eat peas with a knife'. There may, for aught I know, be admirable reasons for eating peas with a knife, but the hypnotic effect of early persuasion has made me completely incapable of appreciating them.

In universities, mathematics is taught mainly to men who are going to teach mathematics to men who are going to teach mathematics to...Sometimes, it is true, there is an escape from this treadmill. Archimedes used mathematics to kill Romans, Galileo to improve the Grand Duke of Tuscany's artillery, modern physicists (grown more ambitious) to exterminate the human race. It is usually on this account that the study of mathematics is commended to the general public as worthy of State support.

The unique feature of persuasion is that ________.

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage:

Man, It would seem has descended from arboreal apes. They lived a happy life in tropical forests, eating coconuts when they were hungry, and throwing them at each other when they were not. They were perpetually occupied in gymnastics, and acquired an agility that, to us, is truly, astonishing. But after some millions of years of this arboreal paradise, their numbers increased to the point where the supply of coconuts was no longer adequate. The population problem set in, and was dealt with in two different ways: those who lived in the middle of the forest learned to throw coconuts with such accuracy as to disable adversaries, whose consequent death relieved the pressure of population, but those who lived on the edge of the forest found another method; they looked out over the fields and discovered that they yielded delicious fruits of various kinds quite as pleasant as coconuts, and gradually they came down from the trees and spent more and more time in the open on the ground. They soon discovered that if you live on the ground it is easy to soul, which are more effective missiles than coconuts.

I am not myself in any degree ashamed of having changed my opinions. What physicist who was already active in 1900 would dream of boasting that his opinions had not changed during the last half century? In science men change their opinions when new knowledge becomes available, but philosophy in the minds of many is assimilated rather to theology than to science. A theologian proclaims eternal truths, the creeds remain unchanged since the Council of Nicea. Where nobody knows anything, there is no point in changing your mind.

Owing to the identification of religion with virtue, together with the fact that the most religious men are not the most intelligent, a religious education gives courage to the stupid to resist the authority of educated men, as has happened, for example, where the teaching of evolution has been made illegal. So far I can remember there is not own word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence; and in this respect ministers of religion follow gospel authority more closely than in some other.

If you think that your belief is based upon reason, you will support it by argument, rather than by persecution, and will abandon it if the argument goes against you. But if your belief is based on faith, you will realise that argument is useless, and will therefore resort to force either in the form of persecution or by stunting and distorting the minds of the young in what is called education. This last is peculiarly dastardly, since it takes advantage of the defenselessness of immature minds. Unfortunately it is practised in a greater or less degree in the school of every civilised country.

Punctuality is a quality the need of which is bound up with social cooperation. It has nothing to do with the relation of the soul to God or with mystic insight, or with any of the mailers with which the more elevated and spiritual moralists are concerned. One would be surprised to find a saint getting drunk, but one would not be surprised to find him late for an engagement. And yet in the ordinary business of life punctuality is absolutely necessary.

To modern educated people, it seems obvious that matters of fact are to be ascertained by observation, not by consulting ancient authorities. But this is an entirely modern conception, which hardly existed before the seventeenth century. Aristotle maintained that women have fewer teeth than men; although he was twice married, it never occurred to him to verify this statement by examining his wives' mouths. He said also that children would be healthier if conceived when the wind is in the north. One gathers that the two Mrs. Aristotles both had to run out and look at the weathercock every evening before going to bed. He states that a man bitten by a mad dog will not go mad, but any other animal will: that the bite of the shrew mouse is dangerous to horses, especially if the mouse is pregnant; that elephants suffering from insomnia can be cured by rubbing their shoulders with salt, olive oil, and warm water; and so on and so on. Nevertheless, classical dons, who have never observed any animal except the cat and the dog, continue to praise Aristotle for his fidelity to observation.

It is not altogether true that persuasion is one thing and force is another. Many forms of persuasion – even many of which everybody approves - are really a kind of force. Consider what we do to our children. We do not say to them: 'Some people think the earth is round, and others think it flat; when you grow up, you can, if you like, examine the evidence and form your own conclusion. 'Instead of this we say; ' The earth is round.' By the time our children are old enough to examine the evidence, our propaganda has closed their minds, and the most persuasive arguments of the Flat Earth Society make no impression. The same applies to the moral precepts that we consider really important, such as 'don't pick your nose' or 'don't eat peas with a knife'. There may, for aught I know, be admirable reasons for eating peas with a knife, but the hypnotic effect of early persuasion has made me completely incapable of appreciating them.

In universities, mathematics is taught mainly to men who are going to teach mathematics to men who are going to teach mathematics to...Sometimes, it is true, there is an escape from this treadmill. Archimedes used mathematics to kill Romans, Galileo to improve the Grand Duke of Tuscany's artillery, modern physicists (grown more ambitious) to exterminate the human race. It is usually on this account that the study of mathematics is commended to the general public as worthy of State support.

''Matters of fact are to be ascertained'' implies that _______.

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage:

Man, It would seem has descended from arboreal apes. They lived a happy life in tropical forests, eating coconuts when they were hungry, and throwing them at each other when they were not. They were perpetually occupied in gymnastics, and acquired an agility that, to us, is truly, astonishing. But after some millions of years of this arboreal paradise, their numbers increased to the point where the supply of coconuts was no longer adequate. The population problem set in, and was dealt with in two different ways: those who lived in the middle of the forest learned to throw coconuts with such accuracy as to disable adversaries, whose consequent death relieved the pressure of population, but those who lived on the edge of the forest found another method; they looked out over the fields and discovered that they yielded delicious fruits of various kinds quite as pleasant as coconuts, and gradually they came down from the trees and spent more and more time in the open on the ground. They soon discovered that if you live on the ground it is easy to soul, which are more effective missiles than coconuts.

I am not myself in any degree ashamed of having changed my opinions. What physicist who was already active in 1900 would dream of boasting that his opinions had not changed during the last half century? In science men change their opinions when new knowledge becomes available, but philosophy in the minds of many is assimilated rather to theology than to science. A theologian proclaims eternal truths, the creeds remain unchanged since the Council of Nicea. Where nobody knows anything, there is no point in changing your mind.

Owing to the identification of religion with virtue, together with the fact that the most religious men are not the most intelligent, a religious education gives courage to the stupid to resist the authority of educated men, as has happened, for example, where the teaching of evolution has been made illegal. So far I can remember there is not own word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence; and in this respect ministers of religion follow gospel authority more closely than in some other.

If you think that your belief is based upon reason, you will support it by argument, rather than by persecution, and will abandon it if the argument goes against you. But if your belief is based on faith, you will realise that argument is useless, and will therefore resort to force either in the form of persecution or by stunting and distorting the minds of the young in what is called education. This last is peculiarly dastardly, since it takes advantage of the defenselessness of immature minds. Unfortunately it is practised in a greater or less degree in the school of every civilised country.

Punctuality is a quality the need of which is bound up with social cooperation. It has nothing to do with the relation of the soul to God or with mystic insight, or with any of the mailers with which the more elevated and spiritual moralists are concerned. One would be surprised to find a saint getting drunk, but one would not be surprised to find him late for an engagement. And yet in the ordinary business of life punctuality is absolutely necessary.

To modern educated people, it seems obvious that matters of fact are to be ascertained by observation, not by consulting ancient authorities. But this is an entirely modern conception, which hardly existed before the seventeenth century. Aristotle maintained that women have fewer teeth than men; although he was twice married, it never occurred to him to verify this statement by examining his wives' mouths. He said also that children would be healthier if conceived when the wind is in the north. One gathers that the two Mrs. Aristotles both had to run out and look at the weathercock every evening before going to bed. He states that a man bitten by a mad dog will not go mad, but any other animal will: that the bite of the shrew mouse is dangerous to horses, especially if the mouse is pregnant; that elephants suffering from insomnia can be cured by rubbing their shoulders with salt, olive oil, and warm water; and so on and so on. Nevertheless, classical dons, who have never observed any animal except the cat and the dog, continue to praise Aristotle for his fidelity to observation.

It is not altogether true that persuasion is one thing and force is another. Many forms of persuasion – even many of which everybody approves - are really a kind of force. Consider what we do to our children. We do not say to them: 'Some people think the earth is round, and others think it flat; when you grow up, you can, if you like, examine the evidence and form your own conclusion. 'Instead of this we say; ' The earth is round.' By the time our children are old enough to examine the evidence, our propaganda has closed their minds, and the most persuasive arguments of the Flat Earth Society make no impression. The same applies to the moral precepts that we consider really important, such as 'don't pick your nose' or 'don't eat peas with a knife'. There may, for aught I know, be admirable reasons for eating peas with a knife, but the hypnotic effect of early persuasion has made me completely incapable of appreciating them.

In universities, mathematics is taught mainly to men who are going to teach mathematics to men who are going to teach mathematics to...Sometimes, it is true, there is an escape from this treadmill. Archimedes used mathematics to kill Romans, Galileo to improve the Grand Duke of Tuscany's artillery, modern physicists (grown more ambitious) to exterminate the human race. It is usually on this account that the study of mathematics is commended to the general public as worthy of State support.

Can we say that the author of this passage is a dogmatic fellow?

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage:

Man, It would seem has descended from arboreal apes. They lived a happy life in tropical forests, eating coconuts when they were hungry, and throwing them at each other when they were not. They were perpetually occupied in gymnastics, and acquired an agility that, to us, is truly, astonishing. But after some millions of years of this arboreal paradise, their numbers increased to the point where the supply of coconuts was no longer adequate. The population problem set in, and was dealt with in two different ways: those who lived in the middle of the forest learned to throw coconuts with such accuracy as to disable adversaries, whose consequent death relieved the pressure of population, but those who lived on the edge of the forest found another method; they looked out over the fields and discovered that they yielded delicious fruits of various kinds quite as pleasant as coconuts, and gradually they came down from the trees and spent more and more time in the open on the ground. They soon discovered that if you live on the ground it is easy to soul, which are more effective missiles than coconuts.

I am not myself in any degree ashamed of having changed my opinions. What physicist who was already active in 1900 would dream of boasting that his opinions had not changed during the last half century? In science men change their opinions when new knowledge becomes available, but philosophy in the minds of many is assimilated rather to theology than to science. A theologian proclaims eternal truths, the creeds remain unchanged since the Council of Nicea. Where nobody knows anything, there is no point in changing your mind.

Owing to the identification of religion with virtue, together with the fact that the most religious men are not the most intelligent, a religious education gives courage to the stupid to resist the authority of educated men, as has happened, for example, where the teaching of evolution has been made illegal. So far I can remember there is not own word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence; and in this respect ministers of religion follow gospel authority more closely than in some other.

If you think that your belief is based upon reason, you will support it by argument, rather than by persecution, and will abandon it if the argument goes against you. But if your belief is based on faith, you will realise that argument is useless, and will therefore resort to force either in the form of persecution or by stunting and distorting the minds of the young in what is called education. This last is peculiarly dastardly, since it takes advantage of the defenselessness of immature minds. Unfortunately it is practised in a greater or less degree in the school of every civilised country.

Punctuality is a quality the need of which is bound up with social cooperation. It has nothing to do with the relation of the soul to God or with mystic insight, or with any of the mailers with which the more elevated and spiritual moralists are concerned. One would be surprised to find a saint getting drunk, but one would not be surprised to find him late for an engagement. And yet in the ordinary business of life punctuality is absolutely necessary.

To modern educated people, it seems obvious that matters of fact are to be ascertained by observation, not by consulting ancient authorities. But this is an entirely modern conception, which hardly existed before the seventeenth century. Aristotle maintained that women have fewer teeth than men; although he was twice married, it never occurred to him to verify this statement by examining his wives' mouths. He said also that children would be healthier if conceived when the wind is in the north. One gathers that the two Mrs. Aristotles both had to run out and look at the weathercock every evening before going to bed. He states that a man bitten by a mad dog will not go mad, but any other animal will: that the bite of the shrew mouse is dangerous to horses, especially if the mouse is pregnant; that elephants suffering from insomnia can be cured by rubbing their shoulders with salt, olive oil, and warm water; and so on and so on. Nevertheless, classical dons, who have never observed any animal except the cat and the dog, continue to praise Aristotle for his fidelity to observation.

It is not altogether true that persuasion is one thing and force is another. Many forms of persuasion – even many of which everybody approves - are really a kind of force. Consider what we do to our children. We do not say to them: 'Some people think the earth is round, and others think it flat; when you grow up, you can, if you like, examine the evidence and form your own conclusion. 'Instead of this we say; ' The earth is round.' By the time our children are old enough to examine the evidence, our propaganda has closed their minds, and the most persuasive arguments of the Flat Earth Society make no impression. The same applies to the moral precepts that we consider really important, such as 'don't pick your nose' or 'don't eat peas with a knife'. There may, for aught I know, be admirable reasons for eating peas with a knife, but the hypnotic effect of early persuasion has made me completely incapable of appreciating them.

In universities, mathematics is taught mainly to men who are going to teach mathematics to men who are going to teach mathematics to...Sometimes, it is true, there is an escape from this treadmill. Archimedes used mathematics to kill Romans, Galileo to improve the Grand Duke of Tuscany's artillery, modern physicists (grown more ambitious) to exterminate the human race. It is usually on this account that the study of mathematics is commended to the general public as worthy of State support.

The central idea of the passage is that _______.

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage:

Man, It would seem has descended from arboreal apes. They lived a happy life in tropical forests, eating coconuts when they were hungry, and throwing them at each other when they were not. They were perpetually occupied in gymnastics, and acquired an agility that, to us, is truly, astonishing. But after some millions of years of this arboreal paradise, their numbers increased to the point where the supply of coconuts was no longer adequate. The population problem set in, and was dealt with in two different ways: those who lived in the middle of the forest learned to throw coconuts with such accuracy as to disable adversaries, whose consequent death relieved the pressure of population, but those who lived on the edge of the forest found another method; they looked out over the fields and discovered that they yielded delicious fruits of various kinds quite as pleasant as coconuts, and gradually they came down from the trees and spent more and more time in the open on the ground. They soon discovered that if you live on the ground it is easy to soul, which are more effective missiles than coconuts.

I am not myself in any degree ashamed of having changed my opinions. What physicist who was already active in 1900 would dream of boasting that his opinions had not changed during the last half century? In science men change their opinions when new knowledge becomes available, but philosophy in the minds of many is assimilated rather to theology than to science. A theologian proclaims eternal truths, the creeds remain unchanged since the Council of Nicea. Where nobody knows anything, there is no point in changing your mind.

Owing to the identification of religion with virtue, together with the fact that the most religious men are not the most intelligent, a religious education gives courage to the stupid to resist the authority of educated men, as has happened, for example, where the teaching of evolution has been made illegal. So far I can remember there is not own word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence; and in this respect ministers of religion follow gospel authority more closely than in some other.

If you think that your belief is based upon reason, you will support it by argument, rather than by persecution, and will abandon it if the argument goes against you. But if your belief is based on faith, you will realise that argument is useless, and will therefore resort to force either in the form of persecution or by stunting and distorting the minds of the young in what is called education. This last is peculiarly dastardly, since it takes advantage of the defenselessness of immature minds. Unfortunately it is practised in a greater or less degree in the school of every civilised country.

Punctuality is a quality the need of which is bound up with social cooperation. It has nothing to do with the relation of the soul to God or with mystic insight, or with any of the mailers with which the more elevated and spiritual moralists are concerned. One would be surprised to find a saint getting drunk, but one would not be surprised to find him late for an engagement. And yet in the ordinary business of life punctuality is absolutely necessary.

To modern educated people, it seems obvious that matters of fact are to be ascertained by observation, not by consulting ancient authorities. But this is an entirely modern conception, which hardly existed before the seventeenth century. Aristotle maintained that women have fewer teeth than men; although he was twice married, it never occurred to him to verify this statement by examining his wives' mouths. He said also that children would be healthier if conceived when the wind is in the north. One gathers that the two Mrs. Aristotles both had to run out and look at the weathercock every evening before going to bed. He states that a man bitten by a mad dog will not go mad, but any other animal will: that the bite of the shrew mouse is dangerous to horses, especially if the mouse is pregnant; that elephants suffering from insomnia can be cured by rubbing their shoulders with salt, olive oil, and warm water; and so on and so on. Nevertheless, classical dons, who have never observed any animal except the cat and the dog, continue to praise Aristotle for his fidelity to observation.

It is not altogether true that persuasion is one thing and force is another. Many forms of persuasion – even many of which everybody approves - are really a kind of force. Consider what we do to our children. We do not say to them: 'Some people think the earth is round, and others think it flat; when you grow up, you can, if you like, examine the evidence and form your own conclusion. 'Instead of this we say; ' The earth is round.' By the time our children are old enough to examine the evidence, our propaganda has closed their minds, and the most persuasive arguments of the Flat Earth Society make no impression. The same applies to the moral precepts that we consider really important, such as 'don't pick your nose' or 'don't eat peas with a knife'. There may, for aught I know, be admirable reasons for eating peas with a knife, but the hypnotic effect of early persuasion has made me completely incapable of appreciating them.

In universities, mathematics is taught mainly to men who are going to teach mathematics to men who are going to teach mathematics to...Sometimes, it is true, there is an escape from this treadmill. Archimedes used mathematics to kill Romans, Galileo to improve the Grand Duke of Tuscany's artillery, modern physicists (grown more ambitious) to exterminate the human race. It is usually on this account that the study of mathematics is commended to the general public as worthy of State support.

The author feels that religious men are _______.

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage:

Man, It would seem has descended from arboreal apes. They lived a happy life in tropical forests, eating coconuts when they were hungry, and throwing them at each other when they were not. They were perpetually occupied in gymnastics, and acquired an agility that, to us, is truly, astonishing. But after some millions of years of this arboreal paradise, their numbers increased to the point where the supply of coconuts was no longer adequate. The population problem set in, and was dealt with in two different ways: those who lived in the middle of the forest learned to throw coconuts with such accuracy as to disable adversaries, whose consequent death relieved the pressure of population, but those who lived on the edge of the forest found another method; they looked out over the fields and discovered that they yielded delicious fruits of various kinds quite as pleasant as coconuts, and gradually they came down from the trees and spent more and more time in the open on the ground. They soon discovered that if you live on the ground it is easy to soul, which are more effective missiles than coconuts.

I am not myself in any degree ashamed of having changed my opinions. What physicist who was already active in 1900 would dream of boasting that his opinions had not changed during the last half century? In science men change their opinions when new knowledge becomes available, but philosophy in the minds of many is assimilated rather to theology than to science. A theologian proclaims eternal truths, the creeds remain unchanged since the Council of Nicea. Where nobody knows anything, there is no point in changing your mind.

Owing to the identification of religion with virtue, together with the fact that the most religious men are not the most intelligent, a religious education gives courage to the stupid to resist the authority of educated men, as has happened, for example, where the teaching of evolution has been made illegal. So far I can remember there is not own word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence; and in this respect ministers of religion follow gospel authority more closely than in some other.

If you think that your belief is based upon reason, you will support it by argument, rather than by persecution, and will abandon it if the argument goes against you. But if your belief is based on faith, you will realise that argument is useless, and will therefore resort to force either in the form of persecution or by stunting and distorting the minds of the young in what is called education. This last is peculiarly dastardly, since it takes advantage of the defenselessness of immature minds. Unfortunately it is practised in a greater or less degree in the school of every civilised country.

Punctuality is a quality the need of which is bound up with social cooperation. It has nothing to do with the relation of the soul to God or with mystic insight, or with any of the mailers with which the more elevated and spiritual moralists are concerned. One would be surprised to find a saint getting drunk, but one would not be surprised to find him late for an engagement. And yet in the ordinary business of life punctuality is absolutely necessary.

To modern educated people, it seems obvious that matters of fact are to be ascertained by observation, not by consulting ancient authorities. But this is an entirely modern conception, which hardly existed before the seventeenth century. Aristotle maintained that women have fewer teeth than men; although he was twice married, it never occurred to him to verify this statement by examining his wives' mouths. He said also that children would be healthier if conceived when the wind is in the north. One gathers that the two Mrs. Aristotles both had to run out and look at the weathercock every evening before going to bed. He states that a man bitten by a mad dog will not go mad, but any other animal will: that the bite of the shrew mouse is dangerous to horses, especially if the mouse is pregnant; that elephants suffering from insomnia can be cured by rubbing their shoulders with salt, olive oil, and warm water; and so on and so on. Nevertheless, classical dons, who have never observed any animal except the cat and the dog, continue to praise Aristotle for his fidelity to observation.

It is not altogether true that persuasion is one thing and force is another. Many forms of persuasion – even many of which everybody approves - are really a kind of force. Consider what we do to our children. We do not say to them: 'Some people think the earth is round, and others think it flat; when you grow up, you can, if you like, examine the evidence and form your own conclusion. 'Instead of this we say; ' The earth is round.' By the time our children are old enough to examine the evidence, our propaganda has closed their minds, and the most persuasive arguments of the Flat Earth Society make no impression. The same applies to the moral precepts that we consider really important, such as 'don't pick your nose' or 'don't eat peas with a knife'. There may, for aught I know, be admirable reasons for eating peas with a knife, but the hypnotic effect of early persuasion has made me completely incapable of appreciating them.

In universities, mathematics is taught mainly to men who are going to teach mathematics to men who are going to teach mathematics to...Sometimes, it is true, there is an escape from this treadmill. Archimedes used mathematics to kill Romans, Galileo to improve the Grand Duke of Tuscany's artillery, modern physicists (grown more ambitious) to exterminate the human race. It is usually on this account that the study of mathematics is commended to the general public as worthy of State support.

The most notable feature of civilization is that __________.

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage:

Man, It would seem has descended from arboreal apes. They lived a happy life in tropical forests, eating coconuts when they were hungry, and throwing them at each other when they were not. They were perpetually occupied in gymnastics, and acquired an agility that, to us, is truly, astonishing. But after some millions of years of this arboreal paradise, their numbers increased to the point where the supply of coconuts was no longer adequate. The population problem set in, and was dealt with in two different ways: those who lived in the middle of the forest learned to throw coconuts with such accuracy as to disable adversaries, whose consequent death relieved the pressure of population, but those who lived on the edge of the forest found another method; they looked out over the fields and discovered that they yielded delicious fruits of various kinds quite as pleasant as coconuts, and gradually they came down from the trees and spent more and more time in the open on the ground. They soon discovered that if you live on the ground it is easy to soul, which are more effective missiles than coconuts.

I am not myself in any degree ashamed of having changed my opinions. What physicist who was already active in 1900 would dream of boasting that his opinions had not changed during the last half century? In science men change their opinions when new knowledge becomes available, but philosophy in the minds of many is assimilated rather to theology than to science. A theologian proclaims eternal truths, the creeds remain unchanged since the Council of Nicea. Where nobody knows anything, there is no point in changing your mind.

Owing to the identification of religion with virtue, together with the fact that the most religious men are not the most intelligent, a religious education gives courage to the stupid to resist the authority of educated men, as has happened, for example, where the teaching of evolution has been made illegal. So far I can remember there is not own word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence; and in this respect ministers of religion follow gospel authority more closely than in some other.

If you think that your belief is based upon reason, you will support it by argument, rather than by persecution, and will abandon it if the argument goes against you. But if your belief is based on faith, you will realise that argument is useless, and will therefore resort to force either in the form of persecution or by stunting and distorting the minds of the young in what is called education. This last is peculiarly dastardly, since it takes advantage of the defenselessness of immature minds. Unfortunately it is practised in a greater or less degree in the school of every civilised country.

Punctuality is a quality the need of which is bound up with social cooperation. It has nothing to do with the relation of the soul to God or with mystic insight, or with any of the mailers with which the more elevated and spiritual moralists are concerned. One would be surprised to find a saint getting drunk, but one would not be surprised to find him late for an engagement. And yet in the ordinary business of life punctuality is absolutely necessary.

To modern educated people, it seems obvious that matters of fact are to be ascertained by observation, not by consulting ancient authorities. But this is an entirely modern conception, which hardly existed before the seventeenth century. Aristotle maintained that women have fewer teeth than men; although he was twice married, it never occurred to him to verify this statement by examining his wives' mouths. He said also that children would be healthier if conceived when the wind is in the north. One gathers that the two Mrs. Aristotles both had to run out and look at the weathercock every evening before going to bed. He states that a man bitten by a mad dog will not go mad, but any other animal will: that the bite of the shrew mouse is dangerous to horses, especially if the mouse is pregnant; that elephants suffering from insomnia can be cured by rubbing their shoulders with salt, olive oil, and warm water; and so on and so on. Nevertheless, classical dons, who have never observed any animal except the cat and the dog, continue to praise Aristotle for his fidelity to observation.

It is not altogether true that persuasion is one thing and force is another. Many forms of persuasion – even many of which everybody approves - are really a kind of force. Consider what we do to our children. We do not say to them: 'Some people think the earth is round, and others think it flat; when you grow up, you can, if you like, examine the evidence and form your own conclusion. 'Instead of this we say; ' The earth is round.' By the time our children are old enough to examine the evidence, our propaganda has closed their minds, and the most persuasive arguments of the Flat Earth Society make no impression. The same applies to the moral precepts that we consider really important, such as 'don't pick your nose' or 'don't eat peas with a knife'. There may, for aught I know, be admirable reasons for eating peas with a knife, but the hypnotic effect of early persuasion has made me completely incapable of appreciating them.

In universities, mathematics is taught mainly to men who are going to teach mathematics to men who are going to teach mathematics to...Sometimes, it is true, there is an escape from this treadmill. Archimedes used mathematics to kill Romans, Galileo to improve the Grand Duke of Tuscany's artillery, modern physicists (grown more ambitious) to exterminate the human race. It is usually on this account that the study of mathematics is commended to the general public as worthy of State support.

Which of the following statements is true in relation to paramis?

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage:

Moment– to – moment awareness – that is one accurate way to describe the great enterprise of becoming free. But there are other valid ways to characterize our path. In the broadest conception of the path, in the vast context of spiritual practice, we cultivate and nourish certain qualities that support and propel us forward into freedom. The Pali word ‘parami ‘refers to ten wholesome qualities in our minds and the accumulated power they bring to us: generosity, morality, renunciation, wisdom, energy, patience, truthfulness, resolve, loving kindness, and equanimity.

The fact that we do not often find the word grace used by schools of Buddhism may allow us to connect with a fresh and immediate sense of the word by looking directly at our own experience. I feel that the paramis are one great influence in our experience that corresponds to the sense of grace, not as a theological doctrine or metaphysical concept but as something we can really feel and know.

The concept of parami reminds me of a line in a poem by Dylan Thomas: “The force that through the green fuse drives the flower.” Parami does not come from some being outside ourselves; rather, it comes from our own gradually accumulated purity. A Buddhist understanding of reliance on a higher power would not necessarily involve reliance on some supernormal being. It is, rather, a reliance on these forces of purity in ourselves that are outside our small, constricted sense of I, and that constitute the source of grace in our lives.

In the long course of evolution in this lifetime and perhaps over many lifetimes, we have generated a power of purity in our mind by acts of generosity and loving kindness, by deepening understanding and wisdom. This power becomes the karmic force that brings blessings in our life. So our own inner development, not an external agent, brings us this grace. Develop and strengthen the paramis within you, and from that source enjoy the blessings that result.

A poem by Galway Kinnell beautifully expresses the grace of blessings from within:

What is the Path?
Saint Francis and the Sow 
The bud 
stands for all things, 
even for those things that don’t flower, 
for everything flowers, from within, of self–blessing;
as Saint Francis 
put his hand on the creased forehead 
of the sow, and told her in words and in touch 
blessings of earth on the sow, and the sow 
began remembering all down her thick length, 
from the earthen snout all the way 
through the fodder and slops to the spiritual curl of the tail, 
from the hard spininess spiked out from the spine 
down through the great broken heart 
to the sheer blue milken dreaminess spurting and shuddering 
from the fourteen teats into the fourteen mouths sucking and 
blowing beneath them: 
the long, perfect loveliness of sow.

Freedom cannot be found within the contraction of ego identification. The practice of Buddhadharma awakens us to an underlying reality beyond that identification. As the paramis develop through our practice – and they have been developing over lifetimes – we experience an emergence of something called dhammoja in Pali, the essence of Dharma. In deepening meditation practice, we drop out of the conceptual realm into an energy flow of awareness. Dhammoja is this energy that keeps pushing us to liberation. It is something greater than our limited sense of self.

I had a strong experience of dhammoja during one of my periods of practice in Burma. I had been in Asia for several months and was rapidly losing weight and physical strength. At one point my body became so weak that I would actually topple over from my sitting position. But even in this very weakened bodily condition, the energy from the inner flow of awareness remained so strong that the meditation continued to unfold. It was as if nothing could stop the onward–leading momentum. This experience reminded me of those stories of the Buddha visiting people who were sick or dying. He would often say to them, “Though your body is weak and full of pain, train your mind to stay alert and mindful.” A taste of dhammoja shows us that we can actually do what the Buddha advised.

Another understanding of grace comes from the Buddhist world view that recognizes beings on other planes of existence. In traditional Buddhist cultures people believe that devas, or celestial beings from higher planes, can work to protect, guide, and help us in different situations. The Buddha taught that devas are drawn to us through the power of our virtue and loving kindness. As we cultivate and purify our own morality and love, we open ourselves to receive their positive energy and beneficent help.

You may or may not choose to believe this aspect of Buddhist cosmology. Our freedom does not depend on external things. You can come to full liberation whether or not you find devas credible. But a phrase from Coleridge might suggest a useful attitude: the willing suspension of disbelief. Can we remain open to possibilities of things we do not yet know for ourselves, with neither blind belief nor blind disbelief? Many things that today seem commonplace in our world, one hundred years ago would have been called miracles.

Although strong hidden influences, given the right conditions, can assist us, they cannot accomplish the work of spiritual practice for us. The beneficence of external beings like devas is secondary to the inwardly developed, liberating force of dhammoja and the paramis.

Reflecting on our own paramis can be a great help in practice. The force of delusion is so strong that most beings never see the possibility of coming out of suffering. The very notion that the mind can be purified of greed, hatred, and delusion never even occurs to most people. Only a vast reservoir of parami brings us to practice and creates the motivation and interest to do this difficult, ultimately liberating work. Appreciating the paramis within ourselves can be a cause for great self–respect and joy. Often, in the midst of the many ups and downs of practice, we forget just how powerful the paramis are in each one of us. They engender true grace in our lives.

Classical dons praise Aristotle for his fidelity to observation, this statement in the passage indicates ________.

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage:

Man, It would seem has descended from arboreal apes. They lived a happy life in tropical forests, eating coconuts when they were hungry, and throwing them at each other when they were not. They were perpetually occupied in gymnastics, and acquired an agility that, to us, is truly, astonishing. But after some millions of years of this arboreal paradise, their numbers increased to the point where the supply of coconuts was no longer adequate. The population problem set in, and was dealt with in two different ways: those who lived in the middle of the forest learned to throw coconuts with such accuracy as to disable adversaries, whose consequent death relieved the pressure of population, but those who lived on the edge of the forest found another method; they looked out over the fields and discovered that they yielded delicious fruits of various kinds quite as pleasant as coconuts, and gradually they came down from the trees and spent more and more time in the open on the ground. They soon discovered that if you live on the ground it is easy to soul, which are more effective missiles than coconuts.

I am not myself in any degree ashamed of having changed my opinions. What physicist who was already active in 1900 would dream of boasting that his opinions had not changed during the last half century? In science men change their opinions when new knowledge becomes available, but philosophy in the minds of many is assimilated rather to theology than to science. A theologian proclaims eternal truths, the creeds remain unchanged since the Council of Nicea. Where nobody knows anything, there is no point in changing your mind.

Owing to the identification of religion with virtue, together with the fact that the most religious men are not the most intelligent, a religious education gives courage to the stupid to resist the authority of educated men, as has happened, for example, where the teaching of evolution has been made illegal. So far I can remember there is not own word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence; and in this respect ministers of religion follow gospel authority more closely than in some other.

If you think that your belief is based upon reason, you will support it by argument, rather than by persecution, and will abandon it if the argument goes against you. But if your belief is based on faith, you will realise that argument is useless, and will therefore resort to force either in the form of persecution or by stunting and distorting the minds of the young in what is called education. This last is peculiarly dastardly, since it takes advantage of the defenselessness of immature minds. Unfortunately it is practised in a greater or less degree in the school of every civilised country.

Punctuality is a quality the need of which is bound up with social cooperation. It has nothing to do with the relation of the soul to God or with mystic insight, or with any of the mailers with which the more elevated and spiritual moralists are concerned. One would be surprised to find a saint getting drunk, but one would not be surprised to find him late for an engagement. And yet in the ordinary business of life punctuality is absolutely necessary.

To modern educated people, it seems obvious that matters of fact are to be ascertained by observation, not by consulting ancient authorities. But this is an entirely modern conception, which hardly existed before the seventeenth century. Aristotle maintained that women have fewer teeth than men; although he was twice married, it never occurred to him to verify this statement by examining his wives' mouths. He said also that children would be healthier if conceived when the wind is in the north. One gathers that the two Mrs. Aristotles both had to run out and look at the weathercock every evening before going to bed. He states that a man bitten by a mad dog will not go mad, but any other animal will: that the bite of the shrew mouse is dangerous to horses, especially if the mouse is pregnant; that elephants suffering from insomnia can be cured by rubbing their shoulders with salt, olive oil, and warm water; and so on and so on. Nevertheless, classical dons, who have never observed any animal except the cat and the dog, continue to praise Aristotle for his fidelity to observation.

It is not altogether true that persuasion is one thing and force is another. Many forms of persuasion – even many of which everybody approves - are really a kind of force. Consider what we do to our children. We do not say to them: 'Some people think the earth is round, and others think it flat; when you grow up, you can, if you like, examine the evidence and form your own conclusion. 'Instead of this we say; ' The earth is round.' By the time our children are old enough to examine the evidence, our propaganda has closed their minds, and the most persuasive arguments of the Flat Earth Society make no impression. The same applies to the moral precepts that we consider really important, such as 'don't pick your nose' or 'don't eat peas with a knife'. There may, for aught I know, be admirable reasons for eating peas with a knife, but the hypnotic effect of early persuasion has made me completely incapable of appreciating them.

In universities, mathematics is taught mainly to men who are going to teach mathematics to men who are going to teach mathematics to...Sometimes, it is true, there is an escape from this treadmill. Archimedes used mathematics to kill Romans, Galileo to improve the Grand Duke of Tuscany's artillery, modern physicists (grown more ambitious) to exterminate the human race. It is usually on this account that the study of mathematics is commended to the general public as worthy of State support.

Which of the following options could be an appropriate title for the passage?

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage:

Moment– to – moment awareness – that is one accurate way to describe the great enterprise of becoming free. But there are other valid ways to characterize our path. In the broadest conception of the path, in the vast context of spiritual practice, we cultivate and nourish certain qualities that support and propel us forward into freedom. The Pali word ‘parami ‘refers to ten wholesome qualities in our minds and the accumulated power they bring to us: generosity, morality, renunciation, wisdom, energy, patience, truthfulness, resolve, loving kindness, and equanimity.

The fact that we do not often find the word grace used by schools of Buddhism may allow us to connect with a fresh and immediate sense of the word by looking directly at our own experience. I feel that the paramis are one great influence in our experience that corresponds to the sense of grace, not as a theological doctrine or metaphysical concept but as something we can really feel and know.

The concept of parami reminds me of a line in a poem by Dylan Thomas: “The force that through the green fuse drives the flower.” Parami does not come from some being outside ourselves; rather, it comes from our own gradually accumulated purity. A Buddhist understanding of reliance on a higher power would not necessarily involve reliance on some supernormal being. It is, rather, a reliance on these forces of purity in ourselves that are outside our small, constricted sense of I, and that constitute the source of grace in our lives.

In the long course of evolution in this lifetime and perhaps over many lifetimes, we have generated a power of purity in our mind by acts of generosity and loving kindness, by deepening understanding and wisdom. This power becomes the karmic force that brings blessings in our life. So our own inner development, not an external agent, brings us this grace. Develop and strengthen the paramis within you, and from that source enjoy the blessings that result.

A poem by Galway Kinnell beautifully expresses the grace of blessings from within:

What is the Path?
Saint Francis and the Sow 
The bud 
stands for all things, 
even for those things that don’t flower, 
for everything flowers, from within, of self–blessing;
as Saint Francis 
put his hand on the creased forehead 
of the sow, and told her in words and in touch 
blessings of earth on the sow, and the sow 
began remembering all down her thick length, 
from the earthen snout all the way 
through the fodder and slops to the spiritual curl of the tail, 
from the hard spininess spiked out from the spine 
down through the great broken heart 
to the sheer blue milken dreaminess spurting and shuddering 
from the fourteen teats into the fourteen mouths sucking and 
blowing beneath them: 
the long, perfect loveliness of sow.

Freedom cannot be found within the contraction of ego identification. The practice of Buddhadharma awakens us to an underlying reality beyond that identification. As the paramis develop through our practice – and they have been developing over lifetimes – we experience an emergence of something called dhammoja in Pali, the essence of Dharma. In deepening meditation practice, we drop out of the conceptual realm into an energy flow of awareness. Dhammoja is this energy that keeps pushing us to liberation. It is something greater than our limited sense of self.

I had a strong experience of dhammoja during one of my periods of practice in Burma. I had been in Asia for several months and was rapidly losing weight and physical strength. At one point my body became so weak that I would actually topple over from my sitting position. But even in this very weakened bodily condition, the energy from the inner flow of awareness remained so strong that the meditation continued to unfold. It was as if nothing could stop the onward–leading momentum. This experience reminded me of those stories of the Buddha visiting people who were sick or dying. He would often say to them, “Though your body is weak and full of pain, train your mind to stay alert and mindful.” A taste of dhammoja shows us that we can actually do what the Buddha advised.

Another understanding of grace comes from the Buddhist world view that recognizes beings on other planes of existence. In traditional Buddhist cultures people believe that devas, or celestial beings from higher planes, can work to protect, guide, and help us in different situations. The Buddha taught that devas are drawn to us through the power of our virtue and loving kindness. As we cultivate and purify our own morality and love, we open ourselves to receive their positive energy and beneficent help.

You may or may not choose to believe this aspect of Buddhist cosmology. Our freedom does not depend on external things. You can come to full liberation whether or not you find devas credible. But a phrase from Coleridge might suggest a useful attitude: the willing suspension of disbelief. Can we remain open to possibilities of things we do not yet know for ourselves, with neither blind belief nor blind disbelief? Many things that today seem commonplace in our world, one hundred years ago would have been called miracles.

Although strong hidden influences, given the right conditions, can assist us, they cannot accomplish the work of spiritual practice for us. The beneficence of external beings like devas is secondary to the inwardly developed, liberating force of dhammoja and the paramis.

Reflecting on our own paramis can be a great help in practice. The force of delusion is so strong that most beings never see the possibility of coming out of suffering. The very notion that the mind can be purified of greed, hatred, and delusion never even occurs to most people. Only a vast reservoir of parami brings us to practice and creates the motivation and interest to do this difficult, ultimately liberating work. Appreciating the paramis within ourselves can be a cause for great self–respect and joy. Often, in the midst of the many ups and downs of practice, we forget just how powerful the paramis are in each one of us. They engender true grace in our lives.

The bud and the sow are symbols of _______.

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage:

Moment– to – moment awareness – that is one accurate way to describe the great enterprise of becoming free. But there are other valid ways to characterize our path. In the broadest conception of the path, in the vast context of spiritual practice, we cultivate and nourish certain qualities that support and propel us forward into freedom. The Pali word ‘parami ‘refers to ten wholesome qualities in our minds and the accumulated power they bring to us: generosity, morality, renunciation, wisdom, energy, patience, truthfulness, resolve, loving kindness, and equanimity.

The fact that we do not often find the word grace used by schools of Buddhism may allow us to connect with a fresh and immediate sense of the word by looking directly at our own experience. I feel that the paramis are one great influence in our experience that corresponds to the sense of grace, not as a theological doctrine or metaphysical concept but as something we can really feel and know.

The concept of parami reminds me of a line in a poem by Dylan Thomas: “The force that through the green fuse drives the flower.” Parami does not come from some being outside ourselves; rather, it comes from our own gradually accumulated purity. A Buddhist understanding of reliance on a higher power would not necessarily involve reliance on some supernormal being. It is, rather, a reliance on these forces of purity in ourselves that are outside our small, constricted sense of I, and that constitute the source of grace in our lives.

In the long course of evolution in this lifetime and perhaps over many lifetimes, we have generated a power of purity in our mind by acts of generosity and loving kindness, by deepening understanding and wisdom. This power becomes the karmic force that brings blessings in our life. So our own inner development, not an external agent, brings us this grace. Develop and strengthen the paramis within you, and from that source enjoy the blessings that result.

A poem by Galway Kinnell beautifully expresses the grace of blessings from within:

What is the Path?
Saint Francis and the Sow 
The bud 
stands for all things, 
even for those things that don’t flower, 
for everything flowers, from within, of self–blessing;
as Saint Francis 
put his hand on the creased forehead 
of the sow, and told her in words and in touch 
blessings of earth on the sow, and the sow 
began remembering all down her thick length, 
from the earthen snout all the way 
through the fodder and slops to the spiritual curl of the tail, 
from the hard spininess spiked out from the spine 
down through the great broken heart 
to the sheer blue milken dreaminess spurting and shuddering 
from the fourteen teats into the fourteen mouths sucking and 
blowing beneath them: 
the long, perfect loveliness of sow.

Freedom cannot be found within the contraction of ego identification. The practice of Buddhadharma awakens us to an underlying reality beyond that identification. As the paramis develop through our practice – and they have been developing over lifetimes – we experience an emergence of something called dhammoja in Pali, the essence of Dharma. In deepening meditation practice, we drop out of the conceptual realm into an energy flow of awareness. Dhammoja is this energy that keeps pushing us to liberation. It is something greater than our limited sense of self.

I had a strong experience of dhammoja during one of my periods of practice in Burma. I had been in Asia for several months and was rapidly losing weight and physical strength. At one point my body became so weak that I would actually topple over from my sitting position. But even in this very weakened bodily condition, the energy from the inner flow of awareness remained so strong that the meditation continued to unfold. It was as if nothing could stop the onward–leading momentum. This experience reminded me of those stories of the Buddha visiting people who were sick or dying. He would often say to them, “Though your body is weak and full of pain, train your mind to stay alert and mindful.” A taste of dhammoja shows us that we can actually do what the Buddha advised.

Another understanding of grace comes from the Buddhist world view that recognizes beings on other planes of existence. In traditional Buddhist cultures people believe that devas, or celestial beings from higher planes, can work to protect, guide, and help us in different situations. The Buddha taught that devas are drawn to us through the power of our virtue and loving kindness. As we cultivate and purify our own morality and love, we open ourselves to receive their positive energy and beneficent help.

You may or may not choose to believe this aspect of Buddhist cosmology. Our freedom does not depend on external things. You can come to full liberation whether or not you find devas credible. But a phrase from Coleridge might suggest a useful attitude: the willing suspension of disbelief. Can we remain open to possibilities of things we do not yet know for ourselves, with neither blind belief nor blind disbelief? Many things that today seem commonplace in our world, one hundred years ago would have been called miracles.

Although strong hidden influences, given the right conditions, can assist us, they cannot accomplish the work of spiritual practice for us. The beneficence of external beings like devas is secondary to the inwardly developed, liberating force of dhammoja and the paramis.

Reflecting on our own paramis can be a great help in practice. The force of delusion is so strong that most beings never see the possibility of coming out of suffering. The very notion that the mind can be purified of greed, hatred, and delusion never even occurs to most people. Only a vast reservoir of parami brings us to practice and creates the motivation and interest to do this difficult, ultimately liberating work. Appreciating the paramis within ourselves can be a cause for great self–respect and joy. Often, in the midst of the many ups and downs of practice, we forget just how powerful the paramis are in each one of us. They engender true grace in our lives.

Where nobody knows anything, there is no point in changing your mind. This line indicates ________.

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage:

Man, It would seem has descended from arboreal apes. They lived a happy life in tropical forests, eating coconuts when they were hungry, and throwing them at each other when they were not. They were perpetually occupied in gymnastics, and acquired an agility that, to us, is truly, astonishing. But after some millions of years of this arboreal paradise, their numbers increased to the point where the supply of coconuts was no longer adequate. The population problem set in, and was dealt with in two different ways: those who lived in the middle of the forest learned to throw coconuts with such accuracy as to disable adversaries, whose consequent death relieved the pressure of population, but those who lived on the edge of the forest found another method; they looked out over the fields and discovered that they yielded delicious fruits of various kinds quite as pleasant as coconuts, and gradually they came down from the trees and spent more and more time in the open on the ground. They soon discovered that if you live on the ground it is easy to soul, which are more effective missiles than coconuts.

I am not myself in any degree ashamed of having changed my opinions. What physicist who was already active in 1900 would dream of boasting that his opinions had not changed during the last half century? In science men change their opinions when new knowledge becomes available, but philosophy in the minds of many is assimilated rather to theology than to science. A theologian proclaims eternal truths, the creeds remain unchanged since the Council of Nicea. Where nobody knows anything, there is no point in changing your mind.

Owing to the identification of religion with virtue, together with the fact that the most religious men are not the most intelligent, a religious education gives courage to the stupid to resist the authority of educated men, as has happened, for example, where the teaching of evolution has been made illegal. So far I can remember there is not own word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence; and in this respect ministers of religion follow gospel authority more closely than in some other.

If you think that your belief is based upon reason, you will support it by argument, rather than by persecution, and will abandon it if the argument goes against you. But if your belief is based on faith, you will realise that argument is useless, and will therefore resort to force either in the form of persecution or by stunting and distorting the minds of the young in what is called education. This last is peculiarly dastardly, since it takes advantage of the defenselessness of immature minds. Unfortunately it is practised in a greater or less degree in the school of every civilised country.

Punctuality is a quality the need of which is bound up with social cooperation. It has nothing to do with the relation of the soul to God or with mystic insight, or with any of the mailers with which the more elevated and spiritual moralists are concerned. One would be surprised to find a saint getting drunk, but one would not be surprised to find him late for an engagement. And yet in the ordinary business of life punctuality is absolutely necessary.

To modern educated people, it seems obvious that matters of fact are to be ascertained by observation, not by consulting ancient authorities. But this is an entirely modern conception, which hardly existed before the seventeenth century. Aristotle maintained that women have fewer teeth than men; although he was twice married, it never occurred to him to verify this statement by examining his wives' mouths. He said also that children would be healthier if conceived when the wind is in the north. One gathers that the two Mrs. Aristotles both had to run out and look at the weathercock every evening before going to bed. He states that a man bitten by a mad dog will not go mad, but any other animal will: that the bite of the shrew mouse is dangerous to horses, especially if the mouse is pregnant; that elephants suffering from insomnia can be cured by rubbing their shoulders with salt, olive oil, and warm water; and so on and so on. Nevertheless, classical dons, who have never observed any animal except the cat and the dog, continue to praise Aristotle for his fidelity to observation.

It is not altogether true that persuasion is one thing and force is another. Many forms of persuasion – even many of which everybody approves - are really a kind of force. Consider what we do to our children. We do not say to them: 'Some people think the earth is round, and others think it flat; when you grow up, you can, if you like, examine the evidence and form your own conclusion. 'Instead of this we say; ' The earth is round.' By the time our children are old enough to examine the evidence, our propaganda has closed their minds, and the most persuasive arguments of the Flat Earth Society make no impression. The same applies to the moral precepts that we consider really important, such as 'don't pick your nose' or 'don't eat peas with a knife'. There may, for aught I know, be admirable reasons for eating peas with a knife, but the hypnotic effect of early persuasion has made me completely incapable of appreciating them.

In universities, mathematics is taught mainly to men who are going to teach mathematics to men who are going to teach mathematics to...Sometimes, it is true, there is an escape from this treadmill. Archimedes used mathematics to kill Romans, Galileo to improve the Grand Duke of Tuscany's artillery, modern physicists (grown more ambitious) to exterminate the human race. It is usually on this account that the study of mathematics is commended to the general public as worthy of State support.

Does the author believe in the existence of Devas?

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage:

Moment– to – moment awareness – that is one accurate way to describe the great enterprise of becoming free. But there are other valid ways to characterize our path. In the broadest conception of the path, in the vast context of spiritual practice, we cultivate and nourish certain qualities that support and propel us forward into freedom. The Pali word ‘parami ‘refers to ten wholesome qualities in our minds and the accumulated power they bring to us: generosity, morality, renunciation, wisdom, energy, patience, truthfulness, resolve, loving kindness, and equanimity.

The fact that we do not often find the word grace used by schools of Buddhism may allow us to connect with a fresh and immediate sense of the word by looking directly at our own experience. I feel that the paramis are one great influence in our experience that corresponds to the sense of grace, not as a theological doctrine or metaphysical concept but as something we can really feel and know.

The concept of parami reminds me of a line in a poem by Dylan Thomas: “The force that through the green fuse drives the flower.” Parami does not come from some being outside ourselves; rather, it comes from our own gradually accumulated purity. A Buddhist understanding of reliance on a higher power would not necessarily involve reliance on some supernormal being. It is, rather, a reliance on these forces of purity in ourselves that are outside our small, constricted sense of I, and that constitute the source of grace in our lives.

In the long course of evolution in this lifetime and perhaps over many lifetimes, we have generated a power of purity in our mind by acts of generosity and loving kindness, by deepening understanding and wisdom. This power becomes the karmic force that brings blessings in our life. So our own inner development, not an external agent, brings us this grace. Develop and strengthen the paramis within you, and from that source enjoy the blessings that result.

A poem by Galway Kinnell beautifully expresses the grace of blessings from within:

What is the Path?
Saint Francis and the Sow 
The bud 
stands for all things, 
even for those things that don’t flower, 
for everything flowers, from within, of self–blessing;
as Saint Francis 
put his hand on the creased forehead 
of the sow, and told her in words and in touch 
blessings of earth on the sow, and the sow 
began remembering all down her thick length, 
from the earthen snout all the way 
through the fodder and slops to the spiritual curl of the tail, 
from the hard spininess spiked out from the spine 
down through the great broken heart 
to the sheer blue milken dreaminess spurting and shuddering 
from the fourteen teats into the fourteen mouths sucking and 
blowing beneath them: 
the long, perfect loveliness of sow.

Freedom cannot be found within the contraction of ego identification. The practice of Buddhadharma awakens us to an underlying reality beyond that identification. As the paramis develop through our practice – and they have been developing over lifetimes – we experience an emergence of something called dhammoja in Pali, the essence of Dharma. In deepening meditation practice, we drop out of the conceptual realm into an energy flow of awareness. Dhammoja is this energy that keeps pushing us to liberation. It is something greater than our limited sense of self.

I had a strong experience of dhammoja during one of my periods of practice in Burma. I had been in Asia for several months and was rapidly losing weight and physical strength. At one point my body became so weak that I would actually topple over from my sitting position. But even in this very weakened bodily condition, the energy from the inner flow of awareness remained so strong that the meditation continued to unfold. It was as if nothing could stop the onward–leading momentum. This experience reminded me of those stories of the Buddha visiting people who were sick or dying. He would often say to them, “Though your body is weak and full of pain, train your mind to stay alert and mindful.” A taste of dhammoja shows us that we can actually do what the Buddha advised.

Another understanding of grace comes from the Buddhist world view that recognizes beings on other planes of existence. In traditional Buddhist cultures people believe that devas, or celestial beings from higher planes, can work to protect, guide, and help us in different situations. The Buddha taught that devas are drawn to us through the power of our virtue and loving kindness. As we cultivate and purify our own morality and love, we open ourselves to receive their positive energy and beneficent help.

You may or may not choose to believe this aspect of Buddhist cosmology. Our freedom does not depend on external things. You can come to full liberation whether or not you find devas credible. But a phrase from Coleridge might suggest a useful attitude: the willing suspension of disbelief. Can we remain open to possibilities of things we do not yet know for ourselves, with neither blind belief nor blind disbelief? Many things that today seem commonplace in our world, one hundred years ago would have been called miracles.

Although strong hidden influences, given the right conditions, can assist us, they cannot accomplish the work of spiritual practice for us. The beneficence of external beings like devas is secondary to the inwardly developed, liberating force of dhammoja and the paramis.

Reflecting on our own paramis can be a great help in practice. The force of delusion is so strong that most beings never see the possibility of coming out of suffering. The very notion that the mind can be purified of greed, hatred, and delusion never even occurs to most people. Only a vast reservoir of parami brings us to practice and creates the motivation and interest to do this difficult, ultimately liberating work. Appreciating the paramis within ourselves can be a cause for great self–respect and joy. Often, in the midst of the many ups and downs of practice, we forget just how powerful the paramis are in each one of us. They engender true grace in our lives.

What does the author think about the development in western science in the last 2500 years?

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage:

Guntur & Nalgonda (A.P.): "The farmers ask us what seeds to use and we advise them," says Nageswara Rao in the district headquarters of Nalgonda. He works in one of the biggest seed and fertilizer stores in town, owned by a relative of his. "We have no scientific qualification," admits the polite Rao. "We only guide them by experience. We ourselves consult the manufacturers." Seeds, fertilizer and pesticide dealers are at the centre of a growing controversy in Andhra Pradesh. They are the new moneylenders to a peasantry strapped for credit. "The banks have given no loans in the past seven years," says Malla Reddy, general secretary of the Andhra Pradesh Ryuthu Sangham (APRS). "So many farmers are forced to depend on sources like these for credit. The same man advises them on what to buy and then sets the rates for the purchase." With the seed dealers charging on hefty interest rates to their credit sales, the problem gets sharper. Nageswara Rao admits to a charge of two per cent a month on bills, but says there is no choice. Times are bad. "Besides, we are quite lenient as we wish to help the farmer. Sometimes, they agree to pay in 60 days but may not do so for 90 to 120 days."

Farmers in Nalgonda's villages are skeptical of this altruism. "Each month's delay adds to the interest," points out P. Bhiksham in G. Edavalli village. Yet, the farmer often goes by the dealer's advice on what products to buy. "The dealer has emerged an `expert', because the others have gone," says Malla Reddy. The APRS leader points to "over 2,800 vacancies in the Department of Agriculture. The last Government only appointed 7,000 unqualified people on contract. They had no background in agriculture." Many of the farmers' suicides in the State have been largely debt driven which makes the seed dealer's role more of a problem. Some of those who took their lives did so because of both, huge debts and crop failures due to spurious seeds and pesticides. But there is little punishment for those selling fake seeds. "Just Rs. 500," says the new Agriculture Minister, Raghuveera Reddy. He hopes to bring some order to a system now out of control. "We have recovered spurious seeds worth Rs. 7 crore in raids in only the past month," he told us. But the offenders are people for whom Rs. 500 fine is a joke. So the Government intends to bring in a new Seed Act at the State level. Andhra Pradesh's record of curbing such fraud in the past has been dismal. "Till date, no case filed by the State against a seed or pesticide dealer has ever been won by the Government," says Yalamanchili Shivaji. He is a former Rajya Sabha MP and a well–known farmers' leader here. "In contrast," he claims, "almost no such case filed by the Tamil Government was lost." Dr. Shivaji also points out that Andhra Pradesh has fewer agriculture and extension officers than any southern State. "The Naidu Government was bent on privatizing extension work," says Malla Reddy. The matter gets more complex given the clout the seed dealers have gained. And the alarming rise in the cost of inputs they control. Per acre costs have exploded since 1996.

As farmers in G. Edavalli explain: The cost of paddy seeds an acre almost tripled from Rs. 120 in 1996 to around Rs. 350 now. That of urea nearly doubled from around 120 then to nearly Rs. 230 now. Pesticide, ammonia phosphate, zinc – all these have more than doubled in cost." A farmer might buy most of these inputs from the same dealer. Other expenses, too, have risen. Tractors cost a lot more than manual work did. "In 1996," say farmers in G. Edavalli, "we could raise an acre of paddy within Rs. 3,500. Today that is Rs. 7,500 or more." Add higher power tariffs and water costs and people are now paying well over double what they did in 1996. Those who left food crops to experiment with cash crops in this period pay still more. The 24 per cent interest that seed dealers tag on makes the burden more worse. And with seed companies hawking a "germination rate" of only 65 per cent, farmers get even less value for money. This is Telangana. Input costs are higher in coastal region where, too, suicides have been on. The use of high cost items such as fertilizers and pesticides is greatest in Andhra Pradesh. The All–India average for fertilizer consumption per hectare was 88 kg in 2001. In Andhra Pradesh it was almost 180 kg. It is even greater in the coastal region. "Over use of fertilizer is a huge problem," says Malla Reddy of the APRS.

"At the same time," he says "tenant farmers faced massive increases in the cost of leasing land." Such tenants make up nearly 60 per cent of all farmers in many parts of the State, more so in the coastal region. From the late 1990s, they were asked by the landlords to pay (as lease cost) between 21 and 25 bags of paddy an acre each year. This, when their output was barely 30 bags an acre. So the tenant farmer is left with five bags of paddy and another three of black gram that he sows after paddy. And that is in a good year!" By the late 1990s, the farmer was wilting. In 1996, "he was making Rs. 5,000 to Rs. 6,000 an acre on an input cost of Rs. 3,500. Now he is making Rs. 1,500 to Rs. 2,000 an acre on cost close to Rs. 8,000. Between then and now, productivity has only risen from 25 to under 30 bags an acre. This huge use of fertilizer has not helped much." "But at the moment when input costs were so high and rewards so poor," says the Nalgonda ex–MLA, Narasimha Reddy, "the banks stopped giving the farmer any credit. And output prices were crashing due to rigged and volatile markets. There was also zero investment in agriculture. This crisis was man–made." That was how the suicides began. "Add drought and crop failure to that," says Reddy, "and the suicides only got worse."

Which among the following statements can be inferred from the passage?

I. Crop failures due to spurious seeds and pesticides were primarily responsible for the suicides committed by the farmers.
II. The farmers who shifted from food crops to cash crops were the only ones who were not affected.
III. A low germination rate of seed added to the woes of the farmers.

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage:

Guntur & Nalgonda (A.P.): "The farmers ask us what seeds to use and we advise them," says Nageswara Rao in the district headquarters of Nalgonda. He works in one of the biggest seed and fertilizer stores in town, owned by a relative of his. "We have no scientific qualification," admits the polite Rao. "We only guide them by experience. We ourselves consult the manufacturers." Seeds, fertilizer and pesticide dealers are at the centre of a growing controversy in Andhra Pradesh. They are the new moneylenders to a peasantry strapped for credit. "The banks have given no loans in the past seven years," says Malla Reddy, general secretary of the Andhra Pradesh Ryuthu Sangham (APRS). "So many farmers are forced to depend on sources like these for credit. The same man advises them on what to buy and then sets the rates for the purchase." With the seed dealers charging on hefty interest rates to their credit sales, the problem gets sharper. Nageswara Rao admits to a charge of two per cent a month on bills, but says there is no choice. Times are bad. "Besides, we are quite lenient as we wish to help the farmer. Sometimes, they agree to pay in 60 days but may not do so for 90 to 120 days."

Farmers in Nalgonda's villages are skeptical of this altruism. "Each month's delay adds to the interest," points out P. Bhiksham in G. Edavalli village. Yet, the farmer often goes by the dealer's advice on what products to buy. "The dealer has emerged an `expert', because the others have gone," says Malla Reddy. The APRS leader points to "over 2,800 vacancies in the Department of Agriculture. The last Government only appointed 7,000 unqualified people on contract. They had no background in agriculture." Many of the farmers' suicides in the State have been largely debt driven which makes the seed dealer's role more of a problem. Some of those who took their lives did so because of both, huge debts and crop failures due to spurious seeds and pesticides. But there is little punishment for those selling fake seeds. "Just Rs. 500," says the new Agriculture Minister, Raghuveera Reddy. He hopes to bring some order to a system now out of control. "We have recovered spurious seeds worth Rs. 7 crore in raids in only the past month," he told us. But the offenders are people for whom Rs. 500 fine is a joke. So the Government intends to bring in a new Seed Act at the State level. Andhra Pradesh's record of curbing such fraud in the past has been dismal. "Till date, no case filed by the State against a seed or pesticide dealer has ever been won by the Government," says Yalamanchili Shivaji. He is a former Rajya Sabha MP and a well–known farmers' leader here. "In contrast," he claims, "almost no such case filed by the Tamil Government was lost." Dr. Shivaji also points out that Andhra Pradesh has fewer agriculture and extension officers than any southern State. "The Naidu Government was bent on privatizing extension work," says Malla Reddy. The matter gets more complex given the clout the seed dealers have gained. And the alarming rise in the cost of inputs they control. Per acre costs have exploded since 1996.

As farmers in G. Edavalli explain: The cost of paddy seeds an acre almost tripled from Rs. 120 in 1996 to around Rs. 350 now. That of urea nearly doubled from around 120 then to nearly Rs. 230 now. Pesticide, ammonia phosphate, zinc – all these have more than doubled in cost." A farmer might buy most of these inputs from the same dealer. Other expenses, too, have risen. Tractors cost a lot more than manual work did. "In 1996," say farmers in G. Edavalli, "we could raise an acre of paddy within Rs. 3,500. Today that is Rs. 7,500 or more." Add higher power tariffs and water costs and people are now paying well over double what they did in 1996. Those who left food crops to experiment with cash crops in this period pay still more. The 24 per cent interest that seed dealers tag on makes the burden more worse. And with seed companies hawking a "germination rate" of only 65 per cent, farmers get even less value for money. This is Telangana. Input costs are higher in coastal region where, too, suicides have been on. The use of high cost items such as fertilizers and pesticides is greatest in Andhra Pradesh. The All–India average for fertilizer consumption per hectare was 88 kg in 2001. In Andhra Pradesh it was almost 180 kg. It is even greater in the coastal region. "Over use of fertilizer is a huge problem," says Malla Reddy of the APRS.

"At the same time," he says "tenant farmers faced massive increases in the cost of leasing land." Such tenants make up nearly 60 per cent of all farmers in many parts of the State, more so in the coastal region. From the late 1990s, they were asked by the landlords to pay (as lease cost) between 21 and 25 bags of paddy an acre each year. This, when their output was barely 30 bags an acre. So the tenant farmer is left with five bags of paddy and another three of black gram that he sows after paddy. And that is in a good year!" By the late 1990s, the farmer was wilting. In 1996, "he was making Rs. 5,000 to Rs. 6,000 an acre on an input cost of Rs. 3,500. Now he is making Rs. 1,500 to Rs. 2,000 an acre on cost close to Rs. 8,000. Between then and now, productivity has only risen from 25 to under 30 bags an acre. This huge use of fertilizer has not helped much." "But at the moment when input costs were so high and rewards so poor," says the Nalgonda ex–MLA, Narasimha Reddy, "the banks stopped giving the farmer any credit. And output prices were crashing due to rigged and volatile markets. There was also zero investment in agriculture. This crisis was man–made." That was how the suicides began. "Add drought and crop failure to that," says Reddy, "and the suicides only got worse."

What is the primary purpose of the passage?

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage:

Guntur & Nalgonda (A.P.): "The farmers ask us what seeds to use and we advise them," says Nageswara Rao in the district headquarters of Nalgonda. He works in one of the biggest seed and fertilizer stores in town, owned by a relative of his. "We have no scientific qualification," admits the polite Rao. "We only guide them by experience. We ourselves consult the manufacturers." Seeds, fertilizer and pesticide dealers are at the centre of a growing controversy in Andhra Pradesh. They are the new moneylenders to a peasantry strapped for credit. "The banks have given no loans in the past seven years," says Malla Reddy, general secretary of the Andhra Pradesh Ryuthu Sangham (APRS). "So many farmers are forced to depend on sources like these for credit. The same man advises them on what to buy and then sets the rates for the purchase." With the seed dealers charging on hefty interest rates to their credit sales, the problem gets sharper. Nageswara Rao admits to a charge of two per cent a month on bills, but says there is no choice. Times are bad. "Besides, we are quite lenient as we wish to help the farmer. Sometimes, they agree to pay in 60 days but may not do so for 90 to 120 days."

Farmers in Nalgonda's villages are skeptical of this altruism. "Each month's delay adds to the interest," points out P. Bhiksham in G. Edavalli village. Yet, the farmer often goes by the dealer's advice on what products to buy. "The dealer has emerged an `expert', because the others have gone," says Malla Reddy. The APRS leader points to "over 2,800 vacancies in the Department of Agriculture. The last Government only appointed 7,000 unqualified people on contract. They had no background in agriculture." Many of the farmers' suicides in the State have been largely debt driven which makes the seed dealer's role more of a problem. Some of those who took their lives did so because of both, huge debts and crop failures due to spurious seeds and pesticides. But there is little punishment for those selling fake seeds. "Just Rs. 500," says the new Agriculture Minister, Raghuveera Reddy. He hopes to bring some order to a system now out of control. "We have recovered spurious seeds worth Rs. 7 crore in raids in only the past month," he told us. But the offenders are people for whom Rs. 500 fine is a joke. So the Government intends to bring in a new Seed Act at the State level. Andhra Pradesh's record of curbing such fraud in the past has been dismal. "Till date, no case filed by the State against a seed or pesticide dealer has ever been won by the Government," says Yalamanchili Shivaji. He is a former Rajya Sabha MP and a well–known farmers' leader here. "In contrast," he claims, "almost no such case filed by the Tamil Government was lost." Dr. Shivaji also points out that Andhra Pradesh has fewer agriculture and extension officers than any southern State. "The Naidu Government was bent on privatizing extension work," says Malla Reddy. The matter gets more complex given the clout the seed dealers have gained. And the alarming rise in the cost of inputs they control. Per acre costs have exploded since 1996.

As farmers in G. Edavalli explain: The cost of paddy seeds an acre almost tripled from Rs. 120 in 1996 to around Rs. 350 now. That of urea nearly doubled from around 120 then to nearly Rs. 230 now. Pesticide, ammonia phosphate, zinc – all these have more than doubled in cost." A farmer might buy most of these inputs from the same dealer. Other expenses, too, have risen. Tractors cost a lot more than manual work did. "In 1996," say farmers in G. Edavalli, "we could raise an acre of paddy within Rs. 3,500. Today that is Rs. 7,500 or more." Add higher power tariffs and water costs and people are now paying well over double what they did in 1996. Those who left food crops to experiment with cash crops in this period pay still more. The 24 per cent interest that seed dealers tag on makes the burden more worse. And with seed companies hawking a "germination rate" of only 65 per cent, farmers get even less value for money. This is Telangana. Input costs are higher in coastal region where, too, suicides have been on. The use of high cost items such as fertilizers and pesticides is greatest in Andhra Pradesh. The All–India average for fertilizer consumption per hectare was 88 kg in 2001. In Andhra Pradesh it was almost 180 kg. It is even greater in the coastal region. "Over use of fertilizer is a huge problem," says Malla Reddy of the APRS.

"At the same time," he says "tenant farmers faced massive increases in the cost of leasing land." Such tenants make up nearly 60 per cent of all farmers in many parts of the State, more so in the coastal region. From the late 1990s, they were asked by the landlords to pay (as lease cost) between 21 and 25 bags of paddy an acre each year. This, when their output was barely 30 bags an acre. So the tenant farmer is left with five bags of paddy and another three of black gram that he sows after paddy. And that is in a good year!" By the late 1990s, the farmer was wilting. In 1996, "he was making Rs. 5,000 to Rs. 6,000 an acre on an input cost of Rs. 3,500. Now he is making Rs. 1,500 to Rs. 2,000 an acre on cost close to Rs. 8,000. Between then and now, productivity has only risen from 25 to under 30 bags an acre. This huge use of fertilizer has not helped much." "But at the moment when input costs were so high and rewards so poor," says the Nalgonda ex–MLA, Narasimha Reddy, "the banks stopped giving the farmer any credit. And output prices were crashing due to rigged and volatile markets. There was also zero investment in agriculture. This crisis was man–made." That was how the suicides began. "Add drought and crop failure to that," says Reddy, "and the suicides only got worse."

What does the author assume for Thales and Anaximander?

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage:

If physics leads us today to a worldview that is essentially mystical, it returns, in a way, to its beginning 2,500 years ago. It is interesting to follow the evolution of Western science along its spiral path, starting from the mystical philosophies of the early Greeks, rising and unfolding in an impressive development of intellectual thought that increasingly turned away from its mystical origins to develop a world view which is in sharp contrast to that of the Far East. In its most recent stages, Western science is finally overcoming this view and coming back to those of the early Greek and the Eastern philosophies. This time, however; it is not only based on intuition, but also on experiments of great precision and sophistication, and on a rigorous and consistent mathematical formalism.

The roots of physics, as of all Western science, are to be found in the first period of Greek philosophy in the sixth century B.C., in a culture where science, philosophy and religion were not separated. The sages of the Milesian school in Ionia were not concerned with such distinctions. Their aim was to discover the essential nature, or real constitution, of things that they called ‘physics’. The term ‘physics’ is derived from this Greek word and meant therefore, originally, the endeavor of seeing the essential nature of all things.

This, of course, is also the central aim of all mystics and the philosophy of the Milesian school and indeed havea strong mystical flavor. The Milesians were called ‘hylozoists’, or ‘those who think matter is alive’, by the later Greeks, because they saw no distinction between animate and inanimate, spirit and matter. In fact, they did not even have a word for matter, since they saw all forms of existence as manifestations of the ‘physics’, endowed with life and spirituality. Thus, Thales declared all things to be full of goods and Anaximander saw the universe as a kind of organism which was supported by ‘pneuma’, the cosmic breath, in the same way as the human body is supported by air.

What can be the title of the passage?

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage:

If physics leads us today to a worldview that is essentially mystical, it returns, in a way, to its beginning 2,500 years ago. It is interesting to follow the evolution of Western science along its spiral path, starting from the mystical philosophies of the early Greeks, rising and unfolding in an impressive development of intellectual thought that increasingly turned away from its mystical origins to develop a world view which is in sharp contrast to that of the Far East. In its most recent stages, Western science is finally overcoming this view and coming back to those of the early Greek and the Eastern philosophies. This time, however; it is not only based on intuition, but also on experiments of great precision and sophistication, and on a rigorous and consistent mathematical formalism.

The roots of physics, as of all Western science, are to be found in the first period of Greek philosophy in the sixth century B.C., in a culture where science, philosophy and religion were not separated. The sages of the Milesian school in Ionia were not concerned with such distinctions. Their aim was to discover the essential nature, or real constitution, of things that they called ‘physics’. The term ‘physics’ is derived from this Greek word and meant therefore, originally, the endeavor of seeing the essential nature of all things.

This, of course, is also the central aim of all mystics and the philosophy of the Milesian school and indeed havea strong mystical flavor. The Milesians were called ‘hylozoists’, or ‘those who think matter is alive’, by the later Greeks, because they saw no distinction between animate and inanimate, spirit and matter. In fact, they did not even have a word for matter, since they saw all forms of existence as manifestations of the ‘physics’, endowed with life and spirituality. Thus, Thales declared all things to be full of goods and Anaximander saw the universe as a kind of organism which was supported by ‘pneuma’, the cosmic breath, in the same way as the human body is supported by air.

What is the tone of the passage?

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage:

If physics leads us today to a worldview that is essentially mystical, it returns, in a way, to its beginning 2,500 years ago. It is interesting to follow the evolution of Western science along its spiral path, starting from the mystical philosophies of the early Greeks, rising and unfolding in an impressive development of intellectual thought that increasingly turned away from its mystical origins to develop a world view which is in sharp contrast to that of the Far East. In its most recent stages, Western science is finally overcoming this view and coming back to those of the early Greek and the Eastern philosophies. This time, however; it is not only based on intuition, but also on experiments of great precision and sophistication, and on a rigorous and consistent mathematical formalism.

The roots of physics, as of all Western science, are to be found in the first period of Greek philosophy in the sixth century B.C., in a culture where science, philosophy and religion were not separated. The sages of the Milesian school in Ionia were not concerned with such distinctions. Their aim was to discover the essential nature, or real constitution, of things that they called ‘physics’. The term ‘physics’ is derived from this Greek word and meant therefore, originally, the endeavor of seeing the essential nature of all things.

This, of course, is also the central aim of all mystics and the philosophy of the Milesian school and indeed havea strong mystical flavor. The Milesians were called ‘hylozoists’, or ‘those who think matter is alive’, by the later Greeks, because they saw no distinction between animate and inanimate, spirit and matter. In fact, they did not even have a word for matter, since they saw all forms of existence as manifestations of the ‘physics’, endowed with life and spirituality. Thus, Thales declared all things to be full of goods and Anaximander saw the universe as a kind of organism which was supported by ‘pneuma’, the cosmic breath, in the same way as the human body is supported by air.

With what the author is most likely to disagree?

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage:

Moment– to – moment awareness – that is one accurate way to describe the great enterprise of becoming free. But there are other valid ways to characterize our path. In the broadest conception of the path, in the vast context of spiritual practice, we cultivate and nourish certain qualities that support and propel us forward into freedom. The Pali word ‘parami ‘refers to ten wholesome qualities in our minds and the accumulated power they bring to us: generosity, morality, renunciation, wisdom, energy, patience, truthfulness, resolve, loving kindness, and equanimity.

The fact that we do not often find the word grace used by schools of Buddhism may allow us to connect with a fresh and immediate sense of the word by looking directly at our own experience. I feel that the paramis are one great influence in our experience that corresponds to the sense of grace, not as a theological doctrine or metaphysical concept but as something we can really feel and know.

The concept of parami reminds me of a line in a poem by Dylan Thomas: “The force that through the green fuse drives the flower.” Parami does not come from some being outside ourselves; rather, it comes from our own gradually accumulated purity. A Buddhist understanding of reliance on a higher power would not necessarily involve reliance on some supernormal being. It is, rather, a reliance on these forces of purity in ourselves that are outside our small, constricted sense of I, and that constitute the source of grace in our lives.

In the long course of evolution in this lifetime and perhaps over many lifetimes, we have generated a power of purity in our mind by acts of generosity and loving kindness, by deepening understanding and wisdom. This power becomes the karmic force that brings blessings in our life. So our own inner development, not an external agent, brings us this grace. Develop and strengthen the paramis within you, and from that source enjoy the blessings that result.

A poem by Galway Kinnell beautifully expresses the grace of blessings from within:

What is the Path?
Saint Francis and the Sow 
The bud 
stands for all things, 
even for those things that don’t flower, 
for everything flowers, from within, of self–blessing;
as Saint Francis 
put his hand on the creased forehead 
of the sow, and told her in words and in touch 
blessings of earth on the sow, and the sow 
began remembering all down her thick length, 
from the earthen snout all the way 
through the fodder and slops to the spiritual curl of the tail, 
from the hard spininess spiked out from the spine 
down through the great broken heart 
to the sheer blue milken dreaminess spurting and shuddering 
from the fourteen teats into the fourteen mouths sucking and 
blowing beneath them: 
the long, perfect loveliness of sow.

Freedom cannot be found within the contraction of ego identification. The practice of Buddhadharma awakens us to an underlying reality beyond that identification. As the paramis develop through our practice – and they have been developing over lifetimes – we experience an emergence of something called dhammoja in Pali, the essence of Dharma. In deepening meditation practice, we drop out of the conceptual realm into an energy flow of awareness. Dhammoja is this energy that keeps pushing us to liberation. It is something greater than our limited sense of self.

I had a strong experience of dhammoja during one of my periods of practice in Burma. I had been in Asia for several months and was rapidly losing weight and physical strength. At one point my body became so weak that I would actually topple over from my sitting position. But even in this very weakened bodily condition, the energy from the inner flow of awareness remained so strong that the meditation continued to unfold. It was as if nothing could stop the onward–leading momentum. This experience reminded me of those stories of the Buddha visiting people who were sick or dying. He would often say to them, “Though your body is weak and full of pain, train your mind to stay alert and mindful.” A taste of dhammoja shows us that we can actually do what the Buddha advised.

Another understanding of grace comes from the Buddhist world view that recognizes beings on other planes of existence. In traditional Buddhist cultures people believe that devas, or celestial beings from higher planes, can work to protect, guide, and help us in different situations. The Buddha taught that devas are drawn to us through the power of our virtue and loving kindness. As we cultivate and purify our own morality and love, we open ourselves to receive their positive energy and beneficent help.

You may or may not choose to believe this aspect of Buddhist cosmology. Our freedom does not depend on external things. You can come to full liberation whether or not you find devas credible. But a phrase from Coleridge might suggest a useful attitude: the willing suspension of disbelief. Can we remain open to possibilities of things we do not yet know for ourselves, with neither blind belief nor blind disbelief? Many things that today seem commonplace in our world, one hundred years ago would have been called miracles.

Although strong hidden influences, given the right conditions, can assist us, they cannot accomplish the work of spiritual practice for us. The beneficence of external beings like devas is secondary to the inwardly developed, liberating force of dhammoja and the paramis.

Reflecting on our own paramis can be a great help in practice. The force of delusion is so strong that most beings never see the possibility of coming out of suffering. The very notion that the mind can be purified of greed, hatred, and delusion never even occurs to most people. Only a vast reservoir of parami brings us to practice and creates the motivation and interest to do this difficult, ultimately liberating work. Appreciating the paramis within ourselves can be a cause for great self–respect and joy. Often, in the midst of the many ups and downs of practice, we forget just how powerful the paramis are in each one of us. They engender true grace in our lives.

All of the following statements can be inferred from the passage, except ________.

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage:

Guntur & Nalgonda (A.P.): "The farmers ask us what seeds to use and we advise them," says Nageswara Rao in the district headquarters of Nalgonda. He works in one of the biggest seed and fertilizer stores in town, owned by a relative of his. "We have no scientific qualification," admits the polite Rao. "We only guide them by experience. We ourselves consult the manufacturers." Seeds, fertilizer and pesticide dealers are at the centre of a growing controversy in Andhra Pradesh. They are the new moneylenders to a peasantry strapped for credit. "The banks have given no loans in the past seven years," says Malla Reddy, general secretary of the Andhra Pradesh Ryuthu Sangham (APRS). "So many farmers are forced to depend on sources like these for credit. The same man advises them on what to buy and then sets the rates for the purchase." With the seed dealers charging on hefty interest rates to their credit sales, the problem gets sharper. Nageswara Rao admits to a charge of two per cent a month on bills, but says there is no choice. Times are bad. "Besides, we are quite lenient as we wish to help the farmer. Sometimes, they agree to pay in 60 days but may not do so for 90 to 120 days."

Farmers in Nalgonda's villages are skeptical of this altruism. "Each month's delay adds to the interest," points out P. Bhiksham in G. Edavalli village. Yet, the farmer often goes by the dealer's advice on what products to buy. "The dealer has emerged an `expert', because the others have gone," says Malla Reddy. The APRS leader points to "over 2,800 vacancies in the Department of Agriculture. The last Government only appointed 7,000 unqualified people on contract. They had no background in agriculture." Many of the farmers' suicides in the State have been largely debt driven which makes the seed dealer's role more of a problem. Some of those who took their lives did so because of both, huge debts and crop failures due to spurious seeds and pesticides. But there is little punishment for those selling fake seeds. "Just Rs. 500," says the new Agriculture Minister, Raghuveera Reddy. He hopes to bring some order to a system now out of control. "We have recovered spurious seeds worth Rs. 7 crore in raids in only the past month," he told us. But the offenders are people for whom Rs. 500 fine is a joke. So the Government intends to bring in a new Seed Act at the State level. Andhra Pradesh's record of curbing such fraud in the past has been dismal. "Till date, no case filed by the State against a seed or pesticide dealer has ever been won by the Government," says Yalamanchili Shivaji. He is a former Rajya Sabha MP and a well–known farmers' leader here. "In contrast," he claims, "almost no such case filed by the Tamil Government was lost." Dr. Shivaji also points out that Andhra Pradesh has fewer agriculture and extension officers than any southern State. "The Naidu Government was bent on privatizing extension work," says Malla Reddy. The matter gets more complex given the clout the seed dealers have gained. And the alarming rise in the cost of inputs they control. Per acre costs have exploded since 1996.

As farmers in G. Edavalli explain: The cost of paddy seeds an acre almost tripled from Rs. 120 in 1996 to around Rs. 350 now. That of urea nearly doubled from around 120 then to nearly Rs. 230 now. Pesticide, ammonia phosphate, zinc – all these have more than doubled in cost." A farmer might buy most of these inputs from the same dealer. Other expenses, too, have risen. Tractors cost a lot more than manual work did. "In 1996," say farmers in G. Edavalli, "we could raise an acre of paddy within Rs. 3,500. Today that is Rs. 7,500 or more." Add higher power tariffs and water costs and people are now paying well over double what they did in 1996. Those who left food crops to experiment with cash crops in this period pay still more. The 24 per cent interest that seed dealers tag on makes the burden more worse. And with seed companies hawking a "germination rate" of only 65 per cent, farmers get even less value for money. This is Telangana. Input costs are higher in coastal region where, too, suicides have been on. The use of high cost items such as fertilizers and pesticides is greatest in Andhra Pradesh. The All–India average for fertilizer consumption per hectare was 88 kg in 2001. In Andhra Pradesh it was almost 180 kg. It is even greater in the coastal region. "Over use of fertilizer is a huge problem," says Malla Reddy of the APRS.

"At the same time," he says "tenant farmers faced massive increases in the cost of leasing land." Such tenants make up nearly 60 per cent of all farmers in many parts of the State, more so in the coastal region. From the late 1990s, they were asked by the landlords to pay (as lease cost) between 21 and 25 bags of paddy an acre each year. This, when their output was barely 30 bags an acre. So the tenant farmer is left with five bags of paddy and another three of black gram that he sows after paddy. And that is in a good year!" By the late 1990s, the farmer was wilting. In 1996, "he was making Rs. 5,000 to Rs. 6,000 an acre on an input cost of Rs. 3,500. Now he is making Rs. 1,500 to Rs. 2,000 an acre on cost close to Rs. 8,000. Between then and now, productivity has only risen from 25 to under 30 bags an acre. This huge use of fertilizer has not helped much." "But at the moment when input costs were so high and rewards so poor," says the Nalgonda ex–MLA, Narasimha Reddy, "the banks stopped giving the farmer any credit. And output prices were crashing due to rigged and volatile markets. There was also zero investment in agriculture. This crisis was man–made." That was how the suicides began. "Add drought and crop failure to that," says Reddy, "and the suicides only got worse."

Early Greek philosophers were considered by the later Greeks as more ______.

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage:

If physics leads us today to a worldview that is essentially mystical, it returns, in a way, to its beginning 2,500 years ago. It is interesting to follow the evolution of Western science along its spiral path, starting from the mystical philosophies of the early Greeks, rising and unfolding in an impressive development of intellectual thought that increasingly turned away from its mystical origins to develop a world view which is in sharp contrast to that of the Far East. In its most recent stages, Western science is finally overcoming this view and coming back to those of the early Greek and the Eastern philosophies. This time, however; it is not only based on intuition, but also on experiments of great precision and sophistication, and on a rigorous and consistent mathematical formalism.

The roots of physics, as of all Western science, are to be found in the first period of Greek philosophy in the sixth century B.C., in a culture where science, philosophy and religion were not separated. The sages of the Milesian school in Ionia were not concerned with such distinctions. Their aim was to discover the essential nature, or real constitution, of things that they called ‘physics’. The term ‘physics’ is derived from this Greek word and meant therefore, originally, the endeavor of seeing the essential nature of all things.

This, of course, is also the central aim of all mystics and the philosophy of the Milesian school and indeed havea strong mystical flavor. The Milesians were called ‘hylozoists’, or ‘those who think matter is alive’, by the later Greeks, because they saw no distinction between animate and inanimate, spirit and matter. In fact, they did not even have a word for matter, since they saw all forms of existence as manifestations of the ‘physics’, endowed with life and spirituality. Thus, Thales declared all things to be full of goods and Anaximander saw the universe as a kind of organism which was supported by ‘pneuma’, the cosmic breath, in the same way as the human body is supported by air.

Select from the following statements, the option that best states the function of paragraph 2.

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage:

Guntur & Nalgonda (A.P.): "The farmers ask us what seeds to use and we advise them," says Nageswara Rao in the district headquarters of Nalgonda. He works in one of the biggest seed and fertilizer stores in town, owned by a relative of his. "We have no scientific qualification," admits the polite Rao. "We only guide them by experience. We ourselves consult the manufacturers." Seeds, fertilizer and pesticide dealers are at the centre of a growing controversy in Andhra Pradesh. They are the new moneylenders to a peasantry strapped for credit. "The banks have given no loans in the past seven years," says Malla Reddy, general secretary of the Andhra Pradesh Ryuthu Sangham (APRS). "So many farmers are forced to depend on sources like these for credit. The same man advises them on what to buy and then sets the rates for the purchase." With the seed dealers charging on hefty interest rates to their credit sales, the problem gets sharper. Nageswara Rao admits to a charge of two per cent a month on bills, but says there is no choice. Times are bad. "Besides, we are quite lenient as we wish to help the farmer. Sometimes, they agree to pay in 60 days but may not do so for 90 to 120 days."

Farmers in Nalgonda's villages are skeptical of this altruism. "Each month's delay adds to the interest," points out P. Bhiksham in G. Edavalli village. Yet, the farmer often goes by the dealer's advice on what products to buy. "The dealer has emerged an `expert', because the others have gone," says Malla Reddy. The APRS leader points to "over 2,800 vacancies in the Department of Agriculture. The last Government only appointed 7,000 unqualified people on contract. They had no background in agriculture." Many of the farmers' suicides in the State have been largely debt driven which makes the seed dealer's role more of a problem. Some of those who took their lives did so because of both, huge debts and crop failures due to spurious seeds and pesticides. But there is little punishment for those selling fake seeds. "Just Rs. 500," says the new Agriculture Minister, Raghuveera Reddy. He hopes to bring some order to a system now out of control. "We have recovered spurious seeds worth Rs. 7 crore in raids in only the past month," he told us. But the offenders are people for whom Rs. 500 fine is a joke. So the Government intends to bring in a new Seed Act at the State level. Andhra Pradesh's record of curbing such fraud in the past has been dismal. "Till date, no case filed by the State against a seed or pesticide dealer has ever been won by the Government," says Yalamanchili Shivaji. He is a former Rajya Sabha MP and a well–known farmers' leader here. "In contrast," he claims, "almost no such case filed by the Tamil Government was lost." Dr. Shivaji also points out that Andhra Pradesh has fewer agriculture and extension officers than any southern State. "The Naidu Government was bent on privatizing extension work," says Malla Reddy. The matter gets more complex given the clout the seed dealers have gained. And the alarming rise in the cost of inputs they control. Per acre costs have exploded since 1996.

As farmers in G. Edavalli explain: The cost of paddy seeds an acre almost tripled from Rs. 120 in 1996 to around Rs. 350 now. That of urea nearly doubled from around 120 then to nearly Rs. 230 now. Pesticide, ammonia phosphate, zinc – all these have more than doubled in cost." A farmer might buy most of these inputs from the same dealer. Other expenses, too, have risen. Tractors cost a lot more than manual work did. "In 1996," say farmers in G. Edavalli, "we could raise an acre of paddy within Rs. 3,500. Today that is Rs. 7,500 or more." Add higher power tariffs and water costs and people are now paying well over double what they did in 1996. Those who left food crops to experiment with cash crops in this period pay still more. The 24 per cent interest that seed dealers tag on makes the burden more worse. And with seed companies hawking a "germination rate" of only 65 per cent, farmers get even less value for money. This is Telangana. Input costs are higher in coastal region where, too, suicides have been on. The use of high cost items such as fertilizers and pesticides is greatest in Andhra Pradesh. The All–India average for fertilizer consumption per hectare was 88 kg in 2001. In Andhra Pradesh it was almost 180 kg. It is even greater in the coastal region. "Over use of fertilizer is a huge problem," says Malla Reddy of the APRS.

"At the same time," he says "tenant farmers faced massive increases in the cost of leasing land." Such tenants make up nearly 60 per cent of all farmers in many parts of the State, more so in the coastal region. From the late 1990s, they were asked by the landlords to pay (as lease cost) between 21 and 25 bags of paddy an acre each year. This, when their output was barely 30 bags an acre. So the tenant farmer is left with five bags of paddy and another three of black gram that he sows after paddy. And that is in a good year!" By the late 1990s, the farmer was wilting. In 1996, "he was making Rs. 5,000 to Rs. 6,000 an acre on an input cost of Rs. 3,500. Now he is making Rs. 1,500 to Rs. 2,000 an acre on cost close to Rs. 8,000. Between then and now, productivity has only risen from 25 to under 30 bags an acre. This huge use of fertilizer has not helped much." "But at the moment when input costs were so high and rewards so poor," says the Nalgonda ex–MLA, Narasimha Reddy, "the banks stopped giving the farmer any credit. And output prices were crashing due to rigged and volatile markets. There was also zero investment in agriculture. This crisis was man–made." That was how the suicides began. "Add drought and crop failure to that," says Reddy, "and the suicides only got worse."

Who can be author of the passage?

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage:

If physics leads us today to a worldview that is essentially mystical, it returns, in a way, to its beginning 2,500 years ago. It is interesting to follow the evolution of Western science along its spiral path, starting from the mystical philosophies of the early Greeks, rising and unfolding in an impressive development of intellectual thought that increasingly turned away from its mystical origins to develop a world view which is in sharp contrast to that of the Far East. In its most recent stages, Western science is finally overcoming this view and coming back to those of the early Greek and the Eastern philosophies. This time, however; it is not only based on intuition, but also on experiments of great precision and sophistication, and on a rigorous and consistent mathematical formalism.

The roots of physics, as of all Western science, are to be found in the first period of Greek philosophy in the sixth century B.C., in a culture where science, philosophy and religion were not separated. The sages of the Milesian school in Ionia were not concerned with such distinctions. Their aim was to discover the essential nature, or real constitution, of things that they called ‘physics’. The term ‘physics’ is derived from this Greek word and meant therefore, originally, the endeavor of seeing the essential nature of all things.

This, of course, is also the central aim of all mystics and the philosophy of the Milesian school and indeed havea strong mystical flavor. The Milesians were called ‘hylozoists’, or ‘those who think matter is alive’, by the later Greeks, because they saw no distinction between animate and inanimate, spirit and matter. In fact, they did not even have a word for matter, since they saw all forms of existence as manifestations of the ‘physics’, endowed with life and spirituality. Thus, Thales declared all things to be full of goods and Anaximander saw the universe as a kind of organism which was supported by ‘pneuma’, the cosmic breath, in the same way as the human body is supported by air.

What does the author mean when he says to re-teach a thing its loveliness?

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage:

Moment– to – moment awareness – that is one accurate way to describe the great enterprise of becoming free. But there are other valid ways to characterize our path. In the broadest conception of the path, in the vast context of spiritual practice, we cultivate and nourish certain qualities that support and propel us forward into freedom. The Pali word ‘parami ‘refers to ten wholesome qualities in our minds and the accumulated power they bring to us: generosity, morality, renunciation, wisdom, energy, patience, truthfulness, resolve, loving kindness, and equanimity.

The fact that we do not often find the word grace used by schools of Buddhism may allow us to connect with a fresh and immediate sense of the word by looking directly at our own experience. I feel that the paramis are one great influence in our experience that corresponds to the sense of grace, not as a theological doctrine or metaphysical concept but as something we can really feel and know.

The concept of parami reminds me of a line in a poem by Dylan Thomas: “The force that through the green fuse drives the flower.” Parami does not come from some being outside ourselves; rather, it comes from our own gradually accumulated purity. A Buddhist understanding of reliance on a higher power would not necessarily involve reliance on some supernormal being. It is, rather, a reliance on these forces of purity in ourselves that are outside our small, constricted sense of I, and that constitute the source of grace in our lives.

In the long course of evolution in this lifetime and perhaps over many lifetimes, we have generated a power of purity in our mind by acts of generosity and loving kindness, by deepening understanding and wisdom. This power becomes the karmic force that brings blessings in our life. So our own inner development, not an external agent, brings us this grace. Develop and strengthen the paramis within you, and from that source enjoy the blessings that result.

A poem by Galway Kinnell beautifully expresses the grace of blessings from within:

What is the Path?
Saint Francis and the Sow 
The bud 
stands for all things, 
even for those things that don’t flower, 
for everything flowers, from within, of self–blessing;
as Saint Francis 
put his hand on the creased forehead 
of the sow, and told her in words and in touch 
blessings of earth on the sow, and the sow 
began remembering all down her thick length, 
from the earthen snout all the way 
through the fodder and slops to the spiritual curl of the tail, 
from the hard spininess spiked out from the spine 
down through the great broken heart 
to the sheer blue milken dreaminess spurting and shuddering 
from the fourteen teats into the fourteen mouths sucking and 
blowing beneath them: 
the long, perfect loveliness of sow.

Freedom cannot be found within the contraction of ego identification. The practice of Buddhadharma awakens us to an underlying reality beyond that identification. As the paramis develop through our practice – and they have been developing over lifetimes – we experience an emergence of something called dhammoja in Pali, the essence of Dharma. In deepening meditation practice, we drop out of the conceptual realm into an energy flow of awareness. Dhammoja is this energy that keeps pushing us to liberation. It is something greater than our limited sense of self.

I had a strong experience of dhammoja during one of my periods of practice in Burma. I had been in Asia for several months and was rapidly losing weight and physical strength. At one point my body became so weak that I would actually topple over from my sitting position. But even in this very weakened bodily condition, the energy from the inner flow of awareness remained so strong that the meditation continued to unfold. It was as if nothing could stop the onward–leading momentum. This experience reminded me of those stories of the Buddha visiting people who were sick or dying. He would often say to them, “Though your body is weak and full of pain, train your mind to stay alert and mindful.” A taste of dhammoja shows us that we can actually do what the Buddha advised.

Another understanding of grace comes from the Buddhist world view that recognizes beings on other planes of existence. In traditional Buddhist cultures people believe that devas, or celestial beings from higher planes, can work to protect, guide, and help us in different situations. The Buddha taught that devas are drawn to us through the power of our virtue and loving kindness. As we cultivate and purify our own morality and love, we open ourselves to receive their positive energy and beneficent help.

You may or may not choose to believe this aspect of Buddhist cosmology. Our freedom does not depend on external things. You can come to full liberation whether or not you find devas credible. But a phrase from Coleridge might suggest a useful attitude: the willing suspension of disbelief. Can we remain open to possibilities of things we do not yet know for ourselves, with neither blind belief nor blind disbelief? Many things that today seem commonplace in our world, one hundred years ago would have been called miracles.

Although strong hidden influences, given the right conditions, can assist us, they cannot accomplish the work of spiritual practice for us. The beneficence of external beings like devas is secondary to the inwardly developed, liberating force of dhammoja and the paramis.

Reflecting on our own paramis can be a great help in practice. The force of delusion is so strong that most beings never see the possibility of coming out of suffering. The very notion that the mind can be purified of greed, hatred, and delusion never even occurs to most people. Only a vast reservoir of parami brings us to practice and creates the motivation and interest to do this difficult, ultimately liberating work. Appreciating the paramis within ourselves can be a cause for great self–respect and joy. Often, in the midst of the many ups and downs of practice, we forget just how powerful the paramis are in each one of us. They engender true grace in our lives.

The term 'annals of ghostdom' in the passage specifically refers to ______.

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage:

Those who scorn the idea that spooks and spectres prowl and shimmer through the world do so because no one has so far caught a ghost in a bottle, because they are sceptical by habit, or because they resist the notion that death may not be final.

For many the word "ghost" conjures up an anonymous white-robed figure, a spirit who has come back from the grave to haunt the living. But in the annals of ghostdom, spectral beings come in a variety of forms and shapes, and some never put in an appearance at all, although they make their presence felt. Ghosts also differ in behaviour- they may be aimless, purposeful, playful, angelic, and even demonic.

There are three lines of explanation for ghostly phenomena: the spiritual, mechanical, and psychological. The most firmly established is the spiritual thesis, which holds that ghosts are intelligent beings. The first version of this idea is that ghosts are the spirits of dead humans. They continue to resemble their earthly forms in appearance and dress and are found re-enacting things they did in the past, bound to their haunting grounds by guilt, remorse, desire, or habit. They may be malevolent, kindly, or indifferent toward human beings. People who take this view of ghosts regard them as marking time in a spiritual halfway house between this world and heaven, purgatory, or hell.

According to another version of the spiritual view, a ghost's resemblance to a formerly living person or animal is actually a masquerade adopted for its own purpose, the real appearance of ghosts being quite different. Some ghosts, for instance, appear as vaporous columns or clouds of light.

In the third view of ghosts as a spiritual phenomenon, these apparitions are not beings in either of the senses described above. Instead, they are illusions created by powerful classes of angelic or demonic beings for the purpose of helping or harming those who see them. Miracles are an example of intervention by angelic or enlightened powers, while most poltergeist episodes are held to be demonic.

The mechanical interpretation is that ghosts are images without substance, somehow recorded in an etherise medium and visible under certain conditions to those of a certain case of mind. This idea accords well with some frequently observed phenomena - the way some ghosts have of disappearing into thin air. It does not explain those cases where the ghost interacts intelligently with those who see it.

In the psychological view of the phenomenon, ghosts reveal a spectrum of powerful but not yet understood capacities of the human mind. In these terms, some ghosts are the product of telepathic powers, as when a relative or friend appears to another at the time of death: others - poltergeist phenomena - suggest unwitting and uncontrolled psychokinetic abilities. And some- the appearance of phantom doubles-suggest that out-of-body experiences may sometimes be manifest to others.

In fact, most believers in ghosts are probably willing to accept all of these thesis as helping to explain a complex and varied phenomenon. Sceptics, on the other hand resorting to the dry but sturdy arguments to what they consider to be common sense, are apt to maintain that stories of ghosts are lies, hallucinations, or earnest reports of misperceptions. But the most convincing evidence of the existence of spectres still seems to be their appearance on the scene.

Which of the following statements is/are not false as per the passage?

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage:

Those who scorn the idea that spooks and spectres prowl and shimmer through the world do so because no one has so far caught a ghost in a bottle, because they are sceptical by habit, or because they resist the notion that death may not be final.

For many the word "ghost" conjures up an anonymous white-robed figure, a spirit who has come back from the grave to haunt the living. But in the annals of ghostdom, spectral beings come in a variety of forms and shapes, and some never put in an appearance at all, although they make their presence felt. Ghosts also differ in behaviour- they may be aimless, purposeful, playful, angelic, and even demonic.

There are three lines of explanation for ghostly phenomena: the spiritual, mechanical, and psychological. The most firmly established is the spiritual thesis, which holds that ghosts are intelligent beings. The first version of this idea is that ghosts are the spirits of dead humans. They continue to resemble their earthly forms in appearance and dress and are found re-enacting things they did in the past, bound to their haunting grounds by guilt, remorse, desire, or habit. They may be malevolent, kindly, or indifferent toward human beings. People who take this view of ghosts regard them as marking time in a spiritual halfway house between this world and heaven, purgatory, or hell.

According to another version of the spiritual view, a ghost's resemblance to a formerly living person or animal is actually a masquerade adopted for its own purpose, the real appearance of ghosts being quite different. Some ghosts, for instance, appear as vaporous columns or clouds of light.

In the third view of ghosts as a spiritual phenomenon, these apparitions are not beings in either of the senses described above. Instead, they are illusions created by powerful classes of angelic or demonic beings for the purpose of helping or harming those who see them. Miracles are an example of intervention by angelic or enlightened powers, while most poltergeist episodes are held to be demonic.

The mechanical interpretation is that ghosts are images without substance, somehow recorded in an etherise medium and visible under certain conditions to those of a certain case of mind. This idea accords well with some frequently observed phenomena - the way some ghosts have of disappearing into thin air. It does not explain those cases where the ghost interacts intelligently with those who see it.

In the psychological view of the phenomenon, ghosts reveal a spectrum of powerful but not yet understood capacities of the human mind. In these terms, some ghosts are the product of telepathic powers, as when a relative or friend appears to another at the time of death: others - poltergeist phenomena - suggest unwitting and uncontrolled psychokinetic abilities. And some- the appearance of phantom doubles-suggest that out-of-body experiences may sometimes be manifest to others.

In fact, most believers in ghosts are probably willing to accept all of these thesis as helping to explain a complex and varied phenomenon. Sceptics, on the other hand resorting to the dry but sturdy arguments to what they consider to be common sense, are apt to maintain that stories of ghosts are lies, hallucinations, or earnest reports of misperceptions. But the most convincing evidence of the existence of spectres still seems to be their appearance on the scene.

Which of the following statements is not true as per the passage?

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage:

Those who scorn the idea that spooks and spectres prowl and shimmer through the world do so because no one has so far caught a ghost in a bottle, because they are sceptical by habit, or because they resist the notion that death may not be final.

For many the word "ghost" conjures up an anonymous white-robed figure, a spirit who has come back from the grave to haunt the living. But in the annals of ghostdom, spectral beings come in a variety of forms and shapes, and some never put in an appearance at all, although they make their presence felt. Ghosts also differ in behaviour- they may be aimless, purposeful, playful, angelic, and even demonic.

There are three lines of explanation for ghostly phenomena: the spiritual, mechanical, and psychological. The most firmly established is the spiritual thesis, which holds that ghosts are intelligent beings. The first version of this idea is that ghosts are the spirits of dead humans. They continue to resemble their earthly forms in appearance and dress and are found re-enacting things they did in the past, bound to their haunting grounds by guilt, remorse, desire, or habit. They may be malevolent, kindly, or indifferent toward human beings. People who take this view of ghosts regard them as marking time in a spiritual halfway house between this world and heaven, purgatory, or hell.

According to another version of the spiritual view, a ghost's resemblance to a formerly living person or animal is actually a masquerade adopted for its own purpose, the real appearance of ghosts being quite different. Some ghosts, for instance, appear as vaporous columns or clouds of light.

In the third view of ghosts as a spiritual phenomenon, these apparitions are not beings in either of the senses described above. Instead, they are illusions created by powerful classes of angelic or demonic beings for the purpose of helping or harming those who see them. Miracles are an example of intervention by angelic or enlightened powers, while most poltergeist episodes are held to be demonic.

The mechanical interpretation is that ghosts are images without substance, somehow recorded in an etherise medium and visible under certain conditions to those of a certain case of mind. This idea accords well with some frequently observed phenomena - the way some ghosts have of disappearing into thin air. It does not explain those cases where the ghost interacts intelligently with those who see it.

In the psychological view of the phenomenon, ghosts reveal a spectrum of powerful but not yet understood capacities of the human mind. In these terms, some ghosts are the product of telepathic powers, as when a relative or friend appears to another at the time of death: others - poltergeist phenomena - suggest unwitting and uncontrolled psychokinetic abilities. And some- the appearance of phantom doubles-suggest that out-of-body experiences may sometimes be manifest to others.

In fact, most believers in ghosts are probably willing to accept all of these thesis as helping to explain a complex and varied phenomenon. Sceptics, on the other hand resorting to the dry but sturdy arguments to what they consider to be common sense, are apt to maintain that stories of ghosts are lies, hallucinations, or earnest reports of misperceptions. But the most convincing evidence of the existence of spectres still seems to be their appearance on the scene.

The author is least likely to agree with the statement that _________.

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage:

Those who scorn the idea that spooks and spectres prowl and shimmer through the world do so because no one has so far caught a ghost in a bottle, because they are sceptical by habit, or because they resist the notion that death may not be final.

For many the word "ghost" conjures up an anonymous white-robed figure, a spirit who has come back from the grave to haunt the living. But in the annals of ghostdom, spectral beings come in a variety of forms and shapes, and some never put in an appearance at all, although they make their presence felt. Ghosts also differ in behaviour- they may be aimless, purposeful, playful, angelic, and even demonic.

There are three lines of explanation for ghostly phenomena: the spiritual, mechanical, and psychological. The most firmly established is the spiritual thesis, which holds that ghosts are intelligent beings. The first version of this idea is that ghosts are the spirits of dead humans. They continue to resemble their earthly forms in appearance and dress and are found re-enacting things they did in the past, bound to their haunting grounds by guilt, remorse, desire, or habit. They may be malevolent, kindly, or indifferent toward human beings. People who take this view of ghosts regard them as marking time in a spiritual halfway house between this world and heaven, purgatory, or hell.

According to another version of the spiritual view, a ghost's resemblance to a formerly living person or animal is actually a masquerade adopted for its own purpose, the real appearance of ghosts being quite different. Some ghosts, for instance, appear as vaporous columns or clouds of light.

In the third view of ghosts as a spiritual phenomenon, these apparitions are not beings in either of the senses described above. Instead, they are illusions created by powerful classes of angelic or demonic beings for the purpose of helping or harming those who see them. Miracles are an example of intervention by angelic or enlightened powers, while most poltergeist episodes are held to be demonic.

The mechanical interpretation is that ghosts are images without substance, somehow recorded in an etherise medium and visible under certain conditions to those of a certain case of mind. This idea accords well with some frequently observed phenomena - the way some ghosts have of disappearing into thin air. It does not explain those cases where the ghost interacts intelligently with those who see it.

In the psychological view of the phenomenon, ghosts reveal a spectrum of powerful but not yet understood capacities of the human mind. In these terms, some ghosts are the product of telepathic powers, as when a relative or friend appears to another at the time of death: others - poltergeist phenomena - suggest unwitting and uncontrolled psychokinetic abilities. And some- the appearance of phantom doubles-suggest that out-of-body experiences may sometimes be manifest to others.

In fact, most believers in ghosts are probably willing to accept all of these thesis as helping to explain a complex and varied phenomenon. Sceptics, on the other hand resorting to the dry but sturdy arguments to what they consider to be common sense, are apt to maintain that stories of ghosts are lies, hallucinations, or earnest reports of misperceptions. But the most convincing evidence of the existence of spectres still seems to be their appearance on the scene.

What was the most significant observation made from the interviews that were conducted at twenty colleges throughout the country?

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage:

The conflict of the generations is neither a new nor a particularly American story, but it is perhaps exacerbated vulnerable to their mutual criticisms. I do not care to add to the complacency of my agemates who, from their clubs, pulpits, and other rostrums, attack the alleged “softness” of the young, whom they have themselves brought up, while failing to see the difficulties young people face today precisely because the manifest hardships with which earlier Americans coped have been, for millions, attenuated. These hardships cannot be artificially restored, at least for people over twelve; however, I believe that college students are now beginning to find new ways to become active politically, and hence responsible humanly.

It is easy to underestimate the importance of this in America, where students until recently did not play the role in politics that they do in Latin America, Turkey, Korea, or Japan. For, the cadres of the disinherited who once helped power political change in this country are diminished in numbers and even more diminished in leadership, now that nearly every bright, motivated boy gets funnelled into college if he wants to go. Thus, our expanding colleges absorb increasingly large fractions of the available idealism and dynamism of our society. And at the same time, as I shall try to show, many students are not attracted by the traditional goals of commercial or professional ambition the best of them have no love for the status quo. Rejecting careerism, they often choose familism instead. But shaken out of this, either by the open discrimination felt by Negroes or the subtler dissatisfaction with contemporary life felt by whites, they comprise a privileged minority, ignorant of its strength, yet capable of change.

College students today often act as if they believed that work in large organizations, and beyond that, work in general, could not be basically satisfying (or, at times, even honest), but is primarily a way to earn a living, to find a place in the social order, and to meet nice or not–so–nice people. This is a conclusion, which is partly projected upon the occupational scene as the result of their experience with the curriculum in college and university, and also as the result of experience with college and university as organizations, which are viewed as bureaucratic, monolithic, and unchangeable by many students.

I do not think it is the primary task of education to prepare students for their later occupational roles, or indeed an), narrowly specialized roles, nor to teach them to enjoy work regardless of its quality and meaning. Rather, the relation of education to later life should be a dialectical and critical one. If, however, one result of going to college is to become alienated from work per se and defeatist about the possibility of altering one’s relation to it, then it seems to me one ought to re–examine academic institutions themselves and see whether anything in them, or in one’s own attitudes, or in both might be changed.

In the spring of 1955, several hundred interviews were done (at the behest of Time magazine) with seniors at twenty colleges throughout the country, most of them colleges of distinction. The seniors were supposed to be reasonably representative, but what this was taken to mean and how it was applied at different colleges and universities varied greatly. A good many student leaders were chosen, a good many bright people, but hardly any women were included (a questionnaire circulated by Mademoiselle gave me somewhat comparable data concerning college women). When I first examined the interviews, and now again when I have once more gone over them, I have been struck by what appears to be a not quite conscious ambivalence toward work in large organizations. Nevertheless, the majority are planning to enter large organizations in pursuit of their careers: big corporations, big governments, big law offices, and so on. Only a few seek independence in their work, either in terms of old fashioned ideals of entrepreneurship or in terms of the desire to become a foreign correspondent, to enter politics, or to follow some other individualistic or exotic calling. (Moreover, hardly anyone expresses resentment against his prospective army service on the ground that the army is a large organization; there is no eagerness for service, but rather resignation to its as one of the givens of life.)

And yet, when these young people are asked about their lives outside of work, a very different picture merges. There, bigness and scale are definitely not valued. Only a tiny fraction want to head for the metropolis, even if their careers might make such a location convenient. They want the suburbs – not later, after some bachelor independence in the big city, but now, on graduation. The great majority either are already married or plan to get married soon (even if there is no special one in mind at the moment); they plan to start having children at once and to begin building a community – centered life in the suburbs. They envisage a two–car, but usually not a two–career, family, in which the prospective wife will be active in the parent – teacher association, with assistance from the husband, and in which both spouses will concern themselves with a manageable bit of real estate in a suburban neighbourhood in which they can at once be active and hope to make a difference. It does not occur to them that they might be gifted and energetic enough to make a difference even in a big city. Rather, they want to be able to work through a face–to–face group–the post collegiate fraternity of the small suburbs.

Correspondingly, the very emphasis on family life, which is one of the striking and, in so many ways, attractive qualities of young people today, is an implicit rejection of large organization. The suburban family, with its garden, its barbecue, its lack of privacy in the open–plan house, is itself a manifesto of decentralization, even though it makes use of centralized services such as television, clinics, chain stores, and House Beautiful. The wish to build a nest, even if a somewhat transient one, is a striking feature of the interviews, in contrast with the wish to build a fortune or a career, which might have dominated some comparable interviews a generation earlier.

The word 'dialectical' used in the passage means ________.

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage:

The conflict of the generations is neither a new nor a particularly American story, but it is perhaps exacerbated vulnerable to their mutual criticisms. I do not care to add to the complacency of my agemates who, from their clubs, pulpits, and other rostrums, attack the alleged “softness” of the young, whom they have themselves brought up, while failing to see the difficulties young people face today precisely because the manifest hardships with which earlier Americans coped have been, for millions, attenuated. These hardships cannot be artificially restored, at least for people over twelve; however, I believe that college students are now beginning to find new ways to become active politically, and hence responsible humanly.

It is easy to underestimate the importance of this in America, where students until recently did not play the role in politics that they do in Latin America, Turkey, Korea, or Japan. For, the cadres of the disinherited who once helped power political change in this country are diminished in numbers and even more diminished in leadership, now that nearly every bright, motivated boy gets funnelled into college if he wants to go. Thus, our expanding colleges absorb increasingly large fractions of the available idealism and dynamism of our society. And at the same time, as I shall try to show, many students are not attracted by the traditional goals of commercial or professional ambition the best of them have no love for the status quo. Rejecting careerism, they often choose familism instead. But shaken out of this, either by the open discrimination felt by Negroes or the subtler dissatisfaction with contemporary life felt by whites, they comprise a privileged minority, ignorant of its strength, yet capable of change.

College students today often act as if they believed that work in large organizations, and beyond that, work in general, could not be basically satisfying (or, at times, even honest), but is primarily a way to earn a living, to find a place in the social order, and to meet nice or not–so–nice people. This is a conclusion, which is partly projected upon the occupational scene as the result of their experience with the curriculum in college and university, and also as the result of experience with college and university as organizations, which are viewed as bureaucratic, monolithic, and unchangeable by many students.

I do not think it is the primary task of education to prepare students for their later occupational roles, or indeed an), narrowly specialized roles, nor to teach them to enjoy work regardless of its quality and meaning. Rather, the relation of education to later life should be a dialectical and critical one. If, however, one result of going to college is to become alienated from work per se and defeatist about the possibility of altering one’s relation to it, then it seems to me one ought to re–examine academic institutions themselves and see whether anything in them, or in one’s own attitudes, or in both might be changed.

In the spring of 1955, several hundred interviews were done (at the behest of Time magazine) with seniors at twenty colleges throughout the country, most of them colleges of distinction. The seniors were supposed to be reasonably representative, but what this was taken to mean and how it was applied at different colleges and universities varied greatly. A good many student leaders were chosen, a good many bright people, but hardly any women were included (a questionnaire circulated by Mademoiselle gave me somewhat comparable data concerning college women). When I first examined the interviews, and now again when I have once more gone over them, I have been struck by what appears to be a not quite conscious ambivalence toward work in large organizations. Nevertheless, the majority are planning to enter large organizations in pursuit of their careers: big corporations, big governments, big law offices, and so on. Only a few seek independence in their work, either in terms of old fashioned ideals of entrepreneurship or in terms of the desire to become a foreign correspondent, to enter politics, or to follow some other individualistic or exotic calling. (Moreover, hardly anyone expresses resentment against his prospective army service on the ground that the army is a large organization; there is no eagerness for service, but rather resignation to its as one of the givens of life.)

And yet, when these young people are asked about their lives outside of work, a very different picture merges. There, bigness and scale are definitely not valued. Only a tiny fraction want to head for the metropolis, even if their careers might make such a location convenient. They want the suburbs – not later, after some bachelor independence in the big city, but now, on graduation. The great majority either are already married or plan to get married soon (even if there is no special one in mind at the moment); they plan to start having children at once and to begin building a community – centered life in the suburbs. They envisage a two–car, but usually not a two–career, family, in which the prospective wife will be active in the parent – teacher association, with assistance from the husband, and in which both spouses will concern themselves with a manageable bit of real estate in a suburban neighbourhood in which they can at once be active and hope to make a difference. It does not occur to them that they might be gifted and energetic enough to make a difference even in a big city. Rather, they want to be able to work through a face–to–face group–the post collegiate fraternity of the small suburbs.

Correspondingly, the very emphasis on family life, which is one of the striking and, in so many ways, attractive qualities of young people today, is an implicit rejection of large organization. The suburban family, with its garden, its barbecue, its lack of privacy in the open–plan house, is itself a manifesto of decentralization, even though it makes use of centralized services such as television, clinics, chain stores, and House Beautiful. The wish to build a nest, even if a somewhat transient one, is a striking feature of the interviews, in contrast with the wish to build a fortune or a career, which might have dominated some comparable interviews a generation earlier.

College students are preoccupied by the fact that ______.

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage:

The conflict of the generations is neither a new nor a particularly American story, but it is perhaps exacerbated vulnerable to their mutual criticisms. I do not care to add to the complacency of my agemates who, from their clubs, pulpits, and other rostrums, attack the alleged “softness” of the young, whom they have themselves brought up, while failing to see the difficulties young people face today precisely because the manifest hardships with which earlier Americans coped have been, for millions, attenuated. These hardships cannot be artificially restored, at least for people over twelve; however, I believe that college students are now beginning to find new ways to become active politically, and hence responsible humanly.

It is easy to underestimate the importance of this in America, where students until recently did not play the role in politics that they do in Latin America, Turkey, Korea, or Japan. For, the cadres of the disinherited who once helped power political change in this country are diminished in numbers and even more diminished in leadership, now that nearly every bright, motivated boy gets funnelled into college if he wants to go. Thus, our expanding colleges absorb increasingly large fractions of the available idealism and dynamism of our society. And at the same time, as I shall try to show, many students are not attracted by the traditional goals of commercial or professional ambition the best of them have no love for the status quo. Rejecting careerism, they often choose familism instead. But shaken out of this, either by the open discrimination felt by Negroes or the subtler dissatisfaction with contemporary life felt by whites, they comprise a privileged minority, ignorant of its strength, yet capable of change.

College students today often act as if they believed that work in large organizations, and beyond that, work in general, could not be basically satisfying (or, at times, even honest), but is primarily a way to earn a living, to find a place in the social order, and to meet nice or not–so–nice people. This is a conclusion, which is partly projected upon the occupational scene as the result of their experience with the curriculum in college and university, and also as the result of experience with college and university as organizations, which are viewed as bureaucratic, monolithic, and unchangeable by many students.

I do not think it is the primary task of education to prepare students for their later occupational roles, or indeed an), narrowly specialized roles, nor to teach them to enjoy work regardless of its quality and meaning. Rather, the relation of education to later life should be a dialectical and critical one. If, however, one result of going to college is to become alienated from work per se and defeatist about the possibility of altering one’s relation to it, then it seems to me one ought to re–examine academic institutions themselves and see whether anything in them, or in one’s own attitudes, or in both might be changed.

In the spring of 1955, several hundred interviews were done (at the behest of Time magazine) with seniors at twenty colleges throughout the country, most of them colleges of distinction. The seniors were supposed to be reasonably representative, but what this was taken to mean and how it was applied at different colleges and universities varied greatly. A good many student leaders were chosen, a good many bright people, but hardly any women were included (a questionnaire circulated by Mademoiselle gave me somewhat comparable data concerning college women). When I first examined the interviews, and now again when I have once more gone over them, I have been struck by what appears to be a not quite conscious ambivalence toward work in large organizations. Nevertheless, the majority are planning to enter large organizations in pursuit of their careers: big corporations, big governments, big law offices, and so on. Only a few seek independence in their work, either in terms of old fashioned ideals of entrepreneurship or in terms of the desire to become a foreign correspondent, to enter politics, or to follow some other individualistic or exotic calling. (Moreover, hardly anyone expresses resentment against his prospective army service on the ground that the army is a large organization; there is no eagerness for service, but rather resignation to its as one of the givens of life.)

And yet, when these young people are asked about their lives outside of work, a very different picture merges. There, bigness and scale are definitely not valued. Only a tiny fraction want to head for the metropolis, even if their careers might make such a location convenient. They want the suburbs – not later, after some bachelor independence in the big city, but now, on graduation. The great majority either are already married or plan to get married soon (even if there is no special one in mind at the moment); they plan to start having children at once and to begin building a community – centered life in the suburbs. They envisage a two–car, but usually not a two–career, family, in which the prospective wife will be active in the parent – teacher association, with assistance from the husband, and in which both spouses will concern themselves with a manageable bit of real estate in a suburban neighbourhood in which they can at once be active and hope to make a difference. It does not occur to them that they might be gifted and energetic enough to make a difference even in a big city. Rather, they want to be able to work through a face–to–face group–the post collegiate fraternity of the small suburbs.

Correspondingly, the very emphasis on family life, which is one of the striking and, in so many ways, attractive qualities of young people today, is an implicit rejection of large organization. The suburban family, with its garden, its barbecue, its lack of privacy in the open–plan house, is itself a manifesto of decentralization, even though it makes use of centralized services such as television, clinics, chain stores, and House Beautiful. The wish to build a nest, even if a somewhat transient one, is a striking feature of the interviews, in contrast with the wish to build a fortune or a career, which might have dominated some comparable interviews a generation earlier.

The author is most likely to agree with the statement that _______.

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage:

Those who scorn the idea that spooks and spectres prowl and shimmer through the world do so because no one has so far caught a ghost in a bottle, because they are sceptical by habit, or because they resist the notion that death may not be final.

For many the word "ghost" conjures up an anonymous white-robed figure, a spirit who has come back from the grave to haunt the living. But in the annals of ghostdom, spectral beings come in a variety of forms and shapes, and some never put in an appearance at all, although they make their presence felt. Ghosts also differ in behaviour- they may be aimless, purposeful, playful, angelic, and even demonic.

There are three lines of explanation for ghostly phenomena: the spiritual, mechanical, and psychological. The most firmly established is the spiritual thesis, which holds that ghosts are intelligent beings. The first version of this idea is that ghosts are the spirits of dead humans. They continue to resemble their earthly forms in appearance and dress and are found re-enacting things they did in the past, bound to their haunting grounds by guilt, remorse, desire, or habit. They may be malevolent, kindly, or indifferent toward human beings. People who take this view of ghosts regard them as marking time in a spiritual halfway house between this world and heaven, purgatory, or hell.

According to another version of the spiritual view, a ghost's resemblance to a formerly living person or animal is actually a masquerade adopted for its own purpose, the real appearance of ghosts being quite different. Some ghosts, for instance, appear as vaporous columns or clouds of light.

In the third view of ghosts as a spiritual phenomenon, these apparitions are not beings in either of the senses described above. Instead, they are illusions created by powerful classes of angelic or demonic beings for the purpose of helping or harming those who see them. Miracles are an example of intervention by angelic or enlightened powers, while most poltergeist episodes are held to be demonic.

The mechanical interpretation is that ghosts are images without substance, somehow recorded in an etherise medium and visible under certain conditions to those of a certain case of mind. This idea accords well with some frequently observed phenomena - the way some ghosts have of disappearing into thin air. It does not explain those cases where the ghost interacts intelligently with those who see it.

In the psychological view of the phenomenon, ghosts reveal a spectrum of powerful but not yet understood capacities of the human mind. In these terms, some ghosts are the product of telepathic powers, as when a relative or friend appears to another at the time of death: others - poltergeist phenomena - suggest unwitting and uncontrolled psychokinetic abilities. And some- the appearance of phantom doubles-suggest that out-of-body experiences may sometimes be manifest to others.

In fact, most believers in ghosts are probably willing to accept all of these thesis as helping to explain a complex and varied phenomenon. Sceptics, on the other hand resorting to the dry but sturdy arguments to what they consider to be common sense, are apt to maintain that stories of ghosts are lies, hallucinations, or earnest reports of misperceptions. But the most convincing evidence of the existence of spectres still seems to be their appearance on the scene.