Reading Comprehension (GMAT)

The author is driving home the point that

Directions: Read the following passage and answer the question.
And yet “Know thyself” has always been considered supremely excellent advice, as true for our time, as for the age of Socrates. It certainly is disregarded by most of us, as fully as it was by many of the Greeks, whom Socrates interrogated so ruthlessly. Is there then a sort of self-analysis, which can be carried out for its own sake, and which can be, at the same time, of vital use? It is time to ask these questions if we are ever to know how to analyze ourselves with profit, if we are ever to know ourselves. As students, we are content with every other knowledge but this. After all the self probing of the religious and philosophical, during long centuries, what have we learned? Truly to ourselves, we are enigmas. To know everything else except the self that knows, what a strange position! The one thing that we do not know -- that we feel as if we never could know, is the Self in us. What can we do? And what can we not do? What is the reason of this faculty, or that want of faculty? We have never reached an understanding of ourselves, which makes us not only know, but perceive what we are capable of knowing; which makes us aware, not only that we can do something, but why we can do it. If we would but take half the trouble to understand ourselves that we take to study a science or art, we might then cultivate some our own special lines of thought, our own gifts, that portion of individuality, which we each possess.

Which of the following statements most approximates the stand taken by the Duke of Argyll?

Directions: Read the following passage and answer the question.
The Duke of Argyll says, “Science, in the modern doctrine of conservation of energy and the convertibility of forces, is already getting a firm hold of the idea that all kinds of force are but forms of manifestations of one central force issuing from some one fountain-head of power. Sir John Herschel has not hesitated to say, ‘that it is but reasonable to regard the force of gravitation as the direct or indirect result of a consciousness or will existing somewhere.’ And even if we cannot certainly identify force in all its forms with the direct energies of the one Omnipresent and All-pervading Will, it is at least in the highest degree unphilosophical to assert the contrary — to think or to speak, as if the forces of nature were either independent of, or even separate from the Creator's power.” The Duke, however, in the general tenor of his book, does not differ from the common doctrine, except in one point. He does not deny the efficiency of physical causes, or resolve them all into the efficiency of God; but he teaches that God, in this world at least, never acts except through those causes. He applies this doctrine even to miracles, which he regards as effects produced by second causes of which we are ignorant, that is, by some higher law of nature.

How does the Duke of Argyll make an exception to the percepts commonly espoused?
I. By contending that all creation is not a result of a single all-pervasive entity.
II. In suggesting that the force of gravity does not emanate from the supreme God.
III. In stating that God controls the universe, but indirectly.

Directions: Read the following passage and answer the question.
The Duke of Argyll says, “Science, in the modern doctrine of conservation of energy and the convertibility of forces, is already getting a firm hold of the idea that all kinds of force are but forms of manifestations of one central force issuing from some one fountain-head of power. Sir John Herschel has not hesitated to say, ‘that it is but reasonable to regard the force of gravitation as the direct or indirect result of a consciousness or will existing somewhere.’ And even if we cannot certainly identify force in all its forms with the direct energies of the one Omnipresent and All-pervading Will, it is at least in the highest degree unphilosophical to assert the contrary — to think or to speak, as if the forces of nature were either independent of, or even separate from the Creator's power.” The Duke, however, in the general tenor of his book, does not differ from the common doctrine, except in one point. He does not deny the efficiency of physical causes, or resolve them all into the efficiency of God; but he teaches that God, in this world at least, never acts except through those causes. He applies this doctrine even to miracles, which he regards as effects produced by second causes of which we are ignorant, that is, by some higher law of nature.

The development of self awareness will help humans in all of the following, except

Directions: Read the following passage and answer the question.
And yet “Know thyself” has always been considered supremely excellent advice, as true for our time, as for the age of Socrates. It certainly is disregarded by most of us, as fully as it was by many of the Greeks, whom Socrates interrogated so ruthlessly. Is there then a sort of self-analysis, which can be carried out for its own sake, and which can be, at the same time, of vital use? It is time to ask these questions if we are ever to know how to analyze ourselves with profit, if we are ever to know ourselves. As students, we are content with every other knowledge but this. After all the self probing of the religious and philosophical, during long centuries, what have we learned? Truly to ourselves, we are enigmas. To know everything else except the self that knows, what a strange position! The one thing that we do not know -- that we feel as if we never could know, is the Self in us. What can we do? And what can we not do? What is the reason of this faculty, or that want of faculty? We have never reached an understanding of ourselves, which makes us not only know, but perceive what we are capable of knowing; which makes us aware, not only that we can do something, but why we can do it. If we would but take half the trouble to understand ourselves that we take to study a science or art, we might then cultivate some our own special lines of thought, our own gifts, that portion of individuality, which we each possess.

The passage implies all of the following about the advent of ballad opera in America, except:

Directions: Read the following passage and answer the question.
In the sometimes faulty and incomplete records of the American stage to which writers on musical history have hitherto been forced to repair, 1750 is set down as the natal year for English ballad opera in America. It is thought that it was in that year that “The Beggar’s Opera” found its way to New York, after having, in all probability, been given by the same company of comedians in Philadelphia in the middle of the year preceding. But it is as little likely that these were the first performances of ballad operas on this side of the Atlantic.
Accepting the 1750 date as the earliest of unmistakable records for a performance of “The Beggar's Opera” in New York, the original home of opera here was the Nassau Street Theater--the first of two known by that name. It was a two-storied house, with high gables. Six wax lights were in front of the stage, and from the ceiling dangled a “barrel hoop,” pierced by half a dozen nails on which were spiked as many candles. Illuminating gas did not reach New York till 1823, and “a thousand candles” was put forth as an attractive feature at a concert in the American metropolis as late as 1845.
“The Beggar's Opera” was only twenty years old when the comedians sent to the colonies by William Hallam, under the management of his brother, Lewis, produced it. The first audience-room was only fifty-four or fifty-five feet deep; there were no footlights, the stage being illuminated by four hoops of candles, over which a crown hung from the borders. The orchestra held only fifteen or twenty musicians. Hallam's actors went first to Williamsburg, Virginia, but were persuaded to change their home to New York in the summer of 1753, among other things by the promise that they would find a “very fine ‘Playhouse Building’” here. Nevertheless, when Lewis Hallam came he found the fine playhouse unsatisfactory, and may be said to have inaugurated the habit or custom, or whatever it may be called, followed by so many managers since, of beginning his enterprise by erecting a new theater. The old one in Nassau Street was torn down, and a new one built on its site. It was promised that it should be “very fine, large, and commodious,” and it was built between June and September, 1753; how fine, large, and commodious it was may, therefore, be imagined. A year later, the German Calvinists, wanting a place of worship, bought the theater, and New York was without a playhouse until a new one on Cruger's Wharf was built by David Douglas. This was abandoned in turn, and Mr. Douglas built a second theater, this time in Chapel Street. It cost $1,625, and can scarcely have been very roomy or very ornate either. Such as it was, however, it was the home of the drama in all its forms until about 1765, and was the center around which a storm raged which culminated in a riot that wrecked it.

What is a suitable title for the passage?

Directions: Read the following passage and answer the question.
In the sometimes faulty and incomplete records of the American stage to which writers on musical history have hitherto been forced to repair, 1750 is set down as the natal year for English ballad opera in America. It is thought that it was in that year that “The Beggar’s Opera” found its way to New York, after having, in all probability, been given by the same company of comedians in Philadelphia in the middle of the year preceding. But it is as little likely that these were the first performances of ballad operas on this side of the Atlantic.
Accepting the 1750 date as the earliest of unmistakable records for a performance of “The Beggar's Opera” in New York, the original home of opera here was the Nassau Street Theater--the first of two known by that name. It was a two-storied house, with high gables. Six wax lights were in front of the stage, and from the ceiling dangled a “barrel hoop,” pierced by half a dozen nails on which were spiked as many candles. Illuminating gas did not reach New York till 1823, and “a thousand candles” was put forth as an attractive feature at a concert in the American metropolis as late as 1845.
“The Beggar's Opera” was only twenty years old when the comedians sent to the colonies by William Hallam, under the management of his brother, Lewis, produced it. The first audience-room was only fifty-four or fifty-five feet deep; there were no footlights, the stage being illuminated by four hoops of candles, over which a crown hung from the borders. The orchestra held only fifteen or twenty musicians. Hallam's actors went first to Williamsburg, Virginia, but were persuaded to change their home to New York in the summer of 1753, among other things by the promise that they would find a “very fine ‘Playhouse Building’” here. Nevertheless, when Lewis Hallam came he found the fine playhouse unsatisfactory, and may be said to have inaugurated the habit or custom, or whatever it may be called, followed by so many managers since, of beginning his enterprise by erecting a new theater. The old one in Nassau Street was torn down, and a new one built on its site. It was promised that it should be “very fine, large, and commodious,” and it was built between June and September, 1753; how fine, large, and commodious it was may, therefore, be imagined. A year later, the German Calvinists, wanting a place of worship, bought the theater, and New York was without a playhouse until a new one on Cruger's Wharf was built by David Douglas. This was abandoned in turn, and Mr. Douglas built a second theater, this time in Chapel Street. It cost $1,625, and can scarcely have been very roomy or very ornate either. Such as it was, however, it was the home of the drama in all its forms until about 1765, and was the center around which a storm raged which culminated in a riot that wrecked it.

All of the following can be true of Claude', except

Directions: Read the following passage and answer the question.
Naturally thus, when the Italian influence wore itself out, and the Fontainebleau school gave way to a more purely national art; when France had definitely entered into her Italian heritage and had learned the lessons that Holland and Flanders had to teach her as well; when, in fine, the art of the modern world began, it was an art of grammar, of rhetoric. Certainly up to the time of Géricault painting in general held itself rather pedantically aloof from poetry. Claude, Chardin, what may be called the illustrated vers de société of the Louis Quinze painters — of Watteau and Fragonard — even Prudhon, did little to change the prevailing color and tone. Claude's art is, in manner, thoroughly classic. His personal influence was perhaps first felt by Corot. He stands by himself, at any rate, quite apart. He was the first thoroughly original French painter, if indeed one may not say he was the first thoroughly original modern painter. He has been assigned to both the French and Italian schools — to the latter by Gallophobist critics, however, through a partisanship which in aesthetic matters is ridiculous; there was in his day no Italian school for him to belong to. The truth is that he passed a large part of his life in Italy and that his landscape is Italianate. The great English painter, Mr. Ruskin says that Claude could paint a small wave very well, and acknowledges that he affected a revolution in art, which revolution “consisted mainly in setting the sun in heavens.” Mr. George Moore observes of Mr. Ruskin that his unusual attrition of Mr. Whistler — “the lot of critics” being “to be remembered by what they have failed to understand” — “will survive his finest prose passage.” I am not sure about Mr. Whistler. Contemporaries are too near for a perfect critical perspective. But assuredly Mr. Ruskin's failure to perceive Claude's point of view — to perceive that Claude's aim and Stanfield's, say, were quite different; that Claude, in fact, was at the opposite pole from the botanist and the geologist whom Mr. Ruskin’s “reverence for nature” would make of every landscape painter — is a failure in appreciation than to have shown which it would be better for him as a critic never to have been born. It seems hardly fanciful to say that the depreciation of Claude by Mr. Ruskin, who is a landscape painter himself, using the medium of words instead of pigments, is, so to speak, professionally unjust.

Which of the following can be inferred about French Art?
I. French art was more conservative than liberal.
II. French and the Italian art owe their ancestry to a common source.
III. Initially, poetic expression was not found in French art.

Directions: Read the following passage and answer the question.
Naturally thus, when the Italian influence wore itself out, and the Fontainebleau school gave way to a more purely national art; when France had definitely entered into her Italian heritage and had learned the lessons that Holland and Flanders had to teach her as well; when, in fine, the art of the modern world began, it was an art of grammar, of rhetoric. Certainly up to the time of Géricault painting in general held itself rather pedantically aloof from poetry. Claude, Chardin, what may be called the illustrated vers de société of the Louis Quinze painters — of Watteau and Fragonard — even Prudhon, did little to change the prevailing color and tone. Claude's art is, in manner, thoroughly classic. His personal influence was perhaps first felt by Corot. He stands by himself, at any rate, quite apart. He was the first thoroughly original French painter, if indeed one may not say he was the first thoroughly original modern painter. He has been assigned to both the French and Italian schools — to the latter by Gallophobist critics, however, through a partisanship which in aesthetic matters is ridiculous; there was in his day no Italian school for him to belong to. The truth is that he passed a large part of his life in Italy and that his landscape is Italianate. The great English painter, Mr. Ruskin says that Claude could paint a small wave very well, and acknowledges that he affected a revolution in art, which revolution “consisted mainly in setting the sun in heavens.” Mr. George Moore observes of Mr. Ruskin that his unusual attrition of Mr. Whistler — “the lot of critics” being “to be remembered by what they have failed to understand” — “will survive his finest prose passage.” I am not sure about Mr. Whistler. Contemporaries are too near for a perfect critical perspective. But assuredly Mr. Ruskin's failure to perceive Claude's point of view — to perceive that Claude's aim and Stanfield's, say, were quite different; that Claude, in fact, was at the opposite pole from the botanist and the geologist whom Mr. Ruskin’s “reverence for nature” would make of every landscape painter — is a failure in appreciation than to have shown which it would be better for him as a critic never to have been born. It seems hardly fanciful to say that the depreciation of Claude by Mr. Ruskin, who is a landscape painter himself, using the medium of words instead of pigments, is, so to speak, professionally unjust.