Reading Comprehension - 1

What, according to the passage, is the principal difference between reason and imagination?

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

According to one mode of regarding those two classes of mental action, which are called reason and imagination, the former may be considered as mind contemplating the relations borne by one thought to another, however produced; and the latter, as mind acting upon those thoughts so as to colour them with its own light, and composing from them, as from elements, other thoughts, each containing within itself the principle of its own integrity.  The one is the principle of synthesis, and has for its objects those forms which are common to universal nature and existence itself; the other is the principle of analysis, and its action regards the relations of things, simply as relations; considering thoughts, not in their integral unity, but as the algebraical representations which conduct to certain general results. Reason is the enumeration of quantities already known; imagination is the perception of the value of those quantities, both separately and as a whole. Reason respects the differences and imagination the similitudes of things. Reason is to imagination as the instrument to the agent, as the body to the spirit, as the shadow to the substance.
Poetry, in a general sense, may be defined to be ‘the expression of the imagination’: and poetry is connate with the origin of man. Man is an instrument over which a series of external and internal impressions are driven, like the alternations of an ever-changing wind over an Aeolian lyre, which move it by their motion to ever-changing melody. But there is a principle within the human being, and perhaps within all sentient beings, which acts otherwise than in the lyre, and produces not melody alone, but harmony, by an internal adjustment of the sounds of motions thus excited to the impressions which excite them. It is as if the lyre could accommodate its chords to the motions of that which strikes them, in a determined proportion of sound; even as the musician can accommodate his voice to the sound of the lyre. A child at play by itself will express its delight by its voice and motions; and every inflexion of tone and every gesture will bear exact relation to a corresponding antitype in the pleasurable impressions which awakened it; it will be the reflected image of that impression; and as the lyre trembles and sounds after the wind has died away, so the child seeks, by prolonging in its voice and motions the duration of the effect, to prolong also a consciousness of the cause. In relation to the objects that delight a child, these expressions are what poetry is to higher objects. The savage (for the savage is to ages what the child is to years) expresses the emotions produced in him by surrounding objects in a similar manner; and language and gesture, together with plastic or pictorial imitation, become the image of the combined effect of those objects, and of his apprehension of them. Man in society, with all his passions and his pleasures, next becomes the object of the passions and pleasures of man; an additional class of emotions produces an augmented treasure of expressions; and language, gesture, and the imitative arts, become at once the representation and the medium, the pencil and the picture, the chisel and the statue, the chord and the harmony. The social sympathies, or those laws from which, as from its elements, society results, begin to develop themselves from the moment that two human beings coexist; the future is contained within the present, as the plant within the seed; and equality, diversity, unity, contrasts, mutual dependence, become the principles alone capable of affording the motives according to which the will of a social being is determined to action, inasmuch as he is social; and constitute pleasure in sensation, virtue in sentiment, beauty in art, truth in reasoning, and love in the intercourse of the kind. Hence, men even in the infancy of society observe a certain order in their words and actions, distinct from that of the objects and the impressions represented by them, all expression being subject to the laws of that from which it proceeds.

Which of the following can definitely not be inferred from the passage?

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

According to one mode of regarding those two classes of mental action, which are called reason and imagination, the former may be considered as mind contemplating the relations borne by one thought to another, however produced; and the latter, as mind acting upon those thoughts so as to colour them with its own light, and composing from them, as from elements, other thoughts, each containing within itself the principle of its own integrity.  The one is the principle of synthesis, and has for its objects those forms which are common to universal nature and existence itself; the other is the principle of analysis, and its action regards the relations of things, simply as relations; considering thoughts, not in their integral unity, but as the algebraical representations which conduct to certain general results. Reason is the enumeration of quantities already known; imagination is the perception of the value of those quantities, both separately and as a whole. Reason respects the differences and imagination the similitudes of things. Reason is to imagination as the instrument to the agent, as the body to the spirit, as the shadow to the substance.
Poetry, in a general sense, may be defined to be ‘the expression of the imagination’: and poetry is connate with the origin of man. Man is an instrument over which a series of external and internal impressions are driven, like the alternations of an ever-changing wind over an Aeolian lyre, which move it by their motion to ever-changing melody. But there is a principle within the human being, and perhaps within all sentient beings, which acts otherwise than in the lyre, and produces not melody alone, but harmony, by an internal adjustment of the sounds of motions thus excited to the impressions which excite them. It is as if the lyre could accommodate its chords to the motions of that which strikes them, in a determined proportion of sound; even as the musician can accommodate his voice to the sound of the lyre. A child at play by itself will express its delight by its voice and motions; and every inflexion of tone and every gesture will bear exact relation to a corresponding antitype in the pleasurable impressions which awakened it; it will be the reflected image of that impression; and as the lyre trembles and sounds after the wind has died away, so the child seeks, by prolonging in its voice and motions the duration of the effect, to prolong also a consciousness of the cause. In relation to the objects that delight a child, these expressions are what poetry is to higher objects. The savage (for the savage is to ages what the child is to years) expresses the emotions produced in him by surrounding objects in a similar manner; and language and gesture, together with plastic or pictorial imitation, become the image of the combined effect of those objects, and of his apprehension of them. Man in society, with all his passions and his pleasures, next becomes the object of the passions and pleasures of man; an additional class of emotions produces an augmented treasure of expressions; and language, gesture, and the imitative arts, become at once the representation and the medium, the pencil and the picture, the chisel and the statue, the chord and the harmony. The social sympathies, or those laws from which, as from its elements, society results, begin to develop themselves from the moment that two human beings coexist; the future is contained within the present, as the plant within the seed; and equality, diversity, unity, contrasts, mutual dependence, become the principles alone capable of affording the motives according to which the will of a social being is determined to action, inasmuch as he is social; and constitute pleasure in sensation, virtue in sentiment, beauty in art, truth in reasoning, and love in the intercourse of the kind. Hence, men even in the infancy of society observe a certain order in their words and actions, distinct from that of the objects and the impressions represented by them, all expression being subject to the laws of that from which it proceeds.

The author does not

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

According to one mode of regarding those two classes of mental action, which are called reason and imagination, the former may be considered as mind contemplating the relations borne by one thought to another, however produced; and the latter, as mind acting upon those thoughts so as to colour them with its own light, and composing from them, as from elements, other thoughts, each containing within itself the principle of its own integrity.  The one is the principle of synthesis, and has for its objects those forms which are common to universal nature and existence itself; the other is the principle of analysis, and its action regards the relations of things, simply as relations; considering thoughts, not in their integral unity, but as the algebraical representations which conduct to certain general results. Reason is the enumeration of quantities already known; imagination is the perception of the value of those quantities, both separately and as a whole. Reason respects the differences and imagination the similitudes of things. Reason is to imagination as the instrument to the agent, as the body to the spirit, as the shadow to the substance.
Poetry, in a general sense, may be defined to be ‘the expression of the imagination’: and poetry is connate with the origin of man. Man is an instrument over which a series of external and internal impressions are driven, like the alternations of an ever-changing wind over an Aeolian lyre, which move it by their motion to ever-changing melody. But there is a principle within the human being, and perhaps within all sentient beings, which acts otherwise than in the lyre, and produces not melody alone, but harmony, by an internal adjustment of the sounds of motions thus excited to the impressions which excite them. It is as if the lyre could accommodate its chords to the motions of that which strikes them, in a determined proportion of sound; even as the musician can accommodate his voice to the sound of the lyre. A child at play by itself will express its delight by its voice and motions; and every inflexion of tone and every gesture will bear exact relation to a corresponding antitype in the pleasurable impressions which awakened it; it will be the reflected image of that impression; and as the lyre trembles and sounds after the wind has died away, so the child seeks, by prolonging in its voice and motions the duration of the effect, to prolong also a consciousness of the cause. In relation to the objects that delight a child, these expressions are what poetry is to higher objects. The savage (for the savage is to ages what the child is to years) expresses the emotions produced in him by surrounding objects in a similar manner; and language and gesture, together with plastic or pictorial imitation, become the image of the combined effect of those objects, and of his apprehension of them. Man in society, with all his passions and his pleasures, next becomes the object of the passions and pleasures of man; an additional class of emotions produces an augmented treasure of expressions; and language, gesture, and the imitative arts, become at once the representation and the medium, the pencil and the picture, the chisel and the statue, the chord and the harmony. The social sympathies, or those laws from which, as from its elements, society results, begin to develop themselves from the moment that two human beings coexist; the future is contained within the present, as the plant within the seed; and equality, diversity, unity, contrasts, mutual dependence, become the principles alone capable of affording the motives according to which the will of a social being is determined to action, inasmuch as he is social; and constitute pleasure in sensation, virtue in sentiment, beauty in art, truth in reasoning, and love in the intercourse of the kind. Hence, men even in the infancy of society observe a certain order in their words and actions, distinct from that of the objects and the impressions represented by them, all expression being subject to the laws of that from which it proceeds.

The reading of the passage may well lead to the conclusion that the author is

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

According to one mode of regarding those two classes of mental action, which are called reason and imagination, the former may be considered as mind contemplating the relations borne by one thought to another, however produced; and the latter, as mind acting upon those thoughts so as to colour them with its own light, and composing from them, as from elements, other thoughts, each containing within itself the principle of its own integrity.  The one is the principle of synthesis, and has for its objects those forms which are common to universal nature and existence itself; the other is the principle of analysis, and its action regards the relations of things, simply as relations; considering thoughts, not in their integral unity, but as the algebraical representations which conduct to certain general results. Reason is the enumeration of quantities already known; imagination is the perception of the value of those quantities, both separately and as a whole. Reason respects the differences and imagination the similitudes of things. Reason is to imagination as the instrument to the agent, as the body to the spirit, as the shadow to the substance.
Poetry, in a general sense, may be defined to be ‘the expression of the imagination’: and poetry is connate with the origin of man. Man is an instrument over which a series of external and internal impressions are driven, like the alternations of an ever-changing wind over an Aeolian lyre, which move it by their motion to ever-changing melody. But there is a principle within the human being, and perhaps within all sentient beings, which acts otherwise than in the lyre, and produces not melody alone, but harmony, by an internal adjustment of the sounds of motions thus excited to the impressions which excite them. It is as if the lyre could accommodate its chords to the motions of that which strikes them, in a determined proportion of sound; even as the musician can accommodate his voice to the sound of the lyre. A child at play by itself will express its delight by its voice and motions; and every inflexion of tone and every gesture will bear exact relation to a corresponding antitype in the pleasurable impressions which awakened it; it will be the reflected image of that impression; and as the lyre trembles and sounds after the wind has died away, so the child seeks, by prolonging in its voice and motions the duration of the effect, to prolong also a consciousness of the cause. In relation to the objects that delight a child, these expressions are what poetry is to higher objects. The savage (for the savage is to ages what the child is to years) expresses the emotions produced in him by surrounding objects in a similar manner; and language and gesture, together with plastic or pictorial imitation, become the image of the combined effect of those objects, and of his apprehension of them. Man in society, with all his passions and his pleasures, next becomes the object of the passions and pleasures of man; an additional class of emotions produces an augmented treasure of expressions; and language, gesture, and the imitative arts, become at once the representation and the medium, the pencil and the picture, the chisel and the statue, the chord and the harmony. The social sympathies, or those laws from which, as from its elements, society results, begin to develop themselves from the moment that two human beings coexist; the future is contained within the present, as the plant within the seed; and equality, diversity, unity, contrasts, mutual dependence, become the principles alone capable of affording the motives according to which the will of a social being is determined to action, inasmuch as he is social; and constitute pleasure in sensation, virtue in sentiment, beauty in art, truth in reasoning, and love in the intercourse of the kind. Hence, men even in the infancy of society observe a certain order in their words and actions, distinct from that of the objects and the impressions represented by them, all expression being subject to the laws of that from which it proceeds.

The writer's attitude towards the contemporary criticism is

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

       
A good deal of contemporary criticism, originating at that point at which criticism merges with scholarship, and at which scholarship merges into criticism, may be characterized as the criticism of explanation by origins. The question of how far information about the poet or information about the factors contributed to making of the poem helps us to understand the poetry is not as simple as one might think. Each reader must answer it for himself, for the enjoyment of poetry can be a complex experience in which several forms of satisfaction are mingled; and they may be mingled in different proportions for different readers. There are several methods of getting to that level of satisfaction. But as every method has its own limitations and dangers, it is only reasonable to mention what seem to me the limitations and dangers of this one, dangers against which, if it were practised for what I suspect should be its chief use, that is, as an exercise for pupils, it would be the business of the teacher to warn his class.
The first danger is that of assuming that there must be just one interpretation of the poem as a whole that must be right. There will be details of explanation, especially with poems written in another age than our own, matters of fact, historical allusions, meaning of a certain word at a certain date, which can be established, and the teacher can see that his pupils get these right. But as for the meaning of the poem as a whole, it is not exhausted by way of explanation, for the meaning is what the poem means to different sensitive readers. The second danger—the danger to which a reader is exposed—is that of assuming that the interpretation of a poem, if valid, is necessarily an account of what the author consciously or unconsciously was trying to do. For the tendency is so general, to believe that we understand a poem when we have identified its origins and traced the process to which the poet submitted his materials, that we may easily believe the converse—that any explanation of the poem is also an account of how it was written. The analysis of the poem to which I have referred interested me because it helped me to see the poem through the eyes of an intelligent, sensitive, and diligent reader. That is not at all to say that he saw the poem through my eyes, or that his account has anything to do with the experiences that led up to my writing it, or anything I experienced in the process of writing it. And my third comment is that I should, as a test, like to see the method applied to some new poems, some very good poem, and one that was previously unknown to me: because I should like to find out whether, after perusing the analysis, I should be able to enjoy the poem. For nearly all the poems in the volume were poems that I had known and loved for many years; and after reading the analyses, I found I was slow to recover my previous feeling about the poems. It was as if someone had taken a machine to pieces and left me with the task of reassembling the parts. I suspect, in fact, that a good deal of the value of an interpretation is—that it should be my own interpretation. There are many things, perhaps, to know about this poem, or that, many facts about which scholars can instruct me which will help me to avoid definite misunderstanding; but a valid interpretation, I believe, must be at the same time an interpretation of my own feelings when I read it.

What danger, according to the passage, is a reader exposed to?

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

       
A good deal of contemporary criticism, originating at that point at which criticism merges with scholarship, and at which scholarship merges into criticism, may be characterized as the criticism of explanation by origins. The question of how far information about the poet or information about the factors contributed to making of the poem helps us to understand the poetry is not as simple as one might think. Each reader must answer it for himself, for the enjoyment of poetry can be a complex experience in which several forms of satisfaction are mingled; and they may be mingled in different proportions for different readers. There are several methods of getting to that level of satisfaction. But as every method has its own limitations and dangers, it is only reasonable to mention what seem to me the limitations and dangers of this one, dangers against which, if it were practised for what I suspect should be its chief use, that is, as an exercise for pupils, it would be the business of the teacher to warn his class.
The first danger is that of assuming that there must be just one interpretation of the poem as a whole that must be right. There will be details of explanation, especially with poems written in another age than our own, matters of fact, historical allusions, meaning of a certain word at a certain date, which can be established, and the teacher can see that his pupils get these right. But as for the meaning of the poem as a whole, it is not exhausted by way of explanation, for the meaning is what the poem means to different sensitive readers. The second danger—the danger to which a reader is exposed—is that of assuming that the interpretation of a poem, if valid, is necessarily an account of what the author consciously or unconsciously was trying to do. For the tendency is so general, to believe that we understand a poem when we have identified its origins and traced the process to which the poet submitted his materials, that we may easily believe the converse—that any explanation of the poem is also an account of how it was written. The analysis of the poem to which I have referred interested me because it helped me to see the poem through the eyes of an intelligent, sensitive, and diligent reader. That is not at all to say that he saw the poem through my eyes, or that his account has anything to do with the experiences that led up to my writing it, or anything I experienced in the process of writing it. And my third comment is that I should, as a test, like to see the method applied to some new poems, some very good poem, and one that was previously unknown to me: because I should like to find out whether, after perusing the analysis, I should be able to enjoy the poem. For nearly all the poems in the volume were poems that I had known and loved for many years; and after reading the analyses, I found I was slow to recover my previous feeling about the poems. It was as if someone had taken a machine to pieces and left me with the task of reassembling the parts. I suspect, in fact, that a good deal of the value of an interpretation is—that it should be my own interpretation. There are many things, perhaps, to know about this poem, or that, many facts about which scholars can instruct me which will help me to avoid definite misunderstanding; but a valid interpretation, I believe, must be at the same time an interpretation of my own feelings when I read it.

What, according to the author, is the most important thing for a reader of poetry to do?

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

       
A good deal of contemporary criticism, originating at that point at which criticism merges with scholarship, and at which scholarship merges into criticism, may be characterized as the criticism of explanation by origins. The question of how far information about the poet or information about the factors contributed to making of the poem helps us to understand the poetry is not as simple as one might think. Each reader must answer it for himself, for the enjoyment of poetry can be a complex experience in which several forms of satisfaction are mingled; and they may be mingled in different proportions for different readers. There are several methods of getting to that level of satisfaction. But as every method has its own limitations and dangers, it is only reasonable to mention what seem to me the limitations and dangers of this one, dangers against which, if it were practised for what I suspect should be its chief use, that is, as an exercise for pupils, it would be the business of the teacher to warn his class.
The first danger is that of assuming that there must be just one interpretation of the poem as a whole that must be right. There will be details of explanation, especially with poems written in another age than our own, matters of fact, historical allusions, meaning of a certain word at a certain date, which can be established, and the teacher can see that his pupils get these right. But as for the meaning of the poem as a whole, it is not exhausted by way of explanation, for the meaning is what the poem means to different sensitive readers. The second danger—the danger to which a reader is exposed—is that of assuming that the interpretation of a poem, if valid, is necessarily an account of what the author consciously or unconsciously was trying to do. For the tendency is so general, to believe that we understand a poem when we have identified its origins and traced the process to which the poet submitted his materials, that we may easily believe the converse—that any explanation of the poem is also an account of how it was written. The analysis of the poem to which I have referred interested me because it helped me to see the poem through the eyes of an intelligent, sensitive, and diligent reader. That is not at all to say that he saw the poem through my eyes, or that his account has anything to do with the experiences that led up to my writing it, or anything I experienced in the process of writing it. And my third comment is that I should, as a test, like to see the method applied to some new poems, some very good poem, and one that was previously unknown to me: because I should like to find out whether, after perusing the analysis, I should be able to enjoy the poem. For nearly all the poems in the volume were poems that I had known and loved for many years; and after reading the analyses, I found I was slow to recover my previous feeling about the poems. It was as if someone had taken a machine to pieces and left me with the task of reassembling the parts. I suspect, in fact, that a good deal of the value of an interpretation is—that it should be my own interpretation. There are many things, perhaps, to know about this poem, or that, many facts about which scholars can instruct me which will help me to avoid definite misunderstanding; but a valid interpretation, I believe, must be at the same time an interpretation of my own feelings when I read it.

The author indicates that a major part of the present day criticism is

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

       
A good deal of contemporary criticism, originating at that point at which criticism merges with scholarship, and at which scholarship merges into criticism, may be characterized as the criticism of explanation by origins. The question of how far information about the poet or information about the factors contributed to making of the poem helps us to understand the poetry is not as simple as one might think. Each reader must answer it for himself, for the enjoyment of poetry can be a complex experience in which several forms of satisfaction are mingled; and they may be mingled in different proportions for different readers. There are several methods of getting to that level of satisfaction. But as every method has its own limitations and dangers, it is only reasonable to mention what seem to me the limitations and dangers of this one, dangers against which, if it were practised for what I suspect should be its chief use, that is, as an exercise for pupils, it would be the business of the teacher to warn his class.
The first danger is that of assuming that there must be just one interpretation of the poem as a whole that must be right. There will be details of explanation, especially with poems written in another age than our own, matters of fact, historical allusions, meaning of a certain word at a certain date, which can be established, and the teacher can see that his pupils get these right. But as for the meaning of the poem as a whole, it is not exhausted by way of explanation, for the meaning is what the poem means to different sensitive readers. The second danger—the danger to which a reader is exposed—is that of assuming that the interpretation of a poem, if valid, is necessarily an account of what the author consciously or unconsciously was trying to do. For the tendency is so general, to believe that we understand a poem when we have identified its origins and traced the process to which the poet submitted his materials, that we may easily believe the converse—that any explanation of the poem is also an account of how it was written. The analysis of the poem to which I have referred interested me because it helped me to see the poem through the eyes of an intelligent, sensitive, and diligent reader. That is not at all to say that he saw the poem through my eyes, or that his account has anything to do with the experiences that led up to my writing it, or anything I experienced in the process of writing it. And my third comment is that I should, as a test, like to see the method applied to some new poems, some very good poem, and one that was previously unknown to me: because I should like to find out whether, after perusing the analysis, I should be able to enjoy the poem. For nearly all the poems in the volume were poems that I had known and loved for many years; and after reading the analyses, I found I was slow to recover my previous feeling about the poems. It was as if someone had taken a machine to pieces and left me with the task of reassembling the parts. I suspect, in fact, that a good deal of the value of an interpretation is—that it should be my own interpretation. There are many things, perhaps, to know about this poem, or that, many facts about which scholars can instruct me which will help me to avoid definite misunderstanding; but a valid interpretation, I believe, must be at the same time an interpretation of my own feelings when I read it.

What, according to the writer, was the factor that gave fillip to indigenous banking during the Mughal rule?

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

Before the indigenous bankers came into existence, the custom seems to have been to hoard capital wealth or deposit it with a friend. Gradually hawkers and guilds began to receive deposits and hold them as trust properties. No definite information is available whether they received deposits on payment of interest or for safe custody only. The Arthashastra lays down definite rules for the hoarding and utilization of wealth on interest, but is silent on the subject of deposit banking. Most early bankers were, however, traders who combined trade with banking.

There is evidence to show that in all important trade centers of the Buddhist period, there lived many bankers of great influence, who occupied prominent positions in guilds of commercial and industrial activities. Their main function was to finance traders, merchant adventurers or explorers in search of valuable materials, and kings in times of war and financial stress. Lending money on interest was common, the loans being secured by mortgage, by pledge of movables, or by surety. The Dharma Shastras, though in general agreement with the Arthashastra, introduced caste as an important factor in money lending, expectedly to the advantage of the higher castes.

During the early dynasties of the Muslim period, Multanis and Shroffs financed internal trade and commerce between different centres and acted as bankers to the Muslim rulers. It appears from the writings of a few Muslim historians, European travellers, State records and the Ain-e-Akbari, that both under the early Muslim and Mughal rulers in India, indigenous bankers played a prominent part in lending money, financing internal and foreign trade with cash or bills, and giving financial assistance to rulers. The Imperial Gazetteer records that Feroz Shah (1351-86) borrowed large sums of money from the Banker of Sasoti of Delhi for payment to his army. The soldiers of Delhi were paid by cash orders, italaq, in outlyhing places. These were discounted at Delhi by financiers who made a regular business of it and earned a good income.

Lending money on interest was therefore quite common, and steps were taken by the State to keep a check on usurers. Evidence shows that in the last quarter of the sixteenth century the Vaniks in Bengal charged interest at more than 500 per cent. As mentioned in the report of the United Provinces Banking Enquiry Committee, some indigenous bankers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were so powerful that they were comparable with private banking houses in any other country, and seem to have fulfilled many of the functions of a central bank.

During the Mughal rule the issue of various kinds of metallic money in different parts of the country gave the indigenous bankers great opportunities for developing the very profitable business of money changing, revenue collectors, bankers and money changers to government in various parts of the empire. Many of them wielded great influence in the country.

Which of the following is not implied by the author

1. earning profit was the sole objective for engaging in banking activities
2. wielding of power by the money lenders altered the course of history
3. banking activities were so designed as to suit the requirement of the higher caste

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

Before the indigenous bankers came into existence, the custom seems to have been to hoard capital wealth or deposit it with a friend. Gradually hawkers and guilds began to receive deposits and hold them as trust properties. No definite information is available whether they received deposits on payment of interest or for safe custody only. The Arthashastra lays down definite rules for the hoarding and utilization of wealth on interest, but is silent on the subject of deposit banking. Most early bankers were, however, traders who combined trade with banking.

There is evidence to show that in all important trade centers of the Buddhist period, there lived many bankers of great influence, who occupied prominent positions in guilds of commercial and industrial activities. Their main function was to finance traders, merchant adventurers or explorers in search of valuable materials, and kings in times of war and financial stress. Lending money on interest was common, the loans being secured by mortgage, by pledge of movables, or by surety. The Dharma Shastras, though in general agreement with the Arthashastra, introduced caste as an important factor in money lending, expectedly to the advantage of the higher castes.

During the early dynasties of the Muslim period, Multanis and Shroffs financed internal trade and commerce between different centres and acted as bankers to the Muslim rulers. It appears from the writings of a few Muslim historians, European travellers, State records and the Ain-e-Akbari, that both under the early Muslim and Mughal rulers in India, indigenous bankers played a prominent part in lending money, financing internal and foreign trade with cash or bills, and giving financial assistance to rulers. The Imperial Gazetteer records that Feroz Shah (1351-86) borrowed large sums of money from the Banker of Sasoti of Delhi for payment to his army. The soldiers of Delhi were paid by cash orders, italaq, in outlyhing places. These were discounted at Delhi by financiers who made a regular business of it and earned a good income.

Lending money on interest was therefore quite common, and steps were taken by the State to keep a check on usurers. Evidence shows that in the last quarter of the sixteenth century the Vaniks in Bengal charged interest at more than 500 per cent. As mentioned in the report of the United Provinces Banking Enquiry Committee, some indigenous bankers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were so powerful that they were comparable with private banking houses in any other country, and seem to have fulfilled many of the functions of a central bank.

During the Mughal rule the issue of various kinds of metallic money in different parts of the country gave the indigenous bankers great opportunities for developing the very profitable business of money changing, revenue collectors, bankers and money changers to government in various parts of the empire. Many of them wielded great influence in the country.

What was the earliest known custom, according to the writer, that became a precursor to indigenous banking?

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

Before the indigenous bankers came into existence, the custom seems to have been to hoard capital wealth or deposit it with a friend. Gradually hawkers and guilds began to receive deposits and hold them as trust properties. No definite information is available whether they received deposits on payment of interest or for safe custody only. The Arthashastra lays down definite rules for the hoarding and utilization of wealth on interest, but is silent on the subject of deposit banking. Most early bankers were, however, traders who combined trade with banking.

There is evidence to show that in all important trade centers of the Buddhist period, there lived many bankers of great influence, who occupied prominent positions in guilds of commercial and industrial activities. Their main function was to finance traders, merchant adventurers or explorers in search of valuable materials, and kings in times of war and financial stress. Lending money on interest was common, the loans being secured by mortgage, by pledge of movables, or by surety. The Dharma Shastras, though in general agreement with the Arthashastra, introduced caste as an important factor in money lending, expectedly to the advantage of the higher castes.

During the early dynasties of the Muslim period, Multanis and Shroffs financed internal trade and commerce between different centres and acted as bankers to the Muslim rulers. It appears from the writings of a few Muslim historians, European travellers, State records and the Ain-e-Akbari, that both under the early Muslim and Mughal rulers in India, indigenous bankers played a prominent part in lending money, financing internal and foreign trade with cash or bills, and giving financial assistance to rulers. The Imperial Gazetteer records that Feroz Shah (1351-86) borrowed large sums of money from the Banker of Sasoti of Delhi for payment to his army. The soldiers of Delhi were paid by cash orders, italaq, in outlyhing places. These were discounted at Delhi by financiers who made a regular business of it and earned a good income.

Lending money on interest was therefore quite common, and steps were taken by the State to keep a check on usurers. Evidence shows that in the last quarter of the sixteenth century the Vaniks in Bengal charged interest at more than 500 per cent. As mentioned in the report of the United Provinces Banking Enquiry Committee, some indigenous bankers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were so powerful that they were comparable with private banking houses in any other country, and seem to have fulfilled many of the functions of a central bank.

During the Mughal rule the issue of various kinds of metallic money in different parts of the country gave the indigenous bankers great opportunities for developing the very profitable business of money changing, revenue collectors, bankers and money changers to government in various parts of the empire. Many of them wielded great influence in the country.

What, according to the passage, were the earliest known activities a banker performed those days?

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

Before the indigenous bankers came into existence, the custom seems to have been to hoard capital wealth or deposit it with a friend. Gradually hawkers and guilds began to receive deposits and hold them as trust properties. No definite information is available whether they received deposits on payment of interest or for safe custody only. The Arthashastra lays down definite rules for the hoarding and utilization of wealth on interest, but is silent on the subject of deposit banking. Most early bankers were, however, traders who combined trade with banking.

There is evidence to show that in all important trade centers of the Buddhist period, there lived many bankers of great influence, who occupied prominent positions in guilds of commercial and industrial activities. Their main function was to finance traders, merchant adventurers or explorers in search of valuable materials, and kings in times of war and financial stress. Lending money on interest was common, the loans being secured by mortgage, by pledge of movables, or by surety. The Dharma Shastras, though in general agreement with the Arthashastra, introduced caste as an important factor in money lending, expectedly to the advantage of the higher castes.

During the early dynasties of the Muslim period, Multanis and Shroffs financed internal trade and commerce between different centres and acted as bankers to the Muslim rulers. It appears from the writings of a few Muslim historians, European travellers, State records and the Ain-e-Akbari, that both under the early Muslim and Mughal rulers in India, indigenous bankers played a prominent part in lending money, financing internal and foreign trade with cash or bills, and giving financial assistance to rulers. The Imperial Gazetteer records that Feroz Shah (1351-86) borrowed large sums of money from the Banker of Sasoti of Delhi for payment to his army. The soldiers of Delhi were paid by cash orders, italaq, in outlyhing places. These were discounted at Delhi by financiers who made a regular business of it and earned a good income.

Lending money on interest was therefore quite common, and steps were taken by the State to keep a check on usurers. Evidence shows that in the last quarter of the sixteenth century the Vaniks in Bengal charged interest at more than 500 per cent. As mentioned in the report of the United Provinces Banking Enquiry Committee, some indigenous bankers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were so powerful that they were comparable with private banking houses in any other country, and seem to have fulfilled many of the functions of a central bank.

During the Mughal rule the issue of various kinds of metallic money in different parts of the country gave the indigenous bankers great opportunities for developing the very profitable business of money changing, revenue collectors, bankers and money changers to government in various parts of the empire. Many of them wielded great influence in the country.

What will be the appropriate title of this passage?

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

Before the indigenous bankers came into existence, the custom seems to have been to hoard capital wealth or deposit it with a friend. Gradually hawkers and guilds began to receive deposits and hold them as trust properties. No definite information is available whether they received deposits on payment of interest or for safe custody only. The Arthashastra lays down definite rules for the hoarding and utilization of wealth on interest, but is silent on the subject of deposit banking. Most early bankers were, however, traders who combined trade with banking.

There is evidence to show that in all important trade centers of the Buddhist period, there lived many bankers of great influence, who occupied prominent positions in guilds of commercial and industrial activities. Their main function was to finance traders, merchant adventurers or explorers in search of valuable materials, and kings in times of war and financial stress. Lending money on interest was common, the loans being secured by mortgage, by pledge of movables, or by surety. The Dharma Shastras, though in general agreement with the Arthashastra, introduced caste as an important factor in money lending, expectedly to the advantage of the higher castes.

During the early dynasties of the Muslim period, Multanis and Shroffs financed internal trade and commerce between different centres and acted as bankers to the Muslim rulers. It appears from the writings of a few Muslim historians, European travellers, State records and the Ain-e-Akbari, that both under the early Muslim and Mughal rulers in India, indigenous bankers played a prominent part in lending money, financing internal and foreign trade with cash or bills, and giving financial assistance to rulers. The Imperial Gazetteer records that Feroz Shah (1351-86) borrowed large sums of money from the Banker of Sasoti of Delhi for payment to his army. The soldiers of Delhi were paid by cash orders, italaq, in outlyhing places. These were discounted at Delhi by financiers who made a regular business of it and earned a good income.

Lending money on interest was therefore quite common, and steps were taken by the State to keep a check on usurers. Evidence shows that in the last quarter of the sixteenth century the Vaniks in Bengal charged interest at more than 500 per cent. As mentioned in the report of the United Provinces Banking Enquiry Committee, some indigenous bankers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were so powerful that they were comparable with private banking houses in any other country, and seem to have fulfilled many of the functions of a central bank.

During the Mughal rule the issue of various kinds of metallic money in different parts of the country gave the indigenous bankers great opportunities for developing the very profitable business of money changing, revenue collectors, bankers and money changers to government in various parts of the empire. Many of them wielded great influence in the country.

Which of the following most aptly describes the essence of the opening paragraph of the passage?

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

According to one mode of regarding those two classes of mental action, which are called reason and imagination, the former may be considered as mind contemplating the relations borne by one thought to another, however produced; and the latter, as mind acting upon those thoughts so as to colour them with its own light, and composing from them, as from elements, other thoughts, each containing within itself the principle of its own integrity.  The one is the principle of synthesis, and has for its objects those forms which are common to universal nature and existence itself; the other is the principle of analysis, and its action regards the relations of things, simply as relations; considering thoughts, not in their integral unity, but as the algebraical representations which conduct to certain general results. Reason is the enumeration of quantities already known; imagination is the perception of the value of those quantities, both separately and as a whole. Reason respects the differences and imagination the similitudes of things. Reason is to imagination as the instrument to the agent, as the body to the spirit, as the shadow to the substance.
Poetry, in a general sense, may be defined to be ‘the expression of the imagination’: and poetry is connate with the origin of man. Man is an instrument over which a series of external and internal impressions are driven, like the alternations of an ever-changing wind over an Aeolian lyre, which move it by their motion to ever-changing melody. But there is a principle within the human being, and perhaps within all sentient beings, which acts otherwise than in the lyre, and produces not melody alone, but harmony, by an internal adjustment of the sounds of motions thus excited to the impressions which excite them. It is as if the lyre could accommodate its chords to the motions of that which strikes them, in a determined proportion of sound; even as the musician can accommodate his voice to the sound of the lyre. A child at play by itself will express its delight by its voice and motions; and every inflexion of tone and every gesture will bear exact relation to a corresponding antitype in the pleasurable impressions which awakened it; it will be the reflected image of that impression; and as the lyre trembles and sounds after the wind has died away, so the child seeks, by prolonging in its voice and motions the duration of the effect, to prolong also a consciousness of the cause. In relation to the objects that delight a child, these expressions are what poetry is to higher objects. The savage (for the savage is to ages what the child is to years) expresses the emotions produced in him by surrounding objects in a similar manner; and language and gesture, together with plastic or pictorial imitation, become the image of the combined effect of those objects, and of his apprehension of them. Man in society, with all his passions and his pleasures, next becomes the object of the passions and pleasures of man; an additional class of emotions produces an augmented treasure of expressions; and language, gesture, and the imitative arts, become at once the representation and the medium, the pencil and the picture, the chisel and the statue, the chord and the harmony. The social sympathies, or those laws from which, as from its elements, society results, begin to develop themselves from the moment that two human beings coexist; the future is contained within the present, as the plant within the seed; and equality, diversity, unity, contrasts, mutual dependence, become the principles alone capable of affording the motives according to which the will of a social being is determined to action, inasmuch as he is social; and constitute pleasure in sensation, virtue in sentiment, beauty in art, truth in reasoning, and love in the intercourse of the kind. Hence, men even in the infancy of society observe a certain order in their words and actions, distinct from that of the objects and the impressions represented by them, all expression being subject to the laws of that from which it proceeds.

The writer states or implies that

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

       
A good deal of contemporary criticism, originating at that point at which criticism merges with scholarship, and at which scholarship merges into criticism, may be characterized as the criticism of explanation by origins. The question of how far information about the poet or information about the factors contributed to making of the poem helps us to understand the poetry is not as simple as one might think. Each reader must answer it for himself, for the enjoyment of poetry can be a complex experience in which several forms of satisfaction are mingled; and they may be mingled in different proportions for different readers. There are several methods of getting to that level of satisfaction. But as every method has its own limitations and dangers, it is only reasonable to mention what seem to me the limitations and dangers of this one, dangers against which, if it were practised for what I suspect should be its chief use, that is, as an exercise for pupils, it would be the business of the teacher to warn his class.
The first danger is that of assuming that there must be just one interpretation of the poem as a whole that must be right. There will be details of explanation, especially with poems written in another age than our own, matters of fact, historical allusions, meaning of a certain word at a certain date, which can be established, and the teacher can see that his pupils get these right. But as for the meaning of the poem as a whole, it is not exhausted by way of explanation, for the meaning is what the poem means to different sensitive readers. The second danger—the danger to which a reader is exposed—is that of assuming that the interpretation of a poem, if valid, is necessarily an account of what the author consciously or unconsciously was trying to do. For the tendency is so general, to believe that we understand a poem when we have identified its origins and traced the process to which the poet submitted his materials, that we may easily believe the converse—that any explanation of the poem is also an account of how it was written. The analysis of the poem to which I have referred interested me because it helped me to see the poem through the eyes of an intelligent, sensitive, and diligent reader. That is not at all to say that he saw the poem through my eyes, or that his account has anything to do with the experiences that led up to my writing it, or anything I experienced in the process of writing it. And my third comment is that I should, as a test, like to see the method applied to some new poems, some very good poem, and one that was previously unknown to me: because I should like to find out whether, after perusing the analysis, I should be able to enjoy the poem. For nearly all the poems in the volume were poems that I had known and loved for many years; and after reading the analyses, I found I was slow to recover my previous feeling about the poems. It was as if someone had taken a machine to pieces and left me with the task of reassembling the parts. I suspect, in fact, that a good deal of the value of an interpretation is—that it should be my own interpretation. There are many things, perhaps, to know about this poem, or that, many facts about which scholars can instruct me which will help me to avoid definite misunderstanding; but a valid interpretation, I believe, must be at the same time an interpretation of my own feelings when I read it.