Reading Comprehension (GMAT)

According to the passage, consumers are buying more products

Directions: Read the following passage and answer the question.
We truly live in an age of abundance. Everything from our wardrobes, to our homes, to the stores selling all kinds of stuff - every place is overflowing with stuff we have managed to acquire or aspire to own and it is a corroboration of a truly consumerist era. We know what we want and we want it now. Everyone has wants that need to be fulfilled and envy - the Green eyed monster has transmuted into Shrek - the lovable ogre - with the world now not only coming to terms with, but also embracing with gusto, a culture of material ambition. Keeping up with the Joneses is out and ‘Have it, flaunt it’ is the new style statement.
Advertisers, through every platform available, television, newspaper, radio, internet and sundry other means, are encouraging us to go out and buy the latest model, the latest product or the latest service. With manufacturers churning out newer models every few months and consumers lapping them up, it would seem that perfectly good working products would be consigned to the waste basket but that is not the case. The market for second hand products is burgeoning, except for the fact that they are now no longer called second hand but ‘used products’. Without offending the sensibilities or the ego of someone who doesn’t have enough spare money to buy the latest, state of the art model, the altered name means he can now buy and flash a product which till yesterday was haute but has suddenly lost value and favor after the coming of its latest avatar.

Which of the following examples would be congruent with the theme of the passage?
I. A lion leaving a half-eaten gazelle to hunt for fresh prey.
II. Sheep following other sheep across the pasture.
III. Squirrel hoarding nuts for the winter.

Directions: Read the following passage and answer the question.
We truly live in an age of abundance. Everything from our wardrobes, to our homes, to the stores selling all kinds of stuff - every place is overflowing with stuff we have managed to acquire or aspire to own and it is a corroboration of a truly consumerist era. We know what we want and we want it now. Everyone has wants that need to be fulfilled and envy - the Green eyed monster has transmuted into Shrek - the lovable ogre - with the world now not only coming to terms with, but also embracing with gusto, a culture of material ambition. Keeping up with the Joneses is out and ‘Have it, flaunt it’ is the new style statement.
Advertisers, through every platform available, television, newspaper, radio, internet and sundry other means, are encouraging us to go out and buy the latest model, the latest product or the latest service. With manufacturers churning out newer models every few months and consumers lapping them up, it would seem that perfectly good working products would be consigned to the waste basket but that is not the case. The market for second hand products is burgeoning, except for the fact that they are now no longer called second hand but ‘used products’. Without offending the sensibilities or the ego of someone who doesn’t have enough spare money to buy the latest, state of the art model, the altered name means he can now buy and flash a product which till yesterday was haute but has suddenly lost value and favor after the coming of its latest avatar.

Which of the following statements best conveys the theme of the passage?

Directions: Read the following passage and answer the question.
We truly live in an age of abundance. Everything from our wardrobes, to our homes, to the stores selling all kinds of stuff - every place is overflowing with stuff we have managed to acquire or aspire to own and it is a corroboration of a truly consumerist era. We know what we want and we want it now. Everyone has wants that need to be fulfilled and envy - the Green eyed monster has transmuted into Shrek - the lovable ogre - with the world now not only coming to terms with, but also embracing with gusto, a culture of material ambition. Keeping up with the Joneses is out and ‘Have it, flaunt it’ is the new style statement.
Advertisers, through every platform available, television, newspaper, radio, internet and sundry other means, are encouraging us to go out and buy the latest model, the latest product or the latest service. With manufacturers churning out newer models every few months and consumers lapping them up, it would seem that perfectly good working products would be consigned to the waste basket but that is not the case. The market for second hand products is burgeoning, except for the fact that they are now no longer called second hand but ‘used products’. Without offending the sensibilities or the ego of someone who doesn’t have enough spare money to buy the latest, state of the art model, the altered name means he can now buy and flash a product which till yesterday was haute but has suddenly lost value and favor after the coming of its latest avatar.

Why, according to the author, envy is not bad anymore?

Directions: Read the following passage and answer the question.
We truly live in an age of abundance. Everything from our wardrobes, to our homes, to the stores selling all kinds of stuff - every place is overflowing with stuff we have managed to acquire or aspire to own and it is a corroboration of a truly consumerist era. We know what we want and we want it now. Everyone has wants that need to be fulfilled and envy - the Green eyed monster has transmuted into Shrek - the lovable ogre - with the world now not only coming to terms with, but also embracing with gusto, a culture of material ambition. Keeping up with the Joneses is out and ‘Have it, flaunt it’ is the new style statement.
Advertisers, through every platform available, television, newspaper, radio, internet and sundry other means, are encouraging us to go out and buy the latest model, the latest product or the latest service. With manufacturers churning out newer models every few months and consumers lapping them up, it would seem that perfectly good working products would be consigned to the waste basket but that is not the case. The market for second hand products is burgeoning, except for the fact that they are now no longer called second hand but ‘used products’. Without offending the sensibilities or the ego of someone who doesn’t have enough spare money to buy the latest, state of the art model, the altered name means he can now buy and flash a product which till yesterday was haute but has suddenly lost value and favor after the coming of its latest avatar.

The author uses the example of “the potter's wheel” to

Directions: Read the following passage and answer the question.
As to machinery, Marx and his followers, maintain that it represents nothing but the average labor of the past; and so long as it exists only in its smaller and simpler forms, the devising and constructing of which are not referable to any faculties which we are able to distinguish from those of the average laborer, we have further seen that the theory of Marx holds good. Labor produces alike both the finished goods and its implements. But in proportion as machines or other contrivances, such as vessels, grow in size or complexity, and embody, as they do in their more modern developments, ingenuity of the highest and knowledge of the most abstruse kinds, the situation changes; and we are able to identify certain faculties as essential to the ultimate result, which affect the work of the laborers, but which do not emanate from themselves. Any three men of average strength and intelligence might make a potter's wheel together, or build a small boat together, as they frequently do now, their several tasks being interchangeable, or assigned to each of them by easy mutual agreement. The business of directing labor has not separated itself from the actual business of laboring. Each man knows the object of what he does, and can co-ordinate that object with the object of what is done by his fellows. But when the ultimate result is something so vast and complicated that a thousand men instead of three have to co-operate in the production of it, when a million pieces of metal, some large and some minute, have to be cast, filed, turned, rolled, or bent, so that finally they may all coalesce into a single mechanical organism, no one laborer sees further than the task which he performs himself. He cannot adjust his work to that of another man, who is probably working a quarter of a mile away from him, and he has in most cases no idea whatever of how the two pieces of work are related to each other. Each laborer has simply to perform his work in accordance with directions which emanate from some mind other than his own, and the whole practical value of what the laborers do depends on the quality of the directions which are thus given to each.
In other words, in proportion as the industrial process is enhanced in productivity by the concentration on it of the higher faculties of mankind, there is an increasing fission of this process as a whole into two kinds of activity represented by two different groups. We have no longer merely although we have this still an increasing division of labor; but we have the laborers of all kinds and grades separating themselves into one group on the one hand, and the men who direct their labor, as a separate group, on the other hand.

Which of the following takes place when machines embody knowledge in its higher forms?
I. A worker feels disconnected from his work.
II. A worker usually fails to grasp the concept in totality.
III. Division between the act of labor and direction of labor takes place.

Directions: Read the following passage and answer the question.
As to machinery, Marx and his followers, maintain that it represents nothing but the average labor of the past; and so long as it exists only in its smaller and simpler forms, the devising and constructing of which are not referable to any faculties which we are able to distinguish from those of the average laborer, we have further seen that the theory of Marx holds good. Labor produces alike both the finished goods and its implements. But in proportion as machines or other contrivances, such as vessels, grow in size or complexity, and embody, as they do in their more modern developments, ingenuity of the highest and knowledge of the most abstruse kinds, the situation changes; and we are able to identify certain faculties as essential to the ultimate result, which affect the work of the laborers, but which do not emanate from themselves. Any three men of average strength and intelligence might make a potter's wheel together, or build a small boat together, as they frequently do now, their several tasks being interchangeable, or assigned to each of them by easy mutual agreement. The business of directing labor has not separated itself from the actual business of laboring. Each man knows the object of what he does, and can co-ordinate that object with the object of what is done by his fellows. But when the ultimate result is something so vast and complicated that a thousand men instead of three have to co-operate in the production of it, when a million pieces of metal, some large and some minute, have to be cast, filed, turned, rolled, or bent, so that finally they may all coalesce into a single mechanical organism, no one laborer sees further than the task which he performs himself. He cannot adjust his work to that of another man, who is probably working a quarter of a mile away from him, and he has in most cases no idea whatever of how the two pieces of work are related to each other. Each laborer has simply to perform his work in accordance with directions which emanate from some mind other than his own, and the whole practical value of what the laborers do depends on the quality of the directions which are thus given to each.
In other words, in proportion as the industrial process is enhanced in productivity by the concentration on it of the higher faculties of mankind, there is an increasing fission of this process as a whole into two kinds of activity represented by two different groups. We have no longer merely although we have this still an increasing division of labor; but we have the laborers of all kinds and grades separating themselves into one group on the one hand, and the men who direct their labor, as a separate group, on the other hand.

What is the tone of the passage?

Directions: Read the following passage and answer the question.
As to machinery, Marx and his followers, maintain that it represents nothing but the average labor of the past; and so long as it exists only in its smaller and simpler forms, the devising and constructing of which are not referable to any faculties which we are able to distinguish from those of the average laborer, we have further seen that the theory of Marx holds good. Labor produces alike both the finished goods and its implements. But in proportion as machines or other contrivances, such as vessels, grow in size or complexity, and embody, as they do in their more modern developments, ingenuity of the highest and knowledge of the most abstruse kinds, the situation changes; and we are able to identify certain faculties as essential to the ultimate result, which affect the work of the laborers, but which do not emanate from themselves. Any three men of average strength and intelligence might make a potter's wheel together, or build a small boat together, as they frequently do now, their several tasks being interchangeable, or assigned to each of them by easy mutual agreement. The business of directing labor has not separated itself from the actual business of laboring. Each man knows the object of what he does, and can co-ordinate that object with the object of what is done by his fellows. But when the ultimate result is something so vast and complicated that a thousand men instead of three have to co-operate in the production of it, when a million pieces of metal, some large and some minute, have to be cast, filed, turned, rolled, or bent, so that finally they may all coalesce into a single mechanical organism, no one laborer sees further than the task which he performs himself. He cannot adjust his work to that of another man, who is probably working a quarter of a mile away from him, and he has in most cases no idea whatever of how the two pieces of work are related to each other. Each laborer has simply to perform his work in accordance with directions which emanate from some mind other than his own, and the whole practical value of what the laborers do depends on the quality of the directions which are thus given to each.
In other words, in proportion as the industrial process is enhanced in productivity by the concentration on it of the higher faculties of mankind, there is an increasing fission of this process as a whole into two kinds of activity represented by two different groups. We have no longer merely although we have this still an increasing division of labor; but we have the laborers of all kinds and grades separating themselves into one group on the one hand, and the men who direct their labor, as a separate group, on the other hand.

The author is likely to agree with all of the following, except

Directions: Read the following passage and answer the question.
The qualities and defects of French painting are explained less by its historic origin than by the character of the French genius itself. French painting really began in connoisseurship, one may say. It arose in appreciation, that faculty in which the French have always been, and still are, unrivalled. Its syntheses were based on elements already in combination. It originated nothing. It was eclectic at the outset. Compared with the slow and suave evolution of Italian art, in whose earliest dawn its borrowed Byzantine painting served as a stimulus and suggestion to original views of natural material rather than as a model for imitation and modification, the painting that sprang into existence, Minerva-like, in full armor, at Fontainebleau under Francis I, was of the essence of artificiality. It was very much in the position in which American appreciation finds itself to-day. Like our own painters, the French artists of the Renaissance found themselves familiar with masterpieces wholly beyond their power to create, and produced by a foreign people who had enjoyed the incomparable advantage of arriving at their artistic apogee through natural stages of growth, beginning with impulse and culminating in expertness.