Reading Comprehension (GMAT)

The author is most likely to agree with which of the following?

Directions: Read the following passage and answer the question.
Here then is a fact that all positive morality presupposes. It presupposes that life by its very nature contains the possibility in it of some one kind of happiness, which is open to all men, and which is better than all others. The proudest, the serenest, the most successful life of vice, must be miserable when compared with the most painful life of virtue, and miserable in a very high degree; for morality is momentous exactly in proportion to the interval between the things to be gained and escaped by it. Now is this “happiness” a reality or is it a myth? That is the great question. Can human life, cut off utterly from every hope beyond itself — can human life supply it? If it cannot, then evidently there can be no morality without religion. But perhaps it can. Perhaps life has greater capacities than we have hitherto given it credit for. Perhaps this happiness may be really close at hand for each of us, and we have only overlooked it hitherto because it was too directly before our eyes. At all events, wherever it is, let it be pointed out to us. It is useless, as we have seen, if not generally presentable. To those who most need it, it is useless until presented. Indeed, until it is presented we are but acting on the maxim of its advocates by refusing to believe in its existence. ‘No simplicity of mind,’ says Professor Clifford, ‘no obscurity of station, can escape the universal duty of questioning all that we believe.’

The author is talking of the happiness that stems from

Directions: Read the following passage and answer the question.
Here then is a fact that all positive morality presupposes. It presupposes that life by its very nature contains the possibility in it of some one kind of happiness, which is open to all men, and which is better than all others. The proudest, the serenest, the most successful life of vice, must be miserable when compared with the most painful life of virtue, and miserable in a very high degree; for morality is momentous exactly in proportion to the interval between the things to be gained and escaped by it. Now is this “happiness” a reality or is it a myth? That is the great question. Can human life, cut off utterly from every hope beyond itself — can human life supply it? If it cannot, then evidently there can be no morality without religion. But perhaps it can. Perhaps life has greater capacities than we have hitherto given it credit for. Perhaps this happiness may be really close at hand for each of us, and we have only overlooked it hitherto because it was too directly before our eyes. At all events, wherever it is, let it be pointed out to us. It is useless, as we have seen, if not generally presentable. To those who most need it, it is useless until presented. Indeed, until it is presented we are but acting on the maxim of its advocates by refusing to believe in its existence. ‘No simplicity of mind,’ says Professor Clifford, ‘no obscurity of station, can escape the universal duty of questioning all that we believe.’

What was the contribution of the Greeks to astronomy in comparison to other cultures?

Directions: Read the following passage and answer the question.
We can imagine the respect accorded to the Chaldaean sages who first discovered that eclipses could be predicted, and how the philosophers of Mesopotamia must have sought eagerly for evidence of fresh periodic laws. Certain of the stars, which appeared to wander, and were hence called planets, provided an extended field for these speculations. Among the Chaldaeans and Babylonians the knowledge gradually acquired was probably confined to the priests and utilised mainly for astrological prediction or the fixing of religious observances. Such speculations as were current among them, and also among the Egyptians and others who came to share their knowledge, were almost entirely devoted to mythology, assigning fanciful terrestrial origins to constellations, with occasional controversies as to how the earth is supported in space. The Greeks, too, had an elaborate mythology largely adapted from their neighbors, but they were not satisfied with this, and made persistent attempts to reduce the apparent motions of celestial objects to geometrical laws. Some of the Pythagoreans, if not Pythagoras himself, held that the earth is a sphere, and that the apparent daily revolution of the sun and stars is really due to a motion of the earth, though at first this motion of the earth was not supposed to be one of rotation about an axis. These notions, and also that the planets on the whole move round from west to east with reference to the stars, were made known to a larger circle through the writings of Plato. To Plato moreover is attributed the challenge to astronomers to represent all the motions of the heavenly bodies by uniformly described circles, a challenge generally held responsible for a vast amount of wasted effort, and the postponement, for many centuries, of real progress.

The author cites the example of Thames steamboats in order to

Directions: Read the following passage and answer the question.
But under a system of state socialism, the situation would be wholly changed. Private capitalism is, in this respect, self-acting, and acts with absolute accuracy, because wage-capital being divided into a multitude of independent reservoirs, its waste at any one point brings about its own remedy. Each reservoir is like a mill-pond which automatically begins to dry up whenever its contents are employed in actuating a useless mill; and the man who has wasted his water is able to waste no more. But the moment the divisions between the reservoirs are broken down, and the separate capitals contained in them become, as would be the case under socialism, fused together like the waters of a single lake, the director of labor who so misused any portion of this fluid stock that the products of labor, as directed by him, failed to replace the wages, would not thereby be incapacitated from continuing his misdirection’s further; for the wage-capital dissipated by his incompetence could, under these conditions, always be replaced, and its loss more or less concealed, by fresh supplies which had a really different origin. It was only in consequence of conditions resembling these that the London County Council was enabled to continue for so long its service of Thames steamboats, in spite of the fact that the labor thus employed failed to reproduce, by the functions which it performed for the public, more than a fraction of capital which was necessarily consumed in its maintenance.

What is the passage about?

Directions: Read the following passage and answer the question.
Since tires are the contact point of a vehicle with the road, they provide a lot of inputs about the road surface. They are also the final execution point of the driver’s commands to the vehicle. Tire characteristics, not surprisingly, are a hot point of discussion for tire and vehicle manufacturers. The tires are connected to various linkages like springs, dampers, suspension systems and drive train to provide stability and surface adhesion. Not only that, they provide feedback to the driver about directional movement and also about the various forces acting upon the vehicle at a point in time. The forces can range from centrifugal force of going around a sharp curve at high speed, or the level of traction being maintained at that point in time. The suspension of a vehicle, the next link in the chain, is designed to allow the wheels to meet the ever changing requirements of the surface conditions and the other external conjoined factors but, due to a host of other considerations both directly related to the vehicle and otherwise, the end results are often less than ideal. Other influencing factors include body vibration, engine and body noise levels, and side-to-side sway. Upon going over a bump, the un-damped suspension of a vehicle will experience a series of oscillations that will play out according to the natural frequency of the system. Irrespective of however much the noise levels and the vibrations transmitted from the engine, moving parts, wind resistance and the feedback from the surface are damped, the natural frequency of the frame of the vehicle will stay in play.

The passage suggests which of the following about vehicle control?
I. Speed and direction of a moving vehicle determine the ride quality.
II. Change in centre of gravity resulting from centrifugal force is one of key determinants of road holding abilities.
III. Proper dampening can totally eliminate unpleasant vibrations.

Directions: Read the following passage and answer the question.
Since tires are the contact point of a vehicle with the road, they provide a lot of inputs about the road surface. They are also the final execution point of the driver’s commands to the vehicle. Tire characteristics, not surprisingly, are a hot point of discussion for tire and vehicle manufacturers. The tires are connected to various linkages like springs, dampers, suspension systems and drive train to provide stability and surface adhesion. Not only that, they provide feedback to the driver about directional movement and also about the various forces acting upon the vehicle at a point in time. The forces can range from centrifugal force of going around a sharp curve at high speed, or the level of traction being maintained at that point in time. The suspension of a vehicle, the next link in the chain, is designed to allow the wheels to meet the ever changing requirements of the surface conditions and the other external conjoined factors but, due to a host of other considerations both directly related to the vehicle and otherwise, the end results are often less than ideal. Other influencing factors include body vibration, engine and body noise levels, and side-to-side sway. Upon going over a bump, the un-damped suspension of a vehicle will experience a series of oscillations that will play out according to the natural frequency of the system. Irrespective of however much the noise levels and the vibrations transmitted from the engine, moving parts, wind resistance and the feedback from the surface are damped, the natural frequency of the frame of the vehicle will stay in play.

What is the tone of the author?

Directions: Read the following passage and answer the question.
We can imagine the respect accorded to the Chaldaean sages who first discovered that eclipses could be predicted, and how the philosophers of Mesopotamia must have sought eagerly for evidence of fresh periodic laws. Certain of the stars, which appeared to wander, and were hence called planets, provided an extended field for these speculations. Among the Chaldaeans and Babylonians the knowledge gradually acquired was probably confined to the priests and utilised mainly for astrological prediction or the fixing of religious observances. Such speculations as were current among them, and also among the Egyptians and others who came to share their knowledge, were almost entirely devoted to mythology, assigning fanciful terrestrial origins to constellations, with occasional controversies as to how the earth is supported in space. The Greeks, too, had an elaborate mythology largely adapted from their neighbors, but they were not satisfied with this, and made persistent attempts to reduce the apparent motions of celestial objects to geometrical laws. Some of the Pythagoreans, if not Pythagoras himself, held that the earth is a sphere, and that the apparent daily revolution of the sun and stars is really due to a motion of the earth, though at first this motion of the earth was not supposed to be one of rotation about an axis. These notions, and also that the planets on the whole move round from west to east with reference to the stars, were made known to a larger circle through the writings of Plato. To Plato moreover is attributed the challenge to astronomers to represent all the motions of the heavenly bodies by uniformly described circles, a challenge generally held responsible for a vast amount of wasted effort, and the postponement, for many centuries, of real progress.