Reading Comprehension

What could be a criticism levelled against the way the passage is written?

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

Women have to get their reproducing done early. The menopause curtails it, and even before that a woman’s fertility falls significantly over the years. Men—those who can find willing partners, at least—do not suffer in quite the same way, as many stories of celebrity elder fathers testify. But perhaps such ageing Lotharios should think twice, for evidence is accumulating that their offspring are at greater-than-average risk of genetic disease.
The latest study to this effect has just been published in Nature by Kari Stefansson and his colleagues at deCODE Genetics, a genetic-analysis company based in Reykjavik that was founded to take advantage of Iceland’s excellent medical records and its unique genealogical history. Recent immigrants apart, the relationship of almost everybody on the island to everybody else is known back as far as the first census, in 1703. In many cases it is known back to the first human settlement of the island, in 874.
Dr Stefansson’s study does not reach as far back as that. He and his colleagues examined 78 trios of father, mother and child who are all still alive. In some cases they looked at grandchildren as well. Their goal was to examine the number of new mutations—traits not found in the normal body cells of either parent—in children.
The average answer is about 63. That number, however, varies widely—and the main factor involved in this variation is the age of the father. Mothers transmitted an average of 14 mutations to their children, regardless of age. Fathers showed a much wider range: 20-year-olds passed on an average of 29 mutations; 30-year-olds (the average age of fatherhood in Dr Stefansson’s sample) passed on 49; and 40-year-olds passed 69.
That it is the father, rather than the mother, who causes this effect is probably because a woman’s eggs are created early on, when she is still in her mother’s womb, and are then put into what is, in effect, physiological deep-freeze until they are required for ovulation. Sperm, by contrast, are made continuously throughout life, and each division of their precursor cells brings risk of a misinterpretation of the DNA, and thus a mutation.
Dr Stefansson’s work adds to an existing body of research on the effect of paternal age. Previous studies have linked older fathers with higher rates of schizophrenia and autism in their offspring. In April three teams of researchers identified specific mutations that increase the chance of autism; all three observed that the risk of such mutations in a child rose with his father’s age at conception. But Dr Stefansson and his team are the first to measure the impact of older fathers so precisely.
Modern genomics made their task easier. After sequencing the genomes of each of the people involved, tallying the new mutations in the children was simply a matter of comparing the sequences of the parents with those of their offspring. Though both mother and father contribute to a child’s DNA, their contributions come in large, identifiable blocks. If a mutation is seen, its parentage is thus obvious.
There is, of course, the question of how much this matters, for most mutations have little effect—and a rare few, the stuff of evolution, are actually beneficial. According to Alexey Kondrashov of the University of Michigan, an expert on the matter who wrote an article in Nature to accompany Dr Stefansson’s study, about 10% of mutations are damaging. This means that for the average baby, six of Dr Stefansson’s 63 mutations are probably up to no good.
In Iceland, the average age of fathers at conception has risen from 28 in 1980 to 33 in 2011. Over the same period Dr Stefansson estimates that the number of new mutations in Iceland’s newborns jumped by more than 17%.

Which of these options accurately encapsulates the essence of the passage?

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

Junk. Barren. Non-functioning. Dark matter. That’s how scientists had described the 98% of human genome that lies between our 21,000 genes, ever since our DNA was first sequenced about a decade ago. The disappointment in those descriptors was intentional and palpable.
It had been believed that the human genome — the underpinnings of the blueprint for the talking, empire-building, socially evolved species that we are — would be stuffed with sophisticated genes, coding for critical proteins of unparalleled complexity. But when all was said and done, and the Human Genome Project finally determined the entire sequence of our DNA in 2001, researchers found that the 3 billion base pairs that comprised our mere 21,000 genes made up a paltry 2% of the entire genome. The rest, geneticists acknowledged with unconcealed embarrassment, was an apparent biological wasteland.
But it turns out they were wrong. In an impressive series of more than 30 papers published in several journals, including Nature, Genome Research, Genome Biology, Science and Cell, scientists now report that these vast stretches of seeming “junk” DNA are actually the seat of crucial gene-controlling activity — changes that contribute to hundreds of common diseases. The new data come from the Encyclopaedia of DNA Elements project, or ENCODE, a $123 million endeavor begun by the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) in 2003, which includes 442 scientists in 32 labs around the world.
ENCODE has revealed that some 80% of the human genome is biochemically active. “What is remarkable is how much of the genome is doing at least something. It has changed my perception of the genome,” says Ewan Birney, ENCODE’s lead analysis coordinator from the European Bioinformatics Institute.
Rather than being inert, the portions of DNA that do not code for genes contain about 4 million so-called gene switches, transcription factors that control when our genes turn on and off and how much protein they make, not only affecting all the cells and organs in our body, but doing so at different points in our lifetime. Somewhere amidst that 80% of DNA, for example, lie the instructions that coax an uncommitted cell in a growing embryo to form a brain neuron, or direct a cell in the pancreas to churn out insulin after a meal, or guide a skin cell to bud off and replace a predecessor that has sloughed off.
“What we learned from ENCODE is how complicated the human genome is, and the incredible choreography that is going on with the immense number of switches that are choreographing how genes are used,” Eric Green, director of NHGRI, told reporters during a teleconference discussing the findings. “We are starting to answer fundamental questions like what are the working parts of the human genome, parts list of the human genome and what those parts do.”

Which of these is a good title for the passage?

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

Women have to get their reproducing done early. The menopause curtails it, and even before that a woman’s fertility falls significantly over the years. Men—those who can find willing partners, at least—do not suffer in quite the same way, as many stories of celebrity elder fathers testify. But perhaps such ageing Lotharios should think twice, for evidence is accumulating that their offspring are at greater-than-average risk of genetic disease.
The latest study to this effect has just been published in Nature by Kari Stefansson and his colleagues at deCODE Genetics, a genetic-analysis company based in Reykjavik that was founded to take advantage of Iceland’s excellent medical records and its unique genealogical history. Recent immigrants apart, the relationship of almost everybody on the island to everybody else is known back as far as the first census, in 1703. In many cases it is known back to the first human settlement of the island, in 874.
Dr Stefansson’s study does not reach as far back as that. He and his colleagues examined 78 trios of father, mother and child who are all still alive. In some cases they looked at grandchildren as well. Their goal was to examine the number of new mutations—traits not found in the normal body cells of either parent—in children.
The average answer is about 63. That number, however, varies widely—and the main factor involved in this variation is the age of the father. Mothers transmitted an average of 14 mutations to their children, regardless of age. Fathers showed a much wider range: 20-year-olds passed on an average of 29 mutations; 30-year-olds (the average age of fatherhood in Dr Stefansson’s sample) passed on 49; and 40-year-olds passed 69.
That it is the father, rather than the mother, who causes this effect is probably because a woman’s eggs are created early on, when she is still in her mother’s womb, and are then put into what is, in effect, physiological deep-freeze until they are required for ovulation. Sperm, by contrast, are made continuously throughout life, and each division of their precursor cells brings risk of a misinterpretation of the DNA, and thus a mutation.
Dr Stefansson’s work adds to an existing body of research on the effect of paternal age. Previous studies have linked older fathers with higher rates of schizophrenia and autism in their offspring. In April three teams of researchers identified specific mutations that increase the chance of autism; all three observed that the risk of such mutations in a child rose with his father’s age at conception. But Dr Stefansson and his team are the first to measure the impact of older fathers so precisely.
Modern genomics made their task easier. After sequencing the genomes of each of the people involved, tallying the new mutations in the children was simply a matter of comparing the sequences of the parents with those of their offspring. Though both mother and father contribute to a child’s DNA, their contributions come in large, identifiable blocks. If a mutation is seen, its parentage is thus obvious.
There is, of course, the question of how much this matters, for most mutations have little effect—and a rare few, the stuff of evolution, are actually beneficial. According to Alexey Kondrashov of the University of Michigan, an expert on the matter who wrote an article in Nature to accompany Dr Stefansson’s study, about 10% of mutations are damaging. This means that for the average baby, six of Dr Stefansson’s 63 mutations are probably up to no good.
In Iceland, the average age of fathers at conception has risen from 28 in 1980 to 33 in 2011. Over the same period Dr Stefansson estimates that the number of new mutations in Iceland’s newborns jumped by more than 17%.

All of the following are true according to the passage except

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

Junk. Barren. Non-functioning. Dark matter. That’s how scientists had described the 98% of human genome that lies between our 21,000 genes, ever since our DNA was first sequenced about a decade ago. The disappointment in those descriptors was intentional and palpable.
It had been believed that the human genome — the underpinnings of the blueprint for the talking, empire-building, socially evolved species that we are — would be stuffed with sophisticated genes, coding for critical proteins of unparalleled complexity. But when all was said and done, and the Human Genome Project finally determined the entire sequence of our DNA in 2001, researchers found that the 3 billion base pairs that comprised our mere 21,000 genes made up a paltry 2% of the entire genome. The rest, geneticists acknowledged with unconcealed embarrassment, was an apparent biological wasteland.
But it turns out they were wrong. In an impressive series of more than 30 papers published in several journals, including Nature, Genome Research, Genome Biology, Science and Cell, scientists now report that these vast stretches of seeming “junk” DNA are actually the seat of crucial gene-controlling activity — changes that contribute to hundreds of common diseases. The new data come from the Encyclopaedia of DNA Elements project, or ENCODE, a $123 million endeavor begun by the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) in 2003, which includes 442 scientists in 32 labs around the world.
ENCODE has revealed that some 80% of the human genome is biochemically active. “What is remarkable is how much of the genome is doing at least something. It has changed my perception of the genome,” says Ewan Birney, ENCODE’s lead analysis coordinator from the European Bioinformatics Institute.
Rather than being inert, the portions of DNA that do not code for genes contain about 4 million so-called gene switches, transcription factors that control when our genes turn on and off and how much protein they make, not only affecting all the cells and organs in our body, but doing so at different points in our lifetime. Somewhere amidst that 80% of DNA, for example, lie the instructions that coax an uncommitted cell in a growing embryo to form a brain neuron, or direct a cell in the pancreas to churn out insulin after a meal, or guide a skin cell to bud off and replace a predecessor that has sloughed off.
“What we learned from ENCODE is how complicated the human genome is, and the incredible choreography that is going on with the immense number of switches that are choreographing how genes are used,” Eric Green, director of NHGRI, told reporters during a teleconference discussing the findings. “We are starting to answer fundamental questions like what are the working parts of the human genome, parts list of the human genome and what those parts do.”

What is the author’s attitude towards the new findings?

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

Junk. Barren. Non-functioning. Dark matter. That’s how scientists had described the 98% of human genome that lies between our 21,000 genes, ever since our DNA was first sequenced about a decade ago. The disappointment in those descriptors was intentional and palpable.
It had been believed that the human genome — the underpinnings of the blueprint for the talking, empire-building, socially evolved species that we are — would be stuffed with sophisticated genes, coding for critical proteins of unparalleled complexity. But when all was said and done, and the Human Genome Project finally determined the entire sequence of our DNA in 2001, researchers found that the 3 billion base pairs that comprised our mere 21,000 genes made up a paltry 2% of the entire genome. The rest, geneticists acknowledged with unconcealed embarrassment, was an apparent biological wasteland.
But it turns out they were wrong. In an impressive series of more than 30 papers published in several journals, including Nature, Genome Research, Genome Biology, Science and Cell, scientists now report that these vast stretches of seeming “junk” DNA are actually the seat of crucial gene-controlling activity — changes that contribute to hundreds of common diseases. The new data come from the Encyclopaedia of DNA Elements project, or ENCODE, a $123 million endeavor begun by the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) in 2003, which includes 442 scientists in 32 labs around the world.
ENCODE has revealed that some 80% of the human genome is biochemically active. “What is remarkable is how much of the genome is doing at least something. It has changed my perception of the genome,” says Ewan Birney, ENCODE’s lead analysis coordinator from the European Bioinformatics Institute.
Rather than being inert, the portions of DNA that do not code for genes contain about 4 million so-called gene switches, transcription factors that control when our genes turn on and off and how much protein they make, not only affecting all the cells and organs in our body, but doing so at different points in our lifetime. Somewhere amidst that 80% of DNA, for example, lie the instructions that coax an uncommitted cell in a growing embryo to form a brain neuron, or direct a cell in the pancreas to churn out insulin after a meal, or guide a skin cell to bud off and replace a predecessor that has sloughed off.
“What we learned from ENCODE is how complicated the human genome is, and the incredible choreography that is going on with the immense number of switches that are choreographing how genes are used,” Eric Green, director of NHGRI, told reporters during a teleconference discussing the findings. “We are starting to answer fundamental questions like what are the working parts of the human genome, parts list of the human genome and what those parts do.”

Which of these is the central idea of the passage?

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

Women have to get their reproducing done early. The menopause curtails it, and even before that a woman’s fertility falls significantly over the years. Men—those who can find willing partners, at least—do not suffer in quite the same way, as many stories of celebrity elder fathers testify. But perhaps such ageing Lotharios should think twice, for evidence is accumulating that their offspring are at greater-than-average risk of genetic disease.
The latest study to this effect has just been published in Nature by Kari Stefansson and his colleagues at deCODE Genetics, a genetic-analysis company based in Reykjavik that was founded to take advantage of Iceland’s excellent medical records and its unique genealogical history. Recent immigrants apart, the relationship of almost everybody on the island to everybody else is known back as far as the first census, in 1703. In many cases it is known back to the first human settlement of the island, in 874.
Dr Stefansson’s study does not reach as far back as that. He and his colleagues examined 78 trios of father, mother and child who are all still alive. In some cases they looked at grandchildren as well. Their goal was to examine the number of new mutations—traits not found in the normal body cells of either parent—in children.
The average answer is about 63. That number, however, varies widely—and the main factor involved in this variation is the age of the father. Mothers transmitted an average of 14 mutations to their children, regardless of age. Fathers showed a much wider range: 20-year-olds passed on an average of 29 mutations; 30-year-olds (the average age of fatherhood in Dr Stefansson’s sample) passed on 49; and 40-year-olds passed 69.
That it is the father, rather than the mother, who causes this effect is probably because a woman’s eggs are created early on, when she is still in her mother’s womb, and are then put into what is, in effect, physiological deep-freeze until they are required for ovulation. Sperm, by contrast, are made continuously throughout life, and each division of their precursor cells brings risk of a misinterpretation of the DNA, and thus a mutation.
Dr Stefansson’s work adds to an existing body of research on the effect of paternal age. Previous studies have linked older fathers with higher rates of schizophrenia and autism in their offspring. In April three teams of researchers identified specific mutations that increase the chance of autism; all three observed that the risk of such mutations in a child rose with his father’s age at conception. But Dr Stefansson and his team are the first to measure the impact of older fathers so precisely.
Modern genomics made their task easier. After sequencing the genomes of each of the people involved, tallying the new mutations in the children was simply a matter of comparing the sequences of the parents with those of their offspring. Though both mother and father contribute to a child’s DNA, their contributions come in large, identifiable blocks. If a mutation is seen, its parentage is thus obvious.
There is, of course, the question of how much this matters, for most mutations have little effect—and a rare few, the stuff of evolution, are actually beneficial. According to Alexey Kondrashov of the University of Michigan, an expert on the matter who wrote an article in Nature to accompany Dr Stefansson’s study, about 10% of mutations are damaging. This means that for the average baby, six of Dr Stefansson’s 63 mutations are probably up to no good.
In Iceland, the average age of fathers at conception has risen from 28 in 1980 to 33 in 2011. Over the same period Dr Stefansson estimates that the number of new mutations in Iceland’s newborns jumped by more than 17%.

What is the attitude of the writer of this passage towards the socialists?

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

Capitalism is a system based on the principle of individual rights and responsibilities. The bulk of economic activity is organized through private enterprise operating in a free market. Each person survives and flourishes based on his freedom to use his ability. Individuals and companies are allowed to compete for their own economic gain. Market forces determine the prices of goods and services. Such a system is based on the premise of separating the state from the industry. The role of the state is to regulate and protect. Each person has a right to the product of his own work and is driven to action by the opportunity to create wealth. Collectively, we create wealth for society.

In a market system, there are personal incentives for workers to do their jobs well, and for managers to make good decisions. It now seems obvious that a market economy is vastly more productive than one controlled from the centre. The extraordinary level of material prosperity achieved by the capitalist system over the course of the last two hundred years is a matter of historical record. Socialism, on the other, is a method of organizing a society in which the means of production and distribution of goods are controlled by the state and private ownership is controlled in the interest of the state. It is based on cooperation rather than competition and utilizes centralized planning and distribution. It propounds the idea of equality of income and property. Unfortunately, socialism has only led to the concentration of economic power in unaccountable centralized institutions. Under the socialist doctrine, as is practised by some emerging countries, there is an assumption that a limited amount of wealth exists in the world and must be divided equally among all citizens.

If the wealth of the world is equally divided among people throughout the world, there will, of course, be no rich people any more. But everybody will still be poor. You cannot distribute poverty. Socialists often forget that we have to first create wealth in order to distribute it. We have seen how such an economic system of centralized planning leads to ‘ordinary citizens in political fetters with low standard of living and little power to control their own destiny’. A popular joke on socialism is that in a socialist system there is no unemployment while, at the same time, no one works; no one works, but everyone still gets a salary; and while everyone gets a salary, there is nothing to buy!
Countries that have embraced capitalism and let free markets thrive have progressed. By leveraging the power of capitalism, the world has surely made tremendous advances. The world GDP has grown six-fold in the last fifty years. We have created tremendous economic capital, albeit for a small part of the planet.

The writer seems to suggest that a system based on the premise of separating the state from the industry

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

Capitalism is a system based on the principle of individual rights and responsibilities. The bulk of economic activity is organized through private enterprise operating in a free market. Each person survives and flourishes based on his freedom to use his ability. Individuals and companies are allowed to compete for their own economic gain. Market forces determine the prices of goods and services. Such a system is based on the premise of separating the state from the industry. The role of the state is to regulate and protect. Each person has a right to the product of his own work and is driven to action by the opportunity to create wealth. Collectively, we create wealth for society.

In a market system, there are personal incentives for workers to do their jobs well, and for managers to make good decisions. It now seems obvious that a market economy is vastly more productive than one controlled from the centre. The extraordinary level of material prosperity achieved by the capitalist system over the course of the last two hundred years is a matter of historical record. Socialism, on the other, is a method of organizing a society in which the means of production and distribution of goods are controlled by the state and private ownership is controlled in the interest of the state. It is based on cooperation rather than competition and utilizes centralized planning and distribution. It propounds the idea of equality of income and property. Unfortunately, socialism has only led to the concentration of economic power in unaccountable centralized institutions. Under the socialist doctrine, as is practised by some emerging countries, there is an assumption that a limited amount of wealth exists in the world and must be divided equally among all citizens.

If the wealth of the world is equally divided among people throughout the world, there will, of course, be no rich people any more. But everybody will still be poor. You cannot distribute poverty. Socialists often forget that we have to first create wealth in order to distribute it. We have seen how such an economic system of centralized planning leads to ‘ordinary citizens in political fetters with low standard of living and little power to control their own destiny’. A popular joke on socialism is that in a socialist system there is no unemployment while, at the same time, no one works; no one works, but everyone still gets a salary; and while everyone gets a salary, there is nothing to buy!
Countries that have embraced capitalism and let free markets thrive have progressed. By leveraging the power of capitalism, the world has surely made tremendous advances. The world GDP has grown six-fold in the last fifty years. We have created tremendous economic capital, albeit for a small part of the planet.

There is no gainsaying the fact that the writer

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

Capitalism is a system based on the principle of individual rights and responsibilities. The bulk of economic activity is organized through private enterprise operating in a free market. Each person survives and flourishes based on his freedom to use his ability. Individuals and companies are allowed to compete for their own economic gain. Market forces determine the prices of goods and services. Such a system is based on the premise of separating the state from the industry. The role of the state is to regulate and protect. Each person has a right to the product of his own work and is driven to action by the opportunity to create wealth. Collectively, we create wealth for society.

In a market system, there are personal incentives for workers to do their jobs well, and for managers to make good decisions. It now seems obvious that a market economy is vastly more productive than one controlled from the centre. The extraordinary level of material prosperity achieved by the capitalist system over the course of the last two hundred years is a matter of historical record. Socialism, on the other, is a method of organizing a society in which the means of production and distribution of goods are controlled by the state and private ownership is controlled in the interest of the state. It is based on cooperation rather than competition and utilizes centralized planning and distribution. It propounds the idea of equality of income and property. Unfortunately, socialism has only led to the concentration of economic power in unaccountable centralized institutions. Under the socialist doctrine, as is practised by some emerging countries, there is an assumption that a limited amount of wealth exists in the world and must be divided equally among all citizens.

If the wealth of the world is equally divided among people throughout the world, there will, of course, be no rich people any more. But everybody will still be poor. You cannot distribute poverty. Socialists often forget that we have to first create wealth in order to distribute it. We have seen how such an economic system of centralized planning leads to ‘ordinary citizens in political fetters with low standard of living and little power to control their own destiny’. A popular joke on socialism is that in a socialist system there is no unemployment while, at the same time, no one works; no one works, but everyone still gets a salary; and while everyone gets a salary, there is nothing to buy!
Countries that have embraced capitalism and let free markets thrive have progressed. By leveraging the power of capitalism, the world has surely made tremendous advances. The world GDP has grown six-fold in the last fifty years. We have created tremendous economic capital, albeit for a small part of the planet.

What, according to the writer, is the essential difference between capitalism and socialism?

1. Capitalism is efficient while socialism is inefficient.
2. Capitalism breeds competition while socialism seeks cooperation.
3. Capitalism encourages individuals while state discourages individuals.

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

Capitalism is a system based on the principle of individual rights and responsibilities. The bulk of economic activity is organized through private enterprise operating in a free market. Each person survives and flourishes based on his freedom to use his ability. Individuals and companies are allowed to compete for their own economic gain. Market forces determine the prices of goods and services. Such a system is based on the premise of separating the state from the industry. The role of the state is to regulate and protect. Each person has a right to the product of his own work and is driven to action by the opportunity to create wealth. Collectively, we create wealth for society.

In a market system, there are personal incentives for workers to do their jobs well, and for managers to make good decisions. It now seems obvious that a market economy is vastly more productive than one controlled from the centre. The extraordinary level of material prosperity achieved by the capitalist system over the course of the last two hundred years is a matter of historical record. Socialism, on the other, is a method of organizing a society in which the means of production and distribution of goods are controlled by the state and private ownership is controlled in the interest of the state. It is based on cooperation rather than competition and utilizes centralized planning and distribution. It propounds the idea of equality of income and property. Unfortunately, socialism has only led to the concentration of economic power in unaccountable centralized institutions. Under the socialist doctrine, as is practised by some emerging countries, there is an assumption that a limited amount of wealth exists in the world and must be divided equally among all citizens.

If the wealth of the world is equally divided among people throughout the world, there will, of course, be no rich people any more. But everybody will still be poor. You cannot distribute poverty. Socialists often forget that we have to first create wealth in order to distribute it. We have seen how such an economic system of centralized planning leads to ‘ordinary citizens in political fetters with low standard of living and little power to control their own destiny’. A popular joke on socialism is that in a socialist system there is no unemployment while, at the same time, no one works; no one works, but everyone still gets a salary; and while everyone gets a salary, there is nothing to buy!
Countries that have embraced capitalism and let free markets thrive have progressed. By leveraging the power of capitalism, the world has surely made tremendous advances. The world GDP has grown six-fold in the last fifty years. We have created tremendous economic capital, albeit for a small part of the planet.

Which of the following cannot be reasonably derived from the passage?

1. Poverty can both be equitably distributed and shared in socialism for mutual benefit of all.
2. Countries that have embraced capitalism have largely progressed and benefited from it.
3. Capitalism encourages individual excellence that helps create social wealth.

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

Capitalism is a system based on the principle of individual rights and responsibilities. The bulk of economic activity is organized through private enterprise operating in a free market. Each person survives and flourishes based on his freedom to use his ability. Individuals and companies are allowed to compete for their own economic gain. Market forces determine the prices of goods and services. Such a system is based on the premise of separating the state from the industry. The role of the state is to regulate and protect. Each person has a right to the product of his own work and is driven to action by the opportunity to create wealth. Collectively, we create wealth for society.

In a market system, there are personal incentives for workers to do their jobs well, and for managers to make good decisions. It now seems obvious that a market economy is vastly more productive than one controlled from the centre. The extraordinary level of material prosperity achieved by the capitalist system over the course of the last two hundred years is a matter of historical record. Socialism, on the other, is a method of organizing a society in which the means of production and distribution of goods are controlled by the state and private ownership is controlled in the interest of the state. It is based on cooperation rather than competition and utilizes centralized planning and distribution. It propounds the idea of equality of income and property. Unfortunately, socialism has only led to the concentration of economic power in unaccountable centralized institutions. Under the socialist doctrine, as is practised by some emerging countries, there is an assumption that a limited amount of wealth exists in the world and must be divided equally among all citizens.

If the wealth of the world is equally divided among people throughout the world, there will, of course, be no rich people any more. But everybody will still be poor. You cannot distribute poverty. Socialists often forget that we have to first create wealth in order to distribute it. We have seen how such an economic system of centralized planning leads to ‘ordinary citizens in political fetters with low standard of living and little power to control their own destiny’. A popular joke on socialism is that in a socialist system there is no unemployment while, at the same time, no one works; no one works, but everyone still gets a salary; and while everyone gets a salary, there is nothing to buy!
Countries that have embraced capitalism and let free markets thrive have progressed. By leveraging the power of capitalism, the world has surely made tremendous advances. The world GDP has grown six-fold in the last fifty years. We have created tremendous economic capital, albeit for a small part of the planet.

What is the main intention of the author in the passage?

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

One of the oddest things about Homo sapiens is that he is alone. Though storytellers have filled the world with imaginary hominids—from woodland pixies to mountain giants—no sign of the real thing has ever been seen. But that was not true in the past. As recently as 40,000 years ago there were three other species of human on Earth: Neanderthals in Europe, the “hobbits” of Flores, in Indonesia, and a recently discovered and still mysterious group of creatures called the Denisovans, who lived in Central Asia. And now there is evidence that similar diversity existed earlier in human history, a little under 2m years ago, in Africa.
This evidence, just published in Nature, has been provided by a team led by Meave Leakey of the Turkana Basin Institute in Nairobi, Kenya. Dr Leakey is a member of an illustrious palaeontological clan. Her husband, Richard, discovered in 1967 that the area around Lake Turkana is a good place to look for human fossils and made many important finds there; Richard’s parents, Louis and Mary, had earlier been responsible for showing the same was true of Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania; and in 1999 Dr Leakey herself found a new species of hominid, called Kenyanthropus platyops. At 3.5m years old Kenyanthropus predates Homo, the genus to which modern humans belong. Her latest discoveries, however, add to that genus, too.
The problem with studying humanity’s fossil record is that it is so sparse: a jawbone here; a braincase there. Often, it is difficult to know if different bones have come from the same species or not. Even multiple examples of the same type of bone can mislead. What looks like two species might actually be the male and the female of one.
Such confusion has bedevilled the interpretation of the human fossils found near Lake Turkana. Some palaeontologists see a single, variable species called Homo habilis. Others add a second, Homo rudolfensis. The new fossils found by Dr Leakey and her team (which includes a third Leakey generation in the form of her daughter, Louise) may, however, help clear up what is going on.
One of the new specimens, known as KMN-ER 62000, has a face like the type specimen of Homo rudolfensis (the fossil that defines the species, if species it turns out to be), though it seems to be from an adolescent, whereas the type specimen is an adult. Crucially, 62000 has a reasonably well-preserved upper jaw, which the type specimen lacks. A computer reconstruction suggests this upper jaw meshes well with the second of Dr Leakey’s discoveries, a lower jaw (KMN-ER 60000). She is not suggesting they are from the same individual, since they are of different ages, but they seem to come from the same species, namely Homo rudolfensis.

Which of these describes the attitude of the author towards Dr Leakey's finding?

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

One of the oddest things about Homo sapiens is that he is alone. Though storytellers have filled the world with imaginary hominids—from woodland pixies to mountain giants—no sign of the real thing has ever been seen. But that was not true in the past. As recently as 40,000 years ago there were three other species of human on Earth: Neanderthals in Europe, the “hobbits” of Flores, in Indonesia, and a recently discovered and still mysterious group of creatures called the Denisovans, who lived in Central Asia. And now there is evidence that similar diversity existed earlier in human history, a little under 2m years ago, in Africa.
This evidence, just published in Nature, has been provided by a team led by Meave Leakey of the Turkana Basin Institute in Nairobi, Kenya. Dr Leakey is a member of an illustrious palaeontological clan. Her husband, Richard, discovered in 1967 that the area around Lake Turkana is a good place to look for human fossils and made many important finds there; Richard’s parents, Louis and Mary, had earlier been responsible for showing the same was true of Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania; and in 1999 Dr Leakey herself found a new species of hominid, called Kenyanthropus platyops. At 3.5m years old Kenyanthropus predates Homo, the genus to which modern humans belong. Her latest discoveries, however, add to that genus, too.
The problem with studying humanity’s fossil record is that it is so sparse: a jawbone here; a braincase there. Often, it is difficult to know if different bones have come from the same species or not. Even multiple examples of the same type of bone can mislead. What looks like two species might actually be the male and the female of one.
Such confusion has bedevilled the interpretation of the human fossils found near Lake Turkana. Some palaeontologists see a single, variable species called Homo habilis. Others add a second, Homo rudolfensis. The new fossils found by Dr Leakey and her team (which includes a third Leakey generation in the form of her daughter, Louise) may, however, help clear up what is going on.
One of the new specimens, known as KMN-ER 62000, has a face like the type specimen of Homo rudolfensis (the fossil that defines the species, if species it turns out to be), though it seems to be from an adolescent, whereas the type specimen is an adult. Crucially, 62000 has a reasonably well-preserved upper jaw, which the type specimen lacks. A computer reconstruction suggests this upper jaw meshes well with the second of Dr Leakey’s discoveries, a lower jaw (KMN-ER 60000). She is not suggesting they are from the same individual, since they are of different ages, but they seem to come from the same species, namely Homo rudolfensis.

What is the function of the first paragraph of the passage?

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

One of the oddest things about Homo sapiens is that he is alone. Though storytellers have filled the world with imaginary hominids—from woodland pixies to mountain giants—no sign of the real thing has ever been seen. But that was not true in the past. As recently as 40,000 years ago there were three other species of human on Earth: Neanderthals in Europe, the “hobbits” of Flores, in Indonesia, and a recently discovered and still mysterious group of creatures called the Denisovans, who lived in Central Asia. And now there is evidence that similar diversity existed earlier in human history, a little under 2m years ago, in Africa.
This evidence, just published in Nature, has been provided by a team led by Meave Leakey of the Turkana Basin Institute in Nairobi, Kenya. Dr Leakey is a member of an illustrious palaeontological clan. Her husband, Richard, discovered in 1967 that the area around Lake Turkana is a good place to look for human fossils and made many important finds there; Richard’s parents, Louis and Mary, had earlier been responsible for showing the same was true of Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania; and in 1999 Dr Leakey herself found a new species of hominid, called Kenyanthropus platyops. At 3.5m years old Kenyanthropus predates Homo, the genus to which modern humans belong. Her latest discoveries, however, add to that genus, too.
The problem with studying humanity’s fossil record is that it is so sparse: a jawbone here; a braincase there. Often, it is difficult to know if different bones have come from the same species or not. Even multiple examples of the same type of bone can mislead. What looks like two species might actually be the male and the female of one.
Such confusion has bedevilled the interpretation of the human fossils found near Lake Turkana. Some palaeontologists see a single, variable species called Homo habilis. Others add a second, Homo rudolfensis. The new fossils found by Dr Leakey and her team (which includes a third Leakey generation in the form of her daughter, Louise) may, however, help clear up what is going on.
One of the new specimens, known as KMN-ER 62000, has a face like the type specimen of Homo rudolfensis (the fossil that defines the species, if species it turns out to be), though it seems to be from an adolescent, whereas the type specimen is an adult. Crucially, 62000 has a reasonably well-preserved upper jaw, which the type specimen lacks. A computer reconstruction suggests this upper jaw meshes well with the second of Dr Leakey’s discoveries, a lower jaw (KMN-ER 60000). She is not suggesting they are from the same individual, since they are of different ages, but they seem to come from the same species, namely Homo rudolfensis.

Which of the following could be the title of the passage?

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

One of the oddest things about Homo sapiens is that he is alone. Though storytellers have filled the world with imaginary hominids—from woodland pixies to mountain giants—no sign of the real thing has ever been seen. But that was not true in the past. As recently as 40,000 years ago there were three other species of human on Earth: Neanderthals in Europe, the “hobbits” of Flores, in Indonesia, and a recently discovered and still mysterious group of creatures called the Denisovans, who lived in Central Asia. And now there is evidence that similar diversity existed earlier in human history, a little under 2m years ago, in Africa.
This evidence, just published in Nature, has been provided by a team led by Meave Leakey of the Turkana Basin Institute in Nairobi, Kenya. Dr Leakey is a member of an illustrious palaeontological clan. Her husband, Richard, discovered in 1967 that the area around Lake Turkana is a good place to look for human fossils and made many important finds there; Richard’s parents, Louis and Mary, had earlier been responsible for showing the same was true of Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania; and in 1999 Dr Leakey herself found a new species of hominid, called Kenyanthropus platyops. At 3.5m years old Kenyanthropus predates Homo, the genus to which modern humans belong. Her latest discoveries, however, add to that genus, too.
The problem with studying humanity’s fossil record is that it is so sparse: a jawbone here; a braincase there. Often, it is difficult to know if different bones have come from the same species or not. Even multiple examples of the same type of bone can mislead. What looks like two species might actually be the male and the female of one.
Such confusion has bedevilled the interpretation of the human fossils found near Lake Turkana. Some palaeontologists see a single, variable species called Homo habilis. Others add a second, Homo rudolfensis. The new fossils found by Dr Leakey and her team (which includes a third Leakey generation in the form of her daughter, Louise) may, however, help clear up what is going on.
One of the new specimens, known as KMN-ER 62000, has a face like the type specimen of Homo rudolfensis (the fossil that defines the species, if species it turns out to be), though it seems to be from an adolescent, whereas the type specimen is an adult. Crucially, 62000 has a reasonably well-preserved upper jaw, which the type specimen lacks. A computer reconstruction suggests this upper jaw meshes well with the second of Dr Leakey’s discoveries, a lower jaw (KMN-ER 60000). She is not suggesting they are from the same individual, since they are of different ages, but they seem to come from the same species, namely Homo rudolfensis.