Reading Comprehension Questions

Multiple choice

Directions: Read the passage and complete the sentence.

The socialists think that Indian businessmen should not be trusted because

Directions: In this Section you have six short passages. After each passage you will find several questions based pm the passage. First, read Passage- I, and answer the questions based on it then go on the other passages.
PASSAGE-V
The Private sector has today reached a stage of development and expertise where it can make a massive contribution to the country’s further economic development. The majority of India’s entrepreneurs, large and small, are not not patriotic men who do not ask for special favors or large profits, nor do they seek monopolies or any concentration of wealth and power. What they want are the opportunities to exercise their initiative, their skills and their resources for the benefit of their stakeholders and above all, to be allowed to get on with the job. Yet, mistrust of the private sector, particularly in large scale industry, has been such as seriously to impede economic growth in the sixties and it now threatens to make it impossible for it to meet its targets in the correct Plan.

           

If we, in private enterprise, are to play our legitimate role in the decade to come, it is clear to me that we must prove to Government, to Parliament and do the public in general that we deserve to be trusted. There is also the opposition from socialists in our country who, though opposed to violence and regimentation of mistaken belief that private enterprise is incompatible with the achievements of socialist goals and that even if it were, Indian businessmen and industrialists do not believe in those goals or are unwilling to make the necessary sacrifices.
  1. the businessmen do not believe in socialist goals and are unwilling to make any sacrifices

  2. they only calculate their own profit

  3. they exploit the economically weaker section of the society

  4. they do not think about the general good of the society

Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
A Correct answer
Explanation

The passage mentions socialists have 'the mistaken belief that private enterprise is incompatible with the achievements of socialist goals and that even if it were, Indian businessmen and industrialists do not believe in those goals or are unwilling to make the necessary sacrifices.' This directly states option A as the socialist view.

Multiple choice

Directions: Read the passage and answer the question.

Does the writer think that we are more civilised than our ancestors?

Directions: In this section you have six short passages. After each passage you will find several questions based on the passage. First, read Passage- I, and answer the questions based on it then go on the other passages.
PASSAGE-IV 

One of the great delusions of modern times is the prevailing belief that we are more civilized than our ancestors. At no other period in the history of mankind has the word ˜civilization" been so often misused and misunderstood. It is not in the abundance of material alone that civilization lies. Neither does it consist of the advance of scientific knowledge, however amazing that may be. The inventions and discoveries of science have undoubtedly brought unheard of blessings and comforts to us. But they are not civilization. What we have failed to see is that civilization is a special way of human behavior, of thought and feeling. The essential quality of civilization lies in the sprit of man, in his attitude to himself, to his fellowmen and to life as a whole. Looking everywhere around us today, you will find that man has made no progress since the dawn of history, in his attitude towards his fellowmen. On all the highest pillars in the cities of the world, you will find the figure of a conqueror or a general soldier. We know far about our killers and destroyers than about our saviors and saints. The heroes of war the heroes of the world.
  1. Yes

  2. No

  3. There has been no perceptible change.

  4. The change, if any, cannot be determined.

Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
B Correct answer
Explanation

The passage opens by calling the belief that we are more civilized than our ancestors 'one of the great delusions of modern times.' This clearly indicates the author does NOT think we are more civilized. The word 'delusion' means a false belief or deception.

Multiple choice
  1. Wealth

  2. Civilization

  3. Blessings and comforts

  4. Destructive weapons

Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
C Correct answer
Explanation

The passage explicitly states 'The inventions and discoveries of science have undoubtedly brought unheard of blessings and comforts to us.' This directly matches option C. The author immediately clarifies that these blessings and comforts are 'not civilization' itself.

Multiple choice
  1. Saints and saviors

  2. Conquerors

  3. Great men of history

  4. Politicians

Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
A Correct answer
Explanation

The passage notes 'We know far more about our killers and destroyers than about our saviors and saints.' The author contrasts how we celebrate conquerors and generals (on pillars) with saviors and saints. The rhetorical tone implies saints and saviors should be our heroes instead of warriors.

Multiple choice
  1. competitive spirit of man

  2. attitude of man towards his fellow men.

  3. man's desire to conquer nature

  4. management of resources

Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
B Correct answer
Explanation

The passage states 'The essential quality of civilization lies in the spirit of man, in his attitude to himself, to his fellowmen and to life as a whole.' This clearly identifies attitude towards fellowmen as essential to civilization.

Multiple choice
  1. Possession of goods

  2. Inventions and discoveries

  3. Way of human behavior, thought and feelings

  4. Another form of affluence

Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
C Correct answer
Explanation

The passage clearly defines civilization as 'a special way of human behavior, of thought and feeling.' It explicitly states civilization is NOT material abundance, scientific advances, or inventions. Option C directly quotes the passage's definition.

Multiple choice
  1. Warriors

  2. Saints

  3. Prophets

  4. Teachers

Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
A Correct answer
Explanation

The passage ends with 'The heroes of war [are] the heroes of the world.' This is stated as an observation of current reality, not the author's ideal. The author criticizes this by noting we celebrate conquerors and generals while ignoring saints and saviors.

Multiple choice

Which, according to the author, would qualify as interesting psychology?

The passage given below is followed by a set of four questions Choose the best answer to each question.
A game of strategy, as currently conceived in game theory, is a situation in which two or more “players” make choices among available alternatives (moves). The totality of choices determines the outcomes of the game, and it is assumed that the rank order of preferences for the outcomes is different players. Thus the “interests” of the players are generally in conflict. Whether, these interests are diametrically opposed or only partially opposed depends on the type of game.
Psychologically, most interesting situations arise when the interests of the players are partly coincident and partly opposed, because then one can postulate not only a conflict among the players but also inner conflicts within the players. Each is torn between a tendency to cooperate, so as to promote the common interests, and a tendency to compete. So as to enhance his own individual interests.
Internal conflicts are always psychologically interesting. What we vaguely call “interesting” psychology is in very great measure the psychology of inner conflict. Inner conflict is also held to be an important component of serious literature as distinguished from less serious genres. The classical tragedy, as well as the serious novel, reveals the inner conflict of central figures. The superficial adventure story on the other hand, depicts only external conflict that is, the threats to the person with whom reader (or viewer) identifies stem in these stories exclusively from external obstacles and from the adversaries who create them. On the most primitive level this sort of external conflict is psychologically empty. In the fisticuffs between the protagonists of good and evil, no psychological problems are involved or, at any rate, none are depicted in juvenile representations of conflict. 
The detective story the “adult” analogue of a juvenile adventure tale, has at times been described as a glorification of intellectualized conflict. However, a great deal of the interest in the plots of these stories is sustained by withholding the unraveling of a solution to a problem. The effort of solving the problem is in itself not a conflict if the adversary (the unknown criminal) remains passive, like Nature, whose secrets the scientist supposedly unravels by deduction. If the adversary actively puts obstacles in the detective’s path toward the solution, there is genuine conflict.  But the conflict is psychologically interesting only to the extent that it contains irrational components such as a tactical error on the criminal’s part or the detective’s insight into some psychological quirk of the criminal or something of this sort.  Conflict conducted in a perfectly rational manner is psychologically no more interesting than a standard Western. For example, Tic- tac - toc, played perfectly by both players, is completely devoid of psychological interest Chess may be psychologically interesting but only to the extent that it is played not quite rationally. Played completely rationally, chess would not be different from Tic- tac - toc.

In Short, a pure conflict of interest (what is called a zero-sum game) although it offers a wealth of interesting conceptual problems, is not interesting psychologically, except to the extent that its conduct departs from rational norms.

  1. A statistician's dilemma over choosing the best method to solve an optimisation problem.

  2. A chess player's predicament over adopting a defensive strategy against an aggressive opponent.

  3. A mountaineer's choice of the best path to Mt. Everest from the base camp.

  4. A finance manager's quandary over the best way of raising money from the market.

Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
B Correct answer
Explanation

The right answer is (2).

This can be arrived at by eliminating the other three options, none of which have been alluded to in the passage. Please also see the second last sentence of para 4, “Chess may be psychologically interesting but only to the extent that it is played not quite rationally”.

Multiple choice

According to the passage, Derrida believes that

Each of the two passages given below is followed by a set of four questions.  Choose the best answer to each question.

PASSAGE I
While complex in the extreme, Derrida’s work has proven to be a particularly influential approach to the analysis of the ways in which language structures our understandings of ourselves and the world we inhabit, an approach he termed deconstruction.  In its simplest formulation, deconstruction can be taken to refer to a methodological strategy which seeks to uncover layers of hidden meaning in a text that have been denied or suppressed. The term ‘text’, in this respect, does not refer simply to a written form of communication, however. Rather, texts are something we all produce and reproduce constantly in our everyday social relations, be they spoken, written or embedded in the construction of material artifacts. At the heart of Derrida’s deconstructive approach is his critique of what he perceives to be the totalitarian impulse of the Enlightenment pursuit to bring all the exists in the world under the domain of a representative language a pursuit he refers to as logocentrism. Logocentrism is the search for a rational language that is able to know and represent the world and all its aspects perfectly and accurately.  Its totalitarian dimension, for Derrida at least, lies primarily in its tendency to marginalize or dismiss all that does not neatly comply with its particular linguistic representations, a tendency that, throughout history, has all too frequently been manifested in the form of authoritarian institutions.  Thus logocentrism has, in its search for the truth of absolute representation.  Subsumed difference and oppressed that which it designates as its alien ‘other’. For Derrida, western civilization has been built upon such a systematic assault on alien cultures and ways of life, typically in the name of reason and progress.

In response to logocentrism, deconstruction posits the idea that the mechanism by which this process of marginalization and the ordering of truth occurs is through establishing systems of binary opposition.  Oppositional linguistic dualisms, such as rational/irrational, culture/nature and good/bad are not, however, constructed as equal partners as they are in, say, the semiological structuralism of Saussure. Rather, they exist, for Derrida, in series of hierarchical relationships with the first term normally occupying a superior position.  Derrida defines the relationship between such oppositional terms using the neologism difference.  This refers to the realization that in any statement, oppositional terms using the neologism difference. This refers to the realization that in any statement, oppositional terms differ from each other (for instance, the difference between rationally and irrationality is constructed through oppositional usage), and at the same time, hierarchical relationship is maintained by the deference of one term to the other (in the positing of rationality over irrationality, for instance). It is this latter point which is perhaps the key to understanding Derrida’s approach to deconstruction.

For the fact that at any given time one term must defer to its oppositional ‘other’, means that the two terms are constantly in a state of interdependence. The presence of one is dependent upon the absence or ‘absent-presence’ of the ‘other’, such as in the case of good and evil, whereby to understand the nature of one, we must constantly relate it to the absent term in order to grasp its meaning. That is, to do good, we must understand that our act is not evil for without that comparison the term becomes meaningless. Put simply, deconstruction represents an attempt to demonstrate the absent – presence of this oppositional ‘other’, to show that what we say or write is in itself not expressive simply of what is present, but also of what is absent. Thus, deconstruction seeks to reveal the interdependence of apparently dichotomous terms and their meanings relative to their textual context; that is, within the linguistic power relations which structure dichotomous terms hierarchically. In Derrida’s own words, a deconstructive reading “must always aim at a certain relationship, unperceived by the writer, between what he commands and what he does not command of the patterns of a language that he uses …[It] attempts to make the not – seen accessible to sight”.

Meaning, then, is never fixed or stable, whatever the intention of the author of a text. For Derrida, language is a system of relations that are dynamic, in that all meanings we ascribe to the world are dependent not only on what we believe to be present but also on what is absent.  Thus, any act of interpretation must refer not only to what the author of a text intends, but also to what is absent from his or her intention. This insight leads, once again, to Derrida’s further rejection of the idea of the definitive authority of the intentional agent or subject. The subject is decentred; it is conceived as the outcome of relations of difference. As author of its own biography, the subject thus becomes the ideological fiction of modernity and its logocentric philosophy, one that depends upon the formation of hierarchical dualisms, which repress and deny the presence of the absent ‘other’. No meaning can, therefore, ever be definitive, but is merely an outcome of a particular interpretation.

  1. reality can be constructed only through the use of rational analysis.

  2. language limits our construction of reality.

  3. a universal language will facilitate the common understanding of reality.

  4. we need to uncover the hidden meaning in a system of relations expressed by language.

Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
A Correct answer
Explanation

The first line of the passage, 'While complex in the extreme………………..denied or suppressed' explicates the mean by which Derrida's belief of perceiving the reality through rational analysis, which could be figured out from this phrase of the same line, '….our understanding of ourselves and the world we inhabit……..'. Hence, option (1) is the answer.

Multiple choice

According to the passage, internal conflicts are psychologically more interesting than external conflicts because

The passage given below is followed by a set of four questions Choose the best answer to each question.
A game of strategy, as currently conceived in game theory, is a situation in which two or more “players” make choices among available alternatives (moves). The totality of choices determines the outcomes of the game, and it is assumed that the rank order of preferences for the outcomes is different players. Thus the “interests” of the players are generally in conflict. Whether, these interests are diametrically opposed or only partially opposed depends on the type of game.
Psychologically, most interesting situations arise when the interests of the players are partly coincident and partly opposed, because then one can postulate not only a conflict among the players but also inner conflicts within the players. Each is torn between a tendency to cooperate, so as to promote the common interests, and a tendency to compete. So as to enhance his own individual interests.
Internal conflicts are always psychologically interesting. What we vaguely call “interesting” psychology is in very great measure the psychology of inner conflict. Inner conflict is also held to be an important component of serious literature as distinguished from less serious genres. The classical tragedy, as well as the serious novel, reveals the inner conflict of central figures. The superficial adventure story on the other hand, depicts only external conflict that is, the threats to the person with whom reader (or viewer) identifies stem in these stories exclusively from external obstacles and from the adversaries who create them. On the most primitive level this sort of external conflict is psychologically empty. In the fisticuffs between the protagonists of good and evil, no psychological problems are involved or, at any rate, none are depicted in juvenile representations of conflict. 
The detective story the “adult” analogue of a juvenile adventure tale, has at times been described as a glorification of intellectualized conflict. However, a great deal of the interest in the plots of these stories is sustained by withholding the unraveling of a solution to a problem. The effort of solving the problem is in itself not a conflict if the adversary (the unknown criminal) remains passive, like Nature, whose secrets the scientist supposedly unravels by deduction. If the adversary actively puts obstacles in the detective’s path toward the solution, there is genuine conflict.  But the conflict is psychologically interesting only to the extent that it contains irrational components such as a tactical error on the criminal’s part or the detective’s insight into some psychological quirk of the criminal or something of this sort.  Conflict conducted in a perfectly rational manner is psychologically no more interesting than a standard Western. For example, Tic- tac - toc, played perfectly by both players, is completely devoid of psychological interest Chess may be psychologically interesting but only to the extent that it is played not quite rationally. Played completely rationally, chess would not be different from Tic- tac - toc.

In Short, a pure conflict of interest (what is called a zero-sum game) although it offers a wealth of interesting conceptual problems, is not interesting psychologically, except to the extent that its conduct departs from rational norms.

  1. Internal conflicts, rather than external conflicts, form an important component of serious literature as distinguished from less serious genres.

  2. Only juveniles or very few “adults” actually experience external conflict, while internal conflict is more widely prevalent in society.

  3. In situations of internal conflict, individuals experience a dilemma in resolving their own preferences for different outcomes.

  4. there are no threats to the reader (or viewer) in case of external conflicts.

Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
C Correct answer
Explanation

The right answer is (3). 

This can be found in para 4, lines 2 and 3,
“However, …………to a problem”.

Multiple choice

According to the passage, Derrida believes that the system of binary opposition

Each of the two passages given below is followed by a set of four questions.  Choose the best answer to each question.

PASSAGE I
While complex in the extreme, Derrida’s work has proven to be a particularly influential approach to the analysis of the ways in which language structures our understandings of ourselves and the world we inhabit, an approach he termed deconstruction.  In its simplest formulation, deconstruction can be taken to refer to a methodological strategy which seeks to uncover layers of hidden meaning in a text that have been denied or suppressed. The term ‘text’, in this respect, does not refer simply to a written form of communication, however. Rather, texts are something we all produce and reproduce constantly in our everyday social relations, be they spoken, written or embedded in the construction of material artifacts. At the heart of Derrida’s deconstructive approach is his critique of what he perceives to be the totalitarian impulse of the Enlightenment pursuit to bring all the exists in the world under the domain of a representative language a pursuit he refers to as logocentrism. Logocentrism is the search for a rational language that is able to know and represent the world and all its aspects perfectly and accurately.  Its totalitarian dimension, for Derrida at least, lies primarily in its tendency to marginalize or dismiss all that does not neatly comply with its particular linguistic representations, a tendency that, throughout history, has all too frequently been manifested in the form of authoritarian institutions.  Thus logocentrism has, in its search for the truth of absolute representation.  Subsumed difference and oppressed that which it designates as its alien ‘other’. For Derrida, western civilization has been built upon such a systematic assault on alien cultures and ways of life, typically in the name of reason and progress.

In response to logocentrism, deconstruction posits the idea that the mechanism by which this process of marginalization and the ordering of truth occurs is through establishing systems of binary opposition.  Oppositional linguistic dualisms, such as rational/irrational, culture/nature and good/bad are not, however, constructed as equal partners as they are in, say, the semiological structuralism of Saussure. Rather, they exist, for Derrida, in series of hierarchical relationships with the first term normally occupying a superior position.  Derrida defines the relationship between such oppositional terms using the neologism difference.  This refers to the realization that in any statement, oppositional terms using the neologism difference. This refers to the realization that in any statement, oppositional terms differ from each other (for instance, the difference between rationally and irrationality is constructed through oppositional usage), and at the same time, hierarchical relationship is maintained by the deference of one term to the other (in the positing of rationality over irrationality, for instance). It is this latter point which is perhaps the key to understanding Derrida’s approach to deconstruction.

For the fact that at any given time one term must defer to its oppositional ‘other’, means that the two terms are constantly in a state of interdependence. The presence of one is dependent upon the absence or ‘absent-presence’ of the ‘other’, such as in the case of good and evil, whereby to understand the nature of one, we must constantly relate it to the absent term in order to grasp its meaning. That is, to do good, we must understand that our act is not evil for without that comparison the term becomes meaningless. Put simply, deconstruction represents an attempt to demonstrate the absent – presence of this oppositional ‘other’, to show that what we say or write is in itself not expressive simply of what is present, but also of what is absent. Thus, deconstruction seeks to reveal the interdependence of apparently dichotomous terms and their meanings relative to their textual context; that is, within the linguistic power relations which structure dichotomous terms hierarchically. In Derrida’s own words, a deconstructive reading “must always aim at a certain relationship, unperceived by the writer, between what he commands and what he does not command of the patterns of a language that he uses …[It] attempts to make the not – seen accessible to sight”.

Meaning, then, is never fixed or stable, whatever the intention of the author of a text. For Derrida, language is a system of relations that are dynamic, in that all meanings we ascribe to the world are dependent not only on what we believe to be present but also on what is absent.  Thus, any act of interpretation must refer not only to what the author of a text intends, but also to what is absent from his or her intention. This insight leads, once again, to Derrida’s further rejection of the idea of the definitive authority of the intentional agent or subject. The subject is decentred; it is conceived as the outcome of relations of difference. As author of its own biography, the subject thus becomes the ideological fiction of modernity and its logocentric philosophy, one that depends upon the formation of hierarchical dualisms, which repress and deny the presence of the absent ‘other’. No meaning can, therefore, ever be definitive, but is merely an outcome of a particular interpretation.

  1. represents a prioritization or hierarchy

  2. reconciles contradictions and dualities

  3. weakens the process of marginalization and ordering of truth

  4. deconstructs reality

Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
A Correct answer
Explanation

The right answer is (1).

It can be clearly derived from the second paragraph of the passage, from the lines “This refers to ……….of one term to the other”.

Multiple choice

To Derrida, 'logocentrism' does not imply:

Each of the two passages given below is followed by a set of four questions.  Choose the best answer to each question.

PASSAGE I
While complex in the extreme, Derrida’s work has proven to be a particularly influential approach to the analysis of the ways in which language structures our understandings of ourselves and the world we inhabit, an approach he termed deconstruction.  In its simplest formulation, deconstruction can be taken to refer to a methodological strategy which seeks to uncover layers of hidden meaning in a text that have been denied or suppressed. The term ‘text’, in this respect, does not refer simply to a written form of communication, however. Rather, texts are something we all produce and reproduce constantly in our everyday social relations, be they spoken, written or embedded in the construction of material artifacts. At the heart of Derrida’s deconstructive approach is his critique of what he perceives to be the totalitarian impulse of the Enlightenment pursuit to bring all the exists in the world under the domain of a representative language a pursuit he refers to as logocentrism. Logocentrism is the search for a rational language that is able to know and represent the world and all its aspects perfectly and accurately.  Its totalitarian dimension, for Derrida at least, lies primarily in its tendency to marginalize or dismiss all that does not neatly comply with its particular linguistic representations, a tendency that, throughout history, has all too frequently been manifested in the form of authoritarian institutions.  Thus logocentrism has, in its search for the truth of absolute representation.  Subsumed difference and oppressed that which it designates as its alien ‘other’. For Derrida, western civilization has been built upon such a systematic assault on alien cultures and ways of life, typically in the name of reason and progress.

In response to logocentrism, deconstruction posits the idea that the mechanism by which this process of marginalization and the ordering of truth occurs is through establishing systems of binary opposition.  Oppositional linguistic dualisms, such as rational/irrational, culture/nature and good/bad are not, however, constructed as equal partners as they are in, say, the semiological structuralism of Saussure. Rather, they exist, for Derrida, in series of hierarchical relationships with the first term normally occupying a superior position.  Derrida defines the relationship between such oppositional terms using the neologism difference.  This refers to the realization that in any statement, oppositional terms using the neologism difference. This refers to the realization that in any statement, oppositional terms differ from each other (for instance, the difference between rationally and irrationality is constructed through oppositional usage), and at the same time, hierarchical relationship is maintained by the deference of one term to the other (in the positing of rationality over irrationality, for instance). It is this latter point which is perhaps the key to understanding Derrida’s approach to deconstruction.

For the fact that at any given time one term must defer to its oppositional ‘other’, means that the two terms are constantly in a state of interdependence. The presence of one is dependent upon the absence or ‘absent-presence’ of the ‘other’, such as in the case of good and evil, whereby to understand the nature of one, we must constantly relate it to the absent term in order to grasp its meaning. That is, to do good, we must understand that our act is not evil for without that comparison the term becomes meaningless. Put simply, deconstruction represents an attempt to demonstrate the absent – presence of this oppositional ‘other’, to show that what we say or write is in itself not expressive simply of what is present, but also of what is absent. Thus, deconstruction seeks to reveal the interdependence of apparently dichotomous terms and their meanings relative to their textual context; that is, within the linguistic power relations which structure dichotomous terms hierarchically. In Derrida’s own words, a deconstructive reading “must always aim at a certain relationship, unperceived by the writer, between what he commands and what he does not command of the patterns of a language that he uses …[It] attempts to make the not – seen accessible to sight”.

Meaning, then, is never fixed or stable, whatever the intention of the author of a text. For Derrida, language is a system of relations that are dynamic, in that all meanings we ascribe to the world are dependent not only on what we believe to be present but also on what is absent.  Thus, any act of interpretation must refer not only to what the author of a text intends, but also to what is absent from his or her intention. This insight leads, once again, to Derrida’s further rejection of the idea of the definitive authority of the intentional agent or subject. The subject is decentred; it is conceived as the outcome of relations of difference. As author of its own biography, the subject thus becomes the ideological fiction of modernity and its logocentric philosophy, one that depends upon the formation of hierarchical dualisms, which repress and deny the presence of the absent ‘other’. No meaning can, therefore, ever be definitive, but is merely an outcome of a particular interpretation.

  1. A totalitarian impulse.

  2. A domain of representative language.

  3. Interdependence of the meaning of dichotomous terms.

  4. A strategy that seeks to suppress hidden meanings in a text.

Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
C Correct answer
Explanation

The right answer is (3).

Derrida posits 'deconstruction' in opposition to Logocentrism. In fact, it is deconstruction that involves interdependence of the meaning of dichotomous terms. 

Multiple choice

According to the passage, which of the following options about the application of game theory to a conflict - of – interest situation is true?

The passage given below is followed by a set of four questions Choose the best answer to each question.
A game of strategy, as currently conceived in game theory, is a situation in which two or more “players” make choices among available alternatives (moves). The totality of choices determines the outcomes of the game, and it is assumed that the rank order of preferences for the outcomes is different players. Thus the “interests” of the players are generally in conflict. Whether, these interests are diametrically opposed or only partially opposed depends on the type of game.
Psychologically, most interesting situations arise when the interests of the players are partly coincident and partly opposed, because then one can postulate not only a conflict among the players but also inner conflicts within the players. Each is torn between a tendency to cooperate, so as to promote the common interests, and a tendency to compete. So as to enhance his own individual interests.
Internal conflicts are always psychologically interesting. What we vaguely call “interesting” psychology is in very great measure the psychology of inner conflict. Inner conflict is also held to be an important component of serious literature as distinguished from less serious genres. The classical tragedy, as well as the serious novel, reveals the inner conflict of central figures. The superficial adventure story on the other hand, depicts only external conflict that is, the threats to the person with whom reader (or viewer) identifies stem in these stories exclusively from external obstacles and from the adversaries who create them. On the most primitive level this sort of external conflict is psychologically empty. In the fisticuffs between the protagonists of good and evil, no psychological problems are involved or, at any rate, none are depicted in juvenile representations of conflict. 
The detective story the “adult” analogue of a juvenile adventure tale, has at times been described as a glorification of intellectualized conflict. However, a great deal of the interest in the plots of these stories is sustained by withholding the unraveling of a solution to a problem. The effort of solving the problem is in itself not a conflict if the adversary (the unknown criminal) remains passive, like Nature, whose secrets the scientist supposedly unravels by deduction. If the adversary actively puts obstacles in the detective’s path toward the solution, there is genuine conflict.  But the conflict is psychologically interesting only to the extent that it contains irrational components such as a tactical error on the criminal’s part or the detective’s insight into some psychological quirk of the criminal or something of this sort.  Conflict conducted in a perfectly rational manner is psychologically no more interesting than a standard Western. For example, Tic- tac - toc, played perfectly by both players, is completely devoid of psychological interest Chess may be psychologically interesting but only to the extent that it is played not quite rationally. Played completely rationally, chess would not be different from Tic- tac - toc.

In Short, a pure conflict of interest (what is called a zero-sum game) although it offers a wealth of interesting conceptual problems, is not interesting psychologically, except to the extent that its conduct departs from rational norms.

  1. Assuming that the rank order of preferences for options is different for different players.

  2. Accepting that the interests of different players are often in conflict.

  3. Not assuming that the interests are in complete disagreement.

  4. All of the above.

Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
D Correct answer
Explanation

The right answer is (4). 

The first three options are correct as per first and second paragraphs.

Multiple choice
  1. Installation of wind-power plants is resisted by environmentalists.

  2. Generation cost of wind-power plants is high.

  3. Installation cost of wind-power plants is much higher than that of fossil fuel-based plants.

  4. Wind-power is now being commercially harnessed.

Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
D Correct answer
Explanation

The passage explicitly states that wind energy is stepping out of the shadows of alternative technology into the commercial mainstream, confirming that it is being commercially harnessed.