RC Digest for CAT 2008

[writetotanveer]

Hey Vyom and Krish!!

Excellent effort...

Its always nice to see someone carrying the torch forward..

I am not as frequent on these threads as I used to be but I shall keep dropping in ....

Meanwhile if there is any way in which I can help..Just PM me..


Cheers to the pursuit of the CAT...

Regards
Tanveer

[writetotanveer]

Also if I may give out some unasked for advice .

In terms of RC - please focus on COMPREHENSION

Even in 2007 passages have not been very big but they have been deep ..

Stuff that is difficult to understand/absorb and practically alien to our fed-on-sms generation and requiring tremendous powers of concentration from channel flicking folks..:razz:

It requires you to go deep down into the subject and get a good grasp on what the author is saying...

You have to get into the habit of reading dense stuff that you are not used to...for example..

Why do well-intentioned plans for improving the human condition go tragically awry?In this wide-ranging and original book, James C. Scott analyzes failed cases of large-scale authoritarian plans in a variety of fields. Centrally managed social plans misfire, Scott argues, when they impose schematic visions that do violence to complex interdependencies that are not -- and cannot -- be fully understood. Further, the success of designs for social organization depends upon the recognition that local, practical knowledge is as important as formal, epistemic knowledge. The author builds a persuasive case against "development theory" and imperialistic state planning that disregards the values, desires, and objections of its subjects. He identifies and discusses four conditions common to all planning disasters: administrative ordering of nature and society by the state; a "high-modernist ideology" that places confidence in the ability of science to improve every aspect of human life; a willingness to use authoritarian state power to effect large-scale interventions; and a prostrate civil society that cannot effectively resist such plans."A broad-ranging, theoretically important, and empirically grounded treatment of the modern state and its propensity to simplify and make legible a society which by nature is complex and opaque.

And so on and so forth...


Good Luck with the Journey..

Regards
Tanveer

[neversaydie_001]

hi puys....

its great to see a thread dedicated to RC which is THE most important section for CAT preparation....
I would like to be active on this thread and learn from the inputs provided by the fellow puys....
i would like that people should pour in the solutions along with the explanation for the RC's .It would be of great help for people like me....

All the Best to Everyone for CAT'08...
Cheers

[neversaydie_001]

Originally Posted by vyomb

...in continuation to my previous post here comes the first RC..

Extended debate concerning the exact point of origin of individual folktales told by Afro-American slaves has unfortunately taken precedence over analysis of the tales’ meaning and function. Cultural continuities with Africa were not dependent on importation and perpetuation of specific folktales in their pristine form. It is in the place that tales occupied in the lives of the slaves and in the meaning slaves derived from them that the clearest resemblances to African tradition can be found. Afro-American slaves did not borrow tales indiscriminately from the Whites among whom they lived. Black people were most influenced by those Euro-American tales whose functional meaning and aesthetic appeal had the greatest similarity to the tales with deep roots in their ancestral homeland. Regardless of where slave tales came from, the essential point is that, with respect to language, delivery, details of characterization, and plot, slaves quickly made them their own.
1. The author claims that most studies of folktales told by Afro-American slaves are inadequate because the studies
(A) fail to recognize any possible Euro-American influence on the folktales
(B) do not pay enough attention to the features of a folktale that best reveal an African influence
(C) overestimate the number of folktales brought from Africa by the slaves
(D) do not consider the fact that a folktale can be changed as it is retold many times
(E) oversimplify the diverse and complex traditions of the slaves ancestral homeland
2. The author’s main purpose is to
(A) create a new field of study
(B) discredit an existing field of study
(C) change the focus of a field of study
(D) transplant scholarly techniques from one field of study to another
(E) restrict the scope of a burgeoning new field of study
3. The passage suggests that the author would regard which of the following areas of inquiry as most likely to reveal the slaves’ cultural continuities with Africa?
(A) The means by which Blacks disseminated their folktales in nineteenth-century America
(B) Specific regional differences in the styles of delivery used by the slaves in telling folktales
(C) The functional meaning of Black folktales in the lives of White children raised by slave
(D) The specific way the slaves used folktales to impart moral teaching to their children
(E) The complexities of plot that appear most frequently in the slaves’ tales
4. Which of the following techniques is used by the author in developing the argument in the passage?
(A) Giving a cliché a new meaning
(B) Pointedly refusing to define key terms
(C) Alternately presenting generalities and concrete details
(D) Concluding the passage with a restatement of the first point made in the passage
(E) Juxtaposing statements of what is not the case and statements of what is the case

hi puys ...
i tried to solve this RC and found it quite good.....
here are my answers ...
1.(E)
2.(C)
3.(A)
4.(E)
i am not sure about the answers but gave it a try....
its a request that people please pour in with the answers and explanations...

Cheers.....

[rmbt]

Making the thread sticky for better visibility.

All the best.

[Bhargava_7]

Hi kris.vik
thank you very much for the material...and thanks for the links

[vyomb]

Many thanks to the MOD for making this thread Sticky.....
Puys here is the link which must occupy place in the favourites ...
ALDAILY dot COM

[vyomb]

Puys,
More Pyschology and Some Difficult passages
will be posting such articles very soon....

[paripasu]

i am also in dude.

[laavan_87]

@ Vyomb

RC is one of the most crucial portions of the CAT. Thanks for starting this thread.

@krsh.vik

Thanks for the material on RC tips and paasages.