Please continue here for further discussions related to RC.

http://www.pagalguy.com/forum/english-resources/74704-rc-discussion-for-cat-2012-a.html

All the best for the season ahead:thumbsup:

feels gr8 to post very 1st RC in this thread........

It is not that Charles Darwin and the theory of evolution are unknown in Alexandria, Egypt. But even among those who profess to know something about the subject, the common understanding is that Darwin said man came from monkeys. Darwin, of course, did not say man came from monkeys. He said the two share a common ancestor. But to discuss Darwin anywhere is not just to explore the origin of man. It is inevitable to engage in a debate between religion and science. That is why, 150 yeas after Darwin published "On the origin of species," the British Council, the cultural arm of the British government, decided to hold an international conference on Darwin in this conservative, Sunni Muslim nation. It was a first.

"A lot of people say his theories are wrong, or go against religion," said Martin Davidson, chief executive of the British Council. "His ideas provoke, but if we are going to understand each other, we have to discuss things that divide us."

Darwin may be misunderstood here, but in many ways that is but one symptom of a more fundamental problem with education in Egypt and around the region. In a culture that prizes and nurtures conformity, challenging conventions and beliefs is anathema, said writers, political scientists, social workers, students and educators inside and outside the conference. Education here is based on rote memorisation with virtually no emphasis on creative thinking. Few schools here even teach the theory of evolution.

For example, once considered the intellectual capital of the Arab world, Egypt was recently ranked 124th of 133 countries in the quality of its primary education by the World Economic Forum, based in Switzerland. Other global assessments have provided equally dismal results.

Indeed, many people, including some of the 150 scientists and scholars in attendance at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina this month, were somewhat surprised that the government even agreed to allow the conference. It was unlike the leadership here to permit public discussion of ideas that challenge religious thinking and the national curriculum, or promote critical thinking they said.

The British Council framed the conference to seek middle ground, more than to promote confrontation. While challenging a religious society to think seriously about evolution, it emphasised the possibility of reconciling a belief in divine creation with Darwin's theories of evolution and natural selection. That was a position that many students here said they were comfortable with.

"Darwin's theory of species says nothing about the appearance of life - or about the origins of the universe," read panel number 7, in an evolution of man exhibition put on display during the conference. "It is perfectly plausible to uphold a scientific account of how natural laws allowed the universe and life to develop and to believe that a deity created those laws. "Judging from public comments made during the gathering, the effort to reconcile faith and science left avowed atheists in the audience frustrated and did little to convince the religious fundamentalists.
49. From the last sentence of the passage, it can be inferred that the Bibliotheca Alexandrina conference (1) failed miserable in its objective. (2) failed in its efforts to eradicate religious fundamentalism. (3) failed to reconcile faith and science. (4) failed to convince the extreme ends of the religious spectrum.


50. The author attributes the unacceptance of Darwin's theory in Egypt to (1) religious fanaticism. (2) hold of religion over education. (3) education impervious to creative thinking. (4) absence of scientific temper among the public.


51. The author says that to discuss Darwin is to engage in a debate between science and religion probably because (1) The tenets of religion clash with the theory of evolution. (2) Darwinsim is anti-religious. (3) the theory of evolution demeans God. (4) Science and religion have always been at loggerheads.

OA will be provided tomorrow. do explain your answers

49. Confused between 1 and 3. Objective of the conference was reconciling a belief in divine creation with Darwin's theories of evolution and natural selection.
so answer can be 1) also.

50. the most suitable answer is 3. clear from paragraph 3.

51. ans is 1.

Set 355:

My answer is option C.

My answer is C...

SET 355

One crucial consequence of the fact that science is a social activity is the demolition of the legendary belief that it is an entirely amoral, intellectual game of problem-solving. On this view, scientists are desiccated calculating machines, whose work is determined solely by meter readings and what they can deduce from them. The truth is very different. Far from being amoral and coldly logical, science actually generates values. These include intellectual humility, an unusually acute regard for honesty, respect for the revolutionary and the apparent crank, and stress on the importance of co-operation. These are not optional extras for the scientist; they arise directly out of the pursuit of science. The degree to which a scientist lives by them will be reflected in the health of the scientific community and in an individual scientist's long term success in his trade. Even the most inveterate liar must, if he is to succeed in science, cultivate a deep respect for the truth when he is about his work.

Q)The author stoutly refutes the notion that science is an amoral, intellectual game of problem solving by

a)pointing out that scientists are calculating machines whose work is determined by accurate meter readings.

b)stating that science is a social activity.

c)showing how the inexorable, self-correcting movement will purge science of falsehood

d)listing the traits of a true scientist and providing that liars can never pursue science.

my take is option C...

SET 355

One crucial consequence of the fact that science is a social activity is the demolition of the legendary belief that it is an entirely amoral, intellectual game of problem-solving. On this view, scientists are desiccated calculating machines, whose work is determined solely by meter readings and what they can deduce from them. The truth is very different. Far from being amoral and coldly logical, science actually generates values. ...........

Q)The author stoutly refutes the notion that science is an amoral, intellectual game of problem solving by

a)pointing out that scientists are calculating machines whose work is determined by accurate meter readings.

b)stating that science is a social activity.

c)showing how the inexorable, self-correcting movement will purge science of falsehood

d)listing the traits of a true scientist and providing that liars can never pursue science.

My take is d..Whats the OA ?

is it D ??

SET 355

One crucial consequence of the fact that science is a social activity is the demolition of the legendary belief that it is an entirely amoral, intellectual game of problem-solving. On this view, scientists are desiccated calculating machines, whose work is determined solely by meter readings and what they

d)listing the traits of a true scientist and providing that liars can never pursue science.

my take is d.....

SET 355

One crucial consequence of the fact that science is a social activity is the demolition of the legendary belief that it is an entirely amoral, intellectual

option c ?????

SET 355

One crucial consequence of the fact that science is a social activity is the demolition of the legendary belief that it is an entirely amoral, intellectual game of problem-solving. On this view, scientists are desiccated calculating machines, whose work is determined solely by meter readings and what they can deduce from them. The truth is very different. Far from being amoral and coldly logical, science actually generates values. These include intellectual humility, an unusually acute regard for honesty, respect for the revolutionary and the apparent crank, and stress on the importance of co-operation. These are not optional extras for the scientist; they arise directly out of the pursuit of science. The degree to which a scientist lives by them will be reflected in the health of the scientific community and in an individual scientist's long term success in his trade. Even the most inveterate liar must, if he is to succeed in science, cultivate a deep respect for the truth when he is about his work.

Q)The author stoutly refutes the notion that science is an amoral, intellectual game of problem solving by

a)pointing out that scientists are calculating machines whose work is determined by accurate meter readings.

b)stating that science is a social activity.

c)showing how the inexorable, self-correcting movement will purge science of falsehood

d)listing the traits of a true scientist and providing that liars can never pursue science.

SET 28-10-2011
Answers:

1.d
2.e
3.d
4.b
5.c

After along time... warming up

SET 28-10-2011
Directions for Questions 1 to 5 : The passage given below is followed by a set of questions. Choose the most appropriate answer to each question.

plz post the OA's.

my take on set 28-08-2011
1.e
2.c
3.e
4.b
5.c

SET 354
I was recently shocked to read that several city councils in the UK are getting ready to expunge everyday Latin words from the English lexicon. Along with 'via' and 'etc' would be banished 'viz' and 'i.e.', not to speak of 'inter alia' and 'bona fide'. There goes away that exotic literary advantage. It was only recently that Amrita, my 10-year-old, fighting against a tide of domestic protestations voted against romantic French and prevalent Spanish and chose Latin as her second language in middle school. I had cheered her and actually promised to help out with the homework, given that three out of five words in English are of Latin origin. Blame this vicarious decision on my formative years but growing up in Mumbai, Latin was never an option in my school, as our national language Hindi was strictly enforced. Shiv Sainiks had decreed that local Marathi was de rigueur for all citizens of the city. I therefore ended up needing to speak three additional languages, not to forget Tamil, my mother tongue.

According to the passage, why did the author choose to help his daughter?
(a) The author felt that his daughter's choice of language was relevant in light of its close links with
English.
(b) The author felt that his daughter's choice of language was justified given that he had never been
allowed to study Latin.

my take is also a.....and i also have same reasoning as provided by you.......

duplicate post..

SET 28-10-2011
Directions for Questions 1 to 5 : The passage given below is followed by a set of questions. Choose the most appropriate answer to each question.

Romantic ideology has descended to us, says McGann, largely through the lines of thought that have developed from Coleridge and Hegel (the German ideology). But while the Romantic ideology of 1789 to 1824 was articulated, to a large extent, by poets skeptical of many of its features, this ambivalence and self-consciousness largely disappears in the debased forms of Romantic ideology we encounter today. McGann censures his own 1968 study, Fiery Dust: Byron's Poetic Development, because of its absorption in Romanticism's self-representations and its presumption of the poet's linear development (a biographic teleology that cripples much critical thinking about art).

The uncritical acceptance of Romantic ideology, however, poses problems for more than the study of Romanticism. The effect is all the more disastrous when, institutionally reified, this ideology continues to be the basis for the reception of post-Romantic poetry by an influential segment of what McGann calls the clerisy, that is, literary academia. In this light, the grotesque, yet systematic, misjudgments about twentieth century poetry by a critic of Romanticism such as Harold Bloom become more understandable, if no less excusable. MGann's sometimes humorous self-consciousness, true to his own didactic intentions, specifically keeps the focus on "that narrowest and most cloistered of spheres...the critical work produced by the literary academy" . It would be a mistake to ignore the pervasiveness of the same debased Romantic ideology as it informs much contemporary American poetry. Indeed, a broad range of seemingly antagonistic tendencies in current writing share a conception of poetry as giving a "voice" to unmediated "basic truths" of "imagination" and "feeling" through "direct expression" of human "creativity"; they also share an allergic reaction to any intimation, in a poem, of intellectual or ideological self-consciousness. Absorption in Romanticism's self- representations, then, is not only a problem for critics; it is also a problem for poetry. This is the kind of reciprocal interaction in our own time that McGann sees as central to understanding the ideological context and reception of past and present literature.

I take McGann's various explications of Romantic ideology to be provisional, that is, a stage in the development of an historical criticism informed as much by the contemporary ideological climate as by Romantic "texts." While McGann rejects Ren Wellek's view that there is a basic unity underlying the various manifestations of Romanticism, he does not quite adopt Lovejoy's skepticism - Romanticisms not Romanticism. "The first step in breaking from the spell of a unified Romanticism is to recognize its particular and parochial ideological formations", states McGann. McGann notes the fundamentally Christian character of the Romanticism formulated by Coleridge and formalized by Hegel. It is not surprising, then, that Heine - a poet inclined to consciously resist absorption in Christian Romanticism - would write a work McGann finds paradigmatic for historical criticism, The Romantic School. Heine "writes between 1833 and 1835 as an expatriate German Jew to a French intellectual audience about a cultural phenomenon, German Romanticism, which is now historically concluded At every point Heine is concerned with the problem of the immediate relevance of removed cultural resources - in this case, German Romantic literary works. He is qualified to take up this problematic matter because he contains in himself, as it were, a crucial division of sympathies and knowledge"



Q.1
The romantic ideology nowadays seems to lack the following characteristics except:

aAn ability to criticize itself. bA distinct hesitation about its presumptions. cAn attitude of self- consciousness which can lead to introspection. dA positive belief and absorption into the tenets of romanticism. eBoth A & B.


Q.2
Which of the following is in line with McGann's approach of handling Romanticism ?

aGiving support to extreme viewpoints. b Seeing all elements of Romantic ideology as being united in essence. cRejecting those theories of Romanticism which have evolved from particular contexts. dViewing his explications of Romantic ideology as provisional. eViewing the fundamentally Christian character of Romanticism with circumspection.


Q.3
The primary purpose of the passage is to:

aPurport that Romantic ideology does not have a sound basis. b Show that the uncritical acceptance of Romantic ideology results in problems. cArgue that the present conception of Romantic ideology is provisional. dChallenge the debased Romantic ideology which informs present poetry. eIllustrate how a pristine ideology can become impure with acceptance.


Q.4
It can be inferred that the uncritical acceptance of Romantic ideology results in:

aAmerican poetry going through a phase of self-criticism. bThe conception of poetry with a contempt for intellectual self-consciousness. cAntagonistic tendencies which favour constructive criticism of poetry. dRejection of debased Romantic ideology by American poetry. ePoets looking down on the debased Romantic ideology.

Q.5
Heine in the last paragraph is trying to:

aSearch for German literary works. bGenerate skepticism in the far removed sources of German Romanticism. cValidate the existence of far removed sources of German Romanticism. dMake amends for being expatriated from France. eDisplay his dual skills of knowledge and compassion.

I had to choose between option 1 and 2. I choose 2 becaues of the highlighted red line.."Blame this vicarious decision on my formative years but growing up in Mumbai, Latin was never an option...."

but the answer is given as "a"

The author chose it 'as 3 out of 5 words are from latin'...hence it is correct....but, of course, if this was an exam....anyone would get confused....reasoning it after knowing the answer is easy...:)

SET 354


I was recently shocked to read that several city councils in the UK are getting ready to expunge everyday Latin words from the English lexicon. Along with via and etc would be banished viz and i.e., not to speak of inter alia and bona fide. There goes away that exotic literary advantage. It was only recently that Amrita, my 10-year-old, fighting against a tide of domestic protestations voted against romantic French and prevalent Spanish and chose Latin as her second language in middle school. I had cheered her and actually promised to help out with the homework, given that three out of five words in English are of Latin origin. Blame this vicarious decision on my formative years but growing up in Mumbai, Latin was never an option in my school, as our national language Hindi was strictly enforced. Shiv Sainiks had decreed that local Marathi was de rigueur for all citizens of the city. I therefore ended up needing to speak three additional languages, not to forget Tamil, my mother tongue.

According to the passage, why did the author choose to help his daughter?
(a) The author felt that his daughters choice of language was relevant in light of its close links with
English.
(b) The author felt that his daughters choice of language was justified given that he had never been allowed to study Latin.
(c) The author felt that his daughters choice of language was practical and much better than
romantic French and prevalent Spanish.
(d) The author felt that his daughters choice of language was relevant since it would give her an
exotic literary advantage

I had to choose between option 1 and 2. I choose 2 becaues of the highlighted red line.."Blame this vicarious decision on my formative years but growing up in Mumbai, Latin was never an option...."

but the answer is given as "a"

SET 354

Guys plz help me out

I was recently shocked to read that several city councils in the UK are getting ready to expunge everyday Latin words from the English lexicon. Along with 'via' and 'etc' would be banished 'viz' and 'i.e.', not to speak of 'inter alia' and 'bona fide'. There goes away that exotic literary advantage. It was only recently that Amrita, my 10-year-old, fighting against a tide of domestic protestations voted against romantic French and prevalent Spanish and chose Latin as her second language in middle school. I had cheered her and actually promised to help out with the homework, given that three out of five words in English are of Latin origin. Blame this vicarious decision on my formative years but growing up in Mumbai, Latin was never an option in my school, as our national language Hindi was strictly enforced. Shiv Sainiks had decreed that local Marathi was de rigueur for all citizens of the city. I therefore ended up needing to speak three additional languages, not to forget Tamil, my mother tongue.

According to the passage, why did the author choose to help his daughter?
(a) The author felt that his daughter's choice of language was relevant in light of its close links with
English.
(b) The author felt that his daughter's choice of language was justified given that he had never been
allowed to study Latin.
(c) The author felt that his daughter's choice of language was practical and much better than
romantic French and prevalent Spanish.
(d) The author felt that his daughter's choice of language was relevant since it would give her an
exotic literary advantage

Puyz plz help me out with this question with close ans choices

My Takes
VSC 4

c
c
c

999]set 353, cat 2008

3
4
2
3
5

vsc4
a---as others options are just concluded on para bases not infering the whole
a---as first para stating about partiality towards different games though not sure
c---as more single side games less enjoyment

pls post the answer with explanation...........

vsc4
b
d
e

PASSAGE - VSC 4

The 'level playing field' beloved of the architects of the current world economic order is, of course, a metaphor from sport. But in an irony characteristic of the age,

1. a-->All the other options are being discussed in each of the paragraph and cannot aptly generalize the entire passage compared to "a"
2. b-->Option d can be eliminated as it is already stated in the first para "The concentrations of wealth...new inequalities within sports,"which states that wealth in industries are aiding the sports...Option e can be eliminated obviously..among a,b,c nothing has been said about a and c in the passage hence option b looks like a better fit.
3.c--->It's is more related with technology degradation than most of the other options

my take on set 352
D
E
A
A
D
E
C
D

Upwards of a billion stars in our galaxy have burnt up their internal energy sources, and so can no longer produce the heat a star needs to oppose the inward force of gravity. These stars, of more than a few solar masses, evolve, in general, much more rapidly than does a star like the Sun. Moreover, it is just these more massive stars whose collapse does not halt at intermediate stages (that is, as white dwarfs or neutron stars). Instead, the collapse continues until a singularity (an infinitely dense concentration of matter) is reached.
It would be wonderful to observe a singularity and obtain direct evidence of the undoubtedly bizarre phenomena that occur near one. Unfortunately in most cases a distant observer cannot see the singularity; outgoing light rays are dragged back by gravity so forcefully that even if they could start out within a few kilometers of the singularity, they would end up in the singularity itself
1. The authors primary purpose in the passage is to
(A) describe the formation and nature of singularities
(B) explain why large numbers of stars become singularities
(C) compare the characteristics of singularities with those of stars
(D) explain what happens during the stages of a singularitys formation
(E) imply that singularities could be more easily studied if observers could get closer to them

2. The passage suggests which of the following about the Sun?
I. The Sun could evolve to a stage of collapse that is less dense than a singularity.
II. In the Sun, the inward force of gravity is balanced by the generation of heat.
III. The Sun emits more observable light than does a white dwarf or a neutron star.
(A) I only
(B) III only
(C) I and II only
(D) II and III only
(E) I, II, and III
3. Which of the following sentences would most probably follow the last sentence of the passage?
(A) Thus, a physicist interested in studying phenomena near singularities would
necessarily hope to find a singularity with a measurable gravitational field.
(B) Accordingly, physicists to date have been unable to observe directly any singularity.
(C) It is specifically this startling phenomenon that has allowed us to codify the scant information currently available about singularities.
(D) Moreover, the existence of this extraordinary phenomenon is implied in the extensive reports of several physicists.
(E) Although unanticipated, phenomena such as these are consistent with the structure of a singularity.

my take
A
A
B

Q1 It can be inferred from the passage that the world of entertainment is less dependent now on the critics because

a the audience does not pay heed to critics.
b their big marketing budgets get people interested irrespective of the reviews.
c they draw people courtesy the star power which is unaffected by criticism.
d one failure does not end an entertainment empire.


Q2 What is the author trying to prove by mentioning: Characters repeat his phrases throughout the film, in both scornful and reverent tones while talking about the critic?

a Even films acknowledged the important role of a critic.
b People loved him or hated him, but they could not ignore him.
c Films in earlier times tried to get favourable reviews by creating characters who were critics.
d The critic was seen as a multidimensional individual in the earlier times.


Q3 What is Hickey trying to say by calling art criticism a one or two generation job?

a It can be done by only one generation in a family unlike law.
b The industry he was involved in was vibrant for only a few decades.
c Such jobs only capture the fancy of one or two generations.
d Every generation has a different approach towards it.

1.
The nonprofit arts, with their limited marketing budgets, have typically depended more on criticism than the promotion-driven world of entertainment, which is sometimes called critic-proof.

It says non-profit arts depend more on critics because of their less marketing budget, thereby having less money to spend on promotion. Hence people are either ignorant or not much interested when compared to the entertainment world where marketing budgets are high ensuring their films would run well irrespective of the opinion of critics, because many people are interested.

2. Critics are an important part of any film as they induce people to the theatre. So you cannot ignore them. Thats why "characters repeat his phrases in scornful and reverent tones". The words in italics can be used to eliminate a and c. B is the best option.

3. A and C dont make much sense w.r.t the paragraph.
D is eliminated because it dosen't mean a one-two generation job.
Correct option : B

set 353, cat 2008
A remarkable aspect of art of the present century is the range of concepts and ideologies which it embodies. It is almost tempting to see a pattern emerging within the art field - or alternatively imposed upon it a posteriori - similar to that which exists under the umbrella of science where the general term covers a whole range of separate, though interconnecting, activities. Any parallelism is however - in this instance at least - misleading. A scientific discipline develops systematically once its bare tenets have been established, named and categorized as conventions. Many of the concepts of modern art, by contrast, have resulted from the almost accidental meetings of groups of talented individuals at certain times and certain places. The ideas generated by these chance meetings had twofold consequence. Firstly, a corpus of work would be produced which, in great part, remains as a concrete record of the events. Secondly, the ideas would themselves be disseminated through many different channels of communication - seeds that often bore fruit in contexts far removed from their generation. Not all movements were exclusively concerned with innovation. Surrealism, for instance, claimed to embody a kind of insight which can be present in the art of any period. This claim has been generally accepted so that a sixteenth century painting by Spranger or a mysterious photograph by Atget can legitimately be discussed in surrealist terms. Briefly, then, the concepts of modern art are of many different (often fundamentally different) kinds of resulted from the exposures of painters, sculptors and thinkers to the more complex phenomena of the twentieth century, including our ever increasing knowledge of the thought and products of earlier centuries. Different groups of artists would collaborate in trying to make sense of a rapidly changing world of visual and spiritual experience. We should hardly be surprised if no one group succeeded completely, but achievements, though relative, have been considerable. Landmarks have been established - concrete statements of position which give a pattern to a situation which could easily have degenerated into total chaos. Beyond this, new language tools have been created for those who follow - semantic systems which can provide a springboard for further explorations.

The codifying of art is often criticized. Certainly one can understand that artists are wary of being pigeon-holed since they are apt to think of themselves as individuals - sometimes with good reason. The notion of self-expression, however, no longer carries quite the weight it once did; objectivity has its defenders. There is good reason to accept the ideas codified by artists and critics, over the past sixty years or so, as having attained the status of independent existence - an independence which is not without its own value. The time factor is important here. As an art movement slips into temporal perspective, it ceases to be a living organism - becoming, rather, a fossil. This is not to say that it becomes useless or uninteresting. Just as a scientist can reconstruct the life of a prehistoric environment from the messages codified into the structure of a fossil, so can an artist decipher whole webs of intellectual and creative possibility from the recorded structure of a 'dead' art movement. The artist can match the creative patterns crystallized into this structure against the potentials and possibilities of his own time. AS T.S. Eliot observed, no one starts anything from scratch; however consciously you may try to live in the present, you are still involved with a nexus of behaviour patterns bequeathed from the past. The original and creative person is not someone who ignores these patterns, but someone who is able to translate and develop them so that they conform more exactly to his - and our - present needs.

86. Many of the concepts of modern art have been the product of

(1) ideas generated from planned deliberations between artists, painters and thinkers.
(2) the dissemination of ideas through the state and its organizations.
(3) accidental interactions among people blessed with creative muse.
(4) patronage by the rich and powerful that supported art.
(5) systematic investigation, codification and conventions.
87. In the passage, the word 'fossil' can be interpreted as

(1) an art movement that has ceased to remain interesting or useful.
(2) an analogy from the physical world to indicate a historic art movement.
(3) an analogy from the physical world to indicate the barrenness of artistic creations in the past.
(4) an embedded codification of pre-historic life.
(5) an analogy from the physical world to indicate the passing of an ear associated with an art movement.
88. In the passage, which of the following similarities between science and art may lead to erroneous conclusions?

(1) Both, in general, include a gamut of distinct but interconnecting activities.
(2) Both have movements not necessarily concerned with innovation.
(3) Both depend on collaborations between talented individuals.
(4) Both involve abstract thought and dissemination of ideas.
(5) Both reflect complex priorities o the modern world.
89. The range of concepts and ideologies embodied in the art of the twentieth century is explained by

(1) the existence of movements such as surrealism.
(2) landmarks which give a pattern to the art history of the twentieth century.
(3) new language tools which can be used for further explorations into new areas.
(4) the fast changing world of perceptual and transcendental understanding.
(5) the quick exchange of ideas and concepts enabled by efficient technology.
90. The passage uses an observation by T.S. Eliot to imply that

(1) creative processes are not 'original' because they always borrow from the past.
(2) we always carry forward the legacy of the past.
(3) past behaviours and thought processes recreate themselves in the present and get labelled as 'original' or 'creative'.
(4) 'originality' can only thrive in a 'greenhouse' insulated from the past biases.
(5) 'innovations' and 'original thinking' interpret and develop on past thoughts to suit contemporary needs.

set by culdip
a
d
e not so sure for this.....

Vsc 04

1. E
2. A
3. E

set xyz
a
a

OA for set 352
14.D
15.E
16.A
17.A
18.E
19.E
20.C
21.D

set 352
b
e
d
a
a
e
a
d

PASSAGE - VSC 4

The level playing field beloved of the architects of the current world economic order is, of course, a metaphor from sport. But in an irony characteristic of the age, the level playing field imposed by global capital seems to be having a distinctly unlevelling impact on the sports field itself. The concentrations of wealth and power now driving the industry are generating new inequalities within sports, between sports, and among sporting nations. Scores of traditional and indigenous pastimes, as well as once-vital modern sporting sub-cultures such as West Indies cricket, Welsh rugby and Cuban boxing, are being pushed to the margins, and threatened with extinction. In south Asia, hockey has been overwhelmed by cricket; in England, cricket is being overwhelmed by football. What future awaits curling in Scotland, wrestling houses in Iran, elle in Sri Lanka, or kabbadi in India?
The impact of globalization on sports labour force is immediately apparent to anyone watching Chelsea or the New York Yankees. Major league baseball now recruits much of its talent from the Caribbean and South America; a multinational labour force is placed at the service of an overwhelmingly dominant North American market. Some North American players ply their trade in Japan, but there is no migration southwards at least not since the flow of black ball players dried up after Jackie Robinson broke the colour bar in 1947. Likewise, most African athletes who hope to shine on the world stage pursue their careers at North American colleges, and African footballers seek their fortunes in Western Europe (though they can also be found playing in Turkey, India and Japan).
During the 1990s, global expenditure on sports sponsorship trebled. But the distribution of this growth was highly imbalanced. In 1998, 37.8 per cent of this sum was spent in North America, 36.4 per cent in Europe and 20.8 per cent in Asia, with South America way behind and Africa virtually out of the reckoning. What counts here is not just the size of TV audiences, but their relative disposable incomes. The CAF, the African football championship, is followed passionately by hundreds of millions, but, alas, as far as corporate sponsors are concerned, there is little profit to be made, and African football, for all its wealth of talent, remains an underdeveloped, shoestringaffair.
Even in the developed world, the distribution of the spoils is highly unequal. In 1998, sports sponsorship in the United Kingdom was worth 350 million, two-thirds of which was consumed by football and Formula One. Other sports are being marginalized, as are womens sports. A survey revealed that 82 per cent of companies involved in sports sponsorship said they were not interested in womens sport, although 57 per cent conceded that they would be interested if there was greater sex appeal. Despite the ever-swelling tide of sponsorship and television cash, and despite the increasing number of female participants in almost all sporting cultures, womens sports (with the exception of tennis and a few Olympic events) remain a well-guarded secret.
Increasing disparities in wealth are also compromising the integrity of sporting competitions. The pursuit of ever greater TV audiences led to a rapid expansion of major league baseball franchises and the adoption of a souped up ball that is more likely to fly out of the stadium. The result has been lop-sided competition and the devaluation of the home run. The fate of the FA Cup, the prototype modern spring competition, reflects similar pressures.
As a handful of rich clubs outspend their competitors off the field, the spectacle on the field becomes more predictable and therefore less compelling. The giant-killing feats that once tingled the collective spine are becoming rarer. In the past, a Cup encounter between old rivals would always outdraw a league encounter. Now the reverse is the case. The premiership has evolved into a glamorous, exclusive coterie, and the European champions league outshines all else.




Q1The passage deals mainly with the issue of:
a why sports is experiencing a global crisis today.
b unequal distribution of money spent on sports.
c how globalization is affecting the way sports is played.
d the influence of TV on global sports.
e indigenous games are being sidelined as they have no takers in the global field.



Q2 According to the author a level playing field in sports would imply:
a equal weightage given to all kinds of sports.
b equal opportunities for players to participate in global as well as indigenous sports.
c decentralization of wealth and power within sports and sporting nations.
d a greater inflow of money from industry to sports.
e all of the above


Q3 A negative effect of the proliferation of technology in the sporting world would be:
a the ubiquitousness of sport in every imaginable place and setting.
b the opportunity for an African athlete to play in America.
c that watching a football match live has become less 'lively'.
d innovation in sports, like the Twenty-Twenty matches, for the T.V. Audience.
e the increase in the glamour quotient of games.


PS : Guys plz post the explanation else it makes the poster uninteresting and unuseful to post RC and OAs

VSC 03

1. B
2. B
3. B

Will post the explanations if the answers are correct

Ur answers seems correct plz post the explanation for each one of them

OA for VSC 1

1 c emphasize the need for multi-culturalism and internationalization in their true meanings in Japan.
2 b expository.

VSC 2

1 a What is the relationship between Hesses text on economy of loss and your interpretation of it , and what have you come with today to this exhibition?

2 a only C


VSC 3

1 b their big marketing budgets get people interested irrespective of the reviews.

2 b People loved him or hated him, but they could not ignore him.

3 b The industry he was involved in was vibrant for only a few decades.

The above set

A
C
B

Upwards of a billion stars in our galaxy have burnt up their internal energy sources, and so can no longer produce the heat a star needs to oppose the inward force of gravity. These stars, of more than a few solar masses, evolve, in general, much more rapidly than does a star like the Sun. Moreover, it is just these more massive stars whose collapse does not halt at intermediate stages (that is, as white dwarfs or neutron stars). Instead, the collapse continues until a singularity (an infinitely dense concentration of matter) is reached.
It would be wonderful to observe a singularity and obtain direct evidence of the undoubtedly bizarre phenomena that occur near one. Unfortunately in most cases a distant observer cannot see the singularity; outgoing light rays are dragged back by gravity so forcefully that even if they could start out within a few kilometers of the singularity, they would end up in the singularity itself
1. The author's primary purpose in the passage is to
(A) describe the formation and nature of singularities
(B) explain why large numbers of stars become singularities
(C) compare the characteristics of singularities with those of stars
(D) explain what happens during the stages of a singularity's formation
(E) imply that singularities could be more easily studied if observers could get closer to them

2. The passage suggests which of the following about the Sun?
I. The Sun could evolve to a stage of collapse that is less dense than a singularity.
II. In the Sun, the inward force of gravity is balanced by the generation of heat.
III. The Sun emits more observable light than does a white dwarf or a neutron star.
(A) I only
(B) III only
(C) I and II only
(D) II and III only
(E) I, II, and III
3. Which of the following sentences would most probably follow the last sentence of the passage?
(A) Thus, a physicist interested in studying phenomena near singularities would
necessarily hope to find a singularity with a measurable gravitational field.
(B) Accordingly, physicists to date have been unable to observe directly any singularity.
(C) It is specifically this startling phenomenon that has allowed us to codify the scant information currently available about singularities.
(D) Moreover, the existence of this extraordinary phenomenon is implied in the extensive reports of several physicists.
(E) Although unanticipated, phenomena such as these are consistent with the structure of a singularity.

Set 352


14 C
15 E
16 A
17 B
18 C
19 C
20 C
21 E