The 3I - Reading Comprehension Workshop

Directions for Questions 1 to 30: The passages given below are followed by a set of questions. Choose
the most appropriate answer to each question.

Passage 1

But an existence worthy of human beings cannot be the manner of living of a single privileged nation, for,
being isolated from all other nations, it could neither establish nor maintain this condition. Our entire
development is the product of the combined action of national and international forces and relations.
Although the national ideal still dominates the minds to a great extent and is used as a means for main-
taining political and social ruler ship, – for this is possible only within national bounds, we are already
deeply imbued with internationalism. Treaties of commerce, tariff and navigation, the world postal union,
international expositions, congresses on international law and international measurements of degrees,
other international scientific congresses and associations, international expeditions of exploration, com-

TEDT
merce and trade, and especially the international conventions of workingmen, who are the heralds of the

CI O
new era, and to whose influence it is due that, during the spring of 1890, upon an invitation from the

X
German Empire, the first international conference on workingmen’s protective legislation was held in Ber-

E
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lin, – all this proves the international character that the relations of civilized nations have assumed, notwith-
standing their national seclusion.

a BE
Besides speaking of national economy, we speak of international economy, and consider the latter more
R
I

important, because the welfare of the different nations depends upon it to a great extent. A great many of

AT
our domestic products are exchanged for foreign products that we can no longer dispense with. As one
A

branch of industry suffers when another flags, so the entire national production of a given country is very
N

materially injured by a crisis in another country. The relations of the different countries to one another are
E
constantly becoming more cordial, regardless of the passing disturbances, like wars and the instigations
L

AC
of national hatred, because these relations are dominated by material interests, the strongest of all. Every
I

new highway, every improvement in the means of transportation, every invention or improvement in the
N

process of production which leads to a cheapening of commodities, strengthens these relations. The
H

case, with which personal relations are established between widely separated countries and nations, is a
E

A R
new, important link in the chain of connections. Emigration and colonization are other powerful levers.
Nations learn from one another and strive to excel each other. Beside the exchange of all kinds of material
products, an exchange of intellectual products takes place, both in their original forms of expression and
in translations, To millions of languages, people it becomes a necessity to learn foreign languages, and
beside material advantages, nothing is more likely to remove prejudice and to arouse sympathy, than an
acquaintance with the language and intellectual products of a foreign nation.

The effect of this process of approach on an international scale is an increasing resemblance in the social
conditions of the various nations. With the most advanced civilized nations, that may therefore be regarded
as the standard, this resemblance is so great, that whoever knows the economic structure of one nation,
practically knows it of all. It is. As in nature, where animals belonging to the same species have skeletons
that are identical in organization and structure, and if a scientist is given some parts of such skeleton he
can theoretically reconstruct the entire animal.

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A further conclusion is that, wherever similar social conditions exist, the results springing from them must
be similar. Accumulation of great wealth points to the opposite extreme of wage-slavery, oppression of the
masses by the system of production, rule of the masses by the propertied minority, and all the resulting
evils.

As a matter of fact, we see that the class antagonism and class struggle, which is raging in Germany, is
stirring all of Europe, the United States of America and Australia. In Europe we meet with a spirit of unrest
and dissatisfaction from Russia to Portugal, from the Balkans, Hungary and Italy to England and Ireland.
Everywhere we perceive the same symptoms of social fermentation, general dissatisfaction and decompo-
sition. Although these movements differ outwardly, according to the degree of development and the charac-
ter of the population, they all are identical in character. Profound social antagonism is the underlying
cause. With each year this antagonism is growing more pronounced, the fermentation and dissatisfaction
pervades the body social more and more, until perhaps some slight provocation will cause an outbreak that
will spread with the rapidity of lightning over the entire civilized world, and will everywhere arouse men to
side with one or the other party in the great conflict. It will be the struggle of the new world against the old.
Masses will enter the arena, and the struggle will be conducted with an amount of intelligence such as the

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world has never seen in any previous struggle, such as it will never see again; for it will be the last social

O
X
struggle.

E
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Standing at the beginning of the twentieth century, we can see this struggle approaching its last stages in

a BE
which the new ideas will be victorious.
R

The new society will construct itself upon an international basis. The nations will fraternize; they will join
I

AT
hands, and will endeavor to extend the new conditions to all nations of the world. One nation will no longer
A

approach another as an enemy, to exploit and to oppress it, or as the upholder of a foreign religion that it
seeks to force upon it, but as a friend, endeavoring to make civilized beings of all men. The tasks of
N

E
colonization and civilization of the new society will differ as radically from those of the present in their very
nature, and in the means employed by them, as the two social orders differ from one another. Reasonable
L

AC
I

voyagers and explorers have long since experienced how successful these methods are.
N

H
When the civilized nations are united in a mighty federation, then the time will have come when the
E

trumpets of war shall be silenced forever. Eternal peace will then no longer be a dream, as uniformed
R
A
gentlemen would have the world believe. This time will arrive as soon as the nations will have recognized
their true interests. These interests are not advanced by quarrels and conflicts, by warlike preparations
that destroy countries and nations, but by peaceable agreements and common works of civilization.

1. Which of the following statements does not support the argument in the passage that our entire
development is a combined force?
(a) The national ideal still dominates the mind.
(b) Treaties herald the new era.
(c) International treaty held in Berlin.
(d) A single privileged nation is bound to flourish.
(e) A crisis in any other country materially injures all countries.

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2. Why does the author see emigration and colonization as powerful levers?
(a) Because learning foreign languages becomes a necessity.
(b) Because an exchange of intellectual products takes place.
(c) Because nations strive to outdo each other.
(d) Because it helps to remove prejudices.
(e) Because it arouses sympathy.

3. In the context of the economic structure why does the author use the imagery of the skeleton?
(a) To understand the structure.
(b) To emphasize social conditions.
(c) To bring out the acute similarity between animals and humans.
(d) To theoretically reconstruct entire situations.
(e) To bring out the similarities of social conditions.

4. What, according to the author, is the real reason for the social turbulence?
(a) The antagonism and class struggle.
(b) The social antagonism

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O
X
(c) The general dissatisfaction.

E
-
(d) The spirit of unrest.
(e) The struggle for a new world.

a BE
5. The author predicts the end of the ‘struggle’ in order to:
R

(a) Implement international fraternization

I

AT
(b) Appear civilized
A

(c) Uphold foreign relations

(d) Promote eternal peace
N

(e) Ignore the call for war. E

L

AC
I

PASSAGE 2
N

H
The visual world, the world as we see it, is a world populated by colored objects. Typically, we see the world
E

as having a rich tapestry of colors or colored forms—fields, mountains, oceans, hairstyles, clothing, fruit,
R
A
plants, animals, buildings, and so on. Colors are important in both identifying objects, i.e., in locating them
in space, and in re-identifying them. So much of our perception of physical things involves our identifying
objects by their appearance, and colors are typically essential to an object’s appearance, that any ac-
count of visual perception must contain some account of colors. Since visual perception is one of the most
important species of perception and hence of our acquisition of knowledge of the physical world, and of our
environment, including our own bodies, a theory of color is doubly important.

Despite much thought, over thousands of years, by philosophers and scientists, however, we seem little
closer now to an agreed account of color than we ever were. The disagreement is reflected in the fact that
some theorists believe colors to be perceiver-relative, e.g., dispositions or powers to induce experiences of
a certain kind, or to appear in certain ways to observers of a certain kind. Others take them to be objective,
physical properties of objects. Among the latter group, some take these properties to be physical micro-
structures, while others regard colors as sui generis irreducible properties of physical bodies, and yet
others take them to be dispositional properties to affect light. Finally, there are even some who deny that
there are colors in the world at all: there are none of the colors, it is claimed, that we naturally and normally
and unreflectingly attribute to objects.

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The major problem with color has to do with fitting what we seem to know about colors into what science,
particularly physics, tells us about physical bodies and their qualities. More specifically, we experience
color as an intrinsic feature of the surfaces of physical bodies, or as a property spread throughout a
volume, e.g., of wine. But, or so it seems, the physical account of these physical objects finds no place for
such qualities. It is this problem that historically has led the major physicists who have thought about
color, to hold a common view: that the colors we ordinarily and naturally take objects to possess, are such
that physical objects do not actually have them. Oceans and skies are not blue in the way that we naively
think, nor are apples red, (nor green). Colors of that kind, it is believed, have no place in the physical
account of the world that has developed from the 16th Century to this century. Physicists who have
subscribed to this doctrine include the luminaries: Galileo, Boyle, Descartes, Newton, Young, Maxwell
and Helmholtz. In this doctrine, they were joined by a number of fellow travelers, including most famously,
John Locke.

Such a view is clearly paradoxical, given what was said above, about the ubiquity of colors in the perceived
world, and about the importance of colors in the identification and re-identification of physical objects. It is
possible to mitigate the paradoxical character of the doctrine by drawing a distinction between two con-

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cepts of color: (i) color as a sensory quality, intrinsic to our sensory experiences; (ii) color as a power, to

O
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induce sensory experiences with color, understood as a sensory quality. On this account, color terms have

E
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a systematic ambiguity. Provided we take account of the ambiguity, no harm is done, and much benefit
derived. According to this view, then, in one sense of ‘color’, physical objects have colors, for they have the

a BE
power to induce experiences of color, but in the other sense, they do not. That is to say, there is no
problem if the second concept, color-as-it-is-in-experience, is restricted in its use so as to apply to the
R

experiential quality. Problems arise, however, when it is used, naively and unreflectingly, to apply to physi-
I

AT
cal bodies: we naively suppose the experiential quality to be an intrinsic quality of the physical object.
A

When we enjoy visual experiences, then in some sense we project the sensory quality in our experience
N

E
on to physical objects. One who exploited this idea to great effect was David Hume, who used our experi-
ence of color as a model for thinking about the way we attribute causal connections, necessity and moral
L

AC
I

predicates to objects and situations in the world (remembering that Hume adapted the model to his own
terminology of ‘impressions’ and ‘ideas’).
N

HE

With this in mind, the Descartes-Locke position is best expressed as implying that it is possible for
R
A
perceivers when applying color concepts to physical bodies, to use different concepts, reflecting different
attitudes which one may adopt. One attitude is what might be called a ‘natural’ attitude: a naive, pre-
reflective, natural attitude; the other involves a more sophisticated attitude. One concept is a pre-reflective,
pre-theoretical concept, the other is more sophisticated. While the Descartes-Locke view has had, and
continues to have, a strong influence among many of the scientists who work on color, there has always
been strong opposition to it among the philosophical community.

Various reasons have been given for dissatisfaction with the physicists’ position. It has been variously
argued that: (i) the notion of ‘color as it is in experience’ is incoherent; (ii) the physicists’ doctrine encap-
sulates a confusion about what the ordinary, natural concept of color is; (iii) those who defend the doctrine
forget that there are other sciences besides physics. For example, there are biological sciences such as
zoology, botany, ecology, and so on, in which colors do have a role to play that they do not have in physics
and chemistry; (iv) those who defend the doctrine forget that color has a social role to play; that colors are
important in social life, and the criteria for application of color predicates are based on that social life; (v)
the ordinary, natural concept of color, the ‘folk’ concept is not as the physicists and their friends believe.

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6. Why, according to the author, is visual perception paramount?
(a) Because it is the most important character of perception.
(b) Because knowledge of the physical world is important.
(c) Because the visual world is populated by colored objects.
(d) Because colors help in the identification of objects.
(e) Because colors aid in knowing our bodies.

7. The author cites opinions on the uniqueness of ‘color’ in order to:

(a) To present a case for the lack of colors.
(b) To present historical data on color
(c) To support the irreducible properties of physical bodies.
(d) To facilitate the perceiver relative theory
(e) To present a color-less world.

8. According to the author, it is possible to mitigate the paradox in which of the following cases?
(a) When the application is used distinctly.

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(b) When the application is used naively and unreflectingly.

O
X
(c) When the application is applied physically.

E
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(d) When the application is used to induce experiences.
(e) When the application is used to color physical objects.

a BE
9. According to the passage, the Descartes-Locke position is best expressed as:
R

(a) implying a naïve attitude.

I

AT
(b) implying a natural attitude.
A

(c) implying a sophisticated attitude.

(d) implying a greater role of proclivity.
N

(e) implying a greater physical attitude. E

L

AC
I

10. According to the pro-color arguments, the dissatisfaction in the social scenario stems from the fact
that:
N

H
(a) zoology is different from physics and chemistry.
E

(b) applications of color are based on social life. R

A
(c) the folk concept is the natural concept of color.
(d) the physicians’ doctrine creates confusion.
(e) the notion of the color experience is incoherent.

PASSAGE 3

In modern societies with market economies, an egalitarian is generally thought to be one who supports
equality of income and wealth (income being a flow, wealth a stock). Respecting this usage, this entry
considers an egalitarian in the broad sense to be someone who prefers in actual or at least non-exotic
circumstances that people should be more nearly equal in income and wealth and favors policies that aim
to bring about such equality. Money is a conventional medium of exchange. Given an array of goods for
sale at various prices, with some money one has the option to purchase any combination of these goods,
within the budget constraint set by the amount of money one has. What money can purchase in a given
society depends on the state of its economy and also on legal and cultural norms that may limit in various
ways what is allowed to be put up for sale. For example, the laws may forbid the sale of sexual activity,

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human organs intended for transplant, the right to become a parent of a particular child by adoption,
narcotic drugs, and so on. What money can purchase also obviously depends on what one is free to do
with whatever one purchases—one may catch fish with the fishing rod one purchases only with a license
and in accordance with rules issued by the state agency that regulates fishing.

Leaving these complications in the background, one can appreciate that having money gives one effective
freedom to engage in a wide variety of activities and experiences. One has the option to purchase any of
many commodities and do with them whatever is legally and conventionally allowed, up to the limit of one’s
budget. The ideal of equality of income and wealth is roughly the ideal that people should enjoy this
effective freedom to the same extent.This ideal is attractive to some and repulsive to others. One serious
objection is that to bring about and sustain the condition in which all people have the same amount of
money would require continuous and extensive violation of people’s Lockean rights, which as standardly
understood include the right to gain more property than others possess by gift or trade or hard work.
Another, closely related objection is that a regime of equal money could be maintained only by wrongful
interference with people’s liberty, because if money is distributed equally at one time people will choose to
act in ways that over time will tend to result in unequal distribution of money at later times. Another

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objection to the ideal of monetary equality is that its pursuit would inhibit people’s engagement in wealth-

O
X
creating and wealth-saving activity, and in the not very long run would reduce society’s stock of wealth and

E
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make us all worse off in the terms of the effective freedom that was being equalized. Yet another objection
is that people behave in ways that render them more and less deserving, and monetary good fortune is

a BE
among the types of things that people come to deserve differentially.
R

Monetary equality can strike one as a misguided ideal for the different reason that it does not deal in what
I

AT
is of fundamental importance. The value of purchasing power, equal or unequal, depends on the value of
A

what is for sale. Imagine that the economy of a society is organized so it produces only trivial knick-
knacks. Freedom to purchase trivia is a trivial freedom, and rendering it equal does not significantly im-
N

E
prove matters. Critics of consumerism and consumer culture are moved by the idea that in actual modern
societies, the economy, responsive to consumer demand, is responsive to demands for what is not very
L

AC
I

worthwhile and ignores many truly imporrtant human goods, that either happen to be not for sale or that by
their nature are not suitable for sale on a market.
N

HE

Another concern about monetary equality is that purchasing power interacts with individuals’ personal
R
A
powers and traits, and real freedom reflects the interaction, which an emphasis on purchasing power alone
conceals. Consider two persons, one of whom is blind, legless, and armless, while the other has good
eyesight and full use of her limbs. Given equal money, the first must spend his money on devices and
services to cope with his handicaps, while the second may purchase far more of what she likes. Here
equality of purchasing power seems to leave the two very unequal in real freedom to live their lives as they
choose. But the case of handicaps is just an extreme instance of what is always present, namely each
individual has a set of traits and natural powers bestowed by genetic inheritance and early socialization,
and these differ greatly across persons and greatly affect people’s access to valuable ways to live.

11. According to the passage, the definition of an egalitarian is that:

(a) An egalitarian supports equality of income in all cultures.
(b) An egalitarian supports theories of equality of wealth under all circumstances.
(c) An egalitarian supports policies of income and wealth.
(d) An egalitarian supports equality amongst all people.
(e) An egalitarian supports equality in income and wealth and correlating policies.

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12. What, does the author mean by the statement, “Money is a conventional medium of exchange” ?
(a) Money gives one effective freedom to engage in a wide variety of experience and expertise.
(b) Money lets one purchase what is legal and conventional.
(c) Money lets you enjoy the buying experience.
(d) Money is the acceptable form of any transaction that involves buying and selling.
(e) Money is what makes the world go around.

13. According to the author the ideal of equality finds all but which of the following objections?
(a) That it will bring about a violation of the right to gain more property.
(b) That it will bring about an interference in people’s liberty.
(c) That it will bring about inhibitions in people’s wealth creating habits.
(d) That it will bring about a change in the behaviourial patterns.
(e) That it will bring about a change in the diffrential spread out.

14. According to the passage, monetary equality appears misguided because:

(a) Freedom to purchase is diminutive.

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(b) Monetary equality does not significantly improve matters.

O
X
(c) Consumer demands are not worthwhile.

E
-
(d) Monetary equality could give rise to trivial freedom.
(e) Monetary equality does not deal with axiological issues.

a BE
15. Which one of the following, according to the author, limits the functioning of monetary equality?
R

(a) Monetary equality interacts with the individuals personal traits.

I

AT
(b) Monetary equality reflects real freedom.
A

(c) Genetic inheritance overshadows monetary equality.

(d) Physical afflictions rule the concept of monetary equality.
N

(e) Socialization does not impinge on monetary equality. E

L

AC
I

Passage 4
N

H
“The Stuff of Thought” explores the duality of human cognition: the modesty of its construction and the
E

A R
majesty of its constructive power. Pinker weaves this paradox from a series of opposing theories. Philo-
sophical realists, for instance, think perception comes from reality. Idealists think it’s all in our heads.
Pinker says it comes from reality but is organized and reorganized by the mind. That’s why you can look
at the same thing in different ways. Then there’s the clash between ancient and modern science. Aristotle
thought projectiles continued through space because a force propelled them. He thought they eventually
fell because Earth was their natural home. Modern science rejects both ideas. Pinker says Aristotle was
right, not about projectiles but about how we understand them. We think in terms of force and purpose
because our minds evolved in a biological world of force and purpose, not in an abstract world of vacuums
and multiple gravities. Aristotle’s bad physics was actually good psychology.

How can we be sure the mind works this way? By studying its chief manifestation: language. Variations
among verbs reflect our distinctions among physical processes. Nuances among nouns illustrate the
alternate interpretations built into our most basic perceptions.

Metaphor turns out to be our crucial talent. It parlays crude animal knowledge into human advancement.
From physical destinations, we extrapolate a conception of goals. From physical journeys, we build an

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understanding of relationships. Metaphors structure even our most advanced ideas: heat works like fluid,
atoms like solar systems, genes like code, evolution like design. In each case, language has fossilized the
construction process: “heat flow,” “genetic code,” “natural selection.”

Some thinkers worry that this power to frame perceptions can run away with us. In politics, the linguist
George Lakoff has warned, “frames trump facts.” In this view, taxes can be depicted as burdens or as
membership fees, driving public opinion this way or that. Pinker rejects Lakoff’s ideas, which have become
fashionable among Democratic strategists. “Metaphors are generalizations,” he argues. Their implications
can be tested against reality. Lakoff’s proposal to reframe taxes as membership fees flunks the test: if you
don’t pay your membership fees, you lose your benefits; but if you don’t pay your taxes, you go to jail.

These are the aspects of our duality: brain and mind, matter and metaphor, fact and frame, science and
politics, information and implication. Even their common lesson has two sides. On the one hand, we must
face the limits of our mental construction. We have trouble understanding intellectual property because our
ideas of possession and theft are based on physical objects. We have trouble with evolution because we
think of adaptation as something that individuals do in their lifetimes, not something a species does over

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generations. We confuse differences in-group averages with claims of group superiority. We’re prone to

O
X
cronyism because our notions of community arose from family and tribe. In criminal trials, we resist

E
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objective explanations of subjective behavior. In sum, Pinker warns, “the machinery of conceptual seman-
tics makes us permanently vulnerable to fallacies in reasoning.”

a BE
On the other hand, we are not imprisoned by them. The dialectic of creativity and reality-testing has taken
R

us far beyond other animals and can take us farther. The next step is to dump our most natural and
I

AT
mistaken metaphor — education as the filling of empty minds — and recognize that we learn by extrapo-
A

lating, testing, modifying and recombining mental models of the world.

N

E
That’s the two-faceted human nature Pinker wants to show us through the window of language. But as he
does so, one more face appears in the glass: the reflection of the man looking into it.
L

AC
I

Being a scientist is hard. You’re supposed to keep your personality out of the way, justifying every topic of
interest by some larger theoretical goal. Pinker tries. “I like to think I have a better reason to introduce you
N

H
to my little friends,” he pleads, referring to verbs and his infatuation with them. But as Pinker’s little friends
E

consume the book, it becomes clear that he’s a geek. R

A
16. Why, according to the author, can we look at the same thing in different ways?
(a) Because it explores the duality of human cognition.
(b) Because it comes from the perception of reality.
(c) Because it is beyond the purview of logic.
(d) Because it comes from reality but is organized in the mind.
(e) Because there is a force that propels us.

17. The statement “Aristotle’s bad physics was actually good psychology” finds support of the author
as:
(a) It reiterates his stand on understanding things.
(b) The author venerates Aristotle.
(c) The author believes our minds are tempered by force and purpose.
(d) The author shuns the world of abstract vacuums.
(e) The author believed that our mind had biological linkages.

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18. According to the passage, Pinker’s rejection of Lakoff’s ideas is based on which of the following?
(a) The power to frame perceptions can run away with us.
(b) Metaphors trump facts.
(c) Metaphors are judgments tested against reality.
(d) Language has fossilized the construction process.
(e) Metaphors structure even our most advanced ideas.

19. The author draws upon the word ‘cronyism’ to bring home which one of the following?
(a) That duality is everywhere.
(b) That evolution is difficult to adapt to.
(c) That intellectual property is difficult to understand because of its physical base.
(d) That our reactions are marked by tolerance.
(e) That the concepts are vulnerable to reason.

20. What, according to the passage, makes Pinker a geek?

(a) Pinker wants to show through the window of language.
(b) Pinker’s devotion to verbs.

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O
X
(c) Pinker’s recognition of mental models.

E
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(d) Pinker’s dumping of education.
(e) Pinker’s dialectic ability.

a BE
PASSAGE 5
R
I

AT
In his new film Notre Musique—a work of art too tender, sorrowful, gorgeous and profound to be harmed by
A

us critics, with our heavier kind of slowness—Godard demonstrates in person how to pull apart a montage.
In a quasi-fictional scene in which he speaks to a small and rather distracted young audience, he holds up
N

E
a pair of frame enlargements from Howard Hawks’s His Girl Friday—one of Cary Grant barking into the
telephone, the other of Rosalind Russell yakking back—and notes that the two shots, which ostensibly
L

AC
I

depict warring opposites, are basically identical. (“It proves,” he says, “that Hawks didn’t know the differ-
ence between a man and a woman.”) Never mind that this observation, if taken at face value, would be
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bogus; in His Girl Friday, the pictures move and so are not identical at all. But Godard at this moment is not
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particularly interested in Hawks. He’s instructing us in how to read Godard, who thinks in bigger units than
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most other filmmakers can handle. He treats set-ups, sequences, even whole character arcs as if they
were discrete images, to be flashed before you dialectically like shot and reverse shot.

The biggest dialectical opposites in Notre Musique, standing symmetrically at either end of the film, are
the sequences titled “Hell” and “Heaven.” It’s the first that reminded me of Les Carabiniers, despite the fact
that the montage here runs at full speed and beyond. Godard’s “Hell” is a staggering ten minutes of found
footage, collected from fiction films and documentaries alike and spliced together with a lifetime’s skill to
show the horrors of war. Flashes of white light; a quick view of celluloid, colorfully decomposing; the
booming attack of a piano’s bass notes. A woman’s voice says, “And so, in the age of fable, there appeared
on earth men armed for extermination.” They appear: Civil War soldiers from The Birth of a Nation running
in from the left of the screen, African warriors from Zulu rushing back at them from the right, Crusaders, GIs,
samurais, guerrillas, an entire battlefield’s worth of medieval figures stabbing clumsily at one another. If the
Michelangelo and Ulysses of Les Carabiniers were right—if an image is a real possession—then this
initial, infernal section of Notre Musique shows us something we own collectively, as heirs of the twentieth
century. God knows, we’ve paid to receive it. Maybe one picture postcard of this “Hell” was shot on the

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spot, by a newsreel cameraman, and another was concocted on a movie set by Oliver Stone; but as
Godard flips through them, these views add up to a single picture, globally produced, which is highly
characteristic of our age and amply deserves the name it gets.

What image of “Heaven,” then, have we collectively inherited from the age of moving pictures? One that’s
far more cryptic, according to Godard. The closing section of Notre Musique is gently paced, in counter-
point to the frenzy of “Hell.” The basic technique is the tracking shot, not the montage; the colors are those
of nature in its freshness—green forest and blue water—and not in decomposition. Perhaps most impor-
tant, we are now in the company of one identifiable protagonist, a young woman, who wanders past US
Marines (alert but pacific) and frolicking nudes and someone reading a French translation of a novel by
David Goodis. Settling down by a lakeside, our new Eve bites into an apple, with no apparent ill effect.

Whereas Godard’s “Hell” is an image of something dreadfully familiar, made up of horrors that require no
further explanation (and that flash by with the speed of television, as if the remote were in the hand of an
angry God), his “Heaven” seems truly alien, since it borrows nothing from the celestial fantasies of popular
movies, or from the devotional paintings that have given cinema its white robes and golden harps. The

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kitsch certainties of a Green Pastures would have posed a false opposition to Godard’s “Hell.” The real

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counterimage must be undecided, and open to the imagination. The lake you see in “Heaven” surely

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stretches beyond what’s visible at the top of the frame, the new Eve’s ramble must somehow go on after
the apple is bitten, but Godard quietly refrains from showing how either would continue.

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This is the neglected legacy of another type of image-making: the mobile, evocative, observational mode
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that André Bazin praised in his essays half a century ago, and that is still occasionally practiced today,
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though not by anybody whose films top the weekend box office. Godard’s “Heaven” represents, among
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other things, an abandoned paradise of long takes and unforced meanings—a paradise that remains
accessible to anyone who cares to enter, although it’s routinely ignored by advertisers, propagandists and
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It is also rejected, to a certain degree, by Godard himself. He may respect the cinema of the steady gaze,
but in his own perverse way he is a recidivist of montage, always looking to strike up contrasts between
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shots, or sequences, or character arcs. Between his “Hell” and “Heaven” falls “Purgatory,” by far the
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longest section of Notre Musique and the one that’s layered most insistently with doubled images.
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21. The passage is mainly concerned with which of the following themes?
(a) Depiction of warring opposites.
(b) Unveiling Godard.
(c) Godard’s panegyric to ‘heaven”.
(d) Discourse to a distracted audience.
(e) Paean to Godard.

22. According to the passage, the biggest dialectical opposites in Notre Musique, signify:
(a)The horrors of war.
(b)The essentials of our age.
(c)The birth of a Nation.
(d) The Age of the fable.
(e) The African Nation.

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23. According to the passage, the most familiar image of our times is reflected by which one of the
following:
(a)Hell (b)Heaven (c)The lake
(d) Eve (e)The Green pastures

24. According to the passage, Notre Musique depicts Godard as which one of the following?
(a)That he is a borrower of celestial fantasies.
(b)That he is a recidivist of montage.
(c)He opens up the imagination.
(d)His shots are cryptic and repetitive.
(e)He uses biblical imagery.

25. Which essential feature of the state of ‘heaven’ does the passage highlight?
(a) Heaven remains an alien state.
(b) Heaven stretches beyond visibility.
(c) Heaven is beyond the fantasy of movies.

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(d) Heaven fails to effect Eve and the apple.

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(e) Heaven is attainable for the seekers.

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Passage 6

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A Chinese proverb says: “I curse you to live in the times of change.” Which is sometimes translated as: “I
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curse you to live in interesting times.” In such interesting times we are living at present. Big changes and
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re-alignments have been taking place in front of our eyes. The specter of Communism seems to be no
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longer haunting the Capitalist world. On the contrary, in the battle between Communism and Capitalism,
over its social superiority, Capitalism has handsomely won.
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The distinguished economist and social thinker, Robert Heilbroner, recently published an article on the very
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subject. The piece is provocatively titled: “The Triumph of Capitalism”, and it opens with these words: “Less
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than seventy-five years after it officially began, the contest between capitalism and socialism is over:
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capitalism has won. The Soviet Union, China, and Eastern Europe have given us the clearest possible
proof that capitalism organizes the material affairs of humankind more satisfactorily than socialism: that
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however inequitably or irresponsibly the marketplace may distribute goods, it does so better than the
queues of a planned economy; however mindless the culture of commercialism, it is more attractive than
state moralism; and however deceptive the ideology of a business civilization, it is more believable than
that of a socialist one.” Yet, Heilbroner is aware that not all is well. He thus asks a significant question: “Is
capitalism working well enough?” Once we have asked this question, we confront a very serious problem
indeed.

Our first response is an automatic one: yes, of course, it is working well enough— look at the material
prosperity in the West and how capitalism outperforms communism. This is one kind of answer. But
actually a rather obvious answer, if not a trivial one. This answer relates to the bottom line economics. Our
bottom line shows profit. So, all is well.

The economics of the bottom line has been so impressive to some that they began to mystify it. The result
is economism, a philosophical doctrine which claims (implicitly or explicitly) that economics - the bottom
line economics, that is -determines the structure and the ethos of society and should be unconditionally
obeyed for it is our god. This last conclusion is not spelled out so clearly but it is nevertheless implied.

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Now I will attempt to argue that this whole line thinking and the entire philosophy underlying economism is
basically wrong. Let us return to our question: Is capitalism working well enough? My answer is that it isn’t.
The bottom line economics is a misconceived idea. When we observe how life actually works, then we
realize that the genuine bottom line is the quality of life. Unless an economic or a social system meets this
ultimate criterion, that of the quality of life, it is an incomplete, inadequate, if not fraudulent one. In this
sense economism, or the bottom line economics, may be considered fraudulent. Let me explain why.

The distinguished British writer Anthony Burgess writes: “Turning humanity into something far less than it
could be is what vulgarity is about.” That is precisely what economism is attempting to do to us: it tries to
reduce us to something less than what we could become. In this sense economism is pushing us on the
road to vulgarity, and is itself an instrument of vulgarity. Advertising and the ideology or consumerism are its
allies. When one looks perceptively at the cluster of those forces that spiritually diminish the human
society, one realises that consumerism and advertising are only tools or economism.

Thus on the first level of analysis economism must be questioned and opposed because it impoverishes us
as individual existential beings, cheapens us with regard to what we can become, it robs us of our spiritual
heritage.

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On the second level of analysis, economism must be questioned and opposed on ecological grounds.
Economism is based on false accounting. The much-celebrated bottom line is really fictitious. What it

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shows is often illusory profit. Why illusory? Because some parameters and costs are hidden and omitted.
Those costs are called ‘externalities’, which economic models hide. These externalities show up as enor-
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mous bills - going into billions of dollars - for cleaning polluted environments and for repairing our damaged
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health What will be the final bill for repairing nature and bringing it back to the state of its well being (which
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means true sustainability in the long run) nobody knows. But this kind of figure would be astronomical - a
legacy of the bottom line.
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An economic or a philosophical system which is so careless about the quality of life that sanctifies
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ecological devastations must be in some sense fraudulent. Economism claims to be the best economics
system for humanity. But it simply does not deliver - if you take into account its fall out.
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26. According to the passage, which of the following statements does not describe the victory of capi-
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(a)The contest between capitalism and socialism is over.
(b) Capitalism organizes the material affairs more satisfactorily than socialism.
(c)Capitalism does better that the queues of planned economy.
(d)The mindless culture of commercialism is attractive than state moralism.
(e) The efficacy of capitalism posing a threat to its very own existence.

27. What, according to the author, is the apparent yardstick of measuring capitalism’s success?
(a) Material prosperity of the West.
(b) Bottom line economics.
(c) Profit at the bottom line.
(d) Obedience of social ethos.
(e) Unconditional surrender to the bottom line.

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28. According to the passage, econonism is the road to vulgarity because:
(a) The genuine bottom line is the quality of life.
(b) Quality of life is incomplete.
(c) Economism is scaling us down.
(d) Advertising is consumerisms’ alley.
(e) Consumerism diminishes human society.

29. The author cites the example of externalities in order to:

(a) Depict the legacy of the bottom line.
(b) Highlight the hidden cost.
(c) Pinpoint the falsity of the bottom line.
(d) Display the damage to the environment.
(e) Reprimand us for losing our spiritual heritage.

30. The passage challenges the entire philosophy of economism because:

(a) The environment is severely affected.
(b) The ramifications are far reaching.

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(c) Health once damaged cannot be repaired.

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(d) The loss to nature is irreparable.
(e) Repairs to the environment would eat into the bottom line.

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