Just as it is impossible to discuss intelligently the history of the potato without a reference to those early agriculturists who won

and fashioned it, so

would it be futile were we to leave undescribed the peculiar setting in which both plant and man evolved their mutual understanding. For the early
history of the potato was set on a stage dominated by the mysterious grandeur of the Andes, whose dread influence could never have been long
absent from the thought and actions of the men who, thousands of years before the coming of Columbus, won for all mankind this and other priceless
gifts from the recesses of nature’s storehouse.

The problem is confined geographically to the continent of South America, by the fact that nowhere in Central or North America was the potato
cultivated in pre-Columbian times. This is the more curious when we realize that as far north as Colorado various species of wild tuber-
bearing Solanums are to be found.

Mexico, in particular, is so rich in such plants and the tubers of some of these wild plants are at times eaten by the natives, but they are not, and
apparently never were, cultivated. The same is reported from Guatemala. When later the potato gained an entry into Mexico after the Conquest, it was
the Peru-Bolivian potato which was imported and grown there. The Navajo Indians of South Western United States still boil and roast the small tubers
of the two wild species, S. jamesii and S. fendleri. It seems possible that the people of these parts, especially in Mexico, were on the point of
developing an independent culture of the potato when the coming of the Spaniards destroyed their civilization.

In South America, the immigrant peoples found a large variety of wild potatoes, but in contrast to those of North and Central America, they brought
them into cultivation at an early stage of their settlement, possibly 2000 years or more before the Spanish Conquest. Why people of the same original
race should have behaved so differently on either side of the equator is a problem, the solution of which is almost certainly to be found in the
extraordinary geographical and climatic conditions of the area into which the settlers penetrated.

In the warm regions of Mexico and Central America, the cereal maize, so easily grown and so bounteous in its returns, contended with the manioc or
cassava for the first place in nature’s bounty. On the high tablelands of inner Colombia, Ecuador and Bolivia, where manioc is wanting and maize
begins to fail, we may suppose that successive immigrant waves, searching for a staple food, eventually found it in the wild potato. These high
altitudes, by reason of their isolation and their freedom from malaria and the diseases of the jungle, afforded a permanent home in which the
immigrants attained for a time a level of culture only a little below that reached later on the Peruvian coast.
 Q1. The “problem” in the sentence “The problem is confined geographically to the continent of South America” (para 2) can be inte rpreted
as:

a) Understanding why potato is cultivated only in certain regions and not elsewhere.
b) Understanding the origin of potato cultivation.
c) Identifying the factors responsible for the growth of potato cultivation in South America.
d) Exploring the relation between the South American culture and the cultivation of potato.

Q2. What is the primary reason for potatoes to be cultivated in the regions south of the equator but not to the north?

a) The geography and climate to the north of the equator did not permit the cultivation of potatoes but were favourable for the cultivation of
maize and manioc.
b) By the time the immigrants who settled in the northern regions developed the tools required for the cultivation of the potatoes, the
Spaniards destroyed their civilization.
c) The southern regions, because of the geographic and climatic conditions, had an abundance of wild potatoes which were not present in
the north.
d) The geographic and climatic conditions in the northern region allowed the cultivation of maize which provided better yield than
potatoes.
Q3. What advantage did the high altitudes of inner Colombia, Ecuador and Bolivia provide?

a) The high altitudes allowed the development of culture which could never be achieved in the Peruvian coast.
b) The immigrants were able to form permanent settlements at these altitudes primarily because they found an abundant food supply in
the wild potatoes present there.
c) The high altitudes offered potato crops protection from diseases thereby increasing their yield, because of which the immigrants were
able to introduce potatoes in that region.
d) As the high altitudes offered protection from diseases, the immigrants formed permanent settlements in these regions, and this led to
potatoes being adopted as staple in that region.

Q4. Which of the following encouraged the cultivation of potatoes in South America?Absence of diseases

1.Presence of endemic wild potatoes

2.Spanish Conquest
3.High altitudes
4.The Incas

a) Only I and II
b) Only II and III
c) Only I, II and IV
d) Only I, II, IV and V
The wealthiest Americans have grown wealthier since the Great Recession, and many are investing their wealth in art. Especially with
bonds and other assets offering rock-bottom yields, the art market – where reports of record-high sales now emerge regularly – has an
obvious appeal. According to a survey last year by Deloitte and ArtTactic, an art-research firm, 76 percent of art buyers viewed their
acquisitions as investments, compared with 53 percent in 2012. And with more collectors viewing art as a financial investment, storage
can become an artwork’s permanent fate.

Benefiting from this is an upstart art-storage company called Uovo. Uovo is built from scratch, a modern facility with “Mission: Impossible”-
grade security and bespoke technology for cataloguing artworks that makes information about them readily available to interested buyers.
The complex will be packed with thousands of works of art, from old masters to contemporary rising stars. But unlike at a museum, few
will ever see the works that live inside it.

Largely hidden from public view, an ecosystem of service providers has blossomed too, as Wall Street-style investors and other new
buyers have entered the market. These service companies, profiting on the heavy volume of deals while helping more deals take place,
include not only art handlers and advisers but also tech start-ups like ArtRank, which uses an algorithm to place emerging artists into
buckets including “buy now,” “sell now” and “liquidate.” Carlos Rivera, co-founder and public face of the company, says that the algorithm,
which uses online trends as well as an old-fashioned network of about 40 art professionals around the world, was designed by a financial
engineer who still works at a hedge fund. The service is limited to 10 clients, each of whom pays $3,500 a quarter for what they hope will
be market-beating insights. It’s no surprise that Rivera, 27, who formerly ran a gallery in Los Angeles, is not popular with artists.

Collectors have not always been so willing to consign their new acquisitions to storage. Near the end of his life, Henry Clay Frick, the 19th-
century industrialist, built a mansion on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan to house his art collection. In 1945, the oil baron J. Paul Getty bought a
seaside home near Malibu that he filled with art, later opening the house periodically to the public. To be sure, these men weren’t inviting
the masses into their homes while they were alive – but they did hang their art, which was the fruit of their wealth, not its source.

Enrique Liberman, a lawyer who works with funds that buy art on behalf of wealthy investors, says the art market now “has all the
trappings of traditional investment markets in the form of the services provided.” While that may be a slight exaggeration – the art market,
after all, remains opaque and unregulated – places like Uovo bring us closer to that reality.

One prominent artist, who insisted on anonymity, says that the growth of art-storage companies demonstrates “something about the way
art is functioning, which is less about the artwork saying something or doing something and more about the artwork representing a value.”
Q5. The last line of the antepenultimate para (‘To be sure…not its source’) summarises the paradigm shift in perception towards art by
stating:

a) Earlier, people earned money from art; now they earn money to buy art.
b) Art was a reward for earning wealth; now art can be a source of wealth.
c) Earlier, art had an aesthetic appeal; now it does not.
d) Art was rewarding earlier, but not anymore.

Q6. Storage can become an artwork’s permanent fate, according to the author, because

a) art is not pursued for the value it represents but for what it says.
b) art collectors view artwork as financial investments.
c) investing in the art market is extremely lucrative.
d) there has been an increase in the intrinsic value of art.
Q7. All the following, taken in the context of the passage, support the sentiment of ‘artwork representing a value’ (as mentioned in the
last line of the passage) EXCEPT:

a) J. Paul Getty bought a seaside home near Malibu that he filled with art.
b) ArtRank places emerging artists into buckets including “buy now,” “sell now” and “liquidate.”
c) Uovo has built a modern facility with bespoke technology for cataloguing artworks.
d) 76 percent of art buyers viewed their acquisitions as investments, compared with 53 percent in 2012.

Q8. The author’s central argument in the passage can be confirmed by which of the following hypothetical statements:

a) It is impossible to put a price tag on every artwork existing currently.

b) The valuation of art is an extremely subjective affair.
c) Fewer and fewer art works are put up for public display and are, instead, stored in vaults.
d) Those who invest in art are reluctant to let others enjoy it.
[The belief that] hierarchy in human societies [is] a natural part of who we are contradicts much of the 200,000-year history of Homo sapiens. Our
[hunter-gatherer] ancestors have for the most part been “fiercely egalitarian”, intolerant of any form of inequality […] aggressively rejecting efforts to
institutionalise them into any form of hierarchy.

So, what happened to cause such a profound shift in the human psyche away from egalitarianism? The balance of archaeological, anthropological and
genomic data suggests the answer lies in the agricultural revolution, which began roughly 10,000 years ago.

...Hunting and gathering was a low-risk way of making a living. ... Hunter-gatherers considered their environments to be eternally provident, and only
ever worked to meet their immediate needs. They never sought to create surpluses nor over-exploited any key resources. Confidence in the
sustainability of their environments was unyielding.

In contrast, Neolithic farmers assumed full responsibility for “making” their environments provident. They depended on a handful of highly sensitive
crops or livestock species. When the stars were in alignment – weather favourable, pests subdued, soils still packed with nutrients – agriculture was
much more productive than hunting and gathering enabling farming populations to grow far more rapidly than hunter-gatherers and sustain these
growing populations over much less land.

But successful Neolithic farmers were still tormented by fears of drought, blight, pests, frost and famine. In time, this profound shift in the way societies
regarded scarcity also induced fears about raids, wars, strangers – and eventually, taxes and tyrants. Not that early farmers considered themselves
helpless. If they did things right, they could minimise the risks that fed their fears. This meant pleasing capricious gods in the conduct of their day-to-day
lives – but above all, it placed a premium on working hard and creating surpluses.

… The productivity of a patch of land is directly proportional to the amount of energy you put into it. This principle that hard work is a virtue, and its
corollary that individual wealth is a reflection of merit, is perhaps the most obvious of the agricultural revolution’s many social, economic and cultural
legacies. Regular surpluses enabled a much greater degree of role differentiation: priests to pray for good rains; fighters to protect farmers from wild
animals and rivals; politicians to transform economic power into social capital…The greater the surpluses a society produced, the greater the levels of
inequality in that society. Their need to sustain ever-larger populations also set in motion a cycle of geographic expansion by means of conquest and
war…

Many of the challenges created by the agricultural revolution, such as the problem of scarcity, have largely been solved by technology – yet our
preoccupation with hard work and unrestrained economic growth remains undimmed. This obsession risks cannibalising our – and many other species’
– futures. Our current social, political and economic models are not an inevitable consequence of human nature, but a product of our recent history.
That knowledge could free us to be more imaginative in changing the way we relate to our environments, and one another. Having spent 95% of Homo
sapiens’ history hunting and gathering, there is surely a little of the hunter-gatherer psyche left in all of us.
Q9. In the last line of the passage, the author seems to suggest that

a) survival instinct is still part of the human species.

b) our hunter-gatherer psyche could lead us to cannibalise our own species.
c) our social, political and economic models are compatible with our hunter-gatherer instincts.
d) humanity needs to revert to the pre-agricultural era way of thinking.

Q10. The ’profound shift in the human psyche’ mentioned in the second para does not involve which of the following?

a) A greater fear for environmental and weather conditions

b) A belief in the virtues of working hard and in creating surpluses
c) A change from being egalitarian to being part of a meritocratic, hierarchical structure
d) An incessant need to dominate other populations through war and conquest
Q11. The main purpose of the passage is to

a) recommend the hunter-gatherer way of living.

b) elucidate how agricultural revolution has destroyed human society.
c) advocate a relook at our social, political and economic order for a less risky future.
d) offer a solution to all the problems created by the agricultural revolution.

Q12. Agricultural revolution enabled role differentiation because

a) farmers believed in pleasing capricious gods in the conduct of their day-to-day lives.
b) society evolved around creating a surplus of agricultural output.
c) the belief in the virtue of hard work created a social hierarchy.
d) the needs of larger populations had to be sustained.
Let me begin by stating the obvious, with what in France they call une vér-ité de la Palice': to put it in good old Maoist terms, the principal
contradiction of today's cinema studies is the one between the deconstructionist/feminist/post-Marxist/psychoanalytic/sociocritical/cultural studies
etc. approach, ironically nicknamed 'Theory' (which, of course, is far from a unified field – the above chain is more a series of Wittgensteinian 'family
resemblances') by its opponents, and the so-called 'Post-Theory', the cognitivist and/or historicist reaction to it. Here, however, we immediately
encounter a paradox. Although Post-Theorists acknowledge the inner differences in the field of Theory (say, between the early Screen focus on
interpellation, Gaze, suture, and the later more historicist-culturalist feminist orientation), they nonetheless emphasise a common Lacanian element
as central. They even acknowledge that the only unity of their own project is negative, that of excluding (Lacanian) psychoanalysis – David Bordwell
and Noel Carroll made it clear, in their introduction to the Post-Theory volume, that 'the unifying principle in this book is that all the research included
exemplifies the possibility of scholarship that is not reliant upon the psychoanalytic framework that dominates film academia.’

So who are these Lacanians? Post-Theorists like to emphasise that writers of Theory refer to mythical entities like the (capitalised) Gaze, entities to
which no empirical, observable facts (like actual cinema viewers and their behaviour) correspond – one of the essays in the Post-Theory volume
actually has the Sherlock Holmesian title 'Psychoanalytic Film Theory and the Problem of the Missing Spectator'. In the same vein, I would like to
claim that, in the global field designated by Post-Theorists as that of Theory, we are dealing with a no less mysterious 'case of the missing
Lacanians': except for Joan Copjec, myself and some of my Slovene colleagues, I know of no cinema theorist who effectively accepts Lacan as his
or her ultimate background. The authors usually referred to as Lacanians (from Laura Mulvey to Kaja Silverman) as a rule 'engage with' Lacan: they
appropriate some Lacanian concepts as the best description of the universe of patriarchal domination, while emphasising that Lacan remained a
phallogocentrist who uncritically accepted this universe as the only imaginable framework of our socio-symbolic existence. So, as a Lacanian, I
seem to be caught in an unexpected double-bind: I am, as it were, being deprived of what I never possessed, made responsible for something
others generated as Lacanian film theory. My response to this is, of course: what if one should finally give Lacan himself a chance? So, to continue
in a Maoist vein, I am tempted to determine the opposition between the ambiguous reference to Lacan that has predominated in cinema studies and
those who fully endorse Lacan as the second, non-antagonistic contradiction of cinema studies, to be resolved through discussion and self-criticism.
Q13. Which of the following best summarizes the 'paradox' mentioned in the passage?

a) Writers of Theory refer to mythical entities like Gaze but they themselves don't have a method to empirically ascertain it.
b) The Post-Theoretical project runs against Theory, but it is highly dependent on it for its own identity.
c) Both the disjoint between diverse fields and a Lacanian centrality common to these fields are acknowledged simultaneously.
d) The author is being deprived of what he never possessed and made responsible for something others generated as Lacanian Film
Theory.

1.Q14. Which of the following statements can be inferred to be true from the passage?The fight between Theory and Post-Theory is rooted in
a general battle of influence between the two kinds of Lacanians.
2.The Lacanian element is what enables the Post-Theorists to identify the collective that is nicknamed 'Theory'.

a) Only I
b) Only II
c) Both I and II
d) Neither I nor II
Q15. Which of the following best describes 'the problem of the missing spectator'?

a) There are viewer-centred entities, which writers of Theory refer to, that discount the empirical quality of the spectator.
b) The entities of viewership, which writers of Theory refer to, include the spectator.
c) The entities of viewership, which writers of Theory refer to, correspond only to the behaviour of the self experienced by the viewer,
rather than behaviours observable externally.
d) The spectator refers to Lacan, who a lot of cinema theorists, except a few, do not accept as their ultimate background.

Q16. How does the author attempt to deal with the 'double bind' explained in para 2?

a) He wishes to act on the paradox: the acknowledgment of the differences among different fields and simultaneously the establishment
of a central element and thereby collecting these fields together as 'theory'.
b) He attempts to find a way to deal with the feeling of being deprived of what he never possessed and made responsible for something
others generated as Lacanian film theory.
c) He attempts to deal with a problem: Do Post-Theorists provide an adequate instrument to counteract the influence of Lacan in cinema
studies?
d) He aims to find the difference between those who approve Lacan as a contradiction to cinema studies and those with a vague
reference to Lacan in cinema studies and resolve these differences through discussion and self-criticism.
Q17. DIRECTIONS for question 17: The sentences given in the question, when properly sequenced, form a coherent
paragraph. Each sentence is labelled with a number. Decide on the proper order for the four sentences and key in the
sequence of four numbers as your answer, in the input box given below the question.

1.Einstein explained there is every reason to believe that planets like Mars are inhabited.
2.Einstein hypothesized, however, that the signals were due either to atmospheric disturbances or to secret
experimentation of other systems of wireless telegraphy.
3.Prompted by “mysterious wireless signals” received from an unknown source in both London and New York, a
London correspondent contacted Einstein for an explanation.
4.But Martians would be more likely to communicate via light rays than through the wireless, he added.
Q18. DIRECTIONS for question 18: Five sentences related to a topic are given in the question below. Four of them
can be put together to form a meaningful and coherent short paragraph. Identify the odd one out. Choose its number as
your answer and key it in.

1.Freud lives on because science hasn’t produced a mind-body paradigm potent enough to knock him off once and for
all.
2.Just as the biological paradigm for understanding consciousness collapsed over the past two decades, so has the
biological paradigm of psychiatry, which emphasised physiological rather than psychological causes and cures of mental
illness.
3.Freud’s critics are right, psychoanalysis is terribly flawed, but so are rival mind-body paradigms, including
behaviourism, cognitive psychology, evolutionary psychology and behavioural genetics.
4.Neuroscience has generated voluminous findings, but theorists have failed to organize these data into a coherent,
satisfying theory of the mind and brain.
5.But Freud’s merits, such as they are, can’t entirely account for his endurance, and that brings me to my why-Freud-
isn't-dead thesis.
Q19. DIRECTIONS for question 19: The paragraph given below is followed by four summaries. Choose the option that best captures the
essence of the text.

Autobiographical (or as psychologists call it, episodic) memory is necessarily flawed. The colloquialisms used to describe it – “etched into my
brain,” “seared into my memory,” “if memory serves,” “never forget” – might emphasise its reliability. Psychologists who study the mysteries of
memory speak with a tellingly different lexicon. Transience, misattribution, binding failure and positive illusions – terms that point to the messiness
of recollection – present memory as it really is: a necessarily flawed reconstruction of past experience rather than a carbon copy retrieved from a
static cognitive archive. “Binding failures” which happen when memory latches onto an inaccurate detail and deems it true, create confusions
between events we actually experience and those we only think about or imagine. Our innate suggestibility tempts us to weave extraneous
details from subsequent events into the fabric of our original recollection. The gist remains (you know you landed in a helicopter in a desert amid
a frisson of danger) but, the specifics can blur into impressions that in some cases disappear altogether. It's not exactly a comforting thought, but
every time we return to the incident, we take a different route to reach it and, in turn, come home with a slightly different story.

a) Considerable research into the neurobiology of memory retrieval supports the idea that our recollections are inherently shaky even as the
mental architecture involves strong crystallised knowledge segregating compartments – this changing nature of a particular memory can be
attributed to “binding failure”.
b) While certain catchphrases emphasize the reliability of memory, psychologists think of memory as a murky, flawed reconstruction of past
experience – the mind never travels the same way twice while retrieving and recounting the past events because figments of our imagination bind
to and tend to colour our actual experiences.
c) Memories are formed in the brain as networks of neurons that fire when stimulated by an event: the more times the network is employed, the
more it fires, however, many fluid things such as perceptions and finer details of events get modified when we rethink about them.
d) If retrieving memory is a process – and recounting it a performance – then there are numerous ways its accuracy can be derailed and “binding
failure” is one of them.
Q20. DIRECTIONS for question 20: Five sentences related to a topic are given in the question below. Four of them
can be put together to form a meaningful and coherent short paragraph. Identify the odd one out. Choose its number as
your answer and key it in.

1.In short, to study Latin is to study history.

2.But his contemporary, Virgil, is majestic.
3.Horace can be a drag – like a bad weekend columnist, always wittering on about his garden and his cellar, except
when coming out with quotable drivel about how sweet it is to die in battle.
4.He set himself the most daunting task – giving Rome its own “Iliad” and “Odyssey”, in a single epic, while staying on
the right side of an emperor – and pulled it off.
5.Latin’s literature has stood the test of millennia: Ovid is diverting, Lucretius is stimulating, Cicero is riveting.
Q21. DIRECTIONS for questions 21 and 22: The sentences given in the following question, when properly sequenced, form a coherent
paragraph. Each sentence is labelled with a number. Decide on the proper order for the four sentences and key in the sequence of four
numbers as your answer, in the input box given below the question.

1.Without careful examination, it is not obvious what is keeping things on track.

2.Entropy ensues: in the absence of deliberate investment, relationships, institutions and collaborative enterprises can all too easily
deteriorate.
3.And if the policies designed to promote cooperation are costly – financially, politically, and bureaucratically – there is a temptation to
stop investing in them.
4.When success is not assessed in terms of a measurable gain but by the maintenance of a positive status quo (peace, continued
cooperation), the link between effort and success may be unobservable.
Q22. DIRECTIONS for questions 21 and 22: The sentences given in the following question, when properly sequenced,
form a coherent paragraph. Each sentence is labelled with a number. Decide on the proper order for the four sentences
and key in the sequence of four numbers as your answer, in the input box given below the question.

1.Now, a novel “reverse genomics” strategy has found a way to fish out some of these stealthy bacteria from fluids taken
from the human mouth and cultivate them in the lab.
2.But researchers have struggled to grow most of the microbes in the lab because of the complexity of mimicking their
natural environments.
3.It’s an advance that promises to clarify how they maintain health and ward off disease.
4.In the past decade, increasingly powerful genetic techniques have found hordes of microbial DNA in everything from the
human gut to a scoop of seawater.
Q23. DIRECTIONS for questions 23 and 24: The paragraph given below is followed by four summaries. Choose the option that best
represents the author’s primary position in the paragraph.

There are two ways our economies can grow, ecological economists point out: through technological change, or through more intensive use
of resources. Only the former, they say, is worth having. They are suspicious of GDP, a crude measure which does not take account of
resource depletion, unpaid work, and countless other factors. In its place they advocate more holistic approaches, such as the Genuine
Progress Indicator (GPI), a composite index that includes things like the cost of pollution, deforestation and car accidents. While GDP has
kept growing, global GPI per person peaked in 1978: by destroying our environment we are making ourselves poorer, not richer. The
solution, says Herman Daly, a former World Bank economist and eco-guru, is a "steady-state" economy, where the use of materials and
energy is held constant.

a) Ecological economists, who prefer technological change to resource exploitation for economic growth, recommend the GPI over the GDP
as a more holistic indicator of growth.
b) Ecological economists like Herman Daly feel that only a steady-state economy, where there is no increase in the use of materials and
energy, can increase a stagnant GPI.
c) GPI is a more holistic indicator of economic growth compared to the GDP as it deducts the cost of adverse influences like pollution from
the gains made in the economy.
d) Ecological economists advocate a steady-state economy, measured by GPI rather than GDP, where there is no increase in the usage of
resources or energy.
Q24. DIRECTIONS for questions 23 and 24: The paragraph given below is followed by four summaries. Choose the option that best
represents the author’s primary position in the paragraph.

Can photographers directly influence politics? The answer is a qualified ‘yes’. This qualification depends, in part, on the ability of
photographers to harness the power of bureaucracies, advocacy networks and epistemic communities to which they sometimes belong. It
also depends on the extent to which photographers can manage the contradictions inherent in the political process, be it those created by
bureaucratic constraints, concerns over the legitimacy of activists and the credibility of experts. None of this suggests that photographers
will not find their work ‘blown by the whims and loyalties of diverse communities’. But it encourages scholars engaged in the emerging field
of global visual politics to think of the diverse and sometimes influential roles that photographers can and do play in these policy
communities.

a) Photographers cannot directly influence politics unless scholars find a way of involving them in policy communities.
b) Photographers can influence a positive change in society subject to how influential they are in the communities they are a part of.
c) While a photographer’s work may not always relate to original intentions, it can embolden scholars to identify the former’s diverse
influence in a political process that could be suboptimal, at times.
d) Photographers risk their photos not being used as intended at times, but that shouldn’t stop them from trying to improve the political
process bogged down by bureaucracy and lack of experts.