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प्रश्न
Read the given passage carefully and answer the questions given after the passage:
1. Often, we passionately pursue matters that in the future appear to be contradictory to our real intention or nature; and triumph is followed by remorse or regret. There are numerous examples of such a trend in the annals of history and contemporary life.
2. Alfred Nobel was the son of Immanuel Nobel, an inventor who experimented extensively with explosives. Alfred too carried out research and experiments with a large range of chemicals; he found new methods to blast rocks for the construction of roads and bridges; he was engaged in the development of technology and different weapons; his life revolved around rockets and cannons and gun powder. The ingenuity of the scientist brought him enough wealth to buy the Bofors armament plant in Sweden.
3. Paradoxically, Nobel's life was a busy one yet he was lonely; and as he grew older, he began suffering from guilt of having invented the dynamite that was being used for destructive purposes. He set aside a huge part of his wealth to institute Nobel Prizes. Besides honouring men and women for their extraordinary achievements in physics, chemistry, medicine and literature, he wished to honour people who worked for the promotion of peace.
4. It's strange that the very man whose name was closely connected with explosives and inventions that helped in waging wars willed a large part of his earnings for the people who work for the promotion of peace and the benefit of mankind. The Nobel Peace Prize is intended for a person who has accomplished the best work for fraternity among nations, for abolition or reduction of war and for promotion of peace.
5. Another example that comes to one's mind is that of Albert Einstein. In 1939, fearing that the Nazis would win the race to build the world's first atomic bomb, Einstein urged President Franklin D Roosevelt to launch an American programme on nuclear research. The matter was considered and a project called the Manhattan Project was initiated. The project involved intense nuclear research the construction of the world's first atomic bomb. All this while, Einstein had the impression that the bomb would be used to protect the world from the Nazis. But in 1945, when Hiroshima was bombed to end World War II, Einstein was deeply grieved and he regretted his endorsement of the need for nuclear research.
6. He also stated that had he known that the Germans would be unsuccessful in making the atomic bomb, he would have probably never recommended making one. In 1947, Einstein began working for the cause of disarmament. But, Einstein's name still continues to be linked with the bomb.
Man's fluctuating thoughts, changing opinions, varying opportunities keep the mind in a state of flux. Hence, the paradox of life: it's certain that nothing is certain in life.
The Manhattan Project was initiated _____________.
पर्याय
in honour of Einstein.
to carry out nuclear research.
to protect the Nazis.
to bomb Hiroshima.
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उत्तर
to carry out nuclear research.
APPEARS IN
संबंधित प्रश्न
In Mann Joseph's debut novel Serious Men, the protagonist, Ayyan Mani, is a U1, scheming Dalit-Buddhist who almost gets away with passing off his partially deaf son, Adi, as a prodigy, a genius who can recite the first 1,000 prime numbers. The garb of satire where almost every character cuts a sorry figure gives the author the licence to offer one' of the most bleak and pessimistic portrayals of urban Dalits. Despite his savage portrayal of Dalit (and female) characters-or perhaps because of it? Serious Men has won critical appreciation front a cross-section of readers and critics.
At a time when a formidable body of Dalit literature writing by Dalits about Dalit lives has created a distinct space for itself, how and why is it that a novel such as Serious Men, with its gleefully skewed portrayal of an angry Dalit man, manages to win such accolades? In American literature and particularly in the case of African-American authors and characters these issues of representation have been debated for decades. But in India, the sustained refusal to address issues related to caste in everyday life and the continued and unquestioned predominance of a Brahminical stranglehold over cultural production have led us to a place where non-Dalit portrayal of Dalits in literature, cinema and art remains the norm.
The journey of modem Dalit literature has been a difficult one. But even though it has not necessarily enjoyed the support of numbers, we must engage with what Dalits are writing not simply for reasons of authenticity, or as a concession to identity politics, but simply because of the aesthetic value of this body of writing, and for the insights it offers into the human condition. In a society that is still largely unwilling to recognise Dalits as equal, rights bearing human beings, in a society that is inherently indifferent to the everyday violence against Dalits, in a society unwilling to share social and cultural resources equitably with Dalits unless mandated by law (as seen in the anti-reservation discourse), Dalit literature has the potential to humanise non-Dalits and sensitise them to a world into which they have no insight. But before we can understand what Dalit literature is seeking to accomplish, we need first to come to terms with the stranglehold of non-Dalit representations of Dalits.
Rohinton Miary's (A Fine Balance), published 15 years ago, chronicles the travails of two Dalit characters-uncle Ishvar and nephew Omprakash-who migrate to Bombay and yet cannot escape brutality. While the present of the novel is set at the time of the Emergency, Ishvar's father Dukhy belongs to the era of the anti-colonial nationalist movement. During one of Dukhi's visits to the town, he chances upon a meeting of the Indian National Congress, where speakers spread the "Mahatma's message regarding the freedom struggle, the struggle for justice," and wiping out "the disease of untouchability; ravaging us for centuries, denying dignity to our fellow human beings."
Neither in the 1940s, where the novel's past is set, nor in the Emergency period of the 1970swhen the minds and bodies Ishvar and Omprakash, are savaged by the state-do we find any mention of a figure like BR Ambedkar or of Dalit movements. In his `nationalist' understanding of modem Indian history, Mistry seems to have not veered too far from the road charted by predecessors like Mulk Raj Anand and Premchand. Sixty years after Premchand, Mistry's literary imagination seems stuck in the empathy-realism mode, trapping Dalits in abjection. Mistry happily continues the broad stereotype of the Dalit as a passive sufferer, without consciousness of caste politics.
Which of the following is the closest description of the central argument of this passage:
Direction : The passage given below is followed by a set of question. Choose the most appropriate answer to each question.
With an aim to check flow of black money and evasion of taxes through stock market, market regulator SEBI has decided to impose a hefty penalty on brokers facilitating such transactions from tomorrow. The regulator recently came across a loophole in its existing regulations, which was being abused by stockbrokers for facilitating tax evasion and flow of black money through fictitious trades in lieu of hefty commissions. To remove this anomaly, SEBI has asked stock exchanges to penalize the brokers transferring trades from one trading account to another after terming them as ‘punching’ errors. The penalty could be as high as 2% of the value of shares traded in the ‘wrong’ account, as per new rules coming into effect from August 1. In a widely-prevalent, but secretly operated practice, the people looking to evade taxes approach certain brokers to show losses in their stock trading accounts, so that their earnings from other sources are not taxed. These brokers are also approached by people looking to show their black money as earnings made through stock market. In exchange for a commission, generally 5-10% of the total amount, these brokers show desired profits or losses in the accounts of their clients after transferring trades from other accounts, created for such purposes only. The brokers generally keep conducting both ‘buy’ and ‘sell’ trades in these fictitious accounts so that they can be used accordingly when approached by such clients. In the market parlance, these deals are known as profit or loss shopping. While profit is purchased to show black money as earnings from the market, the losses are purchased to avoid tax on earnings from other sources. As the transfer of trades is not allowed from one account to the other in general cases, the brokers show the trades conducted in their own fictitious accounts as ‘punching’ errors. The regulations allow transfer of trades in the cases of genuine errors, as at times ‘punching’ or placing of orders can be made for the wrong client. To check any abuse of this rule, SEBI has asked the bourses to put in place a robust mechanism to identify whether the errors are genuine or not. At the same time, the bourses have been asked to levy penalty on the brokers transferring their non-institutional trades from one account to the other. The penalty would be 1% of the traded value in wrong account if such trades are up to 5% of the broker’s total non-institutional turnover in a month. The penalty would be 2% of trade value in wrong account if such transactions exceed 5% of total monthly turnover in a month.
What is the central idea of the passage?
Answer the question based on the following information. Indicate which of the statements given with that particular question consistent with the description of unreasonable man in the passage below.
Unreasonableness is a tendency to do socially permissible things at the wrong time. The unreasonable man is the sort of person who comes to confide in you when you are busy. He serenades his beloved when she is ill. He asks a man who has just lost money by paying a bill for a friend to pay a bill for him. He invites a friend to go for a ride just after the friend has finished a long car trip. He is eager to offer services wh1ch are not wanted, but which cannot be politely refused. If he is present at an arbitration, he stirs up dissension between the two parties, who were really anxious to agree. Such is the unreasonable man.
The unreasonable man tends to
The summer he turned 82, my father lost his stories. He was still vibrant, garrulous and energetic, and initially, none of us noticed that his anecdotes were getting repetitive, that he was forgetting names and places, that he was confusing times and references. A man of many narratives, we listened to his oft-repeated tales, sometimes with feigned patience and sometimes with visible impatience.
Till the day the stories stopped. The words dried out. The memories disappeared. The change happened so gradually that its final suddenness took us, his immediate family by complete surprise. And when the stories dried up, the energy seemed to drain away from his soul. This loss of energy was immediately and visibly apparent as this was one trait, above all others that characterized my father.
A child of Partition, Baba had left his native Barisal in present-day Bangladesh, on the eve of this momentous event in 1947, at the age of 14. My grandmother, widowed since the birth of my father, her youngest son, decided to leave their sprawling homestead with extensive farming lands and immigrate to the yet-to-be formed republic of India, along with her four other sons. Thus, family lore tells us, she liquidated some of her assets, packed her immediate family and necessary belongings onto a steamer and sailed into the teeming, seething city of Calcutta to set up a new life.
A seminal rupture in the subcontinent, Partition had wreaked havoc among countless families, uprooted and flung far and wide without any recourse. Baba often became that recourse – his contribution making a significant difference to families struggling to survive with some degree of dignity. It seemed his experience of early loss and deprivation had in a strangely converse way, endowed him with a generosity of soul that I have yet to encounter in another person.
It was thus shocking to see this extraordinary man with the mind, heart and soul of a Colossus shorn of his spirit.
In an effort to revive his flagging interest, I urged him to start writing down stories from his life. I bought him a notebook and with great flourish announced his assignment.
Stories were my particular stock in trade. I’d nurtured an early passion for storytelling and story writing into a teaching career focussed on literacy. I used specific strategies to build a writing habit in my students, centered on the belief that we all have stories to tell. As the children became confident and joyful storytellers, their acquisition of benchmarked literacy skills outstripped that of their peers.
Could I use these same strategies to draw the forgotten stories from Baba? Would these forgotten stories, in turn, help him reconstruct a sense of self?
[Extracted, with edits and revisions, from: “Her father’s memories were slipping away. She made him tell stories so that he could hold on to them”, by Ranu Bhattacharyya, Scroll, 2019.]
What does the word ‘garrulous’ as used in the passage mean?
The old woman didn’t like the look or sound of the kid. She scowled at her husband. ‘Where did you pick up this kitten from? Why do we need her?’ When the old man told her she was a goat kid, she picked her up and exclaimed in amazement: ‘Yes, she is a goat kid!’
All night, they went over the story of how the kid had come into their hands.
That same night the old lady gave the goat kid that resembled a kitten a nickname: Poonachi. She once had a cat by the same name. In memory of that beloved cat, this goat kid too was named Poonachi. They had acquired her without spending a penny. Now they had to look after her somehow. Her husband had told her a vague story about meeting a demon who looked like Bakasuran and receiving the kid from him as a gift. She wondered if he could have stolen it from a goatherd. Someone might come looking for it tomorrow. Maybe her husband had told her the story only to cover up his crime?
The old woman was not used to lighting lamps at night. The couple ate their evening meal and went to bed when it was still dusk. That night, though, she took a large earthen lamp and filled it with castor oil extracted the year before. There was no cotton for a wick. She tore off a strip from a discarded loincloth of her husband’s and fashioned it into a wick.
She looked at the kid under the lamplight in that shed as though she were seeing her own child after a long time. There was no bald spot or bruise anywhere on her body. The kid was all black. As she stared at the lamp, her wide-open eyes were starkly visible. There was a trace of fatigue on her face. The old woman thought the kid looked haggard because she had not been fed properly. She must be just a couple of days old. A determination that she must somehow raise this kid to adulthood took root in her heart.
She called the old man to come and see the kid. She looked like a black lump glittering in the lamplight in that pitch-black night. He pulled fondly at her flapping ears and said, ‘Aren’t you lucky to come and live here?’
It had been a long time since there was such pleasant chit-chat between the couple. Because of the kid’s sudden entry into their lives, they ended up talking a while about the old days.
[Extracted, with edits and revisions, from Poonachi, or the Story of a Black Goat, by Perumal Murugan, translated by N. Kalyan Raman, Context, 2018.]
Why did the old woman name the goat kid ‘Poonachi’?
Read the passage and answer the question based on it.
Civilization is basically a vital kind of grouping. Without civilizations, the world as we know it would not be. Civilizations have different qualities than regular groups of people such as nomads. For example, a civilization develops surpluses of things which helps the people be a stable community. These surpluses also create the construction and growth of cities and help develop secure, formal states. The government is also present in civilizations. One very important part of a civilization is an advanced writing method. A civilization can only be complete with all of these factors, or it will just fall apart. Nomads are nowhere close to being a civilization even though sometimes groups of nomads have good technology. The words 'culture' and 'civilization' have been often used synonymously, though they have clearly defined meanings differentiating them. 'Civilization' means the betterment of ways of living, making Nature bend to fulfill the needs of humankind. It includes also organizing societies into politically well-defined groups working collectively for improved conditions of life in matters of food, dress, communication, and so on. Thus a group considers itself as civilized, while others were looked down upon as barbarians. This has led to wars and holocausts, resulting in the mass destruction of human beings. What are the good parts of our civilization? First and foremost there are order and safety. If today I have a quarrel with another man, I do not get beaten merely because I am physically weaker and he can kick me down. I go to law, and the law will decide as fairly as it can between the two of us. Thus in disputes between man and man right has taken the place of might. Moreover, the law protects me from robbery and violence. Nobody may come and break into my house, steal my goods or run off with my children. Of course, there are burglars, but they are very rare, and the law punishes them whenever it catches them. It is difficult for us to realize how much this safety means. Without safety, these higher activities of mankind which make up civilization could not go on. The inventor could not invent, the scientist find out or the artist make beautiful things. Hence, order and safety, although they are not themselves civilization are things without which civilization would be impossible. They are as necessary to our civilization as the air we breathe is to us, and we have grown so used to them that we do not notice them any more than we notice the air. Another great achievement of our civilization is that today civilized men are largely free from the fear of pain. They still fall ill, but illness is no longer the terrible thing it used to be... Not only do men and women enjoy better health; they live longer than they ever did before, and they have a much better chance of growing up... Thirdly, our civilization is more secure than any that have gone before it. This is because it is much more widely spread... Previous civilizations were specialized and limited, they were like oases in a desert.
The third merit of the present civilization, according to the author, is:
Read the given passage carefully and attempt the questions that follow.
MY LOVE OF NATURE, goes right back to my childhood, to the times when I stayed on, my grandparents' farm in Suffolk. My father was in the armed forces, so we were always moving and didn't have a home base for any length of time, but I loved going there. I think it was my grandmother who encouraged me more than anyone: she taught me the names of wild flowers and got me interested in looking at the countryside, so it seemed obvious to go on to do Zoology at University.
I didn't get my first camera until after I'd graduated, when I was due to go diving in Norway and needed a method of recording the sea creatures I would find there. My father didn't know anything about photography, but he bought me an Exacta, which was really quite a good camera for the time, and I went off to take my first pictures of sea anemones and starfish. I became keen very quickly, and learned how to develop and print; obviously I didn't have much money in those days, so I did more black and white photography than colour, but it was all still using the camera very much as a tool to record what I found both by diving and on the shore. I had no ambition at all to be a photographer then, or even for some years afterwards.
Unlike many of the wildlife photographers of the time, I trained as a scientist and therefore my way of expressing myself is very different. I've tried from the beginning to produce pictures that are always biologically correct. There are people who will alter things deliberately: you don't pick up sea creatures from the middle of the shore and take them down to attractive pools at the bottom of the shore without knowing you're doing it. In so doing you're actually falsifying the sort of seaweeds they live on and so on, which may seem unimportant, but it is actually changing the natural surroundings to make them prettier. Unfortunately, many of the people who select pictures are looking for attractive images and, at the end of the day, whether it's truthful or not doesn't really matter to them. It's important to think about the animal first, and there are many occasions when I've not taken a picture because it would have been too disturbing. Nothing is so important that you have to get that shot; of course, there are cases when it would be very sad if you didn't, but it's not the end of the world. There can be a lot of ignorance in people's behavior towards wild animals and it's a problem that more and more people are going to wild places: while some animals may get used to cars, they won't get used to people suddenly rushing up to them. The sheer pressure of people, coupled with the fact that there are increasingly fewer places where no-one else has photographed, means that over the years, life has become much more difficult for the professional wildlife photographer.
Nevertheless, wildlife photographs play a very important part in educating people about what is out there and what needs conserving. Although photography can be an enjoyable pastime, as it is to many people, it is also something that plays a very important part in educating young and old alike. Of the qualities it takes to make a good wildlife photographer, patience is perhaps the most obvious -you just have to be prepared to sit it out. I'm actually more patient now because I write more than ever before, and as long as I've got a bit of paper and a pencil, I don't feel I'm wasting my time. And because I photograph such a wide range of things, even if the main target doesn't appear I can probably find something else to concentrate on instead.
Why is she more patient now?
Read the passage and answer the question following it
Artists should treat their art as art and take the process of making it as seriously as anyone takes their chosen profession. Great skill and insight are required in order to create truly original art. Transforming an idea or concept into a technically thought-provoking or emotion-arousing work of art in any medium is a talent that few people possess. And there you have the "purist's vision."
Now if an artist wants to create art and never sell it, then he or she never has to worry about how to price it. That artist can afford to be a "purist." as you put it, produce art free of any encumbrances or concerns about what the art world or anyone else might think, and avoid "prostituting" or "debasing" that art by placing dollar values on it." But if you're an artist who wants to sell your art or who has to sell it in order to survive as an artist, you must use whatever tools are available to figure out how much it's worth and how best to sell it.
Let's say you're just starting out as an artist, you have little or no experience showing or selling your work, and in a period of two minutes, you produce a pencil drawing on a piece of paper. You view this drawing as highly significant in your evolution as an artist and rank its creation as the single most important creative moment of your life.
Consequently, you put a price of $20, 000 on it because only for that amount of money will you agree to part with such an important work of art. This is a "purist's vision" approach to pricing as opposed to a "realities of the marketplace" approach. From a business standpoint, you'll have an extremely difficult time selling your drawing, as you won't be able to justify the $20,000 price to real art buyers in the real art world. You have no track record of selling artin that price range, and you have few or no shows, critical reviews, or supporting data from outside sources indicating that your art has that kind of value or collectibility in the marketplace. The overwhelming majority of art buyers who have $20,000to spend look for works of art by established artists with documented track records of showing and selling art in that price range.
Your drawing is still highly significant to you, but what someone is willing to pay for it on the open market is a matter for art buyers to decide. You can price it however you wish, but you can never force anyone to buy it. That's the way the art business works. So if you want to sell it, you have to figure out what dollar amount someone is likely to pay for it on the open market and then price it at that amount. But the tale of your drawing does not end here.
The art world may, one agree with you that the product of your two-minute moment precipitates a major transformational turning point in your career, and is well worth a $20,000 asking price, but you're going to have to prove first. Aspects of that drawing will have to be reflected in your art from the moment you created it onwards, the art world will have to recognize your art both critically and from the marketing standpoints, and you will have to successfully produce, show, and sell for many years. Then one day, when your first retrospective exhibition opens at the Four-Star Museum of Art, that drawing will hang framed and captioned as the first inspiration for all subsequent work. The art world will then understand and respect its significance, and a serious collector may well be willing to pay an extraordinary price to own this historically important document of your career.
Returning for a moment to the concept of a purist artist who creates art and never sells it, sooner or later (hopefully later), that purist will pass on and leave behind a body of work. Unless that artist leaves specific instructions in his or her will for that body of work to be destroyed, it will become subject to those market forces that the artist strived for a lifetime to avoid. At the very least, it'll have to be appraised for tax, donation, or inheritance purposes. In most cases, it eventually comes onto the market either through a probable sale, an auction, or as represented by a dealer, gallery, or family member. The moral of the story is that one way or another, someone somewhere at some point in time will use tried and true methods to realistically price and either sell, donate, trade or otherwise transact any work of art that comes onto the market in any way, shape, or form. I hope that that person will be you, the artist and that you'll price your art according to what the market will bear, sell plenty of it, and have a long and rewarding career. Answer the following question indicating your option for question:
From the point of view of the purist, the irony as far as pricing art is concerned is that:
- a piece from his collection is eventually sold at the same price that he had estimated it to be its real worth years earlier
- his art is subjected to the same market forces against which he strove his entire life
- "realities of the marketplace" is a concept that negates the very attributes that we associate with art-whim, fancy and imagination.
The question in this section is based on the passage. The question is to be answered on the basis of what is stated or implied in the passage.
The Constitution of the United States protects both property rights and freedom of speech. At times these rights conflict. Resolution then requires a determination as to the type of property involved. If the property is private and not open to the general public, the owner may absolutely deny the exercise of the right of free speech thereon. On the other hand, if public land is at issue, the First Amendment protections of expression are applicable. However, the exercise of free speech thereon is not absolute. Rather it is necessary to determine the appropriateness of the forum. This requires that consideration be given to a number of factors including character and normal use of the property, the extent to which it is open to the public, and the number and types of persons who frequent it. If the forum is clearly public or clearly private, the resolution of the greater rights is relatively straight forward.
In the area of quasi-public property, balancing these rights has produced a dilemma. This is the situation when a private owner permits the general public to use his property. When persons seek to use the land for passing out handbills or picketing, how is a conflict between property rights and freedom of expression resolved?
The precept that a private property owner surrenders his rights in proportion to the extent to which he opens up his property to the public is not new. In 1675, Lord Chief Justice Hale wrote that when private property is “affected with a public interest, it ceases to be private.” Throughout the development of AngloAmerican law, the individual has never possessed absolute dominion over property. Land becomes clothed with a public interest when the owner devotes his property to a use in which the public has an interest. In support of this position the chairman of the board of the Wilde Lake Shopping Centre in Columbia, Maryland said:
The only real purpose and justification of any of these centres are to serve the people in the area -not the merchants, not the developers, not the architects. The success or failure of a regional shopping centre will be measured by what it does for the people it seeks to serve.
These doctrines should be applied when accommodation must be made between a shopping centre owner’s private property rights and the public’s right to free expression. It is hoped that when the Court is asked to balance these conflicting rights it will keep in mind what Justice Black said in 1945: “When we balance the constitutional rights of owners of property against those of the people to enjoy (First Amendment) freedom(s) ......... we remain mindful of the fact that the latter occupy a preferred position.”
In which one of the following cases would the owner of the property probably be most free to restrict the freedom of speech?
Read the given passages and answer the question with the help of the information provided in the passage.
One of South America's mysteries is Easter Island. Easter Island, also called Rapa Nui and Isla de Pascua, 3600 Ion (2,237mi) west of Chile, is a volcanic island with an interesting and partly unknown history. The island was named by the Dutch explorer Jacob Roggeveen because he encountered it on Easter Sunday 1722. He was the first European to find the island. The official name of the island, Isla de Pascua, means Easter Island in Spanish. This island is famous because of the approximately 887 huge statues which were found there. The statues consist of heads and complete torsos, the largest of which weight 84 tons! These monuments, called moai, were carved out of compressed volcanic ash, called tuff, which was found at a quarry ar a place called Rano Raraku. Statues are still being found. Some of the monuments were left only half-carved. Nobody knows why Rano Raraku was abandoned. It is thought that the statues were carved by the ancestors of the modern Polynesian inhabitants. But, the purpose of the statues and the reason they have abandoned remain mysteries.
Why isn't the exact number of statues known?
