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The question in this section is based on what is stated or implied in the passage given below. For the question, choose the option that most accurately and completely answers the question.
The words invention and Innovation are closely linked, but they are not interchangeable. The inventor is a genius who uses his intellect, imagination, time and resources to create something that does not exist. But this invention may or may not be of utility to the masses. It is the enterprising innovator who uses various resources, skills and time to make the invention available for use. The innovator might use the invention as it is, modifies it or even blend two or more inventions to make one marketable product. A great example is that of the iPhone which is a combination of various inventions. If an invention is the result of countless trials and errors, so can be the case with innovation. Not every attempt to make an invention is successful. Not every innovation sees the light of the day. Benjamin Franklin had the belief that success doesn‘t come without challenge, mistake, and in a few cases failure.
One of the world‘s most famous innovators, Steve Jobs says, ―Sometimes when you innovate, you make mistakes. It is best to admit them quickly and get on with improving your other innovations.‖ Thus, inventors and innovators have to be intrepid enough to take risks; consider failures as stepping stones and not stumbling blocks. Some inventions are the result of a keen observation or a simple discovery. The inventor of Velcro, also called the zipless zipper, is the Swiss engineer George de Mestral. He was hiking in the woods when he found burrs clinging to his clothes and his dog‘s fur. Back at home, he studied the burrs. He discovered that each burr was a collection of tiny hooks which made it cling on to another object. A few years later, he made and patented the strips of fabric that came to us like Velcro. The world of inventions and innovations is a competitive one. But the race does not end here; it is also prevalent in the case of getting intellectual property rights. There have been inventors who failed to get a single patent while there have been some who managed to amass numerous patents in their lifetime. Thomas Edison had 1,093 patents to his credit! We relate the telephone with Alexander Graham Bell. It is believed that around the same time, Antonio Meucci had also designed the telephone, but due to a lack of resources and various hardships, he could not proceed with the patent of his invention. It is also believed that Elisha Gray had made a design for the telephone and applied for the patent at the U.S. patent office on the same day as Graham Bell did. By sheer chance, Graham‘s lawyer‘s turn to file the papers came first. Hence, Graham was granted the first patent for the telephone. It is not easy, and at times almost impossible, for an inventor to be an innovator too. There are very few like Thomas Edison who graduated from being an incredible inventor to a successful manufacturer and businessman with brilliant marketing skills. While innovations that have helped to enhance the quality of life are laudable, equally laudable are the inventions that laid the foundation of these very innovations.
Which of the following texts from the passage clearly indicates failure?
Options
The world of inventions and innovations is a competitive one.
Not every innovation sees the light of the day.
Thus, inventors and innovators have to be intrepid enough to take risks;
None of the above
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Solution
Not every innovation sees the light of the day.
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In 1954, a Bombay economist named A.D. Shroff began a forum of free Enterprise, whose ideas on economic development were somewhat at odds with those then influentially articulated by the Planning Commission of the Government of India. Shroff complained against the 'indifference, if not discouragement, with which the state treated entrepreneurs.
At the same time as Shroff, but independently of him, a journalist named Philip Spratt was writing a series of essays in favour of free enterprise. Spratt was a Cambridge communist who was sent by the party in the 1920s to the foment revolution in the subcontinent. detected in the act, he spent many years in an Indian jail. The books he read in the prison, and his marriage to an Indian woman afterward, inspired a steady move rightwards. By the 1950s, he was editing a pro-American weekly from Banglore, called mysIndia. there he inveighed against the economic policies of the government of India. These, he said, treated the entrepreneur 'as a criminal who has dared to use his brain independently of the state to create wealth and give employment’. The state’s chief planner, P.C. Mahalanobis had surrounded himself with Western leftists and Soviet academicians, who reinforced his belief in 'rigid control by the government overall activities’. The result, said Spratt, would be `the smothering of free enterprise, a famine of consumer goods, and the tying down of millions of workers to soul-deadening techniques.'
The voices of men like Spratt and Shroff were drowned in the chorus of popular support for a model of heavy industrialization funded and directed by the governments. The 1950s were certainly not propitious times for free marketers in India. But from time to time their ideas were revived. After the rupee was devalued in 1966, there were some moves towards freeing the trade regime and hopes that the licensing system would also be liberalized. However, after Indira Gandhi split the Congress Party in 1969, her government took its `left turn’, nationalizing a fresh range of industries and returning to economic autarky.
The ideological shift of Philip Spratt to the right was caused by:
Direction: The passage given below is followed by a set of questions. Choose the most appropriate answer to each question.
It is a matter of life or death: that’s a concept that gets our attention, whether chuckling over it in a B-grade film or engrossed by it in an A-grade medical book such as this year’s Pulitzer Prize winner for nonfiction, The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer by Siddhartha Mukherjee. It isn’t hyperbole to call Emperor a literary masterpiece. The Pulitzer citation describes it as, “an elegant inquiry, at once clinical and personal, into the long history of an insidious disease that, despite treatment breakthroughs, still bedevils medical science.” “Elegant” is an apposite description of the New York-based oncologist’s prose, whether he is rephrasing Tolstoy: “Normal cells are identically normal; malignant cells become unhappily malignant in unique ways”; or explaining the book’s provocative title: “This book is a ‘biography’ in the truest sense of the word – an attempt to enter the mind of this immortal illness, to understand its personality, to demystify its behaviour”; or extrapolating, from cancer’s ability to mutate, into the realm of philosophy: “If we, as a species, are the ultimate product of Darwinian selection, then so, too, is this incredible disease that lurks inside us.” Mukherjee weaves together multiple stories about medical advances, doctors and scientists, and the patients who teach us something in the living or dying. Emperor is a historical account of cancer; we understand how cancer rose to prominence as a leading cause of death – as a direct result of human beings living longer now, and more likely to develop cancer. A greater understanding of the disease however comes with the caveat, the more you
know, the more aware you are of how much you don’t know. Tales related to surgery, with its inherent drama, has the edge on our medical reading lists. Some medical books fall into the Self Help category — one of the most successful genres in the publishing world today. While the genre can attract those looking to make a quick buck by peddling to people’s insecurities, there are some useful tomes too. Author Tim Parks in Teach Us to Sit Still shares how reading a famous self-help book, A Headache in the Pelvis helped with his chronic pelvic pain syndrome. Medical books deal with a subject close to our hearts — us, we, ourselves. Perhaps the ones we are most drawn to – thrillers aside – are those that give us a deeper insight into how the mind-body machine works, why we are sick, how we can get better — and, unhappily, sometimes, why we can’t.
Which of the following statements cannot be inferred from the passage?
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.
Immanuel's interest in dynamites influenced Alfred's inclination for working ___________.
Paragraph: A fundamental principle of pharmacology is that all drugs have multiple actions. Actions that are desirable in the treatment of disease are considered therapeutic, while those that are undesirable or pose risks to the patient are called "effects." Adverse drug effects range from the trivial, e.g., nausea or dry mouth, to the serious, e.g., massive gastrointestinal bleeding or thromboembolism; and some drugs can be lethal. Therefore, an effective system for the detection of adverse drug effects is an important component of the health care system of any advanced nation. Much of the research conducted on new drugs aims at identifying the conditions of use that maximize beneficial effects and minimize the risk of adverse effects.
The intent of drug labeling is to reflect this body of knowledge accurately so that physicians can properly prescribe the drug; or, if it is to be sold without prescription so that consumers can properly use the drug.
The current system of drug investigation in the United States has proved very useful and accurate in identifying the common side effects associated with new prescription drugs. By the time a new drug is approved by the Food and Drug Administration, its side effects are usually well described in the package insert for physicians. The investigational process, however, cannot be counted on to detect all adverse effects because of the relatively small number of patients involved in premarketing studies and the relatively short duration of the studies.
Animal toxicology studies are, of course, done prior to marketing in an attempt to identify any potential for toxicity, but negative results do not guarantee the safety of a drug in humans, as evidenced by such well-known examples as the birth deformities due to thalidomide.
This recognition prompted the establishment in many countries of programs to which physicians report adverse drug effects. The United States and other countries also send reports to an international program operated by the World Health Organization. These programs, however, are voluntary reporting programs and are intended to serve a limited goal: alerting a government or private agency to adverse drug effects detected by physicians in the course of practice. Other approaches must be used to confirm suspected drug reactions and to estimate incidence rates. These other approaches include conducting retrospective control studies; for example, the studies associating endometrial cancer with estrogen use, and systematic monitoring of hospitalized patients to determine the incidence of acute common side effects, as typified by the Boston Collaborative Drug Surveillance Program.
Thus, the overall drug surveillance system of the United States is composed of a set of information bases, special studies, and monitoring programs, each contributing in its own way to our knowledge about marketed drugs. The system is decentralized among a number of governmental units and is not administered as a coordinated function. Still, it would be inappropriate at this time to attempt to unite all of the disparate elements into a comprehensive surveillance program. Instead, the challenge is to improve each segment of the system and to take advantage of new computer strategies to improve coordination and communication.
The author is most probably leading up to a discussion of some suggestions about how to:
Paragraph: On the surface, the conquest of the Aztec empire by Herman Cortes is one of the most amazing military accomplishments in history. With a small fighting force numbering in the hundreds, Cortes led the Spanish explorers into victory against an Aztec population that many believe topped 21 million. In light of such a seemingly impossible victory, the obvious question is: how did a small group of foreign fighters manage to topple one of the world's strongest, wealthiest, and most successful military empires?
Several factors led to Cortes' success. First, the Spanish exploited animosity toward the Aztecs among rival groups and convinced thousands of locals to fight. In one account of a battle, it is recorded that at least 200,000 natives fought with Cortes. Next, the Spanish possessed superior military equipment in the form of European cannons, guns, and crossbows, leading to effective and efficient disposal of Aztec defenses. For example, Spanish cannons quickly defeated large Aztec walls that had protected the empire against big and less technically advanced armies.
Despite the Spanish advantages, the Aztecs probably could have succeeded in defending their capital city of Tenochtitlan had they leveraged their incredible population base to increase their army's size and ensured that no rogue cities would ally with Cortes. In order to accomplish this later goal, Aztec leader Motecuhzoma needed to send envoys to neighboring cities telling their inhabitants about the horrors of Spanish conquest and the inevitability of Spanish betrayal.
In addition, the Aztecs should have exploited the fact that the battle was taking place on their territory. No reason existed for the Aztecs to consent to a conventional battle, which heavily favored the Spanish. Motecuhzoma's forces should have thought outside the box and allowed Cortes into the city, only to subsequently use hundreds of thousands of fighters to prevent escape and proceed in surprise "door-to-door" combat. With this type of battle, the Aztecs would have largely thwarted Spanish technological supremacy. However, in the end, the superior weaponry of the Spanish, the pent-up resentment of Aztec rivals, the failure of Aztec diplomacy, and the lack of an unconventional Aztec war plan led to one of the most surprising military outcomes in the past one thousand years.
According to the passage, all of the following led to Cortes success except:
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 behaviour 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.
How is she different from some of the other wildlife photographers she meets?
The questions in this section are based on the passage. The questions are to be answered on the basis of what is stated or implied in the passage.
Under very early common law, all felonies were punishable by death. The perpetrators of the felony were hanged whether or not a homicide had been committed during the felony. Later, however, some felonies were declared be non-capital offences. The common law courts, in need of a deterrent to the use of deadly force in the course of these non-capital felonies, developed the "felony-murder" rule. The first formal statement of the rule stated: "Any killing by one in the commission of a felony is guilty of murder." The killing was a murder whether intentional or unintentional, accidental or mistaken. The usual requirement of malice was eliminated and the only criminal intent necessary was the intent to commit the particular underlying felony. All participants in the felony were guilty of murder-actual killer and non-killer confederates.
Proponents of the rule argued that it was justified because the felony demonstrated a lack of concern for human life by the commission of a violent and dangerous felony and that the crime was murder either because of a conclusive presumption of malice or simply by force of statutory definition.
Opponents of the rule describe it as a highly artificial concept and "an enigma wrapped in a riddle." They are quick to point out that the rule has been abandoned in England where it originated, abolished in India, severely restricted in Canada and a number of other commonwealth countries are unknown in continental Europe, and abandoned in Michigan. In reality, the real strength of the opponents' criticism stems from the bizarre and of times unfair results achieved when the felony-murder rule is applied mechanically. Defendants have been convicted under the rule where the killing was purely accidental, or the killing took place after the felony during the later flight from the scene; or a third party killed another (police officer killed a citizen or vice versa; or a victim died of a heart attack 15 -20 minutes after the robbery was over or the person killed was an accomplice in the felony).
Attacks on the rule have come from all directions with basically the same demand -reevaluate and abandon the archaic legal fiction; restrict and limit vicarious criminal liability; prosecute killers for murder, not non-killers; increase punishment for the underlying felony as a real deterrent, and initiate legislative modifications. With the unstable history of the felony -murder rule, including its abandonment by many jurisdictions in this country, the felony -murder rule is dying a slow but certain death.
According to the passage, opponents of the felony -murder rule have raised all of the following objections to the statute EXCEPT
Read the given passages and answer the question with the help of the information provided in the passage.
King Solomon was celebrated for his wisdom. The Queen of the Sheba once paid a visit to his court. She was very much impressed by his wealth and grandeur. She had also heard of his uncanny ability to solve the most difficult puzzles which she meant to test. She showed Solomon two garlands of flowers, one in the right-hand and the other in the left and asked which one was real. The courtiers were puzzled. Both the garlands looked the same. Solomon could not say a word. The Queen felt triumphant. Solomon soon ordered that the windows be opened. A number of bees flew into the hall from the garden and settled on the garland in the right-hand. "The flowers in the right-hand are real", said Solomon. The Queen was greatly impressed with his wisdom.
"The Queen felt triumphant." This indicates that she wanted to ......... Solomon.
Read the given passages and answer the question with the help of the information provided in the passage.
Teaching, more even than most other professions, has been transformed during the last hundred years from a small, highly skilled profession concerned with a minority of the population, to a large and important branch of public service. The profession has a great and honourable tradition, extending from the dawn of history until recent times, but any teacher in the modern world who allows himself to be inspired by the ideals of his predecessors is likely to be made sharply aware that it is not his function to teach what he thinks, but to instill such beliefs and prejudices as are thought useful by his employers.
What has transformed teaching into an important branch of public service is
Read the given passages and answer the question with the help of the information provided in the passage.
Thomas Edison was born in 1847 In Milan, Ohio. He was nicknamed 'Al' at an early age. At age 11, Edison moved to Michigan where he spent the remainder of his childhood. Thomas Edition struggled at school but learned to love reading and conducting experiments from his mother who taught him at home. At age 15, Edison became a 'tramp together', sending and rece1vrng messages via Morse code, an electronically-conveyed alphabet using different clicks for each letter. In 1870, Edison moved to New York City and improved the stock ticker. He soon formed his own company that manufactured the new stock tickers. He also began working on the telegraph and invented a version that could send our messages at once. Edison then moved with his family to New Jersey where he started his famous laboratory. In 1877, Edison, with help from 'muckers', individuals from around the world looking to make fortune in America, invented the phonograph. The phonograph was a machine that recorded and played back sounds. In 1878, Edison invented the light bulb as well as the power grid system, which could generate electricity and deliver it to homes through a network of wires. He subsequently started the Edison Electric Light Company in October of 1878. Edison continued to invent or improve products and make significant contributions to X-ray technology, storage batteries and motion pictures (movies). Edison was a prolific inventor, holding 1,093 US patents in his name, as well as many patents in the United Kingdom, France, and Germany.
A phonograph is most similar to
