1)
WHAT HAPPENS TO OUR BRAINS AS WE AGE
What happens to our
brains as we age is of crucial importance not just to science but to public
policy. By 2030, for example, 72 million people in the US will be over 65,
double the figure in 2000 and their average life expectancy will likely have
edged above 20 years. However, this demographic time-bomb would be much less
threatening if the elderly were looked upon as intelligent contributors to
society rather than as dependants in long-term decline.
A. The
idea that we get dumber as we grow older is just a myth, according to brain
research that will encourage anyone old enough to know better.
B. It
is time we rethink what we mean by the ageing mind before our false assumptions
result in decisions and policies that marginalize the old or waste precious
public resources to re-mediate problems that do not exist.
C. Many
of the assumptions scientists currently make about ‘cognitive decline’ are
seriously flawed and, for the most part, formally invalid.
D. Using
computer models to simulate young and old brains, Ramscar and his colleagues
found they could account for the decline in test scores simply by factoring in
experience
2)
THREATS TO INSURANCE INDUSTRY
The better behaviour
resulting from smart devices is just one threat to the insurance industry.
Conventional risk pools (for home or car insurance, for example) are shrinking
as preventable accidents decline, leaving the slow-footed giants of the
industry at risk. Business is instead moving to digital-native insurers, many
of which are offering low premiums to those willing to collect and share their
data. Yet the biggest winners could be tech companies rather than the firms
that now dominate the industry. Insurance is increasingly reliant on the use of
technology to change behaviour; firms act as helicopter parents to
policyholders, warning of impending harm—slow down; reduce your sugar intake;
call the plumber—the better to reduce unnecessary payouts.
The growing
mountain of personal data available to individuals and, crucially, to firms is
giving those with the necessary processing power the ability to distinguish
between low-risk and high-risk individuals.
Cheap sensors and the
tsunami of data they generate can improve our lives; blackboxes in cars can
tell us how to drive more carefully and wearable devices will nudge us toward
healthier lifestyles.
Yet this sort of
relationship relies on trust, and the Googles and Apples of the world, on which
consumers rely day-by-day and hour-by-hour, may be best placed to win this
business.
The uncertainty that
underpins the need for insurance is now shrinking thanks to better insights
into individual risks.
3)
THE DEATH PENALTY
The expenditure of
time, money and sparse judicial and prosecutorial resources is often justified
by claims of a powerful deterrent message embodied in the ultimate punishment-
the death penalty. But studies repeatedly suggest that there is no meaningful
deterrent effect associated with the death penalty and further, any deterrent
impact is no doubt greatly diluted by the amount of time that inevitably passes
between the time of the conduct and the punishment. In 2010, the average time
between sentencing and execution in the United States averaged nearly 15
years.
A.
A single federal death penalty case
in Philadelphia was found to cost upwards of $10 million — eight times higher
than the cost of trying a death eligible case where prosecutors seek only life
imprisonment.
B.
The ethics of the issue aside, it is
questionable whether seeking the death penalty is ever worth the time and
resources that it takes to sentence someone to death.
C.
Apart from delaying justice, the
death penalty diverts resources that could be used to help the victims’
families heal.
D.
A much more effective deterrent
would be a sentence of life imprisonment imposed close in time to the crime.
4)
A POOR MONSOON
The Indian
Meteorological Department (IMD) has come out with the dismaying prediction that
the southwest monsoon this year will be below normal. If this prognosis holds
true, it may mar the prospects of redeeming the rabi crop output losses through
bumper harvests in the later kharif season. India's farm sector has certainly
acquired a degree of resilience when it comes to the monsoon - as reflected in
the positive growth numbers in all the weak monsoon years since 2009. However,
monsoon rainfall and its distribution still remain crucial.
A.
They impact supplies and prices of
most farm commodities, especially coarse cereals, pulses, oilseeds, vegetables,
fruit and livestock products, as well as the rural sector demand for consumer
goods.
B.
A poor monsoon and subsequent food
inflation might well throw off the Reserve Bank of India's schedule for rate
cuts.
C.
Nevertheless, the first stage
monsoon forecast of the IMD should normally be taken with a pinch of salt, as
the weather agency's accuracy record on this count is none too inspiring.
D.
The monsoon’s behavior this year
seems to bear out the notion that climate change is affecting the Indian
monsoon and altering its rainfall calendar.
5)
BETTER WAGE LAWS AND UNION CLOUT
By calling for
exempting unionized businesses from the minimum wage, unions are creating more
incentives for employers to favor unionized workers over the non-unionized
sort. Such exemptions strengthen their power. This is useful because for all
the effort unions throw at raising the minimum wage, laws for better pay have
an awkward habit of undermining union clout.
A.
High rates of unionization make
minimum-wage rules unnecessary as collaborative wage setting achieves the
flexibility goals of a low minimum wage and the fairness goals of a high one.
B.
Workers who have no real alternative
to employment in the unregulated shadows of the labor market are even more
vulnerable to exploitation and abuse than workers with the legal right to take
low wages.
C.
The labor ethos of worker solidarity
seems hollow if non-union workers are underpriced by union workers and left
unemployed or scrambling for unauthorized work.
D.
Once employers are obliged to pay
the same minimum wage to both unionized and non-unionized labor, workers often
see less reason to pay the dues to join a union.
6)
CHOICE OF A MAJOR
The premise that the
choice of major amounts to choosing a career path rests on the faulty notion
that the major is important for its content, and that the acquisition of that
content is valuable to employers. But information is fairly easy to acquire and
what is acquired in 2015 will be obsolete by 2020. What employers want are
basic but difficult-to-acquire skills. When they ask students about their
majors, it is usually not because they want to assess the applicants’ mastery
of the content, but rather because they want to know if the students can talk
about what they learned. They care about a potential employee’s abilities:
writing, researching, quantitative, and analytical skills.
A.
As students flock to the two or
three majors they see as good investments, professors who teach in those majors
are overburdened, and the majors themselves become more formulaic and less
individualized.
B.
Often it is the art historians and
anthropology majors, for example, who, having marshaled the abilities of
perspective, breadth, creativity, and analysis, have moved a company or project
or vision forward.
C.
Furthermore, the link between
education and earnings is notoriously fraught, with cause and effect often
difficult to disentangle.
D.
A vocational approach to education
eviscerates precisely the qualities that are most valuable about it:
intellectual curiosity, creativity and critical thinking.
7)
OIL PRICES AND GLOBAL GROWTH
Normally, falling oil
prices would boost global growth. This time, though, matters are less clear
cut. The big economic question is whether lower prices reflect weak demand or
have been caused by a surge in the supply of crude. If weak demand is the
culprit, that is worrying: it suggests the oil price is a symptom of weakening
growth. If the source of weakness is financial (debt overhangs and so on), then
cheaper oil may not boost growth all that much: consumers may simply use the
gains to pay down their debts. Indeed, in some countries, cheaper oil may even
make matters worse by increasing the risk of deflation.
A.
An energy-induced drop in prices,
though good for consumer purchasing power, risks reinforcing expectations of
lower inflation overall; it is part of the threat’s pernicious nature that such
expectations easily become self-fulfilling.
B.
The International Energy Agency, an
oil importers’ club, said it expects global demand to rise by just 700,000
barrels a day (b/d) this year, 200,000 b/d below its forecast only last month.
C.
On balance, energy consumers win and
energy producers and exporting countries lose with falling oil prices.
D.
On the other hand, if plentiful
supply is driving prices down, that is potentially better news: cheaper oil
should eventually boost spending in the world’s biggest economies.
8)
16TH CENTURY EUROPE
The 16th century in
Europe was a great century of change. The humanists and artists of the
Renaissance would help characterize the age as one of individualism and
self-creativity. Humanists such as Petrarch helped restore the dignity of
mankind while men like Machiavelli injected humanism into politics. When all is
said and done, the Renaissance helped to secularize European society.
A.
The year 1543 can be said to have
marked the origin of the Scientific Revolution, with Copernicus publishing De
Revolutionibus and setting in motion a wave of scientific advance.
B.
The century witnessed the growth of
royal power, the appearance of centralized monarchies and the discovery of new
lands.
C.
The very powerful notion that man
makes his own history and destiny took root.
D.
In the meantime, urbanization
continued unabated as did the growth of universities.
9)
IDEOLOGICAL TAMING
As democratic nation
states reorient themselves to being accountable to global financial markets,
non-democratic bodies such as the World Trade Organization, and trade
agreements such as General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade and Trade in Services
Agreement, they will necessarily become less responsive to the aspirations of
their own citizens. With overt repression not always the most felicitous or
cost-effective policy option, it has become imperative to find ways and means
to ideologically tame the economically excluded. This is critical because
growing discontent could lead to political instability.
A.
This is where behavioral economics
in monitoring and ‘nudging’ the behavior of the financial elite comes in.
B.
Hence the new focus on the minds and
behavior of the poor.
C.
Ergo the drive to find market-led
solutions to socio-economic problems.
D.
Development is about freeing prices
and making markets more efficient.
10)
THE REAL THREAT OF ISIS
The real threat from
ISIS is not territorial but ideological. Fighters are flocking to the fledgling
caliphate because they are attracted to the notion that violence and bloodshed
can create a space of totalitarian homogeneity. It’s not simply the attraction
of a particular religious interpretation. ISIS offers a counter-narrative to
nationalism and the emptiness of godless globalization. The society that the
caliphate has created is multi-ethnic, transnational, and fully conversant in
the latest technology.
A.
We may well look back at the first
year of the Islamic State and wax nostalgic about how comparatively placid it
was.
B.
And yet it also offers a very
specific, historically grounded identity.
C.
However, ISIS is not a state. States
are part of the world that ISIS rejects.
D.
It has a 100-year plan for taking
over the world and imposing its own version of Islamic orthodoxy.
11)
GIVING OFFENCE
The notion of giving
offence suggests that certain beliefs are so important or valuable to certain
people that they should be put beyond the possibility of being insulted,
caricatured or even questioned. The importance of the principle of free speech
is precisely that it provides a challenge to the idea that some questions are
beyond contention, and thus acts as a challenge to authority. Once we give up
on the right to offend in the name of “tolerance” or “respect,” we constrain
our ability to challenge those in power, and therefore to challenge
injustice.
A.
For such diverse societies to
function and to be fair, we need to show respect for other peoples, cultures,
and viewpoints, and quell offensive voices.
B.
The right to subject each others’
fundamental beliefs to criticism is the bedrock of an open, diverse, just
society.
C.
If people are to occupy the same
political space without conflict, they mutually have to limit the extent to
which they subject each others’ fundamental beliefs to criticism
D.
The more that policymakers give
license for people to be offended, the more that people will seize the
opportunity to feel offended.
12)
THE EAST INDIA COMPANY
The East India Company
no longer exists, and it has, thankfully, no exact modern equivalent. Walmart,
which is the world’s largest corporation in revenue terms, does not number
among its assets a fleet of nuclear submarines; neither Facebook nor Shell
possesses regiments of infantry. Yet the East India Company – the first great
multinational corporation, and the first to run amok – was the ultimate model
for many of today’s joint-stock corporations. The most powerful among them do
not need their own armies: they can rely on governments to protect their
interests and bail them out. The East India Company remains history’s most
terrifying warning about the potential for the abuse of corporate power – and
the insidious means by which the interests of shareholders become those of the
state. Three hundred and fifteen years after its founding, its story has never
been more current.
A.
The East India Company's story is
the first example of a nation state extracting, as its price for saving a
failing corporation, the right to regulate and severely rein it in.
B.
For all the power wielded today by
the world’s largest corporations – whether ExxonMobil, Walmart or Google – they
are tame beasts compared with the ravaging territorial appetites of the
militarized East India Company.
C.
Answerable only to its shareholders
and with no stake in the just governance of the region, or its long-term
wellbeing, the East India Company’s rule quickly turned into the
straightforward pillage of India, and the rapid transfer westwards of its
wealth.
D.
If history shows anything, it is
that in the intimate dance between the power of the state and that of the
corporation, while the latter can be regulated, it will use all the resources
in its power to resist.
13)
CHANGING TASTE
The only guarantee we
have of taste is that it will change. In response to novelty, even as the
resistance to the unfamiliar reaches a threshold, fluency begets liking.
Consider the case of the Sydney Opera House. A few decades ago, the now widely
cherished building was the center of a national scandal. Not only did the
building not fit the traditional form of an opera house; it did not fit the
traditional form of a building. No one thought an opera house could look like
the Sydney Opera House until architect Jørn Utzon, taking his idea from a
peeled orange, said it could. Utzon changed the idea of what one could ask for
in the building, projecting future tastes no one knew they had.
A.
As a dominant sculptural building
that can be seen and experienced from all sides, the Sydney Opera House is the
focal point of Sydney Harbor and a reflection of its character.
B.
In fact, had Utzon had been left to
finish his masterpiece, it would have been more beautiful, more functional and
less costly than what it turned out to be.
C.
Utzon made the building well ahead
of its time, far ahead of available technology, and he persevered through
extraordinary malicious criticism to a building that changed the image of an
entire country.
D.
The world changed around the
building, in response to it, which is why, in the curious words of one
architecture critic, “Utzon’s breathtaking building looks better today than
ever.”
14)
BEHAVIORAL GENETICS
Behavioral geneticists
have found that the effects of being brought up in a given family are sometimes
detectable in childhood, but that they tend to peter out by the time the child
has grown up. That is, the reach of the genes appears to get stronger as we
age, not weaker. Perhaps our genes affect our environments, which in turn
affect ourselves. Young children are at the mercy of parents and have to adapt
to a world that is not of their choosing. As they get older, however, they can
gravitate to the micro-environments that best suit their natures. Whatever
genetic quirks incline a youth toward one niche or another will be magnified
over time as they develop the parts of themselves that allow them to flourish
in their chosen worlds.
A.
Although it is true that fraternal
twins raised apart have remarkable similarities in most respects, still the
intervention of the environment has caused several differences in the way they
behave.
B.
However, it is still not known
whether the more abstract attributes like personality, intelligence and likes
and dislikes are gene-coded in our DNA, too.
C.
The environment, then, is not a
stamping machine that pounds us into a shape but a cafeteria of options from
which our genes and our histories incline us to choose.
D.
But even knowing the totality of
genetic predictors, there will be many things about ourselves that no genome
scan — and for that matter, no demographic checklist — will ever reveal.
15)
HOW INDIANS GOT TO ZERO
The Indians got to
zero in two stages. First they overcame the problem of denoting empty spaces in
place-value notation by drawing a circle around the space where there was a
"missing" entry. This much the Babylonians had done. The circle gave
rise to the present-day symbol 0 for zero. The second step was to regard that
extra symbol just like the other nine. This meant developing the rules for
doing arithmetic using this additional symbol along with all the others. This
second step – changing the underlying conception so that the rules of
arithmetic operated not on the numbers themselves but on symbols for the
numbers – was the key.
A.
Indeed, our sense of numbers depends
on the symbols, and we cannot divorce the symbols from the numbers they
represent.
B.
Over time, it led to a change in the
conception of numbers to a more abstract one that included zero.
C.
Everything becomes much clearer when
there is a special symbol to mark a space with no value.
D.
A remarkable thing about this number
system is that using just the ten digits from 0 to 9, we can represent any of
the infinitely many positive whole numbers.
16)
A WRITER'S VOICE
The true essence of a
writer’s voice lies far beneath the surface. It is not merely a matter of
grammar and word choice. It is the writer's craving to connect. It is less
craft and more courage – less ink and more blood. It is not only how the writer
tells his story; it is the story he chooses tell. The story he must tell. It is
the reason he writes.
A.
It reveals itself in details the eye
doesn't easily take in— in some unexpected hesitation or cunning adverb or
barely audible inflection that makes you sit up and take notice.
B.
And contrary to popular belief, a
writer’s voice is learnt more than it’s “found” or “discovered.”
C.
It is the fiery truth that burns in
his heart until it becomes unbearable to wait even a single moment longer
before putting pen to paper or fingertips to keyboard.
D.
It is the way an author expresses
personal attitude— through word choice, asides, sentence flow, paragraph
density, and other individual stylistic devices.
17)
COURT PACKING
When components of his
New Deal got struck down by the Supreme Court of the United States, President
Franklin Delano Roosevelt threatened to increase the number of its judges from
nine to fifteen through a court-reform bill. He reasoned that packing the court
with six new judges would bring about a new majority that would side with the
government. _________________________________________. For, in 1937, Justice
Owen Roberts changed his vote to side with the government-leaning judges, and
Roosevelt thereafter did not need to pursue court packing.
Choose the option which fits in best in the given blank:
Choose the option which fits in best in the given blank:
A.
The judiciary refused to let in a
Trojan horse into its citadel of independence.
B.
The resultant public backlash put
paid to his plans.
C.
His relationship with the judiciary
was fraught with confrontation and conflict.
D.
Shortly thereafter, ‘a switch in
time saved the nine’.
18)
THE ESSENTIAL RELIGIOUS PRACTICES
TEST
To mediate the
competing claims of individuals, communities and the state, very early on in
its history, the Supreme Court invented something that it called the “essential
religious practices test”. Under this test, ostensibly religious practices
could gain constitutional sanction only if — in the view of the Court — they were
“essential” or “integral” to the religion in question. In the beginning, the
court emphasized that essential religious practices would have to be determined
by taking an internal point of view, and looking to the tenets and the
doctrines of the religion itself. In later years, however, the court began to
take an increasingly interventionist stance, using the essential religious
practices test to make wide-ranging — often untethered — claims about
religions, and even trying to mold religions into more rationalistic and
homogenous monoliths, while marginalizing dissident traditions.
A.
In crux, the Supreme Court rules
that an essential practice, like a ritual, in pursuance of religious beliefs,
is a critical aspect of the faith itself and that freedom of religion encompass
this aspect.
B.
The high watermark of this approach
came in 2004, when the court held that the public performance of the Tandava
dance was no essential part of the religion of the Ananda Marga sect, even
though it had been specifically set down as such in their holy book.
C.
For example, the landmark verdict by
the Bombay High Court that women should be allowed to enter the Haji Ali
sanctum was based on careful and circumspect perusal of passages from the Koran
and the Hadith, material placed before it by the Dargah Trust.
D.
After all, in a society where
religion and the public sphere have always been so intertwined, religious
exclusion has a public character, and not just an issue of sacral traditions
but one of civil rights and material and symbolic equality.
19)
THE SELFISH GENE
In his book, The
Selfish Gene, Richard Dawkins puts forth the radical theory that all living
creatures are essentially vehicles for their genes, and exist merely to
transmit and propagate their
genes._____________________________________________________In fact, Dawkins
later wrote that his choice of the word “selfish” was wrong, since it
attributed an anthropomorphic quality to what is essentially a bunch of
chemicals. A better term, he thought, would have been “the immortal gene”.
Choose the option which fits in best in the given blank:
Choose the option which fits in best in the given blank:
A.
Only when individuals behave in
their genetic self-interest and form alliances, genes are passed on for species
to survive.
B.
Genes are not sentient; they passes
through bodies and affect them, but are not affected by them on the way
through.
C.
Dawkins’s proposition is that pure
altruistic behavior has never helped anyone in the history of any species.
D.
Genes may be willing to abandon the
individual to replicate themselves.
20)
TECHNOLOGICAL CHANGE
___________________________________________________________.For
instance, 19th-century Japan was a world where steam and sail, railroads and
rickshaws all shared common space. Industrial revolutions were distributed
unequally in place and time. In the Second World War, the most common transport
for the German army wasn’t tanks and other motorized vehicles but horses. The
technological world wasn’t flat. This is the world, still, today. It is lumpy
and bumpy, with old and new technologies accumulating on top of and beside each
other.
Choose the option which fits in best in the given blank:
Choose the option which fits in best in the given blank:
A.
Throughout history, imperatives
besides efficiency have driven technological change.
B.
As they layer and stack,
technologies persist over time.
C.
The best ideas do not necessarily
become popular right away.
D.
Some innovations spread slowly,
while others do so quickly.
21)
ECONOMIC MODELS
Economic models are
stylized abstractions of reality; designing them is an art and a science. I
once had a professor who’d compare economic models to maps.
_____________________________. The same is true for economic models. You choose
what’s important to include in order to understand how certain factors relate
to each other. Even then, the math gets very complicated. Equations help
economists see subtle points, higher order effects, changes in incentives, and
how their ideas relate to earlier work. It also helps them to test their
theories on data.
Choose the option which fits in best in the given blank:
Choose the option which fits in best in the given blank:
A.
The power of maps comes at a cost:
when you distill the information, you introduce uncertainty.
B.
Designing a map with the wrong
audience in mind can render your map almost completely useless.
C.
If they cannot be understood and
interpreted by the lay man, they serve no purpose.
D.
If you include every tree and back
road, the map is intractable.
22)
SOLITUDE
_________________________________________________.
In his book, The Republic, Plato proffered a parable in which Socrates
celebrates the solitary philosopher. In the allegory of the cave, the
philosopher escapes from the darkness of an underground den – and from the
company of other humans – into the sunlight of contemplative thought. Alone but
not lonely, the philosopher becomes attuned to her inner self and the world. In
solitude, the soundless dialogue ‘which the soul holds with herself’ finally
becomes audible.
Choose the option which fits in best in the given blank:
Choose the option which fits in best in the given blank:
A.
Philosophers have long made a
careful, and important, distinction between solitude and loneliness.
B.
Solitude is a state of mind
essential to the development of an individual’s consciousness and conscience.
C.
Philosophers recommend solitude in
short bursts, to enable the process of self-discovery.
D.
If we lose our capacity for
solitude, our ability to be alone with ourselves, then we lose our very ability
to think.
23)
THE HABITUAL MIND
While your intentional
mind is thoughtful, it's easily waylaid by deep-seated habits. If you're trying
to lose weight, for example, standard interventions like weight loss programs
will leave your intentional mind feeling motivated, but they won't feed your
habitual mind. To accomplish that, you must first derail existing habits and
create a window of opportunity to act on new intentions.
A.
So, the next time you want to watch
your favourite movie or TV show on Netflix, make yourself watch it on the
treadmill instead.
B.
Studies have shown that maintaining
a food diary—a record of everything you eat and drink – is one of the best ways
to start.
C.
Doing squats and calf raises while
brushing your teeth, for example, will reward you with the double confidence of
a shinier smile and improved fitness.
D.
So, get rid of unhealthy cues by
moving junk food out of your pantry, and put fresh fruit out where it's easy to
see.
24)
VOTER AMBIVALENCE
As ambivalence is
often linked to the victories of populists, there is a general sense that our
ambivalence is destabilizing, dangerous and needs to be purged. The failure to
reach clarity implies a failed agency on the part of the ambivalent citizen; it
is they who carry the burden of resolving their own feelings and returning to a
place of undivided certainty. Yet, the more we dismiss and disparage
ambivalence, rebuking voters who “should know better”, the more we risk its
manifestation in destructive ways.
A.
The point is that, rather than
reflecting some psychological deficiency or cognitive dissonance, ambivalence
is an active and willful position to take.
B.
People who have been reduced to
decision-takers will be more likely to see radical, revolutionary, even
destructive change as the only way to resolve their ambivalence.
C.
Ambivalence is even rational, in
that it requires an awareness of mutually exclusive choices and a refusal to
choose; just as wanting a bit of both is also rational.
D.
Slowing down, and contemplating how
our democracy is working for us as a community, potentially limits the power of
those who benefit from the status quo.
25)
SANCTIONS
_________________________________________________.
For instance, they were effective in putting pressure of South Africa’s
apartheid government because they complimented political organizing by the
country’s black majority. South Africans, including whites, also tended to view
their country as a democracy and were sensitive to being turned into a pariah
state.
Choose the option which fits in best in the given blank:
Choose the option which fits in best in the given blank:
A.
Sanctions are particularly useful
against countries where a strong political opposition lends its voice against
the country's isolation and economic stagnation.
B.
Sanctions work best when they align
with the preferences of the targeted country’s population.
C.
Sanctions remain Western powers’
favored option for demonstrating their resolve to rogue states when diplomacy
fails and military force is either unwarranted or too risky.
D.
Sanctions are more likely to work
when the goal is modest rather than asking for major military concession or a
fundamental change to the political nature of a regime.
26)
EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE
The idea that you can
increase your emotional intelligence by broadening your emotion vocabulary is grounded
in neuroscience. Your brain is not static; it rewires itself with experience.
When you learn new emotion words, you sculpt your brain’s micro wiring, giving
it the means to construct new emotional experiences. And the more emotions that
you know, the more finely your brain can construct emotional meaning
automatically from other people’s actions.
A.
Since people use the same emotion
words without necessarily meaning the same thing, a good emotion vocabulary is
key to emotional intelligence.
B.
In short, your emotional
intelligence is a function of the emotions you experience and the expressions
you perceive in other people.
C.
Hence, learning foreign languages,
which have emotion words that have no direct equivalent in English, can greatly
enhance your emotional intelligence.
D.
In short, every emotion word you
learn is a new tool for future emotional intelligence.
27)
STORIES THAT MOVE US
_________________________________________________.
For example, two of the world’s best-loved and most abiding narratives – The
Lord of the Rings and the Narnia series – invoke values that were familiar in
the middle ages but are generally considered repulsive today. Disorder in these
stories is characterized by the usurpation of rightful kings or their rightful
heirs; justice and order rely on their restoration. We find ourselves cheering
the resumption of autocracy, the destruction of industry and even, in the case
of Narnia, the triumph of divine right over secular power.
Choose the option which fits in best in the given blank:
Choose the option which fits in best in the given blank:
A.
Stories that possess narrative
fidelity, reflecting the way we expect humans and the world to behave, are the
ones we like best.
B.
Stories can be so powerful that they
sweep all before them: even our fundamental values and beliefs.
C.
Stories that resonate powerfully
with the narrative structure our minds are prepared for triumph over facts and
evidence.
D.
If a narrative is simple and
intelligible, resonating with our deep needs and desires, it captures our
imagination and holds sway over us.
Solutions:
1.
B
2.
C
3.
D
4.
A
5.
D
6.
D
7.
D
8.
C
9.
B
10.
B
11.
B
12.
D
13.
D
14.
C
15.
B
16.
C
17.
D
18.
B
19.
B
20.
B
21.
D
22.
A
23.
D
24.
B
25.
B
26.
D
b
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