REVISION TEST 1

Learning Agenda of the Session

25 Questions to be attempted in 50 minutes

ALL THE BEST

&
HAPPY LEARNING

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 REVISION TEST 1

No of questions: 25 Time: 40 minutes

Directions for Questions 1 and 2: Each sentence below has one blank, the blank indicating that
something has been omitted. Beneath the sentence are five words or sets of words labeled 1 through 5.
Choose the word that, when inserted in the sentence, best fits the meaning of the sentence as a whole.

1. An occasional ______ remark spoiled the _____ that made the paper memorable.
1. colloquial-merriment
2. threadbare - clichés
3. svelte - sophism
4. hackneyed - originality
5. jocund - fun.

2. Nineteenth-century scholars, by examining earlier geometric Greek art, found that classical Greek
art was not a magical _____ or a brilliant _____ blending Egyptian and Assyruin art, but was
independently evolved by Greeks in Greece.
1. transition - appropriation
2. gambit - annexation
3. apparition - amalgam
4. epitome - construct
5. instance - deduction

Directions for Questions 3 to 5: In each problem below, either a part or all of the sentence is underlined.
The sentence is followed by five ways of writing the underlined part. Choice (A) repeats the original; the
other answer choices vary. If you think that the original phrasing is the best, choose (A). If you think one
of the other answer choices is the best, select that choice.

3. The harvest of apples in the local valleys decreased in 1990 for the third straight year but were still
at a robust level.
1. The harvest of apples in the local valleys decreased in 1990 for the third straight year but were
2. The harvest of apples in the local valleys began to decrease in 1990 for the third straight year
but were
3. In 1990, the harvest of apples in the local valleys decreased for the third straight year but were
4. The harvest of apples in the local valleys decreased for the third straight year in 1990 but was
5. The harvest of apples in the local valleys began decreasing in 1990 for the third straight year
but was

4. Common knowledge tells us that sensible exercise and eating properly will result in better health.
1. eating properly will result
2. proper diet resulted
3. dieting will result
4. proper diet result
5. eating properly results

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5. Everyone needs to adopt himself to the new way of detecting errors.
1. to adopt himself to the new way of detecting errors.
2. to adapt themselves to the new way of detecting errors.
3. to adapt himself to the new way of detecting errors.
4. to adapt oneself to the new way of detecting errors.
5. to adopt the new way of detecting errors.

Directions for Questions 6 to 10: The questions in this section are based on the reasoning contained in
brief statements or passages. For some questions, more than one of the choices could conceivably answer
the question. However, you are to choose the best answer; that is, the response that most accurately and
completely answers the question.

6. During the Dengue days, about 15,000 doctors who had treated Dengue sufferers died and about
13,220 doctors who had not engaged in treatment for Dengue sufferers died. On the basis of those
figures, it can be concluded that it was not much more dangerous to participate in Dengue
treatment during the Dengue day than it was not to participate in Dengue treatment.
Which of the following would reveal most clearly the absurdity of the conclusion drawn above?
1. Counting deaths among doctors who had participated in Dengue treatment in addition to deaths
among doctors who had not participated in Dengue treatment
2. Expressing the difference between the numbers of deaths among doctors who had treated
Dengue sufferers and doctors who had not treated Dengue suffers as a percentage of the total
number of deaths
3. Separating deaths caused by accidents during the treatment to Dengue suffers from deaths
caused by infect of Dengue suffers.
4. Comparing death rates per thousand members of each group rather than comparing total
numbers of deaths
5. Comparing deaths caused by accidents in India to deaths caused by infect in treating Dengue
suffers.

7. According to the new office smoking regulations, only employees who have enclosed office may
smoke at their desks. Virtually all employees with enclosed offices are at the professional level,
and virtually all secretarial employees lack enclosed offices. Therefore, secretaries who smoke
should be offered enclosed offices.
Which of the following is an assumption that enables the conclusion above to be properly drawn?
1. Employees at the professional level who do not smoke should keep their enclosed offices.
2. Employees with enclosed offices should not smoke at their desks, even though the new
regulations permit them to do so.
3. Employees at the secretarial level should be allowed to smoke at their desks, even if they do not
have enclosed offices.
4. The smoking regulations should allow all employees who smoke an equal opportunity to do so,
regardless of an employee’s job level.
5. The smoking regulations should provide equal protection from any hazards associated with
smoking to all employees who do not smoke.

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8. Over the past year, Amjad won several medals in running competitions, including races of 400
meters and 800 meters. He was recently involved in a minor automobile accident, however, and as
a result of his injuries, he currently is required to wear a cast. Consequently, when he competes in
the big race next month, he will be unlikely to win.
Which of the following is most like the argument above in its logical structure?

1. The best runners are unlikely to be the best swimmers.

2. Rashi accidentally fell down the stairs, leaving her with minor injuries and a cast on her arm.
3. Pranav’s small frame and slow reflexes will prevent him from ever becoming a successful
heavyweight boxer.
4. The student probably will not finish his paper on time because his computer is not working.
5. Millions of people enter the state lottery every month, and consequently no individual ticket
holder is likely to win.

9. A recent study reveals that television advertising does not significantly affect children’s
preferences for one-minute noodles. The study compared two groups of children. One group had
watched no television, and the other group had watched average amounts of television and its
advertising. Both groups strongly preferred the one-minute noodles heavily advertised on
television.
Which one of the following statements, if true, most weakens the argument?
1. Noodle preferences of adults who watch television are known to be significantly different from
the noodle preferences of adults who do not watch television.
2. The preference for noodles is not a universal trait in human and can be influenced by
environmental factors such as television advertising.
3. Both groups rejected the one-minute noodles even when these noodles were heavily advertised
on television.
4. Most of the children in the group that had watched television were already familiar with the
advertisements for these noodles.
5. The preferences of children who do not watch television advertising are influenced by the
preferences of children who watch the advertising.

10. The higher the altitude, the thinner the air. Since New York’s altitude is higher than that of
Washington, the air must be thinner in New York than in Washington.
Which one of the following arguments is most similar in its reasoning to the argument above?
1. As one gets older one gets wiser. Since Henry is wiser than his daughter, Henry must be older
than his daughter.
2. The more egg whites used and the longer they are beaten, the fluffier the meringue. Since Linda
used more egg whites in her meringue than Josephine used in his, Linda’s meringue must be
fluffier than Josephine’s.
3. The people who run the fastest marathons these days are faster than the people who ran the
fastest marathons ten years ago. Tyson is a marathon runner. So Tyson must run faster
marathons these days than he did ten years ago.
4. The older a tree, the more rings it has. The tree in Vincent’s yard is older than the tree in
Teresa’s yard. Therefore, the tree in Vincent’s yard must have more rings than does the tree in
Teresa’s yard.
5. The bigger the vocabulary a language has, the harder it is to learn. English is harder to learn than
Greek. Therefore, English must have a bigger vocabulary than Greek.

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Directions for Questions 11 to 25: Read the passages given below and answer the questions with the
most appropriate choice.

Passage 1

The new school of political history that emerged in the 1960’s and 1970’s sought to go beyond the
traditional focus of political historians on leaders and government institutions by examining directly the
political practices of ordinary citizens. Like the old approach, however, this new approach excluded
women. The very techniques these historians used to uncover mass political behavior in the nineteenth-
century United States—quantitative analyses of election returns, for example—were useless in analyzing
the political activities of women, who were denied the vote until 1920.
By redefining “political activity,” historian Paula Baker has developed a political history that includes
women. She concludes that among ordinary citizens, political activism by women in the nineteenth
century prefigured trends in twentieth-century politics. Defining “politics” as “any action taken to affect
the course of behavior of government or of the community,” Baker concludes that, while voting and
holding office were restricted to men, women in the nineteenth century organized themselves into
societies committed to social issues such as temperance and poverty. In other words, Baker contends,
women activists were early practitioners of nonpartisan, issue-oriented politics and thus were more
interested in enlisting lawmakers, regardless of their party affiliation, on behalf of certain issues than in
ensuring that one party or another won an election. In the twentieth century, more men drew closer to
women’s ideas about politics and took up modes of issue-oriented politics that Baker sees women as
having pioneered.

11. Which of the following statements best captures the general theme of the passage?
1. provide pragmatic data to support a long-held scholarly supposition
2. compare two scholarly publications on the basis of their authors’ personal prejudices
3. specify reasons why both traditional scholarly methods and newer scholarly methods have
limitations
4. identify a shortcoming in a scholarly approach and describe a different approach
5. attempt to provide a partial answer to a long-standing scholarly dilemma

12. Which of the following best describes the structure of the first paragraph of the passage?
1. An out-of-date scholarly approach is described, and a remedial approach is called for.
2. A historical era gone by is described in terms of its political trends.
3. Two scholarly approaches are compared, and a shortcoming common to both is identified.
4. An argument is mentioned, and counterarguments are provided simultaneously.
5. The methodologies of two rival schools of thought are contrasted, and a third is referred to.

13. According to the passage, Paula Baker and the new political historians of the 1960’s and 1970’s
shared which of the following?
1. Stress on the political involvement of ordinary citizens
2. An interest in the ways in which nineteenth-century politics prefigured contemporary politics
3. Both take no notice of political theory and ideology
4. An assurance to interest-group politics
5. A reliance on such quantitative techniques as the analysis of election returns

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14. The information in the passage suggests that a pre-1960’s political historian would have been most
likely to undertake which of the following studies?
1. A study of male voters’ ideological shift from party politics to issue-oriented politics
2. A character sketch of an influential nineteenth-century minister of defense and a possible film
on the minister.
3. A study of voting trends among women voters of the 1920’s
4. A study of voting trends among naturalized immigrant women laborers in a nineteenth-century
logging camp
5. A scrutiny of essays written by previously unrecognized political women activists
15. In 2nd paragraph, the word temperance most nearly means
1. sobriety
2. self-indulgence
3. self-obsession
4. excess
5. immoderation

Passage 2
While a new surge of critical interest in the ancient Greek poems conventionally ascribed to Homer
has taken place in the last twenty years or so, it was nonspecialists rather than professional scholars who
studied the poetic aspects of the Iliad and the Odyssey between, roughly, 1935 and 1970. During these
years, while such nonacademic intellectuals as Simone Weil and Erich Auerbach were trying to define the
qualities that made these epic accounts of the Trojan War and its aftermath great poetry, the questions that
occupied the specialists were directed elsewhere: “Did the Trojan War really happen?” “Does the bard
preserve Indo-European folk memories?” “How did the poems get written down?” Something was driving
scholars away from the actual works to peripheral issues. Scholars produced books about archaeology,
about gift-exchange in ancient societies, about the development of oral poetry, about virtually anything
except the Iliad and the Odyssey themselves as unique reflections or distillations of life itself—as, in
short, great poetry. The observations of the English poet Alexander Pope seemed as applicable in 1970 as
they had been when he wrote them in 1715: according to Pope, the remarks of critics “are rather
Philosophical, Historical, Geographic…or rather anything than Critical and Poetical.”
Ironically, the modern manifestation of this “nonpoetical” emphasis can be traced to the profoundly
influential work of Milman Parry, who attempted to demonstrate in detail how the Homeric poems,
believed to have been recorded nearly three thousand years ago, were the products of a long and highly
developed tradition of oral poetry about the Trojan War. Parry proposed that this tradition built up its
diction and its content by a process of constant accumulation and refinement over many generations of
storytellers. But after Parry’s death in 1935, his legacy was taken up by scholars who, unlike Parry,
forsook intensive analysis of the poetry itself and focused instead on only one element of Parry’s work:
the creative limitations and possibilities of oral composition, concerning on fixed elements and
inflexibilities, focusing on the things that oral poetry allegedly can and cannot do. The dryness of this
kind of study drove many of the more inventive scholars away from the poems into the rapidly
developing field of Homer’s archaeological and historical background.
Appropriately, Milman Parry’s son Adam was among those scholars responsible for a renewed interest
in Homer’s poetry as literary art. Building on his father’s work, the younger Parry argued that the
Homeric poems exist both within and against a tradition. The Iliad and the Odyssey were, Adam Parry
thought, the beneficiaries of an inherited store of diction, scenes, and at the same time highly individual
works that surpasses these conventions. Adam Parry helped prepare the ground for the recent Homeric
revival by affirming his father’s belief in a strong inherited tradition, but also by emphasizing Homer’s
unique contributions within that tradition.

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16. Which one of the following best states the basic purpose of the passage?
1. The Homeric poems are most productively studied as records of the time and place in which
they were written.
2. The Homeric poems are the products of a highly enlightened tradition of oral poetry.
3. The Homeric poems are currently enjoying a resurgence of critical interest after an age of
scholarship largely devoted to the poems’ nonpoetic elements.
4. Before Milman Parry published his ground-breaking work in the early twentieth century, it was
difficult to assign a date or place of origin or an author to the Homeric poems.
5. The Homeric poems are currently enjoying a resurgence of scholarly interest after an age
during which most studies were authored by nonacademic writers.

17. According to the passage, the work of Simone Weil and Erich Auerbach on Homer was primarily
concerned with which one of the following?
1. circumstances of why criticism of Homer had moved to peripheral issues
2. dissects the already ancient epic tradition inherited by Homer
3. studies of the history and nature of oral poetry
4. analyses of the poetry itself in terms of its literary qualities
5. critiques of the highly technical analyses of academic critics

18. The passage suggests which one of the following about scholarship on Homer that has appeared
since 1970’s?
1. It is more incisive than the work of the Parrys.
2. It has dealt extensively with the Homeric poems as literary art.
3. It has rejected as immaterial the scholarship produced by all specialists between 1935 and 1970.
4. It has completely ignored the work of Simone Weil and Erich Auerbach.
5. It has attempted to establish the fact that the Iliad and the Odyssey were written by Homer.

19. The author of the passage in all probability quotes Alexander Pope in order to
1. give an instance of the fact that the nonpoetical emphasis also existed in an earlier century
2. prove that poets as well as critics have emphasized elements peripheral to the poems
3. indicate that the Homeric poems have generally received poor treatment at the hands of most
critics
4. emphasize the problems inherent in rendering classical Greek poetry into a modern language.
5. debate that poets and literary critics have seldom agreed the interpretation of poetry

20. Which one of the following best describes the organization of the passage?
1. Several possible solutions to a long-standing issue are posed.
2. A series of conjectures are reviewed and one is advocated.
3. The works of two prominent scholars are summed up.
4. Several issues and thoughts contributing to the current debate are summed up.
5. A situation is identified and its origins are examined.

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Passage 3

Opponents of compulsory national service claim that such a program is not in keeping with the liberal
principles upon which Western democracies are founded. This reasoning is reminiscent of the argument
that a tax on one’s income is undemocratic because it violates one’s right to property. Such conceptions of
the liberal state fail to take into account the intricate character of the social agreement that undergirds our
liberties. It is only in the context of a community that the notion of individual rights has any application;
individual rights are meant to define the limits of people’s actions with respect to other people. Implicit in
such a context is the concept of shared sacrifice. Were no taxes paid, there could be no law enforcement,
and the enforcement of law is of benefit to everyone in society. Thus, each of us must bear a share of the
burden to ensure that the community is protected.
The responsibility to defend one’s nation against outside aggression is surely no less than the
responsibility to help pay for law enforcement within the nation. Therefore, the state is certainly within its
rights to compel citizens to perform national service when it is needed for the benefit of society.
It might be objected that the cases of taxation and national service are not analogous: While taxation
must be coerced, the military is quite able to find recruits without resorting to conscription. Furthermore,
proponents of national service do not limit its scope to only those duties absolutely necessary to the
defense of the nation. Therefore, it may be contended, compulsory national service oversteps the
acceptable boundaries of governmental interference in the lives of its citizens.
By responding thus, the opponent of national service has already allowed that it is a right of
government to demand service when it is needed. But what is the true scope of the term “need”? If it is
granted, say, that present tax policies are legitimate intrusions on the right to property, then it must also be
granted that need involves more than just what is necessary for a sound national defense. Even the most
conservative of politicians admits that tax money is rightly spent on programs that, while not necessary
for the survival of the state, are nevertheless of great benefit to society. Can the opponent of national
service truly claim that activities of the military such as quelling civil disorders, rebuilding dams and
bridges, or assisting the victims of natural disasters—all extraneous to the defense of society against
outside aggression—do not provide a similar benefit to the nation? Upon reflection, opponents of national
service must concede that such a broadened conception of what is necessary is in keeping with the ideas
of shared sacrifice and community benefit that are essential to the functioning of a liberal democratic
state.

21. Which one of the following most accurately describes the author’s attitude toward the relationship
between citizenship and individual rights in a democracy?
1. He is confident because of the fact that individual rights are citizens’ most important guarantees
of personal freedom
2. He is satisfied seeing how individual rights have protected citizens from unwarranted
government intrusion
3. He is dissatisfied with the fact that how some citizens cite individual rights as a way of
avoiding certain obligations to their government
4. He is concerned because according to him individual rights represent citizens’ only defense
against government interference
5. He is horrified that so many citizens use individual rights as an excuse to take advantage of one
another

22. The author indicates all politicians agree about the

1. use of the military to prevent domestic and civil disorders
2. authenticity of funding certain programs that serve the national good
3. similarity between conscription done in the interest of the nation and compulsory taxation
4. relevance of expanding the definition of necessity vis-à-vis the needs of the nation
5. none of these

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23. Which one of the following most accurately characterizes what the author means by the term
“social agreement” in the first paragraph?
1. an agreement among members of a community that they will petition the government for
redress when government actions limit their rights
2. an agreement among members of a community that they will not act in ways that infringe upon
each other’s pursuit of individual liberty
3. an agreement among members of a community that the scope of their individual liberties is
limited somewhat by their obligations to one another
4. an agreement between citizens and their government detailing which government actions do or
do not infringe upon citizen’s personal freedoms
5. an agreement between citizens and their government stating that the government has right to
suspend individual liberties whenever it sees fit

24. According to the author, national service and taxation are analogous in the sense that both
1. do not require that citizens be bound to help bring them about
2. are against the notion of individual rights in a democracy
3. require different amount of effort from different citizens
4. allow the government to step over its boundaries and interfere in the lives of its citizens
5. serve ends beyond those related to the basic survival of the state

25. Based on the information in the passage, which one of the following would most likely be found
objectionable by those who oppose compulsory national service?
1. the use of tax revenues to prevent the theft of national secrets by foreign agents
2. the use of tax revenues to fund relief efforts for victims of natural disasters in other nations
3. the use of tax revenues to support the upkeep of the nation’s standing army
4. the use of tax revenues to fund programs for the maintenance of domestic dams and bridges
5. none of these

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