Cat 2009 English Test 123

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English Test 123 Directions for Questions from 1 to 3: You see, society feels that it must control or discipline the citizen, shape his mind according to certain religious, social, moral and economic patterns. One of our most difficult problems is what we call discipline, and it is really very complex. Now, is discipline necessary at all? Most of us feel, especially while we are young, that there should be no discipline, that we should be allowed to do whatever we like, and we think that is freedom. But merely to say that we should or should not have discipline, that we should be free, and so on, has very little meaning without understanding the whole problem of discipline. The keen athlete is disciplining himself all the time, is he not? His joy in playing games and the very necessity to keep fit makes him go to bed early, refrain from smoking, eat the right food and generally observe the rules of good health. His discipline is not an imposition or a conflict, but a natural outcome of his enjoyment of athletics. Now, does discipline increase or decrease human energy? Human beings throughout the world, in every religion, in every school of thought, impose discipline on the mind, which implies control, resistance, adjustment, suppression; and is all this necessary? If discipline brings about a greater output of human energy, then it is worthwhile, then it has meaning; but if it merely suppresses human energy, it is very harmful and destructive. All of us have energy, and the question is whether through discipline that energy can be made vital, rich and abundant, or whether discipline destroys whatever energy we have. I think this is the central issue. Many human beings do not have a great deal of energy, and what little energy they have is soon smothered and destroyed by the controls, threats and taboos of their particular society with its so-called education; so they become imitative, lifeless citizens of that society. And does discipline give increased energy to the individual who has a little more to begin with? Does it make his life rich and full of vitality? When you are very young, as you all are, you are full of energy, are you not? You want to play, to rush about, to talk — you can’t sit still, you are full of life. Then what happens? As you grow up your teachers begin to curtail that energy by shaping it, directing it into various moulds; and when at last you become men and women the little energy you have left is soon smothered by society, which says that you must be proper citizens, you must behave in a certain way. Through so-called education and the compulsion of society this abounding energy you have when you are young is gradually destroyed. Now, can the energy you have at present be made more vital through discipline? If you have only a little energy, can discipline increase it? If it can, then discipline has meaning; but if discipline really destroys one’s energy, then discipline must obviously be put aside. What is this energy which we all have? This energy is thinking, feeling; it is interest, enthusiasm, greed, passion, lust, ambition, and hate. Painting pictures, inventing machines, building bridges, making roads, cultivating the fields, playing games, writing poems, singing, dancing, going to the temple, worshipping — these are all expressions of energy; and energy also creates illusion, mischief and misery. The very finest and the most destructive qualities are equally the expressions of human energy. But, you see, the process of controlling or disciplining this energy and letting it out in one direction and restricting it in another becomes merely a social convenience; the mind is shaped according to the pattern of a particular culture, and thereby its energy is gradually dissipated. So, our problem is, can this energy, which in one degree or another we all possess, be increased, given greater vitality — and if so, to do what? What is energy for? Is it the purpose of energy to make war? Is it to invent jet planes and innumerable other machines, to pursue some guru, to pass examinations, to have children, to worry endlessly over this problem and that? Or can energy be used in a different way so that all our activities have significance in relation to something which transcends them all? Surely, if the human mind, which is capable of such astonishing energy, is not seeking reality or God, then every expression of its energy becomes a means of destruction and misery. To seek reality requires immense energy; and if man is not doing that, he dissipates his energy in ways which create mischief, and therefore society has to control him. Now, is it possible to liberate energy in seeking God or truth and, in the process of discovering what is true, to be a citizen who understands the fundamental issues of life and whom society cannot destroy? Are you following this, or is it a little bit too complex? You see, man is energy, and if man does not seek truth, this energy becomes destructive; therefore society controls and shapes the individual, which smothers this energy. That is what has happened to the majority of grown-up people all over the world. And perhaps you have noticed another interesting and very simple fact: that the moment you really want to do something, you have the energy to do it. What happens when you are keen to play a game? You immediately have energy, do you not? And that very energy becomes the means of controlling itself, so you don’t need outside discipline. In the search for reality, energy creates its own discipline. The man who is seeking reality spontaneously becomes the right kind of citizen, which is not according to the pattern of any particular society or government.

1. According to the author, energy is

j Greed k l m n j Lust k l m n j Enthusiasm k l m n j All of the above k l m n j None of these k l m n i Skip this question j k l m n

2. The author believes that the discipline that exists in society is

j Merely a social gimmick k l m n j Destruction of energyMerely a social convenience at the cost of human potential k l m n j A necessary evil k l m n j Totally undesirable k l m n j None of these k l m n

i Skip this question j k l m n

3. The athlete’s example proves that

j When discipline is in-born we enjoy it k l m n j Games create discipline naturally k l m n j When one really enjoys doing something, discipline will follow as a natural outcome k l m n j Athletes do not need the imposition of discipline, they are naturally disciplined k l m n j None of these k l m n i Skip this question j k l m n Directions for Questions from 4 to 6: The passage given below is followed by a set of questions. Choose the most appropriate answer to each question. PASSAGE In his 1992 book A History of the Mind, Humphrey argued that consciousness is grounded in bodily sensation rather than thought, and proposed a speculative evolutionary account of the emergence of sentience. Seeing Red is a refinement and extension of those ideas. Put simply, we don’t so much have sensations as do them. Sensation is “on the production side of the mind rather than the reception side.” When the spiky-haired cartoon character is looking at the red screen, he is doing red. He is redding. The evolutionary history of sensory enactments like redding (or hotting and so on) can be traced to the bodily reactions of primitive organisms responding to different environmental stimuli, noxious and nutritive. Imagine an “amoeba–like” creature floating in the ancient seas. Like all other organisms, it has a structural boundary, which is the frontier between “self” and “other.” The animal’s survival depends on cross border exchanges of material, energy and information, and, as it moves around, some events at the border are going to be “good” for it and some “bad.” It must have the ability to respond appropriately-as Humphrey puts it, “reacting to this stimulus with an ouch! To that with a whoopee!” At first the responses are localised to the site of stimulation, but evolution endows more specialised sensory zones, this for chemicals, that for light–and a central control system, a proto-brain, which allows for co-ordinated responses to specific stimuli: “Thus, when, say, salt arrives at its skin, the animal detects it and makes a characteristic wriggle of activity–it wriggles ‘saltily.’ When red light falls on it, it makes a different kind of wriggle–it wriggles ‘redly.’” These are the prototypes of human sensation. With the march of evolutionary history, life gets more complex for the animal and it becomes advantageous for it to have an inner representation of events happening at the surface of its body. One way of accomplishing this is to plug into those systems already in place for identifying and reacting to stimulation. The animal’s representation of “what’s going on?” (and what it “feels” about it) is achieved by monitoring what it is doing about it. “Thus… to sense the presence of salt at a certain location the animal monitors its own command signals for wriggling saltily… to sense the presence of red light, it monitors its signals for wriggling redly.” Such self-monitoring by the subject is the prototype of “feeling sensation.” Evolution then takes the animal to another level at which it comes to care about the world just beyond its body, so that, for example, it becomes sensitive to the chemical and air pressure signals of the proximity of predator or prey. This requires quite another style of information processing. “When the question is ‘What is happening to me?’ the answer that is wanted is qualitative, present-tense, transient, and subjective. When the question is ‘What is happening out there in the world?’ the answer that is wanted is quantitative, analytical, permanent, and objective.” The old sensory channels continue to provide a body-centred picture of what the stimulation is doing to the animal, but a second system is set up “to provide a more neutral, abstract, body– independent representation of the outside world.” This is the prototype of perception. At this stage the animal is still responding to stimulation with overt bodily activity, but eventually it achieves a degree of independence and is no longer bound by rigid stimulus-response rules. It still needs to know what’s going on in the world, so the old sensory systems stay in service, and it still learns about what is happening to it by monitoring the command signals for its own responses. But now it can issue virtual commands, which don’t result in overt action. In other words, it no longer wriggles. Rather than going all the way out to the surface of the body, the commands are short-circuited, reaching only to a point on the incoming sensory pathway. Over evolutionary time the target of the command retreats further from the periphery until “the whole process becomes closed off from the outside world in an internal loop within the brain.” Sensory activity has become “privatised.”

4. According to the passage, the term “privatised” refers to:

j The target-command process getting perceptive and recognizing emotions. k l m n j The target-command process gaining evidence through varied actions. k l m n j The target-command process receiving recognition by the brain. k l m n j The target-command process getting entwined in the system. k l m n j The target-command process getting individualized. k l m n i Skip this question j k l m n

5. Which of the following would have been true if the prototype of perception preceded sensation?

j The goal of the authority would have moved away additionally from the fringe. k l m n j The body would not have been bound by a stiff stimulus-response system. k l m n j The being would have been taken to another level beyond its body. k l m n j The evolution of consciousness would have been ultimately doomed. k l m n j The reconciling of brain function and consciousness would have been faster. k l m n i Skip this question j k l m n

6. Which is the thematic highlight of this passage?

j That all perception is unconscious. k l m n j That selfhood and consciousness are entwined “in-the-moment”. k l m n j That sensation and perception are separable. k l m n j That the sensory systems underlie conscious awareness. k l m n j That the perceptual awareness underlies conscious awareness k l m n i Skip this question j k l m n Directions for Questions from 7 to 10: In each question, there are five sentences. The sentence labelled A is in its correct place. The four that follow are labelled B, C, D and E, and need to be arranged in the logical order to form a coherent paragraph. From the given options, choose the most appropriate option

7. A. Students aren’t taught to read and draw maps of different scales and to analyze places, distances, areas and distributions using maps. B. Our cognitive abilities allow us to use those mental maps to answer questions. C. Mapping exercises help build students’ mental maps, or those maps that we all see “in our mind’s eye.” D. Instead, students in today’s classrooms are shown simple maps of places they are studying, with the intent being to learn the place names and something about the places. E. Our brains are capable of being trained not only to draw mental maps, but also to zoom and pan across those maps, to associate many different spatial patterns and to make decisions based on the analysis.

j BCDE k l m n j BEDC k l m n j CBED k l m n j BDEC k l m n j BDCE k l m n i Skip this question j k l m n

8. A. Many animals possess protective markings to avoid predation, including patterns to reduce the risk of detection, to indicate that the animal is toxic or inedible, or to mimic another animal or object. B. Many eyespots are effective in startling or intimidating predators, and can help to prevent or stop an attack. C. In addition, many creatures such as butterflies, moths, and fish possess two or more pairs of circular markings, often referred to as ‘eyespots’. D. However, recent work by zoologists indicates that this widely-held hypothesis has no experimental support. E. For the past 150 years it has been assumed that this is because they mimic the eyes of the predator’s own enemies.

j CBED k l m n j EBDC k l m n j BCDE k l m n j CDBE k l m n j EDBC k l m n i Skip this question j k l m n

9. A. Multiculturalism is best understood neither as a political doctrine with a programmatic content nor a philosophical school with a distinct theory of man’s place in the world but as a perspective on or a way of viewing human life. B. This does not mean that they are determined by their culture in the sense of being unable to rise above its categories of thought and critically evaluate its values and system of meaning. C. Rather that they are deeply shaped by it and can overcome some but not all of its influences. They necessarily view the world from within a culture, be it the one they have inherited and uncritically accepted or reflectively revised or, in rare cases, one they have consciously adopted. D. Its central insights are sometimes misinterpreted by its advocates and needs to be carefully reformulated if it is to carry conviction. E. Human beings are culturally embedded in the sense that they grow up and live within a culturally structured world and organize their lives and social relations in terms of a culturally derived system of meaning and significance.

j EDCB k l m n j DBEC k l m n j EBCD k l m n j DEBC k l m n j BCDE k l m n i Skip this question j k l m n

10. A. I think about this when I take my own children to galleries. B. My most artistic child is actually the most bored by galleries. C. So, I take my children to see idiosyncratic art, such as the Turner prize but they often think it’s silly. D. You just don’t know what is going to capture their attention. E. Although I’m the daughter of a painter, art didn’t light me up in the way theater and stories did– that is why it’s so important for children to get access to a broad range of culture.

j ECDB k l m n j EBCD k l m n j DECB k l m n j DCBE k l m n j EDCB k l m n i Skip this question j k l m n

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