Paragraph based Problems – Learning Quiz 2

Gotera: Infants lack the motor ability required to voluntarily produce particular sounds, but produce various babbling sounds randomly. Most children are several years old before they can voluntarily produce most of the vowel and consonant sounds of their language. We can conclude that speech acquisition is entirely a motor control process rather than a process that is abstract or mental.

Which one of the following is an assumption required by Gotera’s argument?

Reducing stress lessens a person’s sensitivity to pain. This is the conclusion reached by researchers who played extended audiotapes to patients before they underwent surgery and afterward while they were recovering. One tape consisted of conversation; the other consisted of music. Those who listened only to the latter tape required less anaesthesia during surgery and fewer painkillers afterward than those who listened only to the former tape. Which one of the following is an assumption on which the researchers’ reasoning depends?

Political turmoil in a country is mainly caused by widespread violence and flawed economic policies of successive governments. If at all this has to be crushed, it can be achieved only by a dictatorial government which rules with iron hand. Therefore, the need of the hour is to elect a government which imposes fresh set of stringent legislations.
The alternatives suggested (not necessarily all), if true, considerably weaken the argument. However, one of them is most forceful. Identify the same.

Political turmoil in a country is mainly caused by widespread violence and flawed economic policies of successive governments. If at all this has to be crushed, it can be achieved only by a dictatorial government which rules with iron hand. Therefore, the need of the hour is to elect a government which imposes fresh set of stringent legislations.

Under the above fact situation, the alternatives suggested (not necessarily all), if true, significantly strengthen the argument. However, one of them is most forceful. Identify the same.

Exploitation of poor by rich can be stemmed only if the state exercises complete control over agriculture and industrial production. But state control is beset by two evils; corruption and delay. The net result is that if man tries to escape from one evil, then he is trapped by another. Suffering, hence, is inoscapable. The argument presented above seems to imply the following conclusions. Identify the one which is least dubious. Apply common sense.

That the human soul is immaterial is an undisputed fact. Significantly, what is not matter is not spatial and consequently, it is not vulnerable to motion. Evidently, no motion no dissolution. What escapes from dissolution is also free from corruptibility. Therefore, the human soul is immortal. In this argument, one premise is missing. Complete the argument by choosing from the following:

hat the human soul is immaterial is an undisputed fact. Significantly, what is not matter is not spatial and consequently, it is not vulnerable to motion. Evidently, no motion no dissolution. What escapes from dissolution is also free from corruptibility. Therefore, the human soul is immortal. In this argument, one premise is missing.  Which one of the following, if true, affects seriously the argument presented above?

Protagonists of human rights vehemently oppose capital punishment. Their opposition stems mainly from three reasons. Firstly, man cannot terminate what he cannot generate. Secondly, the function, of punishment is to reform the culprit. Thirdly, a culprit should be given an opportunity to repent. Admittedly, death penalty fails on all three counts. However, the defenders argue that a person is punished because he has to pay for his deeds. Reformation or repentance, according to them, is peripheral. Hence, death penalty is admissible. Which one of the following is the focus of this debate?

Since Venus rotates slowly, Fred Whipple thought that like Mercury, Venus keeps one face always towards the Sun. If so, he said that the dark side would be very cold. However, he knew with the help of earlier study carried out by Petit and Nicholson that it was not the case. So, he concluded that the planet must rotate fairly often to keep the darker side warmer. Which of the following is the original premise?

Before formulating the laws of motion, Galileo distinguished between mathematical study and empirical study. He, first, theoretically derived the relation between distances and times for uniformly accelerating motion by letting the ball roll a quarter, then half, then two-thirds and so on of the length of the groove and then measured the times on each occasion, which he repeated hundred times. He calculated, based on this study, that the distance travelled equalled the square of the time on all occasions. Which one of the following characterizes Galileo’s method?

Read carefully a brief summary of one of the investigations of Sherlock Holmes: “While investigating the murders of Stangerson and Enoch Drebber he got into conversation with fellow detectives which runs as follows: “The last link. My case is complete…. Could you lay your hands upon those pills”. After he got those pills, Holmes cut one of them, dissolved it in water and placed it in front of the terrier. Contrary to his expectations, the animal survived. Though disappointed a bit, he thought for a while and then cut the other pill, dissolved it, added milk and placed before the animal. The moment it licked, the animal died. Those were the pills present at the scenes of crime. Which one of the following aptly describes the method which this passage indicates?

There has been much speculation concerning the origin of lunar craters. One hypothesis is that they are the results of the impact of heavy meteors on the surface of the moon while still soft. The most probable explanation is that they were produced by the gases liberated from the rocky matter. While solidification was taking place these gases and water vapors steadily escaped through viscous surface, raising giant bubbles. The reader can easily visualize the process that took place by watching frying of pancakes and noticing the formation of bubbles and craters on their surface. Which one of the following actually helps us to determine the origin of lunar craters?

“Perhaps the earliest work of Archimedes that we have is that on ‘Plane Equilibrium’. In this, some fundamental principles of mechanics are set forth as rigorous geometric propositions. The work opens with famous postulate ‘Equal weights at equal distances are in equilibrium; equal weights at unequal distances are not in equilibrium, but incline toward the weight at the greater distance”. According to this passage, which factor or factors determine equilibrium?

According to the above passage, which one of the following values can be assigned to the statement inequal weights at equal distances are in disequilibrium?

According to the above passage, which one of the following values can be assigned to the statement ‘inequal weights at inequal distances are in disequilibrium?

‘Gregor Mendel in examining tea-plants found two sharply marked races, the tall and the short. He experimentally fertilized flowers of tall plants with pollen of short. The off spring were tall plants. He next let the flowers of this first generation be fertilized with their own pollen. In the following generation, shortness reappeared. Tallness and shortness were distributed not at random but in a definite, constant, and simple ratio: three dominant talls to one recessive short’.

Which one of the following aptly describes the distribution of dominant and recessive characteristics?

It is said that in his strongly worded reaction to quantum Physics, Einstein remarks ‘God does not play dice’ to which Bohr, another great physicist, reacted saying ‘Do not tell God what to do?. Bohr, earlier had argued that we can never know what the properties of an isolated quantum system.

Which one of the following is the focus of their debate?

An efficient and diesel-independent public transport system is essential to the economic development of nation. Suppose that the government adopts a policy to that effect, then there is another favorable result. The pollution of environment is reduced to a greater extent. But, then it has two-pronged backlash. The sale and consequently the production of two and four wheelers reduce to the minimum which in turn render a large number of people jobless. Cash flow to the treasury also is adversely affected. Such a step, therefore, is self-defeating unless the government evolves a counter-strategy to nullify the adverse effects. Which one of the following accurately projects the opinion of an imaginary speaker or author, as the case may be, of this passage?

A moot question to be considered is whether democratic form of government is a boon or bane, no matter what Lincoln might or might not have said. Rather his most (in?) famous adage, ‘by the people, for the people and of the people’ misses the most pertinent question; which attitude works behind when a person declares that he is a (or the right?) candidate to serve the people, and does not hesitate to contest and fight tooth and nail the election, an euphemism for battle with or without bullets, Admittedly, the covert attitude is different from overt attitude. Hardly any one contests the election unwillingly. A contestant is not persuaded by any one, but driven by his own passions and dubious motives. Contrast this picture with Socrates’ version; no honest man willingly takes up the job of ruler. If at all he accepts, he does so for fear of being ruled by one made up of inferior mettle. It is beyond even the wildest imagination

Assuming that every statement is true, identify from among the given alternatives the one which strictly follows from the passage.

According to the above passage, which one of the following correctly differentiates Lincoln’s and Socrates’ analyses?

Many environmentalists either adopt double standard or do not know what they are talking about. A protagonist of environment, for obvious reasons, ought not to bat for any type of progress because progress without meddling with nature is a myth. But none can live without scientific and technological advance which has singularly made progress possible. Furthermore, environment includes not just forest wealth and hills, but animal wealth also. An honest environmentalist is obliged to address the following questions. First, should man in the interest of hygiene, kill any living being be it an insect purported to be harmful or stray dogs? After all, this world does not belong to man alone. Which one of the following runs counter to the spirit of the passage?

Does our society need reservation in jobs? Before we defend reservation, we must consider some issues. Why do we need reservation? Obviously, reservation is required to lift the downtrodden and thereby achieve equality. How do you achieve this? Every individual, without exception, has a right to receive quality education. It is more so in the case of downtrodden people. Only a good-natured meritorious teacher can impart quality education. Suppose that a person who is neither good natured nor meritorious becomes a teacher thanks to reservation system. Then generations of students suffer.

Suppose that there is some merit in this argument. Then which of the following aptly describes the fall-out of this argument?

Under the same fact situation as above, which one of the following helps you to circumvent the situation?

‘China has a higher literacy rate than India. This is due to the greater efficiency of the Communist system. Efficiency is sorely lacking in India’s democratic system. Therefore, democracy is the biggest obstacle to India’s achieving 100% literacy.’

Which of the following, if true, would directly undermine the above argument?

‘In 399 BC, a jury in Athens condemned Socrates to death for impiety and corrupting the morals of the youth. Socrates’ friends offered to help him escape, but Socrates refused. Socrates argued that the fact that he had lived in Athens for so many years meant that he had committed himself to obeying its laws. It would therefore be wrong for him to break those very laws he was implicitly committed to obeying.’ Which one of the following claims constitutes the most plausible challenge to Socrates’ argument?