01.03.16

https://www.facebook.com/events/997471466982241/

1. C. Rangarajan, chairman of the Economic Advisory Council to the
former Prime Minister, had said that the Indian education system was
more focussed on answering examinations than on imparting knowledge.
Questions being asked in examinations did not call for an application
of the mind or critical analyses. Most often, they were a test of
memory. Therefore, he said, there was an urgent need to reform the
examination system. In this regard, several changes to the structure
of exams as well as the syllabus had been recommended, but no
consensus reached yet, and India was falling behind developed nations.

Which of the following can be inferred from this paragraph?
a)
Students should regard learning as an exciting experience and show a
genuine desire to learn and keep other interests out of their minds.
They should demand a rigorous education and a better examination
system.
b)
The developed nations have moved ahead of India with better structured
education systems.
c)
No changes have ever been made to the Indian higher education system.
There is infighting and lack of political will on the issue which
prevents a consensus being reached.
d)
Fifteen years ago India was on par with developed nations and the
changes that have been recommended need to be immediately put into
effect.



2.Biochar is a name for charcoal when it is used for particular
purposes, especially as a soil amendment. Like most charcoal, biochar
is created by pyrolysis of biomass. Burn any kind of organic material
− corn husks, hazelnut shells, bamboo − in an oxygen depleted process
called pyrolysis, and you generate gases and heat that can be used as
energy − biochar. Biochar is under investigation as an approach to
carbon sequestration to produce negative carbon dioxide emissions.
Biochar thus has the potential to help mitigate climate change, via
carbon sequestration. It thus proves helpful in reducing global
warming.


Which of the following, if true, would weaken the claim that biochar
is helpful in reducing global warming?
a)
The process of pyrolysis itself produces carbon dioxide emissions more
than normal energy sources.
b)
By using biochar, the farmers could fertilize existing plots instead
of clearing more land.
c)
Pyrolysis can produce enough energy in an efficient way to power a
tractor and biochar can improve soils.
d)
When added to thin and acidic soils, biochar produces higher
agricultural yields and cuts down fertilizers.


3.Sluggishness or a lack of energy or vigor or interest or enthusiasm
has to be overcome before one can achieve one's goals and targets and
meet expectations. To overcome sluggishness its existence has to be
accepted.


The above statements imply all of the following EXCEPT?
a)
Acceptance of sluggishness is a necessary precondition to meeting
one's goals and targets. Goals and targets can be met only by those
who have successfully dealt with their sluggishness.
b)
A person who does not take sluggishness seriously always fall short of
expectations.
c)
To meet expectations and achieve goals and targets, accepting and
overcoming sluggishness is a must.
d)
People who readily accept their sluggishness and are ready to face it
succeed in meeting expectations.

4.(a) Hitler next positioned his divisions along the Czechoslovakian
border, demanding that Britain and France turn a blind eye to
Germany's impending assault on that helpless country.

(b) Chamberlain even said of the meeting, "I got the impression that
here was a man who could be relied upon when he had given his word."

(c) Hitler, knowing his army might suffer a crushing defeat if Britain
and France combined forces to resist the attack, called for a meeting
in Germany, where he bullied and cajoled, setting off frightful
emotions in Chamberlain.

(d) Later historians would write that Chamberlain's distorted
perceptions of reality created deadly flaws in his thinking at a time
when Great Britain desperately needed realistic thinking about the
intentions of Hitler.

(e) When Adolf Hitler marched his troops into Austria, British Prime
Minister Neville Chamberlain hoping for peace dismissed the incident
as only an isolated event.

(f) At the meeting, when Hitler called Czechoslovakia his "last
territorial demand," Chamberlain deceived himself into believing it,
even though reality belied everything Hitler said.
a)
ceabdf
b)
cefbad
c)
eacfbd
d)
ecabdf


5.OMO
a)
The entire conceptual edifice of modern science is a product of biology.
b)
Even the most basic and profound ideas of science − relativity,
quantum theory, the theory of evolution by natural selection −are
generated and necessarily limited by the particular capacities of our
human biology, the limitations of our human brains.
c)
There was also the discovery of DNA and the genetic code with its
implication (to quote James Watson) that "There are only molecules.
Everything else is sociology" and there was also the Darwinian
revolution; the idea that far from being the climax of "intelligent
design" we are merely neotonous apes that happen to be slightly
cleverer than our cousins.
d)
This implies that the content and scope of scientific knowledge is not
open ended.


6. OMO
a)
So far archaeologists have discovered 40 large burial mounds
containing 600 likenesses of mythical animals, gods and chieftains in
what is South America's largest complex of megalithic statues.
b)
The museum has adopted its own form of protest and opened the
exhibition minus statues; light is projected where the statues would
have been; guides use a virtual-reality program and tablet computers
to show visitors a 3D image of what was meant to be there.
c)
Nestled between the headwaters of the Magdalena river and high Andean
moorland, the ancient stone statues at San Agustín are among the most
mysterious pre-Columbian archaeological artefacts.
d)
Like other sites in the region, San Agustín has suffered plunder, both
organised and freelance; Konrad Preuss, a German anthropologist who
led the first European excavations there, shipped 35 statues that he
found to a museum in Berlin, where they remain.

OMO

7.
a)
Rich prizes beckon companies that grasp digital opportunities;
ignominy awaits those that fail.
b)
The days of derision are long gone: now geeks are gods.
c)
To thousands of bright young people, nothing is cooler than coding the
night away, striving to turn their own startup into the next big
thing.
d)
Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google and Twitter are reinventing the ways
in which mere mortals converse, read, play, shop and live.


SUMMARY

8. Everybody at Harmony Villa loved the birch grove behind the house,
though to none of them did it mean what it meant to Alice. For her it
lived. She not only knew the birches but they knew her: the fern-sweet
solitudes, threatened with shadows, knew her; the wind in the boughs
always made her a glad salutation. From the first beginnings of memory
she had played in it and wandered in it and dreamed in it. She could
not remember the time it had not held her imagination in thrall and
dominated her life. It could never be to Alice just the ordinary grove
of white-skinned trees and ferny hollows it was to other people.
a)
All the residents of Harmony Villa loved the birch grove behind the
house, especially Alice.
b)
For Alice, the birch grove behind Harmony Villa was almost like a living thing.
c)
The birch grove behind the house was special to Alice in ways it was
not to other people.
d)
The grove of birch trees behind her house had always dominated Alice's life.

SUMMARY

9. Our cultural backgrounds influence not only how we marry but how we
make choices in nearly every area of our lives. From early on, members
of individualistic societies are taught the special importance of
personal choice. Even a walk through the grocery store becomes an
opportunity to teach lessons about choosing, particularly in the
United States, where stores routinely offer hundreds of options. A
parent will probably narrow down the number of choices and explain the
differences between this cereal and that one, or that toy and this
one, but the child would be encouraged to express a preference. By
contrast, members of collectivist societies place greater emphasis on
duty. Children are often told, "If you are a good child, you'll do
what your parents tell you," and the parents need not explain
themselves. From what you eat to what you wear, the toys you play with
to what you study, it is what you are supposed to do that is most
important.
a)
Individualist societies have greater dialogue with their children
whereas collectivist societies mostly talk down to their children.
b)
Individualistic societies stress more on the individual and are more
self centered, whereas collectivist societies stress more on social
units such as families and are unselfish.
c)
Children of individualist societies become accustomed to making their
own decisions whereas children in collectivist societies such as India
prefer to let their elders decide for them.
d)
Culture influences choice making. Individualistic societies emphasize
personal choice while collectivist societies emphasize duty.

summary

10. Corruption is an intractable problem. Like Diabetes, it can be
controlled but can't be eliminated. Despite moaning about corruption,
we don't hesitate to vote for the same tainted persons. Choosing
honest and dedicated people, introducing electoral reforms and
controlling electoral expenses can combat corruption to some extent.
Inculcating values in our young children might give us some hope in
future. Corruption has to be rooted out from the roots.
a)
The person who gives bribe is as much responsible for corruption as
the person who takes it.
b)
It is not easy to wipe out corruption from the world.
c)
To tackle the epidemic of corruption which can only be controlled but
not eliminated, measures like electoral reforms, choosing people of
integrity and focussing on moral values in youth can help to an
extent.
d)
Corruption can be rooted out only if every citizen vows to keep himself clean.

11 SC

Select all that are correct:

a)
With Susana Diaz beaming radiant from the conference stage after
winning control of the Spanish Socialists' mighty Andalusian branch
b)
in Granada last month, fans hailed a generational and gender
revolution in the party. Her victory confirmed that the
c)
energetic 39-years-old, who also runs the region's government, is now
Spain's most powerful Socialist.
d)
That is a big role in a country where the ruling Popular Party of
Mariano Rajoy and the Socialists tends to alternate in power.
e)
Ms Diaz's smile hides an iron will. She is at ease with power and is
reputedly ruthless against rivals.


12 SC

Identify Correct

a)
The digital revolution is transforming the process of innovation
itself. Thanks to off-the-shelf code from the internet and platforms
b)
that host services, provide distribution and offer marketing, the
number of digital startups have exploded.
c)
Just as computer-games designers invented a product that humanity
never knew it needed, these firms will dream up new products to employ
millions.
d)
When Instagram, a popular photo-sharing site, was sold to Facebook for
about $1 billion in 2012, it had 30m customers and employed 13 people.
e)
Kodak, which filed for bankruptcy a few months earlier, employed
145,000 people in its heyday.


13SC

Select all that are correct:

a)
The prospect from Sam mountain, rocky outcrop in southern Vietnam's
Mekong delta, is timeless.
b)
Paddy fields shine like emeralds and irrigation canals reflect the
sunlight as mirrors.
c)
Three times a year, farmers in surrounding towns put on their rubber
boots and plant rice seedlings deep in the soil.
d)
Rice cultivation is rooted in the Vietnamese psyche deeply.
e)
Today Vietnam's $ 4 billion in rice exports account for more than a
fifth of the global total.


14 sc

Select all that are correct:

a)
For much of the 27 years that Nelson Mandela was in prison, another
South African led an equally almost solitary life,
b)
in purely political terms, with virtue of her role as the sole liberal
member of parliament. Helen Suzman, a beacon of decency, courage and
common sense,
c)
tormented a succession of justice ministers with her barbed wit. A
string of former political prisoners, including Mandela himself,
d)
testified of her courage and, perhaps even more important, to the
effect she had in publicising and often alleviating the harshness of
their conditions behind bars.
e)
She never shrank from inveighing the tendency of the African National
Congress (ANC) to put party and state above the individual, whether
black or white.


15.Research has shown that meditation can contribute to an
individual's psychological and physiological well-being. This is
accomplished as meditation brings the brainwave pattern into an alpha
state, which is a level of consciousness that promotes the healing
state. There is scientific evidence that meditation can reduce blood
pressure and relieve pain and stress. Research has shown that hormones
and other biochemical compounds in the blood indicative of stress tend
to decrease during meditation. These changes also stabilize over time,
so that a person is actually less stressed biochemically during daily
activity. When used in combination with biofeedback, meditation
enhances the effectiveness of biofeedback. The benefits of an ongoing
meditation practice as it impacts our health can be classified further
into three categories: physiological, psychological and spiritual.
Most people who practise meditation do so to reduce stress, anxiety,
anger and other negative emotions. Increasingly, physicians prescribe
meditation as part of the treatment for a large and growing number of
medical conditions.

Which of the following, if true, significantly strengthens the idea
given in the passage?
a)
People who meditate for long periods of time often cannot distinguish
between their meditative state and reality.
b)
History of medicine shows that meditation is the oldest and most
popular system of relaxation and meditation has been proven to have no
side effects.
c)
Meditation has been recommended by people from many walks of life as a
valuable form of exercise for those living in noisy and fast cities.
d)
In a credible survey conducted to find out the impact of meditation,
70% of respondents said they felt more relaxed and less worried about
daily happenings after meditating.


#RC

One of the most influential philosophers of the post-Renaissance
period was René Descartes, who also contributed to the study of the
anatomy of the brain and the relation between the mind and body. In De
homine (On Man), published posthumously in 1662, Descartes theorized
that filaments within each nerve tube operated tiny "valvules" that
could control the flow of animal spirits into the nerves. He thought
that external stimuli would move the skin, which would pull on these
filaments to open valvules in the ventricles. This allowed animal
spirits to be released from the ventricular reservoirs into the
nerves, which in turn would trigger the muscles to move.

Descartes (1650, 1662) presented this reflexive theory only to account
for involuntary behaviour. He believed that voluntary behaviour
demanded the interaction of the rational soul with the automaton. He
maintained that this occurred through the pineal gland, a small
central body suspended between the anterior ventricles. Small
movements by the pineal gland regulated the flow of spirits through
the intricate system of pipes and valves.

It is often stated that Descartes may have considered the pineal gland
simply because it was unitary rather than double. Although this was an
important factor, Descartes also selected the pineal gland because it
was surrounded by cerebrospinal fluid, which he believed served as a
reservoir for animal spirits.

The solution to the mind-body problem proposed by Descartes was not
widely accepted. Among other things, it was argued that the pineal
gland was even better developed in wild animals than in humans, even
though the brutes were considered soulless automata. Descartes should
have expected this. In 1543, Andreas Vesalius had discussed the gross
anatomy of the pineal gland when dissecting human brains. In fact, in
Book VII of his De HumaniCorporisFabrica (The Fabric of The Human
Body), he decried, "I wish that a sheep's brain be at hand, since it
shows the gland more distinctly than does the human head."

Even Galen had discussed the pineal gland in his anatomy lesson of
A.D. 177, which called for the brain of an ox. But perhaps, even more
interestingly, in the eighth book of his De UsuPartium (On The Use of
Parts of The Body), Galen mentioned the idea of pineal movements
regulating the flow of spirits. He wrote that he evaluated this theory
and found it absurd.

For this and other reasons, opinions varied as to whether the pineal
gland could be regarded as the seat of the soul. In this context, a
few of Descartes' contemporaries suggested that the honour should be
granted to another unique structure, the corpus callosum. In
retrospect, Descartes' ideas about the brain as a reflexive machine
probably had more impact on the development of scientific thought than
his specific solution to the mind-body problem.



16. What is the primary function of the passage?
a)
To present an argument and provide examples supporting the argument.
b)
To present a hypothesis and prove the hypothesis using other studies.
c)
To present a theory and critically discuss it.
d)
To present various solutions to a scholarly dilemma.

17. According to the passage, what should Descartes have expected (in para 4)?
a)
That the pineal gland could not have been the seat of the soul.
b)
That the pineal gland could not have regulated the flow of animal spirits.
c)
That the pineal gland in wild animals was better developed than in humans.
d)
That the nature of the pineal gland in wild animals would be used to
challenge his theory.

18. Which of the following is an assumption made by Descartes while
proposing his solution to the mind-body problem?
a)
The movements of pineal glands regulates the flow of animal spirits.
b)
The pineal gland is unitary.
c)
The pineal gland is not well developed in wild animals.
d)
Cerebrospinal fluid serves as a reservoir for animal spirits.

19. DIRECTIONS for question 85: Select one or more answer choices
according to the directions given in the question.

Which of the following statements can be inferred from the passage
about the corpus callosum?


Select all that apply:

a)
The amount of cerebrospinal fluid surrounding it is more than that
surrounding pineal gland.
b)
It is a gland present in the brain
c)
It is also unitary like the pineal gland
d)
None of the above

20.(a) It's the leading edge of the train of knowledge − containing
all the history of the past and all the infinite possibilities of the
future −that keeps the whole train on the track.

(b) You don't have pure reason − you have pure confusion.

(c) Romantic reality is the cutting edge of experience.

(d) Traditional knowledge is only the collective memory of where that
leading edge has been.

(e) At the leading edge, there are no subjects, no objects, only the
track of quality ahead, and if you have no formal way of evaluating,
no way of acknowledging this quality, then the entire train has no way
of knowing where to go.
a)
ecdab
b)
decba
c)
cbeda
d)
cadeb

#RC

In the period between 1961 and 1989, the regulated art system of the
German Democratic Republic (GDR) led to a large scale exodus of at
least fifteen hundred artists to the Federal Republic of Germany
(FRG). Several young artists, who were born in the post-World War II
period, did so in order to discontinue working according to the rigid
confines of the art policy that favoured Socialist Realism as an ideal
style for the construction of a socialist utopia. For this generation,
who experienced the devastating impact of World War II only through
the stories of their parents, the GDR was "a dead corpse, dead to an
extent that you could only make fun of it", as the performance artist
Else Gabriel stated shortly after the collapse of the regime. Their
utter disillusionment in the failing socialist society was expressed
in autonomous artistic production that embraced Western modernist
approaches such as performance art, and sought legitimation in its
disturbing impact on a closed society. However, this nonconformist
attitude put artists in the crosshairs of the secret police (Minister
iumfürStaatssicherheit/MfS or Stasi), that in turn criminalized their
actions, and ultimately sought to dismantle or destroy artistic
groups. In order to continue developing their modernist art practice
and being recognized as artists, several artists were left no other
choice than to emigrate, whether through internal migration or fleeing
to 'non-socialist' foreign countries.

This exodus occurred despite the fact that the bureaucracy of an
emigration application (Ausreiseantrag) was unyielding and the process
could take up to six years. In the mid-1980s, when the overall
problems of the socialist system became more apparent, the application
rate increased significantly. For years, applicants literally lived
amidst their packed boxes in anticipation of a definitive answer on
their emigration applications. Once in the West, they faced new
challenges as they transitioned from the state-controlled model of
artistic production of the East towards the market-led approach
favoured in the West, with marked effects on their work. After all of
these efforts and sacrifices, deserting artists ended up only a few
years later in a state where the former East suddenly became West.

Why would an artist who was the visual translator of the socialist
utopia and thus generally enjoyed a high status and a good income have
a desire to fleein the first place? By pointing out the core
limitations artists found themselves confronted with, a better
understanding of their motives for pursuing emigration to the West
will evolve. By focusing on the (self-) controlled and regulate dart
system of the GDR we can define the artistic constraints and thereby
the limitations for the younger generation. The hierarchal structure
of East Germany's ruling party, the SED (Sozialistische Einheitspartei
Deutschlands/Socialist Unity Party of Germany), was reflected in its
subsidized cultural sector. In order to influence the artistic
landscape and promote the official artistic style, Socialist Realism,
the state government founded the Verband Bildender Künstler
Deutschlands (short: VBKD or VBK), the artists' union, in the early
1950s. Association with this union was mandatory to pursue an artistic
career. The union enforced the right to use special food cards in the
early years of the socialist state, supported artists' efforts to find
a studio or apartment, and most importantly assigned commissions for
art works. Simultaneously, the VBK was used as apolitical instrument
that implemented actual dogmas of the art policy, such as the
promotion of the prototypical function of Soviet art in society.
Meanwhile, the cultural department carried out campaigns against
expressionism, formalism, cosmopolitism, abstract art and heavily
debated performance arts in the 1980s.Non-conformists, i.e. those who
worked in an independent manner, could continue their work only
through private funding or at their own expense. Artists whose art was
not in alignment with the dogma prescribed by the official socialist
style were therefore excluded from art exhibitions and commissions and
could even be banned from exhibition and work.



21. According to the passage, who among the following is most likely
to be a non-conformist artist?
a)
An artist who practised Socialist Realism.
b)
An artist who was born in the post-World War II era.
c)
An artist who was associated with VBKD.
d)
An artist who practised abstract art.

22. In the second para, when the author mentions "…amidst their packed
boxes...", he intends to convey that
a)
the applicants were eager to move to the West.
b)
the applicants were against Socialism.
c)
the applicants were eager to leave the GDR.
d)
the Ausreiseantrag was about to accept their application.


23. The primary function that the quote in the first paragraph, "a
dead corpse, dead to an extent that you could only make fun of it",
serves is to
a)
indicate the tone of the passage.
b)
indicate the importance of art in the GDR.
c)
indicate the lack of activism by the state government in patronising art.
d)
indicate the general sentiment of the young post war populace of GDR.

24. Which of the following situations would be most similar to that of
a non-conformist artist in GDR during the period 1961-1989?
a)
A teenager pursuing his hobby against the wishes of his parents.
b)
A researcher publishing only the optimistic findings of his research.
c)
A book vendor selling books that are against the political sentiments
of the state.
d)
A rebel leader fighting for his principles.

25.(a) Thankfully we do not have to reinvent the wheel time and again,
but occasionally we find ourselves using wheels when, in fact, we need
to invent new forms of transportation.

(b) We may chuckle today at the Church's opposition to Galileo, but we
have our own share of favourite preconceptions embedded in our
consciousness.

(c) Sharp minds like Galileo's resist the temptation, indeed
compulsion, to rely on old mental patterns when only new ones will do
and fully appreciate the often unconscious mental process by which we
perceive events, people and things.

(d) Entrenched patterns, right or wrong, become extremely difficult to
change, as Galileo discovered when he suggested, counter to Church
dogma, that the Earth does not occupy the centre of the Universe.

(e) The ability of humans to think in patterns as they navigate
through life's sophisticated and mundane tasks is at once the greatest
strength and the most pernicious weakness of healthy human brains,
regardless of IQ.
a)
cebad
b)
eadbc
c)
cedab
d)
badec

According to Stamps, indicators of habitat quality, as perceived by an
individual of a dispersing species, include the presence of resources,
conspecifics, and hetero specifics. As you might imagine, dispersers
lack the time and energy needed to complete in-depth assessments of
critical resources in the habitats they encounter. Evidence suggests
that some dispersers rely on "quick and dirty" cues to assess the
relative quality of prospective settlement sites. For example, young
lizards (Anolisaeneus) that leave their natal site to search for
feeding territories spend only about six hours evaluating a particular
location. Given their varied diet of arthropods, this time period is
probably too short to permit a detailed assessment of prey
availability. So, rather than assessing arthropod availability at each
site, the lizards seem to assess habitat characteristics such as light
intensity and amount of leaf litter. These characteristics correlate
with prey availability and lend themselves to more rapid evaluation
than the painstaking task of evaluating the local availability of
several different prey species.

What about conspecifics? Should dispersers evaluate their presence or
absence in the vicinity of a prospective home? Absence of conspecifics
from a particular site might be a good thing. After all, if an
individual settles into an unoccupied site, then it would avoid all
that nasty intraspecific (i.e., within the same species) competition
for resources. There are two main ideas concerning how fitness might
change with number of conspecifics in an area. One model, proposed by
Fretwell, called the ideal free distribution, predicts that individual
fitness will decline as the number of conspecifics in a patch
increases. Another idea, proposed by Allee, suggests that individual
fitness increases with the number of conspecifics at low to moderate
densities, and then declines from moderate to high densities.

Stamps concluded that presence of conspecifics in an area could also
serve as a source of information about habitat quality. Juvenile
lizards (A. aeneus), for example, seem to use conspecific presence as
an indirect cue to habitat quality. Juveniles were allowed to view two
sites of equivalent quality; a territory owner was present in one site
but not on the other. After ten days, the territory owner was removed
and the juveniles were allowed to select between the two sites. The
young lizards preferred the previously occupied site to the equivalent
unoccupied site.

The presence of hetero specifics in a particular habitat can have
costs and benefits for an animal considering whether to settle there.
Interactions between species that share mutual resources could be
negative due to interspecific (i.e., between different species)
competition. Interactions between hetero specific individuals can also
be beneficial, however, such as when birds from mixed species flock
and experience the benefits of enhanced food acquisition and
antipredator behaviour. Thus, moving in where there are neighbours of
other species may be beneficial under certain circumstances. This idea
has been formalized by Mönkkönen as the heterospecific attraction
hypothesis which states that individuals choose habitat patches based
on the presence of established residents of other species. This model
predicts that individuals searching for a new home will display the
strongest attraction to heterospecifics when the benefits of social
aggregation outweigh the costs of competition and when the costs of
independent sampling of habitats are high.



26. Which of the following statements regarding dispersers and
conspecifics is accurate according to the passage?
a)
Dispersers tend to consider the presence of conspecifics to be a
negative indicator of the quality of a prospective habitat.
b)
If the population of conspecifics is high, it will increase the
individual fitness of the dispersers.
c)
Dispersers assess the characteristics of a habitat and correlate them
with the presence of conspecifics.
d)
The presence of conspecifics in a habitat is considered to be a
positive indicator of the quality of a prospective habitat by some
dispersers.


27. "After all, if an individual settles into an unoccupied site, then
it would avoid all that nasty intraspecific competition for
resources." The model proposed by which of the following authors
mentioned in the passage would support the above statement?
a)
Allee
b)
Fretwell
c)
Mönkkönen
d)
Stamps


28. Which of the following statements can definitely be inferred about
the territory owner of a habitat, in the context of the selection of a
site by a juvenile lizard?
a)
Territory owner is a conspecific whose presence indicates a high
quality habitat.
b)
The territory owner is a prey of the disperser indicating higher
resource availability and a better quality of settlement site.
c)
The territory owner is a conspecific whose presence will result in
lower individual fitness for the disperser.
d)
Both A and C


29. It can be inferred from the passage that, heterospecifics and
conspecifics in a habitat often
a)
share a predator and prey relation.
b)
serve diametrically opposite purposes during habitat selection by dispersers.
c)
coexist in a symbiotic relationship, sharing mutual benefits.
d)
do not prefer to co-exist in the same territory.


30.(a) Those in the comfort zone dislike and fear change. They avoid
risk − and, given their presence, even dominance, in some
organizations, they let conformity trump creativity whenever new
thinking threatens the status quo.

(b) However, creative minds must march courageously to the beat of a
different drum, one not always pleasing to those with trained years.

(c) Critics need not take personal responsibility for ideas, since
they only invest themselves in finding fault in the ideas of others.

(d) Those who muster the courage to rock boats quite often invite the
suspicion, resistance and even sabotage of shipmates who prefer a
comfortable ride.

(e) It's all quite natural because we all find it easier to criticize
than create.

(f) Breaking ranks always requires courage, in the navy and elsewhere.
a)
caedbf
b)
ecfdab
c)
fdaecb
d)
facdeb



Digitization is upending many core tenets of competition among
industries by lowering the cost of entering markets and providing
high-speed passing lanes to scale up enterprises. At the extreme are
hyperscale businesses that are pushing the new rules of digitization
so radically that they are challenging conventional management
intuition about scale and complexity. These businesses have users,
customers, devices, or interactions numbered in the hundreds of
millions, billions, or more. Billions of interactions and data points,
in turn, mean that events with only a one-in-a-million probability are
happening many times a day.

Taken individually, each of these businesses seems like a special
case. After all, how many companies can be like Google, which
processes around four billion searches a day; Twitter, handling 500
million tweets a day; or Alibaba, the world's largest e-commerce
market, which facilitated 254 million orders in one day?

Yet the existence of even a small but growing number of such
businesses represents a new and potent competitive force. Digital
powerhouses already are flexing their hyperscale muscles to move from
search and social networking into new sectors, like banking and
retailing. Furthermore, hyperscaling will probably touch more areas as
cheaper computer power, sensors, and communications accelerate the
pace at which businesses adopt digital technologies. Already, the
number of subscribers to China Mobile's digital and voice services has
grown to over 760 million; payments networks such as Visa process
billions of transactions; and new hyperscale segments are emerging in
manufacturing industries thanks to the Internet of Things, which
creates massive data flows from machine-to-machine interactions. For
example, the GE twin-jet engines on a Boeing 787 Dreamliner generate a
terabyte of information a day.

In the face of these developments, senior leaders and boards will need
not only to focus on their current digitization strategies but also to
consider which hyperscale businesses could threaten their existing or
emerging digital models. Alternatively, as established businesses
become more fully digitized, they may find they have opportunities to
compete at hyperscale in some segments. Large retail businesses can
exploit immense data troves that enable hyperscaling. New business
models may emerge from exploiting machine-to-machine data, making it
possible for companies that draw revenues from sales of physical
assets, such as vehicles or factory machines, to evolve into service
businesses based on usage charges. Clearly, the game is still in its
early innings and therefore, the business leaders need to have a
closer view of the new terrain at the frontiers of digital
competition.



31.The author used the phrase "high-speed passing lanes", most likely
in order to indicate that digitization is
a)
providing a path for easier entry into the market due to lower costs.
b)
creating an avenue for increased competition between large and small companies.
c)
providing an opportunity to scale up rapidly by challenging
conventional management principles.
d)
is a likely means of threat to existing businesses as new companies
manage to scale up rapidly.


32.What does the author imply when he states the fact, "twin-jet
engines on a Boeing 787 Dreamliner generate a terabyte of information
a day", in the passage?
a)
Communication between machines is significant in manufacturing industries
b)
The data generated because of machine-to-machine interactions is huge in scale.
c)
Internet of Things, involving machine-to-machine interactions has
helped manufacturing industries.
d)
Hyperscaling can be relevant even to manufacturing industries.

33.According to the passage, which of the following is necessary for
hyperscaling to affect an industry?
a)
The industry should be a nascent one.
b)
The industry should involve generating and managing massive data.
c)
The industry should follow conventional business practices.
d)
The industry should primarily be based on digital technology.

34.At the end of the passage, the author said "the game is still in
its early innings" most likely because he believes that
a)
the impact that hyper scaling can have on businesses has not been
fully realized.
b)
the business leaders of digital businesses are all very young.
c)
hyper scaling has changed the business practices of conventional businesses.
d)
many business leaders are not aware of hyper scaling.