Communication comes in two parts. First, there is what the speaker or author sends, and then there is the message that is received. If what was sent is not the same as what was received, there is a communication error. Even worse is when the sender believes something is being sent, but nothing is received. Without a feedback loop, the sender often assumes that the message has been received and understood when it truly has not.
Which of the following communication tool would the author advocate?
A :
Sending bulk e-mails and requesting for an acknowledgement
B :
Writing letters to every employee individually.
C :
Using interactive video or audio to communicate on a regular basis.
D :
The CEO or the Director meeting every employee one to one.
Answer: C Options A and B do not promise a response which is the main focus of the passage. The CEO or the Director meeting every employee is practically not possible. So option D is out. The best option is C since it ensures an on-the-spot interaction with the target.
Q. No. 2:
What a difference a generation makes. In the early 1970s, many product designers still used pen and ink to make drawings. But with the rise of microprocessors, designers increasingly made drawings on computer screens. The change enhanced speed and accuracy, and computer simulations reduced the need for painstakingly made clay prototypes. The term ‘computer-aideddesign’, or CAD, which had originated even earlier, still sounded fresh in 70s. But in today’s design-world, computers are so ubiquitous that ‘computer-aided-design’ smacks of redundancy.
Which of the following statements can be inferred from the passage?
A :
Drawing on computer screen is easier than with pen and ink.
B :
In future CAD would be a household name.
C :
In future, computers would inevitably replace all manual labours.
Answer: D The passage says drawing on computer screen enhances speed and accuracy but nowhere does it say it is easier. That it already smacks of redundancy, indicates for a possibility of its being obsolete in future, which renders B diffident. C is beyond the scope of the passage. Hence, D.
Q. No. 3:
Many companies use general rules of thumb or centralized corporate mandates to run their network operations. Lacking quick and easy ways to generate tailored solutions, these companies base decisions about staffing levels, growth targets and the like on broad, company wide guidelines, including ‘one-size-fits-all’ expense parameters or financial targets. Thus, for example, a clothing retailer might keep labour outlays at 25% of its sales across the board or set uniform sales growth targets of 55 a year for all of its stores.
Which of the following facts, if true, would strengthen the trend mentioned in the passage?
A :
The best company uses standard application packages for routine business tasks and minimizes customization.
B :
To accommodate different growth rates in different locations and regions, a company needs the flexibility that’s to be found in a distributed service network.
C :
The effect of seemingly minor mistakes in the centralized way of allocating resources can quickly be amplified across several thousand locations and perhaps threaten the whole company.
D :
Analytical tools to help optimize a distributed service network are too inaccessible and abstract to be useful.
Answer: D The trend is that many companies use centralized corporate mandate to run their network operations. B and C are in favour of decentralization of network operations. A is eliminated as the passage talks of network operations and not routine business tasks. D reveals the hassles of a distributed service network and thus strengthens the argument put across in the passage.
Q. No. 4:
We are all some part of a universal order. The very urge for personal gratification is incomplete until it finds a universal outlet. This is the cause of all upheavals in human history. The pattern is trying to fit the pieces into greater and greater units as though it could not accomplish its purpose through anything other than a democracy of Spirit, a union of all.
Which of the following can be concluded from the passage?
A :
The idea of individual identity is an illusion
B :
All, while remaining individual, find a more complete expression in and among all other individuals.
C :
Like a jigsaw puzzle, every moment of life has to fit in to define the individual.
D :
The mind is an outlet through which the creative intelligence of the universe seeks fulfillment.
Answer: B The issue of the ‘individual identity’ is beyond the scope of the passage. So is the idea of the mind. So, both A and D are eliminated. The passage deals with all life in conjunction with the universal and not moments of one’s life. So C is out. “…urge of personal gratification is incomplete until it finds a universal outlet” clearly suggests B.
Q. No. 5:
The loose, decentralized, uncensored structure of the Net is what makes it resilient and gives it longevity without falling prey to technological obsolescence. Its anarchic nature will help it reinvent itself as it has already done once. The first infant network which was known as ARPANET, (after its Pentagon sponsor), died rather quietly in the late eighties. The world had by then already moved on to TCP/IP software without any glitches or the system crashing. This smooth transition should give us the confidence that the Net is unlikely to suddenly keel over and die one day. And if the need does arise to upgrade it, either in parts or whole, it will happen without it completely falling to pieces.
Which of the following, if true, poses a threat to the anarchic nature of the Net?
A :
It’s being headless and million-limbed.
B :
The fact that it can afford to and does not dance to the tune of governments, countries or ideologies.
C :
People are abandoning the open standards processes in favour of proprietary systems, breaking it into ultimately incompatible islands.
D :
The network which is built on the TCP/IP software, is in the public domain.
Answer: C A and D define the anarchic nature of the Net and are discarded. As it can afford to stand independent, B is also not a threat to the Net. If C is true it will surely hamper the anarchic nature of the Net. Unless people are debared from accessing and using the Net, its anarchic nature would remain.
Q. No. 6:
The society which, by fixing itself in place locally, gives space a content by arranging individualised places, thus finds itself enclosed inside this localisation.
This is equivalent to:
A :
Racing, with its preoccupation on speed is a sport that survives in spite of close encounters with death.
B :
Women’s magazines, with emphasis on beauty, sexuality and independence are actually fixated on capitalism since they are by-products of consumerism
C :
Psychiatrists maintain that reading habits when begun early create a whole world of imagination in a child’s mind that is of great developmental importance.
D :
The paraphernalia of the armed forces are merely a semiotic of aggression and antagonistic war dances.
Answer: B The relation drawn here is that society turns a space into something more, but is also held within the limits of what it has conceived, i.e. imprisoned within its content. Acontent does not inhibit the sport, C content adds to the child’s mind. In D there is no suggestion that the armed forces are limited by its boundaries. But B is suitable, where the genre created by women’s magazines, is also enclosed within capitalism, which is the superstructure.