- DI & DS
- English Language
- GK
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Intelligence & CR
- Alphabet & Number Ranking
- Analytical Reasoning
- Blood Relations Test
- Coding - Decoding
- Comparision of Ranks
- Direction Sense Test
- Mathematical Operation / Number Puzzles
- Series
- Sitting Arrangement
- Statement and Arguement
- Statement and Conclusion
- Statement and Course of Action
- Statement-Assumption
- Syllogism
-
Mathematical Skills
- Average
- Calender
- Clocks
- Geometry
- Height and Distance
- Logarithms
- Mensuration
- Mixtures and Alligations
- Number System
- Percentage
- Permutation and Computation
- Probability
- Profit and Loss
- Ratio and Proportion
- Set Theory
- Simple calculations
- Simple Equations
- Simple Interest and Compound Interest
- Time and Work
- Time, Speed and Distance
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97.
Enunciated by Jung as an integral part of his psychology in 1916 immediately after his unsettling confrontation with the unconscious, the transcendent function was seen by Jung as uniting the opposites, transforming psyche, and central to the individuation process. It also undoubtedly reflects his personal experience in coming to terms with the unconscious. Jung portrayed the transcendent function as operating through symbol and fantasy and mediating between the opposites of consciousness and the unconscious to prompt the emergence of a new, third posture that transcends the two. In exploring the details of the transcendent function and its connection to other Jungian constructs, this work has unearthed significant changes, ambiguities, and inconsistencies in Jung’s writings. Further, it has identified two separate images of the transcendent function: (1) the narrow transcendent function, the function or process within Jung’s pantheon of psychic structures, generally seen as the uniting of the opposites of consciousness and the unconscious from which a new attitude emerges; and (2) the expansive transcendent function, the root metaphor for psyche or being psychological that subsumes Jung’s pantheon and that apprehends the most fundamental psychic activity of interacting with the unknown or other. This book has also posited that the expansive transcendent function, as the root metaphor for exchanges between conscious and the unconscious, is the wellspring from whence flows other key Jungian structures such as the archetypes and the Self, and is the core of the individuation process. The expansive transcendent function has been explored further by surveying other schools of psychology, with both depth and non-depth orientations, and evaluating the transcendent function alongside structures or processes in those other schools which play similar mediatory and/or transitional roles.
[1] The above passage is most likely an excerpt from:
(A) A research note
(B) An entry on a psychopathology blog
(C) A popular magazine article
(D) A scholarly treatise
(E) A newspaper article[2] It can be definitely inferred from the passage above that
(A) The expansive transcendent function would include elements of both the Consciousness and the Unconscious.
(B) Archetypes emerge from the narrow transcendent function.
(C) The whole work, from which this excerpt is taken, primarily concerns itself with the inconsistencies in Jung’s writings.
(D) Jung’s pantheon of concepts subsumes the root metaphor of psyche.
(E) The transcendent is the core of the individuation process.[3] A comparison similar to the distinction between the two images of the transcendent function would be:
(A) raucous: hilarious
(B) synchronicity: ontology
(C) recession: withdrawal
(D) penurious: decrepit
(E) none of the above[4] As per the passage, the key Jungian structure - other than the Self - that emerges from the expansive transcendent function may NOT be expressed as a(n):
(A) Stereotype
(B) Anomaly
(C) Idealized model
(D) Original pattern
(E) Epitomeasked in XAT
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98.
Deborah Mayo is a philosopher of science who has attempted to capture the implications of the new experimentalism in a philosophically rigorous way. Mayo focuses on the detailed way in which claims are validated by experiment, and is concerned with identifying just what claims are borne out and how. A key idea underlying her treatment is that a claim can only be said to be supported by experiment if the various ways in which the claim could be as fault have been investigated and eliminated. A claim can only be said to be borne out by experiment, and a severe test of a claim, as usefully construed by Mayo, must be such that the claim would be unlikely to pass it if it were false.
Her idea can be explained by some simple examples. Suppose Snell’s law of refraction of light is tested by some very rough experiments in which very large margins of error are attributed to the measurements of angles of incidence and refraction, and suppose that the results are shown to be compatible with the law within those margins of error. Has the law been supported by experiments that have severely tested it? From Mayo’s perspective the answer is “no” because, owing to the roughness of the measurements, the law of refraction would be quite likely to pass this test even if it were false and some other law differing not too much from Snell’s law true. An exercise I carried out in my school-teaching days serves to drive this point home. My students had conducted some not very careful experiments to test Snell’s law. I then presented them with some alternative laws of refraction that had been suggested in antiquity and mediaeval times, prior to the discovery of Snell’s law, and invited the students to test them with the measurements they had used to test Snell’s law; because of the wide margins of error they had attributed to their measurements, all of these alternative laws pass the test. This clearly brings out the point that the experiments in question did not constitute a severe test of Snell’s law. The law would have passed the test even if it were false and one of the historical alternatives true.
[1] Which of the following conclusion can be drawn from the passage?
(A) Experimental data might support multiple theoretical explanations at the same time, hence validity of theories needs to be tested further.
(B) Precise measurement is a sufficient condition to ensure validity of conclusions resulting from an experiment.
(C) Precise measurement is both a necessary and sufficient condition to ensure validity of conclusions resulting from an experiment.
(D) Precise measurement along with experimenter’s knowledge of the theory underpinning the experiment is sufficient to ensure the validity of conclusions drawn from experiments.
(E) All of these
[2] As per Mayo’s perspective, which of the following best defines the phrase “scientific explanation”?
(A) One which is most detailed in its explanation of natural phenomena.
(B) One which has been thoroughly tested by scientific experts.
(C) One which survives examinations better than other explanations.
(D) One which refutes other explanations convincingly.
(E) All of these.[3] The author’s use of Snell's law of refraction to illustrate Mayo’s perspective can best said to be
(A) Contrived.
(B) Premeditated.
(C) Superfluous.
(D) Illustrative.
(E) Inadequate.asked in XAT
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99.
Every conscious mental state has a qualitative character that we refer to as mood. We are always in a mood that is pleasurable or unpleasurable to some degree. It may be that bad moods relate to their being too positive reinforcement in a person’s current life and too many punishments. In any case, moods are distinguished from emotions proper by not being tied to any specific object. But, this distinction is not watertight, in that emotions need not be directed at objects that are completely specific (we can be angry just at people generally) while there is always a sense of a mood having a general objective like the state of the world at large. Moods manifest themselves in positive or negative feelings that are tied to health, personality, or perceived quality of life. Moods can also relate to emotions proper, as in the aftermath of an emotional incident such as the failure to secure a loan. A mood on this basis is the mind’s judgment on the recent past. For Goldie, emotion can bubble up and down within a mood, while an emotion can involve characteristics that are non-object specific.
What is important for marketing is that moods colour outlook and bias judgements. Hence the importance of consumer confidence surveys, as consumer confidence typically reflects national mood. There is mood - congruence when thoughts and actions fall inline with mood. As Goleman says, there is a “constant stream of feeling” that runs “in perfect to our steam of thought”. Mood congruence occurs because a positive mood evokes pleasant associations that lighten subsequent appraisals (thoughts) and actions, while a negative arouses pessimistic associations that influence future judgment and behaviour. When consumers are in a good mood, they are more optimistic about buying more confident in buying, and much more willing to tolerate things like waiting in line. On the other hand, being in a mood makes buying behaviour in the “right mood” by the use of music and friendly staff or, say, opens bakeries in shopping malls that delight the passer-by with the smell of fresh bread.
Thayer views moods as a mixture of biological and psychological influences and, as such, a sort of clinical thermometer, reflecting all the internal and external events that influence us. For Thayer, the key components of mood are energy and tension in different combinations. A specific mixture of energy and tension, together with the thoughts they influence, produces moods. He discusses four mood states:
• Calm-energy: he regards this as the optimal mood of feeling good
• Calm-tiredness: he regards this as feeling a little tired without any stress, which can be pleasant.
• Tense-energy: involves a low level of anxiety suited to a fight-or-flight disposition.
• Tense-tiredness: is a mixture of fatigue and anxiety, which underlies the unpleasant feeling of depression.
People generally can “feel down” or “feel good” as a result of happenings in the world around them. This represents the national mood. People feel elated when the national soccer team wins an international match or depressed when their team has lost. An elated mood of calm - energy is an optimistic mood, which is good for business. Consumers, as socially involved individuals, are deeply influenced by the prevailing social climate. Marketers recognize the phenomenon and talk about the national mood being, say for or against conspicuous consumption. Moods do change, though. Writing early in the nineteenth century, Toqueville describes an American elite embarrassed by the ostentation of material display; in the “Gilded Age”, sixty years later, many were only too eager to embrace a materialistic vulgarity. The problem lies in anticipating changes in national mood, since a change in mood affects everything from buying of equities to the buying of houses and washing machines. Thayer would argue that we should be interested in national events that are likely to produce a move toward a tense- tiredness state or toward a calm-energy state, since these are the polar extremes and are more likely to influence behaviour. Artists sensitive to national moods express the long-term changes. An example is the long- term emotional journey from Charles Dickens’s depiction of the death of little Nell to Oscar Wilde’s cruel flippancy about it. “One would have to have a heart of stone not to laugh at the death of little Nell”, which reflects the mood change from high Victorian sentimentality to the acerbic cynicism of the end of the century, as shown in writers like Thomas Hardy and artists like Aubrey Beardsley.
Whenever the mind is not fully absorbed, consciousness is no longer focused and ordered. Under such conditions the mind falls into dwelling on the unpleasant, with a negative mood developing. Csikszentmihalyi argues that humans need to keep consciousness fully active is what influences a good deal of consumer behaviour. Sometimes it does not matter what we are shopping for - the point is to shop for anything, regardless, as consuming is one way to respond to the void in consciousness when there is nothing else to do.
[1] Which one of the following statements best summarizes the above passage?
(A) The passage highlights how moods affect nations.
(B) The passage highlights the importance of moods and emotions in marketing.
(C) The passage draws distinction between moods and emotions.
(D) Some writers influenced national moods through their writings.
(E) Thayer categorised moods into four states.[2] Which of the following is the closest to “conspicuous consumption” in the passage?
(A) Audible consumption
(B) Consumption driven by moods and emotions
(C) Socially responsible consumption
(D) Consumption of material items for impressing others
(E) Private but not public consumption[3] What is “moods congruence”?
(A) When moods and emotions are synchronized.
(B) When moods are synchronous with thoughts and actions.
(C) When emotions are synchronous with actions and thoughts.
(D) When moods are synchronous with thoughts but not with action.
(E) When moods are synchronous with action but not with thought.[4] Implication and Proposition are defined as follows:
Implication: a statement which follows from the given text.
Proposition: a statement which forms a part of the given text.
Consider the two statements below and decide whether they are implications or propositions.
I. The marketers should understand and make use of moods and emotions in designing and selling products and services.
II. Consuming is nothing but way of filling the void in consciousness.
(A) Both statements are implications.
(B) First is implication, second is proposition.
(C) Both are propositions.
(D) First is proposition, second is implication.
(E) Both are neither implication nor proposition.[5] Which statements from the ones given below are correct?
1. In general, emotions are object specific
2. In general, moods are not object specific
3. Moods and emotions are same
4. As per Thayer, moods are a mix of biological and psychological influences
(A) 1, 2, 3
(B) 2, 3, 4
(C) 2, 4, 3
(D) 1, 2, 4
(E) All four are right[6] The statement “Moods provide energy for human actions” is ________.
(A) always right.
(B) always wrong.
(C) sometimes right.
(D) not derived from the passage.
(E) contradictory.asked in XAT
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100.
One of the ironies of counterfeiting is that while it reduces demand for authentic products—thus reducing employment that would otherwise be employed in making those products—it also creates jobs in the factories, sweatshops, and back-alley operations where counterfeits are made.
“In advanced Western economies, job creation is regarded as a vital imperative for all governments and politicians. This is because unemployment impacts on society in all sorts of ways, in lost tax revenue, unemployment pay, and attendant social costs. In developing countries where counterfeiting is rife, different considerations apply. Counterfeiters are able to tap a vast pool of low cost labor, which has no access to the sort of welfare benefits available in well developed industrialized countries. In addition, taxes are minimal or nonexistent, and counterfeiters can masquerade as Robin Hood figures providing a valuable service for the community at the expense of ‘wealthy” rights owners ... the message is that (while counterfeiting does destroy the jobs of victim companies and their suppliers...it does create jobs for those in the counterfeiting industry. This of course may well be one reason why countries that have become well known as havens of counterfeiting have been reluctant to clamp down on this industry too hard.”—Peter Lowe, Counterfeiting Intelligence Bureau.
In those economies where counterfeiting is an industry itself, jobs are created when counterfeiters employ people to make fake products. In one startling example described by the Counterfeiting Intelligence Bureau, an investigator in China visiting the city of Wenzhou, about 400 kilometres south of Shanghai, uncovered a vast industrial zone, with perhaps as many as a thousand companies engaged in the business of producing counterfeit low-voltage electrical switchgear. The investigator estimated that somewhere between 2,00,000 to 3,00,000 people were employed in these businesses.
Although this type of employment may appear as a benefit to those being employed, it often has other problems associated with it. The same investigator who described the switchgear counterfeiting industry in Wenzhou also described seeing child labor in the various establishments producing fake products. He described unsafe working conditions, with the assembly of finished goods often taking place on the street. Workers are paid by the piece, and unprotected by any insurance, benefits, union representation, or holidays.
Poor working conditions are endemic throughout much of the developing world—where much counterfeiting takes place. But one key difference between being employed by a counterfeiter and being employed by a legitimate industry is obvious : Counterfeiters have little long-term incentive to improve working conditions, and any legislation or change in government policy would not likely affect counterfeiters. When government interference or regulation becomes too onerous— or makes counterfeiting too risky an occupation in a certain location—the counterfeiters simply move to a more conducive locale.
It may not come as a surprise, though, to realize that support in local communities for counterfeiters can be quite high—these establishments, while illegal, create employment.Often this support can overwhelm government attempts to enforce crack downs :
A violent conflict erupted in Xintang Town, Zengchen City when 5,000 people who were involved in the manufacture of fake jeans and other imitation products confronted a team of government officials who had been sent to crack down on the trade in counterfeits. In what must have been a chilling experience for the enforcers, the local people surrounded the motorcade of more than 60 government officials, reporters and public security officers from Guangzhou who had come to maintain order. The situation turned critical when some of the local people threatened to disarm the public security officials. A “stand off” of more than three hours ensued after which negotiations were started which finally diffused the situation.
The costs of hosting counterfeiting to a community are not simply those normally associated with low wages and child labor in unsafe conditions. More far-reaching consequences are being uncovered as the scope of counterfeiting throughout the globe has become more apparent. In the McKinsey Quarterly in the spring of 2000, a group of McKinsey consultants looked at the Russian economy’s inability to generate growth throughout the 1990s. Among the factors cited as contributing to the poor labor productivity and the disincentive to invest in research and development was counterfeiting:
The software industry, one of the prime creators of jobs and value in healthy modern economies, employs a mere 8,000 workers in Russia, compared with 6,40,000 in the United States. Why is this important industry so small? For starters, 89% of all packaged software in Russia is produced illegally. Russian packaged-software firms, therefore, can’t produce sufficient returns to justify investing in new products, or in research and development to improve existing ones. In addition, the softwareconsuming sectors, whose demand drives the emergence and growth of software firms, are both smaller and less interested in productivity-enhancing software tools than are their Western counterparts. In modern economies, for example, supermarkets —with their complex inventory management systems—are big consumers of software, but Russia has few of them. Similarly, modern banks use software to keep costs low and customer service high, but in Russia, where success in banking depends on relationships with the authorities, the demand for banking software is nearly nonexistent relative to demand in the United States.
This conclusion was echoed in the Counterfeiting Intelligence Bureau’s book Countering Counterfeiting, which also concluded that “another national consequence resulting from the costs incurred by ‘victim’ companies is a general decline in R&D, since a company cannot expect the full return from its investment.
In addition, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has highlighted the loss of direct foreign investment that can arise as a result of a country becoming known as a haven for counterfeiting. In the OECD’s own report on the Economic Impact of Counterfeiting (1998), the organization writes that “such countries suffer both tangible and intangible losses... foreign producers of reputable products become reluctant to manufacture their products in countries where counterfeiting is rife as they cannot rely on the enforcement of their intellectual property rights. Hence, such countries not only lose direct foreign investment but also miss out on foreign know-how.”
While counterfeiting can create jobs, it can also create a series of other problems that ultimately could lead to an economy being less competitive, less integrated into the stream of international commerce, and less productive than economies where governments choose to crack down on counterfeiters.
[1] Which one of the following would be a suitable title for the passage?
(1) Economic and social consequences of counterfeiting
(2) The irony of counterfeiting as a creater of employment
(3) Social consequences of counterfeiting
(4) Advantages and disadvantages of counterfeiting[2] Based on the arguments presented in the passage which concrete inference can be made regarding counterfeiting:
(1) counterfeiting exists because there is a market for it
(2) all of the above
(3) counterfeiting is a necessary evil in developing countries as it generates employment
(4) counterfeiting hurts the economy of developed nations[3] In Russia the software industry is small because:
(1) almost 90% packaged software is illegal and therefore its market also is limited
(2) all of the above
(3) very little money is invested in R&D needed for developing new softwares that can help the industry grow
(4) Russian banks and supermarkets do not need complex software solutions, and so there is no market for software development in this area[4] What are some of the consequences of counterfeiting in developing countries?
(1) It perpetuates poor global work ethics
(2) (3) and (4)
(3) It encourages exploitation of labour
(4) It discourages investments in research and development[5] Which statement is true?
(1) The confrontation between the crackdown team against counterfeiting and thousands of people involved in manufacture of counterfeit goods turned violent in Xintang Town, Zengchen city
(2) All the statements are true
(3) 5,000 people from Wenzhou confronted 60 government officials from Guangzhao
(4) People of Zengchen city were exploited by their employers and worked in poor conditions[6] In the final analysis who benefits from counterfeiting?
(1) Counterfeiting organization and its employees
(2) No one
(3) Developing countries and its people
(4) The counterfeiting organization[7] What recommendations would you like to make to developing countries which engage in producing counterfeit goods?
(1) The passage does not provide information for making recommendations
(2) Allow global regulatory agencies to independently handle the counterfeit economy
(3) Clamp down on organizations which produce counterfeit goods
(4) Allow employment through counterfeit but force, such organizations, to provide better work conditions to the employees[8] Which cluster according to you is the best solution for handling the problem of counterfeiting?
(1) Play of market forces; sanctions; allow counterfeiting .
(2) None of the above
(3) Allow counterfeiting; regulate work conditions; invest in R&D
(4) MOU between original and counterfeiting organization; government regulation; activismasked in FMS
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101.
How can technology be defined? Technology often is considered a means to a particular end, the means being artificially created, not natural, and something that is not directly necessary for the individual or the end user; it serves, rather, to fulfil the need to produce something that is later to be consumed. However, we use the term in a broader sense. We regard technology as being more than just sum of such artefacts, which are merely the crystallized, concrete manifestations of human behavioural patterns. A method is the how, the way in which a goal is reached and which involves the use of means. A means is a medium in that it mediates between the starting point and the desired result, regardless of what sort of action is involved. Thus one could speak of social technology (e.g., psychotherapy) as a technology and not merely of technology as something used for material production in a society. So technology also includes the knowhow involved in the use of the application of the artefacts. In short, technology embraces the ways and means of acting in pursuit of a goal.
How can culture be defined? Using the same analogy of technology, it could be understood to be an equally artefactbased concept, which is not a means to an end, but rather an end in itself. That is to say, it is not in itself an essential of life, but rather something that represents a human desire (i.e., what makes humans distinct from other living beings). Here, too, there is a notion that culture is not only the result of a process but also this very process itself as it moves towards a goal; that is to say, culture is a characteristic of goal-oriented actions (i.e., striving towards goals as well as the goals themselves).
Are there imaginable connections between culture and technology? The two ideal typical extreme positions are well known, each making a single direction of determination.
The first position can be referred to as technological determinism, which postulates the total, or at least dominating, influence of technology on culture. Technology is supposed to develop more or less on its own, pushing social development along as it goes. this may be interpreted positively or negatively. An uncritical opinion of Marxist origin saw social advancement as an inevitable result of technical achievements, just as the ideology of the bourgeoisie justified the progress of technically possible as socially desirable. This view is opposed entirely by fundamentalists who hold technological development responsible for the loss of human values in a society. Neither philosophy accepts the possibility of technological development being influenced in any way. Both ignore the fact that there would be no such development if multinational corporations and national governments were to stop investing in research and development; if there was no political, economic and military interests. The fact that on a micro-level there are countless thousands of engineers constantly involved in technology design, and that on a macrolevel managers and politicians decide which technological options are realised, supports the second theory—social constructivism—that technology is constructed deliberately to be a part of a society. According to this view, the interests of those groups that dominate the genesis of technology finally are embodied in the technology, which in itself cannot be neutral. Here again both a critical and an approving variant may be distinguished. While one bemoan the inability of existing technology to pursue ethically justifiable, socially acceptable, and peaceful and environmentally sound objectives, the other sees the existing economic, democratic and human rights structures as the best guarantee of developing optimal technological options. Both approaches neglect the inherent dynamism within technological development.
Do the two theories—technological determinism and social constructivism—together give a realistic view of the relationship between culture and technology? This would mean that two equally matched factors—technical and cultural would not be complete without other. Though as a corollary you may like to add that they are a little independent also of each other. This is a superficial answer. A better explanation can be put forward. Technology is based on cooperation, be it in the application of special methods, the implementation of these in specific social areas, their invention and development or any situation in which skills and knowledge of members of society are required. The same holds true for convictions, value judgements, instructions, standards, behavioural pattern and the like. These are just as much part of content that promote or discourage technological methods. Technology makes every technologically mediated action into a socially determined one, and its use is a human characteristic. Technological development is part of cultural development; this means that technology is part of culture, and their relationship to each other is one of part and whole. Culture is the all embracing factor in this context.
In each part whole relationship, the parts are the necessary precondition for the emergence of the whole but are not the sufficient condition for the complete determination of the result. The whole arises from parts but exerts control over them in the form of downward causation. This means technology has the purpose of solving social problems. Social interests and culture are therefore in the origin of invention of technology—and culture becomes the reason for the existence of technology. But technology is ambivalent, sometimes it fails to do what is wanted, and other times not only fulfils expectations but goes on to do other useful tasks not anticipated. Realizable goals therefore, do not exist at the start of the process, but may be discovered as option made available by technology. However, whether society decides to pursue these goals on grounds they are possible is no longer a question of technology but rather social decision making.
To conclude, the relationship of technology and culture is dialectic. A relationship is usually dialectic if, first, the sides of the relation are opposed to each other; second, both sides depend on each other; and third, they form a relationship that is asymmetrical. A part-whole relationship is dialectic since part and whole represent opposites, the whole depends on parts as well as parts on the whole, and parts and whole build up a hierarchy in which the different levels cannot be replaced by each other. Such is the relationship between technology and culture.
[1] With respect to “defining technology” which statement is true?
(1) Technology is the sum of the artefacts which are crystallized and concrete manifestations of human behavioural patterns.
(2) None of the above.
(3) Technology is a complex phenomenon and is about the “know how” and “means” to achieve goals that are not natural to human beings.
(4) Technology is more than the sum of parts that mediates goals and the realization of goals.[2] Which statement best represents the ‘meaning of culture’?
(1) Culture is the set of goal oriented activities and their solutions, that are shared by a particular group.
(2) All of the above.
(3) Culture is the summation of goals that people strive for and the means to achieve them.
(4) The trajectory of fulfilling human desires, through chosen ways and the resultant outcomes is culture.[3] Which statement is true?
(1) Technology and culture shape each other equally.
(2) All are wrong.
(3) Technology shapes culture.
(4) Culture shapes technology.[4] What is common between technology and culture?
(1) Both lead to new needs and desired goals
(2) Statement (3) and (4)
(3) Both are shared phenomenon
(4) Both are shaped by each other[5] Which of the following statements is true?
(1) The Fundamentalists are against technological development.
(2) All the statements are correct.
(3) The bourgeoisie equate technological growth with socially desirable.
(4) The Marxists believe that technology propel social advancement.[6] The passage refers to part-whole relationship. Which of the following statements is correct in this regard?
(1) The relationship between part-whole is bidirectional, dynamic and hierarchical.
(2) (3) and (4) are correct.
(3) In part-whole relationships, the whole is sum of parts.
(4) The whole exerts influence on parts, and not the other way round.[7] Which of the following statements is false?
(1) Realizable goals do not exist, unless technology finds ways to realize them.
(2) All goals that are realizable are based on societal decisions.
(3) Technology is ambivalent; it both realizes social goals and changes pre-existing goals.
(4) Culture defines goals that technology strives to realize.[8] The passage talks of three viewpoints regarding the relationship between technology and culture. Which of the following does not represent a viewpoint?
(1) Technological determinism and social constructivism together give a realistic view of the relationship between technology and culture.
(2) Technology has the task of functioning as a means for solving social problems, and culture influences the invention, diffusion and application of technology; but sometimes technology also creates new goals.
(3) Technology develops more or less on its own, pushing social development.
(4) Interests of those groups that dominate the genesis of technology finally are embodied in the technology.asked in FMS
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102.
A creamy blur of succulent blue sound smells like weekold strawberries dropped onto a tin sieve as mother approaches in a halo of color, chatter, and a perfume like thick golden butterscotch. Newborns ride on intermingling waves of sight, sound, touch, taste, and, especially, smell. As Daphne and Charles Maurer remind us in The World of the Newborn:
His world smells to him much as our world smells to us, but he does not perceive odors as coming through his nose alone. He hears odors, and sees odors, and feels them too. His world is a mêlée of pungent aromas—and pungent sounds, and bitter-smelling sounds, and sweet-smelling sights, and soursmelling pressures against the skin. If we could visit the newborn’s world, we would think ourselves inside a hallucinogenic perfumery.
In time, the newborn learns to sort and tame all its sensory impressions, some of which have names, many of which will remain nameless to the end of its days. Things that elude our verbal grasp are hard to pin down and almost impossible to remember. A cozy blur in the nursery vanishes into the rigorous categories of common sense. But for some people, that sensory blending never quits, and they taste baked beans whenever they hear the word “Francis”, as one woman reported, or see yellow on touching a matte surface, or smell the passage of time. The stimulation of one sense stimulates another : synesthesia is the technical name, from the Greek syn (together) aisthanesthai (to perceive). A thick garment of perception is woven thread by overlapping thread. A similar word is synthesis, in which the garment of thought is woven together idea by idea, and which originally referred to the light muslin clothing worn by the ancient Romans.
Daily life is a constant onslaught on one’s perceptions, and every-one experiences some intermingling of the senses. According to Gestalt psychologists, when people are asked to relate a list of non-sense words to shapes and colors they identify certain sounds with certain shapes in ways that fall into clear patterns. What’s more surprising is that this is true whether they are from the United States, England, the Mahali peninsula, or Lake Tanganyika. People with intense synesthesia tend to respond in predictable ways, too. A survey of two thousand synesthetes from various cultures revealed many similarities in the colors they assigned to sounds. People often associate low sounds with dark colors and high sounds with bright colors, for instance. A certain amount of synesthesia is built into our senses. If one wished to create instant synesthesia, a dose of mescaline or hashish would do nicely by exaggerating the neural connections between the senses. Those who experience intense synesthesia naturally on a regular basis are rare—only about one in every five hundred thousand people—and neurologist Richard Cytowic traces the phenomenon to the limbic system, the most primitive part of the brain, calling synesthetes “living cognitive fossils”, because they may be people whose limbic system is not entirely governed by the much more sophisticated (and more recently evolved) cortex. As he says, “synesthesia .... may be a memory of how early mammals saw, heard, smelled, tasted and touched.”
While synesthesia drives some people to distraction, it drives distractions away from others. While it is a small plague to the person who doesn’t want all that sensory overload, it invigorates those who are indelibly creative. Some of the most famous synesthetes have been artists. Composers Aleksandr Scriabin and Nikolai Rimski-Korsakov both freely associated colors with music when they wrote. To Rimski-Korsakov, C major was white; to Scriabin it was red. To Rimski-Korsakov, A major was rosy, to Scriabin it was green. More surprising is how closely their music-color synesthesias matched. Both associated E major with blue (for Rimski-Korsakov, it was sapphire blue, for Scriabin blue-white), A-flat major with purple (for Rimski-Korsakov it was grayish-violet, for Scriabin purple-violet), D major with yellow, etc.
Either writers have been especially graced with synesthesia, or they’ve been keener to describe it. Dr Johnson once said that scarlet “represented nothing so much as the clangour of a trumpet.” Baudelaire took pride in his sensory Esperanto, and his sonnet on the correspondences between perfumes, colors, and sounds greatly influenced the synesthesia-loving Symbolist movement. Symbol comes from the Greek word symballein, “to throw together”, and, as The Columbia Dictionary of Modern European Literature explains, the Symbolists believed that “all arts are parallel translations of one fundamental mystery. Senses correspond to each other; a sound can be translated through a perfume and a perfume through a vision. .....Haunted by these horizontal correspondences” and using suggestion rather than straightforward communication, they sought “the One hidden in Nature behind the Many.” Rimbaud, who assigned colors to each of the vowel sounds and once described A as a “black hairy corset of loud flies”, claimed that the only way an artist can arrive at life’s truths is by experiencing “every form of love, of suffering, of madness”, to be prepared for by “a long immense planned disordering of all the senses.” The Symbolists, who were avid drug takers, delighted in the way hallucinogens intensified all their senses simultaneously. They would have loved (for a short time) taking LSD while watching Walt Disney’s Fantasia, in which pure color dramatizes, melts into, and spurts from classical music. Few artists have written about synesthesia with the all-out precision and charm of Vladimiar Nabokov, who, in Speak, Memory, analyses what he calls his “colored hearing”:
Perhaps “hearing” is not quite accurate, since the color sensation seems to be produced by the very act of my orally forming a given letter while I imagine its outline. The long a of the English alphabet ... has for me the tint of weathered wood, but a French a evokes polished ebony. This black group also includes hard g (vulcanized rubber) and r (a sooty rag being ripped). Oatmeal n, noodle-limp l, and the ivory-backed hand mirror of o take care of ........”
Synesthesia can be hereditary, so it’s not surprising that Nabokov’s mother experienced it, nor that it expressed itself slightly differently in her son. However, it’s odd to think of Nabokov, Faulkner, Virginia Woolf, Huysmans, Baudelaire, Joyce, Dylan Thomas and other notorious synesthetes as being more primitive than most people, but that may indeed be true. Great artists feel at home in the luminous spill of sensation, to which they add their own complex sensory Niagara. It would certainly have amused Nabokov to imagine himself closer than others to his mammalian ancestors, which he would no doubt have depicted in a fictional hall of mirrors with suave, prankish, Nabokovian finesse.
[1] Those who experience intense synesthesia are rare. Which cluster are synesthetes?
(1) Some artists, mystics and drug takers
(2) Infants and Symbolists and Musicians
(3) Some artists, babies and avid drug takers
(4) Artists and babies[2] According to Richard Cytowic the most primitive part of the brain is:
(1) Medulla
(2) Cerebrum
(3) Cortex
(4) Limbic system[3] Which statement best describes the experience of synesthesia?
(1) It is a long immense disordering of all the senses
(2) All the sentences are correct
(3) A thick garment of perception is woven thread by overlapping thread
(4) A garment of thought is woven idea by idea, like the light muslin cloth[4] Which composer/s associated E major with blue, while writing?
(1) Alexsandr Scriabin and Rimski-Korsakov
(2) Alexsandr Scriabin and Bob Dylan
(3) Alek Sandr Scriabin
(4) Bob Dylan and Rimski-Korsakov[5] According to synesthesia:
(1) “the stimulation of one sense stimulates another”
(2) all of the above
(3) the brain tries to see “the one hidden in nature behind the many”
(4) “all arts are parallel translations of one fundamental mystery[6] Non-synesthetes (complete the sentence):
(1) can never become artists and reach extraordinary heights
(2) would love to take LSD (for a short time) while watching Walt Disney’s Fantasia
(3) tame all the sensory impressions into rigorous categories of common sense
(4) are living cognitive fossils who use their limbic system more[7] From the passage, which other category of people (not mentioned in the passage) could be experiencing synesthesia
(1) Mystics
(2) Actors
(3) Scientists
(4) Chefs
[8] People with intense synesthesia respond in predictable ways. Which of the following experience is not shared by co-synesthetes?
(1) Musical note A Major is green
(2) All are not shared by synesthetes
(3) Low sounds are associated with dark colours
(4) High sounds are associated with bright coloursasked in FMS
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