CTS – Verbal - 7
Questions are based on the following passage.
"I want to criticize the social system, and to
show it at work, at its most intense." Virginia Woolf's provocative
statement about her intentions in writing Mrs. Dalloway has regularly been
ignored by the critics, since it highlights an aspect of her literary interests
very different from the traditional picture of the "poetic" novelist
concerned with examining states of reverie and vision and with following the
intricate pathways of individual consciousness. But Virginia Woolf was are
ballistic as well as a poetic novelist satirist and social critic as well as a
visionary: literary critics' cavalier dismissal of Woolf's social vision will
not withstand scrutiny. In her novels, Woolf is deeply engaged by the questions
of how individuals are shaped (or deformed) by their social Environments, how
historical forces impinge on people's lives, how
class, wealth, and gender help to determine
people's fates. Most of her novels are rooted in a
realistically rendered social setting and in a
precise historical time. Woolf's focus on society
has not been generally recognized because of
her intense antipathy to propaganda in art. The
pictures of reformers in her novels are usually
satiric or sharply critical. Even when Wolfe is fundamentally
sympathetic to their causes, she portray people anxious to reform the society
and possessed of a message or programme as arrogant or dishonest, unaware of
how their political ideas serve their own psychological needs. (Her writer’s Diary
notes: ‘the only honest people are the artists’ whereas "these social
reformers and philanthropists...harbour...discreditable desires under the disguise
of loving their kind....")
Woolf detested what she called "preaching"
in fiction, too, and criticized novelist D.H.Lawrence (among others) for
working by this method. Woolf's own social criticism is expressed in the
language of observation rather than in direct commentary, since for her, fiction
is a contemplative, not an active art. She describes phenomena and provides materials
for a judgment about society and social issues; it is the reader's work to put
the observation together and understand the coherent point of view behind them.
As a moralist, Woolf works by indirection, subtly undermining officially accepted
mores, mocking, suggesting, calling into question, rather than asserting,
advocating, bearing witness: hers is the satirist's art. Woolf's literary
models were acute social observers like Checkhov and Chaucer. As she put it in the
Common Reader, "It is safe to say that not a single law has been framed or
one stone set upon another because of anything Chaucer said or wrote; and yet,
as we read him, we are absorbing morality at every pore." Like Chaucer,
Woolf chose to understand as well as to judge, to know her society root and
branch-decision crucial in order to produce art rather than
polemic.
1. Which of the following
would be the most appropriate title for the passage?
a) Virginia Woolf: Critic
and Commentator on the Twentieth – Century Novel.
b) Trends in contemporary Reforms
Movements as a key to understanding
Virginia Woolf’s Novels.
c) Society as Allegory for
the individual in the Novels of Virginia Wolfe.
d) Virginia Woolf’s
Novels: Critical Reflections on the Individual and on Society.
Ans: (d)
2. In the first paragraph
of the passage, the author's attitude toward the literary critics mentioned can
best be described as?
a) Disparaging
b) Ironic
c) Factious
d) Sceptical but resigned
Ans: (a)
3. It can be inferred from
the passage that Woolf chose Chaucer as literary model because she believed
that:
a) Chaucer was an honest
and forthright author, whereas novelists like D.H Lawrence did not sincerely wish
to change society
b) Chaucer was more
concerned in understanding his society than with calling its accepted mores
into question
c) Chaucer’s writing was
greatly, if subtly, effective in influencing the moral attitudes of his readers
d) Her own novels would be
more widely read if, like Chaucer she did not overtly and vehemently criticize
contemporary society
Ans: (c)
4. It can be inferred from
the passage that the most probable reason Woolf realistically described the
social setting in the majority of her novels was that she?
a) Was interested in the
effect of a person’s social milieu on his or her character and actions
b) Needed to be as
attentive to detail as possible in her novels in order to support the arguments
she advanced in them
c) Wanted to show that a painstaking
fidelity in the representation of reality did not in any way hamper the artist
d) Wishes to prevent
critics from charging that her novels were written in an ambiguous and inexact
style
Ans: (a)
5. The author implies that
a major element of the satirist’s art is the satirist
a) Consistent adherence to
a position of loft
b) Insistence on the
helplessness of individuals against the social forces that seek to determine an
individual’s fate
c) Cynical disbelief that
visionary can either enlighten or improve their societies
d) Fundamental assumption
that some ambiguity must remain in a work of art in order for it to reflect
society and social mores accurately
e) Refusal to indulge in
polemics when presenting social mores to readers for their scrutiny
Ans: (e)
Questions 6- 8 are based on the following passage.
It is a popular misconception that nuclear fusion
power is free of radioactivity; in fact, the deuterium-tritium reaction hat
nuclear scientists are currently exploring with such zeal produces both alpha
particles and neutrons, (The neutrons are used to produce tritium from a
lithium blanket surrounding the reactor.) Another common conception is that
nuclear fusion power is a virtually unlimited source of energy because of the
enormous quantity of deuterium in the sea. Actually, its limits are set by the
amount of available lithium, which is about as plentiful as uranium in the
Earth's crust.
Research should certainly continue on controlled nuclear
fusion, but no energy program should be premised on its existence until it has
proven practical. For the immediate future, we must continue to use
hydroelectric power, nuclear fission, and fossil fuels to meet our energy needs.
The energy sources already in major use are in major use for good reason.
6. The primary purpose of
the passage is to
a) Admonish scientists who
have failed to correctly calculate the amount of lithium
b) Defend the continuous
short term use of fossil fuel as a major energy source
c) Caution against
uncritical embrace of nuclear fusion power as a major energy source
d) Correct the
misconception that nuclear fusion power is entirely free of radio activity
Ans: (c)
7. The passage provides
information that would answer which of the following questions?
a) What is likely to be
the principal source of deuterium for the nuclear fusion power?
b) How much incidental
radiation is produced in the deuterium – tritium fusion reaction
c) Why are scientists
exploring the deuterium – tritium fusion reaction with such zeal?
d) Why must the tritium
for nuclear fusion be synthesized from lithium?
Ans: (a)
8. Which of the following
statements concerning Nuclear Scientists is most directly suggested in the
passage?
a) Nuclear scientists
exploring the deuterium – tritium reaction have overlooked key facts in their
eagerness to prove nuclear fusion practical
b) Nuclear scientists may
have overestimated the amount of lithium actually available in the Earth’s crust
c) Nuclear scientists have
not been entirely dispassionate in their investigation of the deuterium –
tritium reaction
d) Nuclear scientists have
insufficiently investigated the lithium to tritium reaction in nuclear fusion.
Ans: (c)
Correct the following sentence by suitably substituting the
word/s from the choices:
9. Balding
is much more common among White males than males of other races.
a) Than
b) Than
among
c) Than
is so of
d) Compared
to
Ans: (b)
In the following questions identify whether the given
statement is correct or incorrect
10. She
cleaned the house and after she ironed the clothes
a) Correct
b) Incorrect
Ans: (b) She cleaned the
house and after that she ironed the clothes
11. I
haven’t finished the homework and my brother hasn’t either.
a) Correct
b) Incorrect
Ans: (a)
12. So
hoarse he was that he could not make the speech
a) Correct
b) Incorrect
Ans: (a)
13. She
both speaks and she writes German very well
a) Correct
b) Incorrect
Ans: (b) She both speaks and writes German very well
14. She
has never been too demanding , nor does she plan to be so now
a) Correct
b) Incorrect
Ans: (a)
15. Never
I have had such bad experience in life.
a) Correct
b) Incorrect
Ans: (b) Never have I had
such bad experience in life
16. The
more they have, the more they want
a) Correct
b) Incorrect
Ans: (a)
17. He
is very mature despite of his age.
a) Correct
b) Incorrect
Ans: (b) He is very mature
despite his age
18. It
is essential that he participates in the show
a) Correct
b) Incorrect
Ans: (b) It is essential
that he participate in the show
19. I
wish I had studied for the exam
a) Correct
b) Incorrect
Ans: (a)
