FLT 3

Directions for Questions 1 to 4: Answer the questions given below the passage:
Two divergent definitions have dominated sociologists' discussions of the nature of
ethnicity. The first emphasizes the primordial and unchanging character of ethnicity. In
this view, people have an essential need for belonging that is satisfied by membership in
groups based on shared ancestry and culture. A different conception of ethnicity de-
emphasizes the cultural component and defines ethnic groups as interest groups. In this
view, ethnicity serves as a way of mobilizing a certain population behind issues relating to
its economic position. While both of these definitions are useful, neither fully captures
the dynamic and changing aspects of ethnicity in the United States. Rather, ethnicity is
more satisfactorily conceived of as a process in which pre-existing communal bonds and
common cultural attributes are adapted for instrumental purposes according to changing
real-life situations. One example of this process is the rise of mobilizing constituents.
Such emerging issues as immigration and voting rights gave Mexican American advocacy
groups the means by which to promote ethnic solidarity. Like European ethnic groups in
the nineteenth-century United States, late-twentieth-century Mexican American leaders
combined ethnic with contemporary civic symbols. In 1968, Henry Censors, then mayor of
San Antonio, Texas, cited Mexican leader Benito Juarez as a model for Mexican Americans
in their fight for contemporary civil rights. And every year, Mexican Americans celebrate
Cinco de Mayo as fervently as many Irish American people embrace St. Patrick's Day
(both are major holidays in the count rise of origin), with both holidays having been
reinvented in the context of the United States and linked to ideals, symbols, and heroes
of the United States.
Now answer these questions on the basis of the above passage.
1. Which of the following best states the main idea of the passage?
(a) In their definitions of the nature of ethnicity, sociologists have underestimated
the power of the primordial human need to belong.
(b) Ethnicity is best defined as a dynamic process that combines cultural components
with shared political and economic interests.
(c) In the United States in the twentieth century, ethnic groups have begun to
organize in order to further their political and economic interests.
(d) Ethnicity in the United States has been significantly changed by the Civil Rights
movement.
2. The passage supports which of the following statements about the Mexican American
community?
(a) In the 1960's, the Mexican American community began to incorporate the
customs of another ethnic group in the United States into the observation of its
own ethnic holidays.
(b) In the 1960s, Mexican American community groups promoted ethnic solidarity
primarily in order to effect economic change.
(c) In the 1960s, leader of the Mexican American community concentrated their
efforts on promoting a renaissance of ethnic history and culture.
(d) In the 1960s, members of the Mexican American community were becoming
increasingly concerned about the issue of voting rights.
3. Information in the passage supports which of the following statements about many
European ethnic groups in the nineteenth-century United States?
(a) They emphasized economic interests as a way of mobilizing constituents behind
certain issues.
(b) They conceived of their own ethnicity as being
primordial in nature.
(c) They created cultural traditions that fused United States symbols with those of
their countries of origin.
(d) They de-emphasized the cultural components
of their communities in favour of political
interests.
4. The passage suggests that in 1968, Henry Censors most likely believed that
(a) many Mexican American would respond positively to the example of Benito
Juarez.
(b) many Mexican American were insufficiently educated in Mexican history.
(c) the fight for civil rights in the United States had many strong parallels in both
Mexican and Irish history.
(d) the quickest way of organizing community - based groups was to emulate the
tactics of Benito Juarez.

Directions for Questions 5 to 10: Answer the questions given below the passage:
Deliberative democracy demands a reflexive (or reflection community driven) reordering
of preferences in a non-coercive manner. The authenticity of democracy requires, in
addition, that these reflective preferences influence collective outcomes and action, and
so long as the state is the main (though far from exclusive) locus of collective decisions, it
requires discursive mechanisms for transmission of public opinion to the state. A
deliberative or more properly discursive democracy, in order that it can accommodate
several competing versions of democracies such as the liberal, the minimal, the difference,
etc., must also accommodate rhetoric, narratives, and empathy along with reasoning. A
rationality and a reasoning that does not accommodate values is meaningless. However, it
is alas argued that individual rationality cannot be realized if values are embedded in the
decision procedures; in other words, realization of values could be made possible only
when individuals behave non-rationally. Further, if values, having been abandoned at the
individual level, are accorded a place only collectively, the same must lead to either
'epistemological inconsistency or abandonment of autonomy of individual evaluations'. A
talk or a rhetoric, otherwise, is strategic and is employed with the intention of signaling
certain information. Such a talk can be, therefore, deceptive and coercive. The
illocutionary force and the normative trappings of a Foucauldian discourse while allowing
identification with a community and differences with the others, do simultaneously pose
through coercion a threat to an utterance are as such. If democracy cannot ensure
utterance as freedom if the illocutionary forces in a discursive democracy discipline the
thought and the talk, then how such a democracy could indeed be called authentic!
Most human actions and discourses are actuated by a deeper primordial ante-
deliberation Desire (let us use a capital ‘D’). Speaking as such is out of such a Desire (one
might use volition or passion). Engaging in a deliberation or else in an action is possible
only since there has been such a Desire. Desire appears to both the reflection and also to
an observer as a mental-state. A discourse can be set only when such mental states are in
harmony, or share a common predisposition or attitude. In the absence of such shared
mental-states, no discourse and no deliberation can begin. A running, underlying and
most often unstated theme that remains at the back of the idea of deliberative
democracy is competition - a competition with the 'other' which introduces strategy. The
alternative to competition, a mental-state which is out of a Desire to enjoy the 'other' in
the light of a memory that this 'one' and the 'other' were but the same and would again
become the same, do not appear in the known Anglo-American literature. Such a mental-
state might generate and keep alive possibilities of cooperation although is never a state
of cooperation alone as such.

Now answer these questions on the basis of the above passage.

5. Which of the following follows from the passage above?
(a) A rhetoric laden talk can generate authentic- democratic collective choice
(b) Irrational persons alone can have values
(c) Authenticity of democracy requires a strong reflection-action interaction
(d) A paradigm of competition alone can sustain an authentic democracy
6. Desire as ante-deliberation driving action refer to
(a) Irrationality of deliberation
(b) Uselessness of deliberation
(c) Desire to act without thinking
(d) Temporal inconsistency in a position that argues for deliberative action
constituting democracy.
7. Which of the following is true according to the passage?
(a) Author argues that democracy is bound to fail
(b) Author argues that Desire is primal
(c) Author argues for an end to primal desire so that an end to competition can come
through
(d) None of the above
8. A Foucauldian discourse as used in the passage does NOT refer to
(a) Discourse based on power
(b) Community based discourse
(c) Strategic discourse
(d) None of the above
9. Which of the following words is closest to the word 'primordial' as used in the
passage above?
(a) Elemental (b) Anarchist
(c) Animalistic (d) Nihilistic
10. Which of the following captures the spirit of the position that the author hints at
through the phrase 'alternative to competition'?
(a) All the pragmatic world is a stage - a play unfolding.
(b) Democracy is an unruly fight among citizens.
(c) Socialists planning does away with the chaos of competition.
(d) None of these

Directions for Questions 11 to 15: Identify the word that means the same-

11. Bigot
 (a) Race (b) Intolerant
(c) Racket (d) Raconteur
12. Supercilious
(a) Haughty (b) Perfunctory
(c) Sumptuous (d) Mayhem
13. Exemplar
(a) Exhaust (b) Epitome
(c) Execute (d) Exercise
14. Suppliant
(a) Supreme (b) Supply
(c) Supplement (d) Supplicant
15. Vernacular
(a) Versatile (b) Oral
(c) Common Parlance (d) Verbose

Directions for Questions 16 to 20: Identify the appropriate word to complete the sentence.

16. He is innocent ____the crime

(a) By (b) from
(c) of (d) against
17. Who will atone ____his sins?
(a) Off (b) of
(c) at (d) for
18. He is very different ____his brother
(a) From (b) than
(c) compared (d) rather
19. Our path is beset ____difficulties
(a) around (b) upon
(c) with (d) in
20. She is devoid ____sense
(a) from (b) at
(c) of (d) upto
Directions for Questions 21 to 25: The five paragraphs given below have all had their
constituent sentences jumbled. Read each jumbled passage carefully and then pick the
option in which the best sequence is shown and shade the appropriate answer in the
space provided for it on the OMR answer sheet.
21. UNIT I
(i) The Super Tag Scanner could revolutionise the way people shop, virtually
eradicating supermarket queues;
(ii) The face of retailing will change even more rapidly when the fibre optic networks
being built by cable T.V. companies begin to be more widely used;
(iii) The scanner would have a double benefit for supermarkets - removing the
bottleneck which causes frustration to most customers and reducing the number
of checkout staff;
(iv) An electronic scanner which can read the entire contents of a supermarket trolley
at a glance has just been developed.
The best sequence is:
 (a) ii, i, iii, iv (b) iv, i, iii, ii
(c) iv, iii i, ii (d) iii, i, iv, ii

22. UNIT II
(i) Of course, modern postal services now are much more sophisticated and faster,
relying as they do on motor vehicles and planes for delivering.
(ii) Indeed, the ancient Egyptians had a system for sending letters from about 2000
BC, as did the Zhou dynasty in China a thousand years later.
(iii) Letters, were, and are, sent by some form of postal service, the history of which
goes back a long way.
(iv) For centuries, the only form of written correspondence was the letter.
The best sequence is:
(a) ii, i, iii, iv (b) iv, i, iii, ii
(c) iv, iii, ii, i (d) iii, i, iv, ii
23. UNIT III
(i) Converting money into several currencies in the course of one trip can also be
quite expensive, given that banks and bureau de change charge commission on
the transaction.
(ii) Trying to work out the value of the various notes and coins can be quite a strain,
particularly if you are visiting more than one country.
(iii) Travel can be very exciting, but it can also be rather complicated.
(iv) One of these complications is, undoubtedly, foreign currency.
The best sequence is:
(a) ii, i, iii, iv (b) iv, i, iii, ii
(c) iv, iii, ii, i (d) iii, iv, ii, i
24. UNIT IV
(i) She was right about three-curiosity, freckles, and doubt-but wrong about love.
(ii) "Four of the things I'd be better without: Love, curiosity, freckles, and doubt".
(iii) Love is indispensable in life.
(iv) So wrote Dorothy Parker, the American writer.
The best sequence is:
(a) ii, iv, i, iii (b) ii, i, iii, iv
(c) ii, i, iv, iii (d) iii, iv, i, ii
25. UNIT V
(i) This clearly indicates that the brains of men and women are organised differently
in the way they process speech.
(ii) Difference in the way men and women process language is of special interest to
brain researchers.
(iii) However, women are more likely than men to suffer aphasia when the front part
of the brain is damaged.
(iv) It has been known that aphasia - a kind of speech disorder - is more common in
men than in women when the left side of the brain is damaged in an accident or
after a stroke.
The best sequence is:
(a) ii. i, iv, iii (b) iv, i, iii, ii
(c) iv, iii, ii, i (d) i, iv, iii, ii
Directions for Questions 26 to 28: Given below are a few foreign language phrases that
are commonly used. Choose the correct meaning.
35. Per se
(a)the most important
(b) that which comes first
(c) by itself
(d) the face that is young
36. Rebut
(a) repel (b) support
(c) corroborate (d) against
37. Bona fide
(a)identification card
(b) without doubt
(c) in good faith
(d) indispensable condition

Directions for Questions 29 to 31: Answer the questions based on the following
information. Each of these questions has a pair of CAPITALISED words followed by four
pairs of words. Choose the pair of words which best expresses the relationship similar to
that in the capitalized pair.
38. JUST : ARBITRARY ::
(a) Order: Chaos (b) Bare: Clothed
(c) Hope: Surprise (d) Proper: Improper
39. LIMPID: MURKY::
(a) Dazed: Clouded (b) Obscure : Vague
(c) Bright: Gloomy (d) Nebulous: Dim
40. PARADIGM : PATTERN::
(a) Skeleton: Flesh
(b) Container: Content
(c) Maxim : Theory
(d) Structure: Framework