Theme Detection Questions and Answers

Answer: B

Correct answer: Indian economy is in a poor shape basically due to improper mobilisation of man-power.

The argument is one of misallocation. Agriculture is over-manned; fewer agriculturists would mean more purchasing power each; the new demand from a prosperous agrarian class would create a shortage of workers elsewhere; and that shortage would be met by the surplus released from agriculture.

Every step turns on where labour sits rather than on how much of it there is, and the passage opens by asking government and planners to devise means of mobilisation. That is the theme.

Answer: A

Correct answer: a country’s economic standard can be best adjudged by per capita income.

The passage rejects one measure and supplies another. Trade balance, investments and bank balances are not an index of national prosperity; England exported more before the war yet is more prosperous now.

The reason given is that the income of the average worker - labourers, clerks, shop assistants, domestic workers - has risen. That is per capita income, and it is the only yardstick the passage endorses.

Answer: C

Correct answer: relationship between job satisfaction and performance is moderated by growth need.

The passage reports the link twice, with opposite results. Among employees with strong growth needs, satisfaction accompanies high performance; among those with weak growth needs there is no such relationship, and satisfaction with promotion opportunities even goes with low performance.

A relationship that changes direction depending on a third variable is, by definition, moderated by it. That is why the option claiming a direct and close link is wrong - it holds for only one of the two groups.

Answer: D

Correct answer: comes through the interaction with social situations.

The first sentence states the thesis: true education comes through the stimulation of the child’s powers by the demands of the social situations in which he finds himself. The second sentence describes what those demands do - they draw the child out of narrowness and towards the welfare of the group.

Action and feeling appear only as the narrowness he emerges from, and the passage says nothing about physical strength, about present-day schools, or about a self-centred approach.

Answer: C

Correct answer: the freedom of press is essential for the proper functioning of democracy.

Each sentence describes something a press can do only if it is free: uphold a just cause, criticise the government, protect the rights of workers and suppressed sections, and give a balanced view so people can form a healthy public opinion.

Informed public opinion is the mechanism democracy runs on, so freedom is being presented as a requirement rather than a privilege. The option that the press merely has a great role to play states less than the passage argues.

Answer: E

Correct answer: has contributed to the growth of civilisation.

The passage is a list of contributions, and every item is something the businessman gave rather than received: he helped build civilisation’s great cities, provided luxuries and patronage for artists, raised the standard of living, and seeded the Industrial Revolution around the world.

That is why the option calling him a beneficiary of the Industrial Revolution inverts the passage - it says he seeded it. Accountability and his own comfort are never mentioned.

Answer: C

Correct answer: interpersonal skills will become more important in the future work place.

The passage links a cause to a consequence: the economy is shifting from manufacturing to services, and that shift will require the managers to work more with people rather than with objects and things.

Working more with people is precisely a demand for interpersonal skill. The passage does not say assembly lines will appear in service organisations, nor that service organisations deal with no objects at all - only that the emphasis moves.

Answer: C

Correct answer: art is for the sake of art alone.

All three sentences make the same claim from different angles: art may not be interfered with or immediately ruled by anything other than itself; it alone shall touch the work; nothing shall reach the work except through art itself. The repetition is the theme.

Adding and life, or bringing in society or the artist’s dreams, introduces exactly the outside authority the passage rules out.