At this stage of civilisation, when many nations are brought into close and vital contact for good and evil, it is essential, as never before, that their gross ignorance of one another should be diminished, that they should begin to understand a little of one another's historical experience and resulting mentality. It is the fault of the English to expect the people of other countries to react as they do, to political and international situations. Our genuine goodwill and good intentions are often brought to nothing, because we expect other people to be like us. This would be corrected if we knew the history, not necessarily in detail but in broad outlines, of the social and political conditions which have given to each nation its present character.
Englishmen like others to react to political situations like
Answer: B
Correct answer: Themselves
The passage says it is the fault of the English to expect the people of other countries to react as they do - that is, as the English themselves react. Us would be the wrong person for a sentence written about them in the third person.
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Male lions are rather reticent about expending their energy in hunting more than three quarters of kills are made by lionesses. When the pride is on the move, the lionesses are in front, tensely scanning ahead, the cubs lag playfully behind and the males bring up the rear, walking slowly, their massive heads nodding with each step as if they were bored with the whole matter. But slothfulness may have survival value. With lionesses busy hunting, the males function as guard for the cubs, protecting them particularly from hyenas.
According to the passage male lions generally do not go for huntings because
Answer: C
Correct answer: they wish to save their vigour for other things
The passage says males are reticent about expending their energy in hunting, and then explains what the saved energy is for: slothfulness may have survival value, because the males guard the cubs while the lionesses hunt. So the laziness is purposeful, which rules out the option that simply calls them lazy.
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Male lions protect their cubs
Answer: D
Correct answer: more from hyenas than from other animals
The passage says the males protect the cubs particularly from hyenas. Particularly singles hyenas out without excluding other predators, which is why from hyenas only overstates it and as much as from other enemies understates it.
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Lioness go for hunting
Answer: C
Correct answer: With their cubs and male partners
The passage describes the whole pride on the move: the lionesses in front, the cubs lagging playfully behind, and the males bringing up the rear. All three groups travel together, even though only the lionesses do the killing.
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When the lionesses go in search for their prey, they are very
Answer: B
Correct answer: cautious
The lionesses are described as tensely scanning ahead - alert to what lies in front of them, which is caution. Playful describes the cubs and sluggish the males, and serious misses the watchfulness that scanning conveys.
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Laws of nature are not commands but statements of facts. The use of the word "law" in this context is rather unfortunate. It would be better to speak of uniformities in nature. This would do away with the elementary fallacy that a law implies a law giver. If a piece of matter does not obey a law of nature it is not punished. On the contrary, we say that the law has been incorrectly stated.
If a piece of matter violates nature's law, it is not punished because
Answer: B
Correct answer: it simply means that the facts have not been correctly stated by law
The passage draws the distinction sharply: a law of nature is a statement of facts, not a command. So when matter appears to break one, nothing has been disobeyed - the statement was simply wrong. The option about a superior being answers a different question, namely why there is no law giver at all.
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Laws of nature differ from man-made laws because
Answer: A
Correct answer: the former state facts of Nature
The first sentence makes the contrast the passage is built on: laws of nature are not commands but statements of facts. A man-made law tells people what to do; a law of nature only reports what happens. The other options describe consequences of that difference rather than the difference itself.
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The author is not happy with word 'law' because
Answer: A
Correct answer: it implies an agency which has made them
The author says using law for a uniformity in nature invites the elementary fallacy that a law implies a law giver. That is the whole of his objection, and it is why he would prefer the word uniformities. Rigidity and harshness are never mentioned.
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Harold a professional man who had worked in an office for many years had a fearful dream. In it, he found himself in a land where small slug-like animals with slimy tentacles lived on people's bodies. The people tolerated the loathsome creatures because after many years they grew into elephants which then became the nation's system of transport, carrying everyone wherever he wanted to go. Harold suddenly realised that he himself was covered with these things, and he woke up screaming. In a vivid sequence of pictures this dream dramatised for Harold what he had never been able to put into words; he saw himself as letting society feed on his body in his early years so that it would carry him when he retired. He later threw off the "security bug" and took up freelance work.
In his dream Harold found the loathsome creatures
Answer: C
Correct answer: In a different land
The passage says he found himself in a land where the creatures lived. Nothing places the dream in his village, his house or his office - the office belongs to his waking life, which the dream is a comment on rather than a picture of.
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Which one of the following phrases best helps to bring out the precise meaning of 'loathsome creatures'?
Answer: C
Correct answer: Slimy tentacles and slug-like animals
Loathsome means repellent to look at or touch, and the two phrases that supply that physical repulsiveness are slimy tentacles and slug-like animals. Fearful dream describes Harold's reaction, and security bug is the interpretation he reaches later, not a description of the creatures.
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