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Q1. A fruit seller has a total of 187 fruits consisting of apples, mangoes and oranges. The number of apples and mangoes are in the ratio 5 : 2. After she sells 75 apples, 26 mangoes and half of the oranges, the ratio of number of unsold apples to number of unsold oranges becomes 3 : 2. The total number of unsold fruits is:
Q2. If (a + b√n) is the positive square root of (29 - 125√), where a and b are integers, and n is a natural number, then the maximum possible value of (a + b + n) is:
Q3. The sum of all real values of k for which (18)^k × (132768)^13 = 18 × (132768)^(1/k) is:
Q4. In the XY-plane, the area, in sq. units, of the region defined by the inequalities y ≥ x + 4 and −4 ≤ x² + y² + 4(x − y) ≤ 0 is:
Q5. Renu would take 15 days working 4 hours per day to complete a certain task whereas Seema would take 8 days working 5 hours per day to complete the same task. They decide to work together to complete this task. Seema agrees to work for double the number of hours per day as Renu, while Renu agrees to work for double the number of days as Seema. If Renu works 2 hours per day, then the number of days Seema will work, is:
Q6. In September, the incomes of Kamal, Amal and Vimal are in the ratio 8 : 6 : 5. They rent a house together, and Kamal pays 15%, Amal pays 12% and Vimal pays 18% of their respective incomes to cover the total house rent in that month. In October, the house rent remains unchanged while their incomes increase by 10%, 12% and 15%, respectively. In October, the percentage of their total income that will be paid as house rent, is nearest to:
Q7. Consider two sets A = {2,3,5,7,11,13} and B = {1,8,27}. Let f be a function from A to B such that for every element b in B, there is at least one element a in A such that f(a) = b. Then, the total number of such functions f is:
Q8. Let x, y, and z be real numbers satisfying 4(x² + y² + z²) = a, 4(x − y − z) = 3 + a. Then a equals:
Q9. The sum of all four-digit numbers that can be formed with the distinct non-zero digits a, b, c, and d, with each digit appearing exactly once in every number, is 153310 + n, where n is a single-digit natural number. Then, the value of (a + b + c + d + n) is:
Q10. When 10^100 is divided by 7, the remainder is:
Q11. There are four numbers such that the average of the first two numbers is 1 more than the first number, the average of the first three numbers is 2 more than the average of the first two numbers, and the average of the first four numbers is 3 more than the average of the first three numbers. Then, the difference between the largest and the smallest numbers is:
Q12. An amount of Rs 10000 is deposited in bank A for a certain number of years at a simple interest of 5% per annum. On maturity, the total amount received is deposited in bank B for another 5 years at a simple interest of 6% per annum. If the interests received from bank A and bank B are in the ratio 10 : 13, then the investment period, in years, in bank A is:
Q13. A shop wants to sell a certain quantity (in kg) of grains. It sells half the quantity and an additional 3 kg of these grains to the first customer. Then, it sells half of the remaining quantity and an additional 3 kg of these grains to the second customer. Finally, when the shop sells half of the remaining quantity and an additional 3 kg of these grains to the third customer, there are no grains left. The initial quantity, in kg, of grains is:
Q14. Suppose x1, x2, x3, …, x100 are in arithmetic progression such that x5 = −4 and 2x6 + 2x9 = x11 + x13. Then, x100 equals:
Q15. Two places A and B are 45 kms apart and connected by a straight road. Anil goes from A to B while Sunil goes from B to A. Starting at the same time, they cross each other in exactly 1 hour 30 minutes. If Anil reaches B exactly 1 hour 15 minutes after Sunil reaches A, the speed of Anil, in km per hour, is:
Q16. The surface area of a closed rectangular box, which is inscribed in a sphere, is 846 sq cm, and the sum of the lengths of all its edges is 144 cm. The volume, in cubic cm, of the sphere is:
Q17. A glass is filled with milk. Two-thirds of its content is poured out and replaced with water. If this process of pouring out two-thirds of the content and replacing with water is repeated three more times, then the final ratio of milk to water in the glass is:
Q18. For any natural number n, let aₙ be the largest integer not exceeding √n. Then the value of a₁ + a₂ + ⋯ + a₅₀ is:
Q19. ABCD is a rectangle with sides AB = 56 cm and BC = 45 cm, and E is the midpoint of side CD. Then, the length, in cm, of the radius of the incircle of △ADE is:
Q20. If the equations x² + mx + 9 = 0, x² + nx + 17 = 0 and x² + (m + n)x + 35 = 0 have a common negative root, then the value of (2m + 3n) is:
Q21. The selling price of a product is fixed to ensure 40% profit. If the product had cost 40% less and had been sold for 5 rupees less, then the resulting profit would have been 50%. The original selling price, in rupees, of the product is:
Q22. If x is a positive real number such that 4log₁₀x + 4log₁₀₀x + 8log₁₀₀₀x = 13, then the greatest integer not exceeding x is:
Q1. When 3333 is divided by 11, the remainder is:
Q2. If x and y satisfy the equations |x| + x + y = 15 and x + |y| − y = 20, then (x − y) equals:
Q3. If m and n are natural numbers such that n > 1, and mn = 225 × 340, then m − n equals:
Q4. A function f maps the set of natural numbers to whole numbers, such that f(xy) = f(x)f(y) + f(x) + f(y) for all x, y and f(p) = 1 for every prime number p. Then, the value of f(160000) is:
Q5. ABCD is a trapezium in which AB is parallel to CD. The sides AD and BC when extended intersect at point E. If AB = 2 cm, CD = 1 cm, and the perimeter of ABCD is 6 cm, then the perimeter, in cm, of △AEB is:
Q6. Amal and Vimal together can complete a task in 150 days, while Vimal and Sunil together can complete the same task in 100 days. Amal starts working on the task and works for 75 days, then Vimal takes over and works for 135 days. Finally, Sunil takes over and completes the remaining task in 45 days. If Amal had started the task alone and worked on all days, Vimal had worked on every second day, and Sunil had worked on every third day, then the number of days required to complete the task would have been:
Q7. Bina incurs 19% loss when she sells a product at Rs. 4860 to Shyam, who in turn sells this product to Hari. If Bina would have sold this product to Shyam at the purchase price of Hari, she would have obtained 17% profit. Then, the profit, in rupees, made by Shyam is:
Q8. The sum of the infinite series 15(15−17) + (15)²((15)²−(17)²) + (15)³((15)³−(17)³) + ⋯ is equal to:
Q9. If a, b and c are positive real numbers such that a > 10 ≥ b ≥ c and log₈(a + b) log₂c + log₂⁷(a − b) log₃c = 23, then the greatest possible integer value of a is:
Q10. A company has 40 employees whose names are listed in a certain order. In the year 2022, the average bonus of the first 30 employees was Rs. 40000, of the last 30 employees was Rs. 60000, and of the first 10 and last 10 employees together was Rs. 50000. Next year, the average bonus of the first 10 employees increased by 100%, of the last 10 employees increased by 200% and of the remaining employees was unchanged. Then, the average bonus, in rupees, of all the 40 employees together in the year 2023 was:
Q11. P, Q, R and S are four towns. One can travel between P and Q along 3 direct paths, between Q and S along 4 direct paths, and between P and R along 4 direct paths. There is no direct path between P and S, while there are few direct paths between Q and R, and between R and S. One can travel from P to S either via Q, or via R, or via Q followed by R, respectively, in exactly 62 possible ways. One can also travel from Q to R either directly, or via P, or via S, in exactly 27 possible ways. Then, the number of direct paths between Q and R is:
Q12. A fruit seller has a stock of mangoes, bananas and apples with at least one fruit of each type. At the beginning of a day, the number of mangoes make up 40% of his stock. That day, he sells half of the mangoes, 96 bananas and 40% of the apples. At the end of the day, he ends up selling 50% of the fruits. The smallest possible total number of fruits in the stock at the beginning of the day is:
Q13. If (x + √62)^12 − (x − √62)^12 = 2√2, then x equals:
Q14. The coordinates of the three vertices of a triangle are: (1, 2), (7, 2), and (1, 10). Then the radius of the incircle of the triangle is:
Q15. Anil invests Rs 22000 for 6 years in a scheme with 4% interest per annum, compounded half-yearly. Separately, Sunil invests a certain amount in the same scheme for 5 years, and then reinvests the entire amount he receives at the end of 5 years, for one year at 10% simple interest. If the amounts received by both at the end of 6 years are equal, then the initial investment, in rupees, made by Sunil is:
Q16. The roots α, β of the equation 3x² + λx − 1 = 0 satisfy 1/α² + 1/β² = 15. The value of (α³ + β³)/2 is:
Q17. A bus starts at 9 am and follows a fixed route every day. One day, it traveled at a constant speed of 60 km per hour and reached its destination 3.5 hours later than its scheduled arrival time. Next day, it traveled two-thirds of its route in one-third of its total scheduled travel time, and the remaining part of the route at 40 km per hour to reach just on time. The scheduled arrival time of the bus is:
Q18. Three circles of equal radii touch (but not cross) each other externally. Two other circles, X and Y, are drawn such that both touch (but not cross) each of the three previous circles. If the radius of X is more than that of Y, the ratio of the radii of X and Y is:
Q19. A vessel contained a certain amount of a solution of acid and water. When 2 litres of water was added to it, the new solution had 50% acid concentration. When 15 litres of acid was further added to this new solution, the final solution had 80% acid concentration. The ratio of water and acid in the original solution was:
Q20. All the values of x satisfying the inequality 1/(x+5) ≤ 1/(2x−3) are:
Q21. If x and y are real numbers such that 4x² + 4y² − 4xy − 6y + 3 = 0, then the value of (4x + 5y) is:
Q22. When Rajesh's age was same as the present age of Garima, the ratio of their ages was 3 : 2. When Garima's age becomes the same as the present age of Rajesh, the ratio of the ages of Rajesh and Garima will become:
Q1. The number of distinct integer solutions (x, y) of the equation |x+y| + |x−y| = 2 is
Q2. For some constant real numbers p, k, and a, consider the system of linear equations in x and y: px−4y = 2 3x+ky = a A necessary condition for the system to have no solution is
Q3. If (a + b√3)^2 = 52 + 30√3, where a and b are natural numbers, then a + b equals
Q4. A circular plot of land is divided into two regions by a chord of length √103 meters such that the chord subtends an angle of 120° at the center. Then, the area of the smaller region is
Q5. In a group of 250 students, the percentage of girls is at least 44% and at most 60%. Each student opted for swimming or running or both. If 50% of boys and 80% of girls opted for swimming, and 70% of boys and 60% of girls opted for running, then the minimum and maximum possible number of students who opted for both swimming and running are
Q6. If 1068 is divided by 13, the remainder is
Q7. The midpoints of sides AB, BC, AC in △ABC are M, N, P respectively. The medians from A, B, C intersect MP, MN, NP at X, Y, Z respectively. If area of △ABC is 1440 sq. cm, then the area of △XYZ is
Q8. After two successive increments, Gopal's salary became 187.5% of his initial salary. If the percentage increase in the second increment was twice that of the first increment, then the first increment was
Q9. Sam can complete a job in 20 days alone. Mohit is twice as fast as Sam and thrice as fast as Ayna. They work in a 3-day repeating pattern: Sam & Mohit (day 1), Sam & Ayna (day 2), Mohit & Ayna (day 3). The fraction of total work done by Sam is
Q10. A certain amount of water is poured into a 300-litre container and the rest filled with milk. Twice the volume of initial water is taken out and replaced with water. The resulting solution has 72% milk. The initial water poured is
Q11. Aman invests Rs 4000 at a certain annual compounded interest. If the ratio of values after 3 years to 5 years is 25:36, the minimum years required for investment to exceed Rs 20000 is
Q12. Gopi marks a price for 20% profit. Ravi gets 10% discount on marked price, saving Rs 15. Profit made by Gopi by selling to Ravi is
Q13. Average of three distinct real numbers is 28. If smallest is increased by 7, largest reduced by 10, new mean is 2 more than middle number, difference between largest and smallest becomes 64. Largest number in original set is
Q14. Number of all positive integers up to 500 with non-repeating digits is
Q15. A train travels a distance at uniform speed. Had speed been 6 km/h more, it would take 4 hours less. Had speed been 6 km/h less, it would take 6 hours more. Distance traveled by the train is
Q16. If 3^a = 4, 4^b = 5, 5^c = 6, 6^d = 7, 7^e = 8, and 8^f = 9, then the value of the product abcdef is
Q17. Consider sequence t1 = 1, t2 = -1, and tn = (n−3)/(n−1) * tn−2 for n ≥ 3. Then, sum 1/t2 + 1/t4 + ... + 1/t2024 is
Q18. Number of distinct real values of x satisfying max{x,2} − min{x,2} = |x+2| − |x−2| is
Q19. Rajesh and Vimal own 20 ha and 30 ha of land, respectively, with wheat and mustard. Vimal’s wheat:mustard = 5:3. Total wheat:mustard = 11:9. Rajesh’s wheat:mustard ratio is
Q20. For any non-zero real x, let f(x) + 2f(1/x) = 3x. Then, sum of all possible x for which f(x) = 3 is
Q21. A regular octagon ABCDEFGH has sides of 6 cm each. Area of square ACEG is
Q22. Sum of all distinct real values of x satisfying 10^x + 4*10^x = 172 is
Q1. Six web surfers M, N, O, P, X, and Y each had 30 stars which they distributed among four bloggers A, B, C, and D. The number of stars received by A and B from the six web surfers is shown in the figure. Considering all given facts, what was the total number of stars received by D?
Q2. What was the number of stars received by D from Y?
Q3. How many surfers distributed their stars among exactly 2 bloggers?
Q4. Which of the following can be determined with certainty?
The chart below provides complete information about the number of countries visited by Dheeraj, Samantha and Nitesh, in Asia, Europe and the rest of the world (ROW).
The following additional facts are known about the countries visited by them.
1. 32 countries were visited by at least one of them.
2. USA (in ROW) is the only country that was visited by all three of them.
3. China (in Asia) is the only country that was visited by both Dheeraj and Nitesh, but not by Samantha.
4. France (in Europe) is the only country outside Asia, which was visited by both Dheeraj and Samantha, but not by Nitesh.
5. Half of the countries visited by both Samantha and Nitesh are in Europe.
Q5. How many countries in Asia were visited by at least one of Dheeraj, Samantha and Nitesh?
Q6. How many countries in Europe were visited only by Nitesh?
Q7. How many countries in the ROW were visited by both Nitesh and Samantha?
Q8. How many countries in Europe were visited by exactly one of Dheeraj, Samantha and Nitesh?
The game of QUIET is played between two teams. Six teams, numbered 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6, play in a QUIET tournament. These teams are divided equally into two groups. In the tournament, each team plays every other team in the same group only once, and each team in the other group exactly twice. The tournament has several rounds, each of which consists of a few games. Every team plays exactly one game in each round.
The following additional facts are known about the schedule of games in the tournament.
1. Each team played against a team from the other group in Round 8.
2. In Round 4 and Round 7, the match-ups, that is the pair of teams playing against each other, were identical. In Round 5 and Round 8, the match-ups were identical.
3. Team 4 played Team 6 in both Round 1 and Round 2.
4. Team 1 played Team 5 ONLY once and that was in Round 2.
5. Team 3 played Team 4 in Round 3. Team 1 played Team 6 in Round 6.
6. In Round 8, Team 3 played Team 6, while Team 2 played Team 5.
Q9. How many rounds were there in the QUIET tournament?
Q10. What is the number of the team that played Team 1 in Round 5?
Q11. Which team among the teams numbered 2, 3, 4, and 5 was not part of the same group?
Q12. What is the number of the team that played Team 1 in Round 7?
Q13. What is the number of the team that played Team 6 in Round 3?
The chart below shows the price data for seven shares – A, B, C, D, E, F, and G as a candlestick plot for a particular day. The vertical axis shows the price of the share in rupees. A share whose closing price (price at the end of the day) is more than its opening price (price at the start of the day) is called a bullish share; otherwise, it is called a bearish share. All bullish and bearish shares are shown in green and red colour respectively.
Q14. Daily Share Price Variability (SPV) is defined as (Day's high price - Day's low price) / (Average of the opening and closing prices during the day). Which among the shares A, C, D and F had the highest SPV on that day?
Q15. How many shares had an SPV greater than 0.5 on that day?
Q16. Daily loss for a share is defined as (Opening price – Closing price) / (Opening price). Which among the shares A, B, F and G had the highest daily loss on that day?
Q17. What would have been the percentage wealth gain for a trader, who bought equal numbers of all bullish shares at opening price and sold them at their day's high?
Two students, Amiya and Ramya are the only candidates in an election for the position of class representative. Students will vote based on the intensity level of Amiya's and Ramya's campaigns and the type of campaigns they run. Each campaign is said to have a level of 1 if it is a staid campaign and a level of 2 if it is a vigorous campaign. Campaigns can be of two types, they can either focus on issues, or on attacking the other candidate.
If Amiya and Ramya both run campaigns focusing on issues, then
• The percentage of students voting in the election will be 20 times the sum of the levels of campaigning of the two students. For example, if Amiya and Ramya both run vigorous campaigns, then 20 × (2+2)%, that is, 80% of the students will vote in the election.
• Among voting students, the percentage of votes for each candidate will be proportional to the levels of their campaigns. For example, if Amiya runs a staid (i.e., level 1) campaign while Ramya runs a vigorous (i.e., level 2) campaign, then Amiya will receive 1/3 of the votes cast, and Ramya will receive the other 2/3.
The above-mentioned percentages change as follows if at least one of them runs a campaign attacking their opponent.
• If Amiya runs a campaign attacking Ramya and Ramya runs a campaign focusing on issues, then 10% of the students who would have otherwise voted for Amiya will vote for Ramya, and another 10% who would have otherwise voted for Amiya, will not vote at all.
• If Ramya runs a campaign attacking Amiya and Amiya runs a campaign focusing on issues, then 20% of the students who would have otherwise voted for Ramya will vote for Amiya, and another 5% who would have otherwise voted for Ramya, will not vote at all.
• If both run campaigns attacking each other, then 10% of the students who would have otherwise voted for them had they run campaigns focusing on issues, will not vote at all.
Q18. If both Amiya and Ramya run staid campaigns attacking the other, then what percentage of students will vote in the election?
Q19. What is the minimum percentage of students who will vote in the election?
Q20. If Amiya runs a campaign focusing on issues, then what is the maximum percentage of votes that she can get?
Q21. If Ramya runs a campaign attacking Amiya, then what is the minimum percentage of votes that she is guaranteed to get?
Q22. What is the maximum possible voting margin with which one of the candidates can win?
The above is a schematic diagram of walkways (indicated by all the straight-lines) and lakes (3 of them, each in the shape of rectangles – shaded in the diagram) of a gated area. Different points on the walkway are indicated by letters (A through P) with distances being OP = 150 m, ON = MN = 300 m, ML = 400 m, EL = 200 m, DE = 400 m.
The following additional information about the facilities in the area is known.
1. The only entry/exit point is at C.
2. There are many residences within the gated area; all of them are located on the path AH and ML with four of them being at A, H, M, and L.
3. The post office is located at P and the bank is located at B.
Q1. One resident whose house is located at L, needs to visit the post office as well as the bank. What is the minimum distance (in m) he has to walk starting from his residence and returning to his residence after visiting both the post office and the bank?
Q2. One person enters the gated area and decides to walk as much as possible before leaving the area without walking along any path more than once and always walking next to one of the lakes. How much distance (in m) will he walk within the gated area?
Q3. One resident takes a walk within the gated area starting from A and returning to A without going through any point (other than A) more than once. What is the maximum distance (in m) she can walk in this way?
Q4. Visitors coming for morning walks are allowed to enter as long as they do not pass by any of the residences and do not cross any point (except C) more than once. What is the maximum distance (in m) that such a visitor can walk within the gated area?
Eight gymnastics players numbered 1 through 8 underwent a training camp where they were coached by three coaches - Xena, Yuki, and Zara. Each coach trained at least two players. Yuki trained only even numbered players, while Zara trained only odd numbered players. After the camp, the coaches evaluated the players and gave integer ratings to the respective players trained by them on a scale of 1 to 7, with 1 being the lowest rating and 7 the highest.
The following additional information is known.
1. Xena trained more players than Yuki.
2. Player-1 and Player-4 were trained by the same coach, while the coaches who trained Player-2, Player-3 and Player-5 were all different.
3. Player-5 and Player-7 were trained by the same coach and got the same rating. All other players got a unique rating.
4. The average of the ratings of all the players was 4.
5. Player-2 got the highest rating.
6. The average of the ratings of the players trained by Yuki was twice that of the players trained by Xena and two more than that of the players trained by Zara.
7. Player-4's rating was double of Player-8's and less than Player-5's.
Q5. What best can be concluded about the number of players coached by Zara?
Q6. What was the rating of Player-7?
Q7. What was the rating of Player-6?
Q8. For how many players the ratings can be determined with certainty?
Q9. Who all were the players trained by Xena?
The numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10 are placed in ten slots of the following grid based on the conditions below.
1. Numbers in any row appear in an increasing order from left to right.
2. Numbers in any column appear in a decreasing order from top to bottom.
3. 1 is placed either in the same row or in the same column as 10.
4. Neither 2 nor 3 is placed in the same row or in the same column as 10.
5. Neither 7 nor 8 is placed in the same row or in the same column as 9.
6. 4 and 6 are placed in the same row.
Q10. What is the row number which has the least sum of numbers placed in that row?
Q11. Which of the following statements MUST be true?
I. 10 is placed in a slot in Row 1.
II. 1 is placed in a slot in Row 4.
Q12. Which of the following statements MUST be true?
I. 2 is placed in a slot in Column 2.
II. 3 is placed in a slot in Column 3.
Q13. For how many slots in the grid, placement of numbers CANNOT be determined with certainty?
Q14. What is the sum of the numbers placed in Column 4?
An online e-commerce firm receives daily integer product ratings from 1 through 5 given by buyers. The daily average is the average of the ratings given on that day. The cumulative average is the average of all ratings given on or before that day.
The rating system began on Day 1, and the cumulative averages were 3 and 3.1 at the end of Day 1 and Day 2, respectively. The distribution of ratings on Day 2 is given in the figure below.
The following information is known about ratings on Day 3.
1. 100 buyers gave product ratings on Day 3.
2. The modes of the product ratings were 4 and 5.
3. The numbers of buyers giving each product rating are non-zero multiples of 10.
4. The same number of buyers gave product ratings of 1 and 2, and that number is half the number of buyers who gave a rating of 3.
Q15. How many buyers gave ratings on Day 1?
Q16. What is the daily average rating of Day 3?
Q17. What is the median of all ratings given on Day 3?
Q18. Which of the following is true about the cumulative average ratings of Day 2 and Day 3?
The two plots below give the following information about six firms A, B, C, D, E, and F for 2019 and 2023.
PAT: The firm's profits after taxes in Rs. crores,
ES: The firm's employee strength, that is the number of employees in the firm, and
PRD: The percentage of the firm's PAT that they spend on Research and Development (R&D).
In the plots, the horizontal and vertical coordinates of point representing each firm gives their ES and PAT values respectively. The PRD values of each firm are proportional to the areas around the points representing each firm. The areas are comparable between the two plots, i.e., equal areas in the two plots represent the same PRD values for the two years.
Q19. Assume that the annual rate of growth in PAT over the previous year (ARG) remained constant over the years for each of the six firms. Which among the firms A, B, C, and E had the highest ARG?
Q20. The ratio of the amount of money spent by Firm C on R&D in 2019 to that in 2023 is closest to:
Q21. Which among the firms A, C, E, and F had the maximum PAT per employee in 2023?
Q22. Which among the firms C, D, E, and F had the least amount of R&D spending per employee in 2023?
The table given below shows the amount, in grams, of carbohydrate, protein, fat and all other nutrients, per 100 grams of nutrients in seven foodgrains. The first column shows the foodgrain category and the second column its codename. The table has some missing values.
The following additional facts are known.
1. Both the pseudo-cereals had higher amounts of carbohydrate as well as higher amounts of protein than any millet.
2. Both the cereals had higher amounts of carbohydrate than any pseudo-cereal.
3. All the missing values of carbohydrate amounts (in grams) for all the foodgrains are non-zero multiples of 5.
4. All the missing values of protein, fat and other nutrients amounts (in grams) for all the foodgrains are non-zero multiples of 4.
5. P1 contained double the amount of protein that M3 contains.
Q1. The table given below shows the amount, in grams, of carbohydrate, protein, fat and all other nutrients, per 100 grams of nutrients in seven foodgrains. How many foodgrains had a higher amount of carbohydrate per 100 grams of nutrients than M1?
Q2. How many grams of protein were there in 100 grams of nutrients in M2?
Q3. How many grams of other nutrients were there in 100 grams of nutrients in M3?
Q4. What is the median of the number of grams of protein in 100 grams of nutrients among these food grains?
Over the top (OTT) subscribers of a platform are segregated into three categories: i) Kid, ii) Elder, and iii) Others. Some of the subscribers used one app and the others used multiple apps to access the platform. The figure below shows the percentage of the total number of subscribers in 2023 and 2024 who belong to the 'Kid' and 'Elder' categories.
The following additional facts are known about the numbers of subscribers.1. The total number of subscribers increased by 10% from 2023 to 2024.
2. In 2024, 1/2 of the subscribers from the 'Kid' category and 2/3 of the subscribers from the 'Elder' category subscribers use one app.
3. In 2023, the number of subscribers from the 'Kid' category who used multiple apps was the same as the number of subscribers from the 'Elder' category who used one app.
4. 10,000 subscribers from the 'Kid' category used one app and 15,000 subscribers from the 'Elder' category used multiple apps in 2023.
Q5. Over the top (OTT) subscribers of a platform are segregated into three categories: i) Kid, ii) Elder, and iii) Others. How many subscribers belonged to the 'Others' category in 2024?
Q6. What percentage of subscribers in the 'Kid' category used multiple apps in 2023?
Q7. What was the percentage increase in the number of subscribers in the 'Elder' category from 2023 to 2024?
Q8. What could be the minimum percentage of subscribers who used multiple apps in 2024?
The air-conditioner (AC) in a large room can be operated either in REGULAR mode or in POWER mode to reduce the temperature.
If the AC operates in REGULAR mode, then it brings down the temperature inside the room (called inside temperature) at a constant rate to the set temperature in 1 hour. If it operates in POWER mode, then this is achieved in 30 minutes.
If the AC is switched off, then the inside temperature rises at a constant rate so as to reach the temperature outside at the time of switching off in 1 hour.
The temperature outside has been falling at a constant rate from 7 pm onward until 3 am on a particular night. The following graph shows the inside temperature between 11 pm (23:00) and 2 am (2:00) that night.
The following facts are known about the AC operation that night.
• The AC was turned on for the first time that night at 11 pm (23:00).
• The AC setting was changed (including turning it on/off, and/or setting different temperatures) only at the beginning of the hour or at 30 minutes after the hour.
• The AC was used in POWER mode for longer duration than in REGULAR mode during this 3-hour period.
Q9. The air-conditioner (AC) in a large room can be operated either in REGULAR mode or in POWER mode. How many times must the AC have been turned off between 11:01 pm and 1:59 am?
Q10. What was the temperature outside, in degree Celsius, at 1 am?
Q11. What was the temperature outside, in degree Celsius, at 9 pm?
Q12. What best can be concluded about the number of times the AC must have either been turned on or the AC temperature setting been altered between 11:01 pm and 1:59 am?
Q13. What was the maximum difference between temperature outside and inside temperature, in degree Celsius, between 11:01 pm and 1:59 am?
Out of 10 countries -- Country 1 through Country 10 -- Country 9 has the highest gross domestic product (GDP), and Country 10 has the highest GDP per capita. GDP per capita is the GDP of a country divided by its population. The table below provides the following data about Country 1 through Country 8 for the year 2024.
• Column 1 gives the country's identity.
• Column 2 gives the country's GDP as a fraction of the GDP of Country 9.
• Column 3 gives the country's GDP per capita as a fraction of the GDP per capita of Country 10.
• Column 4 gives the country's annual GDP growth rate.
• Column 5 gives the country's annual population growth rate.
Assume that the GDP growth rates and population growth rates of the countries will remain constant for the next three years.
Q14. Out of countries 1 through 8, which country has the smallest population in 2024?
Q15. The ratio of Country 4's GDP to Country 5's GDP in 2026 will be closest to:
Q16. Which one among countries 1, 4, 5, and 7 will have the largest population in 2027?
Q17. For how many countries among Country 1 through Country 8 will the GDP per capita in 2027 be lower than that in 2024?
The figure below shows a network with three parallel roads represented by horizontal lines R-A, R-B, and R-C and another three parallel roads represented by vertical lines V1, V2, and V3. The figure also shows the distance (in km) between two adjacent intersections. Six ATMs are placed at six of the nine road intersections. Each ATM has a distinct integer cash requirement (in Rs. Lakhs), and the numbers at the end of each line in the figure indicate the total cash requirements of all ATMs placed on the corresponding road. For example, the total cash requirement of the ATM(s) placed on road R-A is Rs. 22 Lakhs.
The following additional information is known.
1. The ATMs with the minimum and maximum cash requirements of Rs. 7 Lakhs and Rs. 15 Lakhs are placed on the same road.
2. The road distance between the ATM with the second highest cash requirement and the ATM located at the intersection of R-C and V3 is 12 km.
Q18. Which of the following statements is correct about the ATMs?
Q19. How many ATMs have cash requirements of Rs. 10 Lakhs or more?
Q20. Which of the following two statements is/are DEFINITELY true?
Q21. What best can be said about the road distance (in km) between the ATMs having the second highest and the second lowest cash requirements?
Q22. What is the number of ATMs whose locations and cash requirements can both be uniquely determined?
Q1. There is a sentence that is missing in the paragraph below. Look at the paragraph and decide where (option 1, 2, 3, or 4) the following sentence would best fit.
Sentence: Comprehending a wide range of emotions, Renaissance music nevertheless portrayed all emotions in a balanced and moderate fashion.
Paragraph: A volume of translated Italian madrigals were published in London during the year of 1588. This sudden public interest facilitated a surge of English Madrigal writing as well as a spurt of other secular music writing and publication. ___(1)___. This music boom lasted for thirty years and was as much a golden age of music as British literature was with Shakespeare and Queen Elizabeth I. ___(2)___. The rebirth in both literature and music originated in Italy and migrated to England; the English madrigal became more humorous and lighter in England as compared to Italy. Renaissance music was mostly polyphonic in texture. ___(3)___. Extreme use of and contrasts in dynamics, rhythm, and tone colour do not occur. ___(4)_. The rhythms in Renaissance music tend to have a smooth, soft flow instead of a sharp, well-defined pulse of accents.
Q2. The passage given below is followed by four alternate summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage.
Cartographers design and create maps to communicate information about phenomena located somewhere on our planet. In the past, cartographers did not worry too much about who was going to read their maps. Although some simple "usability" research was done—like comparing whether circle or bar symbols worked best—cartographers knew how to make maps. This has changed now, however, due to all kinds of societal and technological developments. Today, map readers are more demanding—mostly because of the tools they use to read maps. Cartographers, who are also influenced by these trends, are now more interested in seeing if their products are efficient, effective, and appreciated.
Q3. Five jumbled up sentences (labelled 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5), related to a topic, are given below. Four of them can be put together to form a coherent paragraph. Identify the odd sentence and key in the number of that sentence as your answer.
The passage below is accompanied by four questions. Based on the passage, choose the best answer for each question.
Landing in Australia, the British colonists weren't much impressed with the small-bodied, slender-snooted marsupials called bandicoots. "Their muzzle, which is much too long, gives them an air exceedingly stupid," one naturalist noted in 1805. They nicknamed one type the "zebra rat" because of its black-striped rump.
Silly-looking or not, though, the zebra rat—the smallest bandicoot, more commonly known today as the western barred bandicoot—exhibited a genius for survival in the harsh outback, where its ancestors had persisted for some 26 million years. Its births were triggered by rainfall in the bone-dry desert. It carried its breath-mint-size babies in a backward-facing pouch so mothers could forage for food and dig shallow, camouflaged shelters.
Still, these adaptations did not prepare the western barred bandicoot for the colonial-era transformation of its ecosystem, particularly the onslaught of imported British animals, from cattle and rabbits that damaged delicate desert vegetation to ravenous house cats that soon developed a taste for bandicoots. Several of the dozen-odd bandicoot species went extinct, and by the 1940s the western barred bandicoot, whose original range stretched across much of the continent, persisted only on two predator-free islands in Shark Bay, off Australia's western coast.
"Our isolated fauna had simply not been exposed to these predators," says Reece Pedler, an ecologist with the Wild Deserts conservation program.
Now Wild Deserts is using descendants of those few thousand island survivors, called Shark Bay bandicoots, in a new effort to seed a mainland bandicoot revival. They've imported 20 bandicoots to a preserve on the edge of the Strzelecki Desert, in the remote interior of New South Wales. This sanctuary is a challenging place, desolate much of the year, with one of the world's most mercurial rainfall patterns—relentless droughts followed by sudden drenching floods.
The imported bandicoots occupy two fenced "exclosures," cleared of invasive rabbits (courtesy of Pedler's sheepdog) and of feral cats (which slunk off once the rabbits disappeared). A third fenced area contains the program's Wild Training Zone, where two other rare marsupials (bilbies, a larger type of bandicoot, and mulgaras, a somewhat fearsome fuzzball known for sucking the brains out of prey) currently share terrain with controlled numbers of cats, learning to evade them. It's unclear whether the Shark Bay bandicoots, which are perhaps even more predator-naive than their now-extinct mainland bandicoot kin, will be able to make that kind of breakthrough.
For now, though, a recent surge of rainfall has led to a bandicoot joey boom, raising the Wild Deserts population to about 100, with other sanctuaries adding to that number. There are also signs of rebirth in the landscape itself. With their constant digging, the bandicoots trap moisture and allow for seed germination so the cattle-damaged desert can restore itself.
They have a new nickname—a flattering one, this time. "We call them ecosystem engineers," Pedler says.
Q4. According to the text, the western barred bandicoots now have a flattering name because they have
Q5. Which one of the following options does NOT represent the characteristics of the western barred bandicoot?
Q6. The text uses the word 'exclosures' because Wild Deserts has adopted a measure of
Q7. Which one of the following statements provides a gist of this passage?
Q8. There is a sentence that is missing in the paragraph below. Look at the paragraph and decide where (option 1, 2, 3, or 4) the following sentence would best fit.
Sentence: The brain isn't organized the way you might set up your home office or bathroom medicine cabinet.
Paragraph: ___(1)___. You can't just put things anywhere you want to. The evolved architecture of the brain is haphazard and disjointed, and incorporates multiple systems, each of which has a mind of its own. ___(2)___. Evolution doesn't design things and it doesn't build systems—it settles on systems that, historically, conveyed a survival benefit. There is no overarching, grand planner engineering the systems so that they work harmoniously together. ___(3)___. The brain is more like a big, old house with piecemeal renovations done on every floor, and less like new construction. ___(4)___.
The passage below is accompanied by four questions. Based on the passage, choose the best answer for each question.
Oftentimes, when economists cross borders, they are less interested in learning from others than in invading their garden plots. Gary Becker, for instance, pioneered the idea of human capital. To do so, he famously tackled topics like crime and domesticity, applying methods honed in the study of markets to domains of nonmarket life. He projected economics outward into new realms: for example, by revealing the extent to which humans calculate marginal utilities when choosing their spouses or stealing from neighbors. At the same time, he did not let other ways of thinking enter his own economic realm: for example, he did not borrow from anthropology or history or let observations of nonmarket economics inform his homo economicus. Becker was a picture of the imperial economist in the heyday of the discipline's bravura.
Times have changed for the once almighty discipline. Economics has been taken to task, within and beyond its ramparts. Some economists have reached out, imported, borrowed, and collaborated—been less imperial, more open. Consider Thomas Piketty and his outreach to historians. The booming field of behavioral economics—the fusion of economics and social psychology—is another case. Having spawned active subfields, like judgment, decision-making and a turn to experimentation, the field aims to go beyond the caricature of Rational Man to explain how humans make decisions….
It is important to underscore how this flips the way we think about economics. For generations, economists have presumed that people have interests—"preferences," in the neoclassical argot—that get revealed in the course of peoples' choices. Interests come before actions and determine them. If you are hungry, you buy lunch; if you are cold, you get a sweater. If you only have so much money and can't afford to deal with both your growling stomach and your shivering, which need you choose to meet using your scarce savings reveals your preference.
Psychologists take one look at this simple formulation and shake their heads. Increasingly, even some mainstream economists have to admit that homo economicus doesn't always behave like the textbook maximizer; irrational behavior can't simply be waved away as extra-economic expressions of passions over interests, and thus the domain of other disciplines…. This is one place where the humanist can help the economist. If narrative economics is going to help us understand how rivals duke it out, who wins and who loses, we are going to need much more than lessons from epidemiological studies of viruses or intracranial stimuli.
Above all, we need politics and institutions. Shiller [the Nobel prize winning economist] connects perceptions of narratives to changes in behavior and thence to social outcomes. He completes a circle that was key to behavioral economics and brings in storytelling to make sense of how perceptions get framed. This cycle (perception to behavior to society) was once mediated or dominated by institutions: the political parties, lobby groups, and media organizations that played a vital role in legitimating, representing, and excluding interests. Yet institutions have been stripped from Shiller's account, to reveal a bare dynamic of emotions and economics, without the intermediating place of politics.
Q9. In the first paragraph the author is making the point that economists like Becker
Q10. "Times have changed for the once almighty discipline." We can infer from this statement and the associated paragraph that the author is being
Q11. The author critiques Shiller's approach to behavioural economics for
Q12. We can infer from the passage that the term ''homo economicus" refers to someone who
Q13. The passage given below is followed by four alternate summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage.
Certain codes may, of course, be so widely distributed in a specific language community or culture, and be learned at so early an age, that they appear not to be constructed – the effect of an articulation between sign and referent – but to be 'naturally' given. Simple visual signs appear to have achieved a 'near-universality' in this sense: though evidence remains that even apparently 'natural' visual codes are culture specific. However, this does not mean that no codes have intervened; rather, that the codes have been profoundly naturalized. The operation of naturalized codes reveals not the transparency and 'naturalness' of language but the depth, the habituation and the near-universality of the codes in use. They produce apparently 'natural' recognitions. This has the (ideological) effect of concealing the practices of coding which are present.
The passage below is accompanied by four questions. Based on the passage, choose the best answer for each question.
. . . [T]he idea of craftsmanship is not simply nostalgic. . . . Crafts require distinct skills, an all-round approach to work that involves the whole product, rather than individual parts, and an attitude that necessitates devotion to the job and a focus on the communal interest. The concept of craft emphasises the human touch and individual judgment.
Essentially, the crafts concept seems to run against the preponderant ethos of management studies which, as the academics note, have long prioritised efficiency and consistency. . . . Craft skills were portrayed as being primitive and traditionalist.
The contrast between artisanship and efficiency first came to the fore in the 19th century when British manufacturers suddenly faced competition from across the Atlantic as firms developed the "American system" using standardised parts. . . . the worldwide success of the Singer sewing machine showed the potential of a mass-produced device. This process created its own reaction, first in the form of the Arts and Crafts movement of the late 19th century, and then again in the "small is beautiful" movement of the 1970s. A third crafts movement is emerging as people become aware of the environmental impact of conventional industry.
There are two potential markets for those who practise crafts. The first stems from the existence of consumers who are willing to pay a premium price for goods that are deemed to be of extra quality. . . . The second market lies in those consumers who wish to use their purchases to support local workers, or to reduce their environmental impact by taking goods to craftspeople to be mended, or recycled.
For workers, the appeal of craftsmanship is that it allows them the autonomy to make creative choices, and thus makes a job far more satisfying. In that sense, it could offer hope for the overall labour market. Let the machines automate dull and repetitive tasks and let workers focus purely on their skills, judgment and imagination. As a current example, the academics cite the "agile" manifesto in the software sector, an industry at the heart of technological change. The pioneers behind the original agile manifesto promised to prioritise "individuals and interactions over processes and tools". By bringing together experts from different teams, agile working is designed to improve creativity.
But the broader question is whether crafts can create a lot more jobs than they do today. Demand for crafted products may rise but will it be easy to retrain workers in sectors that might get automated (such as truck drivers) to take advantage? In a world where products and services often have to pass through regulatory hoops, large companies will usually have the advantage.
History also suggests that the link between crafts and creativity is not automatic. Medieval craft guilds were monopolies which resisted new entrants. They were also highly hierarchical with young men required to spend long periods as apprentices and journeymen before they could set up on their own; by that time the innovative spirit may have been knocked out of them. Craft workers can thrive in the modern era, but only if they don't get too organised.
Q14. We can infer from the passage that medieval crafts guilds resembled mass production in that both
Q15. The most recent revival in interest in the crafts is a result of the emergence of all of the following EXCEPT:
Q16. The author questions the ability of crafts to create substantial employment opportunities presently because
Q17. Which one of the following statements is NOT inconsistent with the views stated in the passage?
The passage below is accompanied by four questions. Based on the passage, choose the best answer for each question.
In the summer of 2022, subscribers to the US streaming service HBO MAX were alarmed to discover that dozens of the platform's offerings – from the Covid-themed heist thriller Locked Down to the recent remake of The Witches – had been quietly removed from the service . . . The news seemed like vindication to those who had long warned that streaming was more about controlling access to the cultural commons than expanding it, as did reports (since denied by the show's creators) that Netflix had begun editing old episodes of Stranger Things to retroactively improve their visual effects.
What's less clear is whether the commonly prescribed cure for these cultural ills – a return to the material pleasures of physical media – is the right one. While the makers of Blu-ray discs claim they have a shelf life of 100 years, such statistics remain largely theoretical until they come to pass, and are dependent on storage conditions, not to mention the continued availability of playback equipment. The humble DVD has already proved far less resilient, with many early releases already beginning to deteriorate in quality Digital movie purchases provide even less security. Any film "bought" on iTunes could disappear if you move to another territory with a different rights agreement and try to redownload it. It's a bold new frontier in the commodification of art: the birth of the product recall. After a man took to Twitter to bemoan losing access to Cars 2 after moving from Canada to Australia, Apple clarified that users who downloaded films to their devices would retain permanent access to those downloads, even if they relocated to a hemisphere where the [content was] subject to a different set of rights agreements. Thanks to the company's ironclad digital rights management technology, however, such files cannot be moved or backed up, locking you into watching with your Apple account.
Anyone who does manage to acquire Digital Rights Management free (DRM-free) copies of their favourite films must nonetheless grapple with ever-changing file format standards, not to mention data decay – the gradual process by which electronic information slowly but surely corrupts. Only the regular migration of files from hard drive to hard drive can delay the inevitable, in a sisyphean battle against the ravages of digital time.
In a sense, none of this is new. Charlie Chaplin burned the negative of his 1926 film A Woman of the Sea as a tax write-off. Many more films have been lost through accident, negligence or plain indifference. During a heatwave in July 1937, a Fox film vault in New Jersey burned down, destroying a majority of the silent films produced by the studio.
Back then, at least, cinema was defined by its ephemerality: the sense that a film was as good as gone once it left your local cinema. Today, with film studios keen to stress the breadth of their back catalogues (or to put in Hollywood terms, the value of their IPs), audiences may start to wonder why those same studios seem happy to set the vault alight themselves if it'll help next quarter's numbers.
Q18. Which of the following statements is suggested by the sentence "Back then, at least, cinema was defined by its ephemerality: the sense that a film was as good as gone once it left your local cinema"?
Q19. "Netflix had begun editing old episodes of Stranger Things to retroactively improve their visual effects." What is the purpose of this example used in the passage?
Q20. Which one of the following statements, if true, would best invalidate the main argument of the passage?
Q21. Which one of the following statements about art best captures the arguments made in the passage?
Q22. Scientific research shows that many animals are very intelligent and have sensory and motor abilities that dwarf ours. Dogs are able to detect diseases such as cancer and diabetes and warn humans of impending heart attacks and strokes. Elephants, whales, hippopotamuses, giraffes, and alligators use low-frequency sounds to communicate over long distances, often miles. Many animals also display wide-ranging emotions, including joy, happiness, empathy, compassion, grief, and even resentment and embarrassment. It's not surprising that animals share many emotions with us because we also share brain structures, located in the limbic system, that are the seat of our emotions.
Q23. Five jumbled up sentences (labelled 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5), related to a topic, are given below. Four of them can be put together to form a coherent paragraph. Identify the odd sentence.
Q24. There is a sentence that is missing in the paragraph below. Look at the paragraph and decide where (option 1, 2, 3, or 4) the following sentence would best fit.
Sentence: Understanding central Asia's role helps developments make more sense not only across Asia but in Europe, the Americas and Africa.
Paragraph: The nations of the Silk Roads are sometimes called 'developing countries', but they are actually some of the world's most highly developed countries, the very crossroads of civilization, in advanced states of disrepair. ___(1)___. These countries lie at the centre of global affairs: they have since the beginning of history. Running across the spine of Asia, they form a web of connections fanning out in every direction, routes along which pilgrims and warriors, nomads and merchants have travelled, goods and produce have been bought and sold, and ideas exchanged, adapted and refined. ___(2)___. They have carried not only prosperity, but also death and violence, disease and disaster. ___(3)___. The Silk Roads are the world's central nervous system, connecting otherwise far-flung peoples and places…. ___(4)___. It allows us to see patterns and links, causes and effects that remain invisible if one looks only at Europe, or North America.
Q1. The passage given below is followed by four alternate summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage.
Recent important scientific findings have emerged from crossing the boundaries of scientific fields. They stem from physicists collaborating with biologists, sociologists and others, to answer questions about our world. But physicists and their potential collaborators often find their cultures out of sync. For one, physicists often discard a lot of information while extracting broad patterns; for other scientists, information is not readily disposed. Further, many non-physicists are uncomfortable with mathematical models. Still, the desire to work on something new and different is real, and there are clear benefits from the collision of views.
Q2. Based on the passage we can infer that the author would most probably support
Q3. According to the passage, which of the following is the only reason NOT given in favour of making peer review data public?
Q4. According to the passage, some are opposed to making peer reviews public for all the following reasons EXCEPT that it
Q5. All of the following are listed as reasons why academics choose to review other scholars' work EXCEPT:
Q6. There is a sentence that is missing in the paragraph below. Look at the paragraph and decide where (option 1, 2, 3, or 4) the following sentence would best fit.
Sentence: Science has officially crowned us superior to our early-rising brethren.
Paragraph: My fellow night owls, grab a strong cup of coffee and gather around: I have great news. ___(1)___. For a long time, our kind has been unfairly maligned. Stereotyped as lazy and undisciplined. Told we ought to be morning larks. Advised to go to bed early so we can wake before 5am and run a marathon before breakfast like all high-flyers seem to do. Now, however, we are having the last laugh. ___(2)___. It may be a tad more complicated than that. A study published last week, which you may have already seen while scrolling at 1am, suggests that staying up late could be good for brain power. ___(3)___. Is this study a thinly veiled PR exercise conducted by a caffeine-pill company? Nope, it's legit. ___(4)___. Research led by academics at Imperial College London studied data on more than 26,000 people and found that "self-declared 'night owls' generally tend to have higher cognitive scores".
Q7. Five jumbled up sentences (labelled 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5), related to a topic, are given below. Four of them can be put together to form a coherent paragraph. Identify the odd sentence.
The passage below is accompanied by four questions. Based on the passage, choose the best answer for each question.
[S]pices were a global commodity centuries before European voyages. There was a complex chain of relations, yet consumers had little knowledge of producers and vice versa. Desire for spices helped fuel European colonial empires to create political, military and commercial networks under a single power.
Historians know a fair amount about the supply of spices in Europe during the medieval period – the origins, methods of transportation, the prices – but less about demand. Why go to such extraordinary efforts to procure expensive products from exotic lands? Still, demand was great enough to inspire the voyages of Christopher Columbus and Vasco Da Gama, launching the first fateful wave of European colonialism. . . .
So, why were spices so highly prized in Europe in the centuries from about 1000 to 1500? One widely disseminated explanation for medieval demand for spices was that they covered the taste of spoiled meat. . . . Medieval purchasers consumed meat much fresher than what the average city-dweller in the developed world of today has at hand. However, refrigeration was not available, and some hot spices have been shown to serve as an anti-bacterial agent. Salting, smoking or drying meat were other means of preservation. Most spices used in cooking began as medical ingredients, and throughout the Middle Ages spices were used as both medicines and condiments. Above all, medieval recipes involve the combination of medical and culinary lore in order to balance food's humeral properties and prevent disease. Most spices were hot and dry and so appropriate in sauces to counteract the moist and wet properties supposedly possessed by most meat and fish. . . .
Where spices came from was known in a vague sense centuries before the voyages of Columbus. Just how vague may be judged by looking at medieval world maps . . . To the medieval European imagination, the East was exotic and alluring. Medieval maps often placed India close to the so-called Earthly Paradise, the Garden of Eden described in the Bible.
Geographical knowledge has a lot to do with the perceptions of spices' relative scarcity and the reasons for their high prices. An example of the varying notions of scarcity is the conflicting information about how pepper is harvested. As far back as the 7th century Europeans thought that pepper in India grew on trees "guarded" by serpents that would bite and poison anyone who attempted to gather the fruit. The only way to harvest pepper was to burn the trees, which would drive the snakes underground. Of course, this bit of lore would explain the shriveled black peppercorns, but not white, pink or other colors.
Spices never had the enduring allure or power of gold and silver or the commercial potential of new products such as tobacco, indigo or sugar. But the taste for spices did continue for a while beyond the Middle Ages. As late as the 17th century, the English and the Dutch were struggling for control of the Spice Islands: Dutch New Amsterdam, or New York, was exchanged by the British for one of the Moluccan Islands where nutmeg was grown.
Q8. In the context of the passage about medieval spices, which one of the following conclusions CANNOT be reached?
Q9. It can be inferred that all of the following contributed to a decline in the allure of spices, EXCEPT:
Q10. If a trader brought white peppercorns from India to medieval Europe, all of the following are unlikely to happen, EXCEPT:
Q11. We can assume that the author would support all of the following views EXCEPT:
The passage below is accompanied by four questions. Based on the passage, choose the best answer for each question.
The history of any major technological or industrial advance is inevitably shadowed by a less predictable history of unintended consequences and secondary effects — what economists sometimes call "externalities." Sometimes those consequences are innocuous ones, or even beneficial. Gutenberg invents the printing press, and literacy rates rise, which causes a significant part of the reading public to require spectacles for the first time, which creates a surge of investment in lens-making across Europe, which leads to the invention of the telescope and the microscope.
Oftentimes the secondary effects seem to belong to an entirely different sphere of society. When Willis Carrier hit upon the idea of air-conditioning, the technology was primarily intended for industrial use: ensuring cool, dry air for factories that required low-humidity environments. But…it touched off one of the largest migrations in the history of the United States, enabling the rise of metropolitan areas like Phoenix and Las Vegas that barely existed when Carrier first started tinkering with the idea in the early 1900s.
Sometimes the unintended consequence comes about when consumers use an invention in a surprising way. Edison famously thought his phonograph, which he sometimes called "the talking machine," would primarily be used to take dictation….But then later innovators… discovered a much larger audience willing to pay for musical recordings made on descendants of Edison's original invention. In other cases, the original innovation comes into the world disguised as a plaything…the way the animatronic dolls of the mid-1700s inspired Jacquard to invent the first "programmable" loom and Charles Babbage to invent the first machine that fit the modern definition of a computer, setting the stage for the revolution in programmable technology that would transform the 21st century in countless ways.
We live under the gathering storm of modern history's most momentous unintended consequence….carbon-based climate change. Imagine the vast sweep of inventors whose ideas started the Industrial Revolution, all the entrepreneurs and scientists and hobbyists who had a hand in bringing it about. Line up a thousand of them and ask them all what they had been hoping to do with their work. Not one would say that their intent had been to deposit enough carbon in the atmosphere to create a greenhouse effect that trapped heat at the surface of the planet. And yet here we are.
Ethyl (leaded fuel) and Freon belonged to the same general class of secondary effect: innovations whose unintended consequences stem from some kind of waste by-product that they emit. But the potential health threats of Ethyl (unleaded fuel) were visible in the 1920s, unlike, say, the long-term effects of atmospheric carbon build up in the early days of the Industrial Revolution….
Indeed, it is reasonable to see CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons) as a forerunner of the kind of threat we will most likely face in the coming decades, as it becomes increasingly possible for individuals or small groups to create new scientific advances — through chemistry or biotechnology or materials science — setting off unintended consequences that reverberate on a global scale.
Q12. Carrier, Babbage, and Edison are mentioned in the passage to illustrate the author's point that:
Q13. Which of the following best conveys the main point of the first paragraph?
Q14. The author lists all of the following examples as "externalities" of major technical advances EXCEPT:
Q15. Five jumbled up sentences (labelled 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5), related to a topic, are given below. Four of them can be put together to form a coherent paragraph. Identify the odd sentence.
Q16. There is a sentence that is missing in the paragraph below. Look at the paragraph and decide where (option 1, 2, 3, or 4) the following sentence would best fit.
Sentence: Yet each day the flock produced eggs with calcareous shells though they apparently had not ingested any calcium from land which was entirely lacking in limestone.
Paragraph: Early in this century a young Breton schoolboy who preparing himself for a scientific career began to notice a strange fact about hens in his father's poultry yard. ___(1) ___. As they scratched the soil they constantly seemed to be pecking at specks of mica, a siliceous material dotting the ground. ___(2)___. No one could explain to Louis Kervran why the chickens selected the mica, or why each time a bird was killed for the family cooking pot no trace of the mica could be found in its gizzard. ___(3)___. It took Kervran many years to establish that the chickens were transmuting one element into another. ___(4)___.
Q17. There is a sentence that is missing in the paragraph below. Look at the paragraph and decide where (option 1, 2, 3, or 4) the following sentence would best fit.
Sentence: Yet each day the flock produced eggs with calcareous shells though they apparently had not ingested any calcium from land which was entirely lacking in limestone.
Paragraph: Early in this century a young Breton schoolboy who preparing himself for a scientific career began to notice a strange fact about hens in his father's poultry yard. ___(1)___. As they scratched the soil they constantly seemed to be pecking at specks of mica, a siliceous material dotting the ground. ___(2)___. No one could explain to Louis Kervran why the chickens selected the mica, or why each time a bird was killed for the family cooking pot no trace of the mica could be found in its gizzard. ___(3)___. It took Kervran many years to establish that the chickens were transmuting one element into another. ___(4)___.
The passage below is accompanied by four questions. Based on the passage, choose the best answer for each question.
(. . .) There are three other common drivers for carnivore-human attacks, some of which are more preventable than others. Natural aggression-based conflicts – such as those involving females protecting their young or animals protecting a food source – can often be avoided as long as people stay away from those animals and their food.
Carnivores that recognise humans as a means to get food, are a different story. As they become more reliant on human food they might find at campsites or in rubbish bins, they become less avoidant of humans. Losing that instinctive fear response puts them into more situations where they could get into an altercation with a human, which often results in that bear being put down by humans. "A fed bear is a dead bear," says Servheen, referring to a common saying among biologists and conservationists.
Predatory or predation-related attacks are quite rare, only accounting for 17% of attacks in North America since 1955. They occur when a carnivore views a human as prey and hunts it like it would any other animal it uses for food. (. . .)
Then there are animal attacks provoked by people taking pictures with them or feeding them in natural settings such as national parks which often end with animals being euthanised out of precaution. "Eventually, that animal becomes habituated to people, and [then] bad things happen to the animal. And the folks who initially wanted to make that connection don't necessarily realise that," says Christine Wilkinson, a postdoctoral researcher at UC Berkeley, California, who's been studying coyote-human conflicts.
After conducting countless postmortems on all types of carnivore-human attacks spanning 75 years, Penteriani's team believes 50% could have been avoided if humans reacted differently. A 2017 study co-authored by Penteriani found that engaging in risky behaviour around large carnivores increases the likelihood of an attack.
Two of the most common risky behaviours are parents leaving their children to play outside unattended and walking an unleashed dog, according to the study. Wilkinson says 66% of coyote attacks involve a dog. "[People] end up in a situation where their dog is being chased, or their dog chases a coyote, or maybe they're walking their dog near a den that's marked, and the coyote wants to escort them away," says Wilkinson.
Experts believe climate change also plays a part in the escalation of human-carnivore conflicts, but the correlation still needs to be ironed out. "As finite resources become scarcer, carnivores and people are coming into more frequent contact, which means that more conflict could occur," says Jen Miller, international programme specialist for the US Fish & Wildlife Service. For example, she says, there was an uptick in lion attacks in western India during a drought when lions and people were relying on the same water sources.
(. . .) The likelihood of human-carnivore conflicts appears to be higher in areas of low-income countries dominated by vast rural landscapes and farmland, according to Penteriani's research. "There are a lot of working landscapes in the Global South that are really heterogeneous, that are interspersed with carnivore habitats, forests and savannahs, which creates a lot more opportunity for these encounters, just statistically," says Wilkinson.
Q18. According to the passage, which of the following scenarios would MOST likely exacerbate the frequency of carnivore-human conflicts?
Q19. According to the passage, what is a significant factor that contributes to the habituation of carnivores to human presence?
Q20. Which of the following statements, if false, would be inconsistent with the concerns raised in the passage regarding the drivers of carnivore-human conflicts?
Q21. Given the insights provided by Penteriani's research and Wilkinson's statement, which of the following conclusions can be drawn about the relationship between landscape heterogeneity and human-carnivore conflicts?
Q22. The passage given below is followed by four alternate summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage.
John Cleese told Fox News Digital that comedians do not have the freedom to be funny in 2022. "There's always been limitations on what they're allowed to say," Cleese said. "I think it's particularly worrying at the moment because you can only create in an atmosphere of freedom, where you're not checking everything you say critically before you move on. What you have to be able to do is to build without knowing where you're going because you've never been there before. That's what creativity is — you have to be allowed to build. And a lot of comedians now are sitting there and when they think of something, they say something like, 'Can I get away with it? I don't think so. So and so got into trouble, and he said that, oh, she said that.' You see what I mean? And that's the death of creativity."
Q23. There is a sentence that is missing in the paragraph below. Look at the paragraph and decide where (option 1, 2, 3, or 4) the following sentence would best fit.
Sentence: [T]he Europeans did not invent globalization.
Paragraph: The first phase of globalization occurred long before the introduction of either steam or electric power…Chinese consumers at all social levels consumed vast quantities of spices, fragrant woods and unusual plants. The peoples of Southeast Asia who lived in forests gave up their traditional livelihoods and completely reoriented their economies to supply Chinese consumers….___(1)___. These exchanges of the year 1000 opened some of the routes through which goods and peoples continued to travel after Columbus traversed the mid-Atlantic. ___(2)___. Yet the world of 1000 differed from that of 1492 in important ways….the travellers who encountered one another in the year 1000 were much closer technologically. ___(3)___. They changed and augmented what was already there since 1000. ___(4)___. If globalization hadn't yet begun, Europeans wouldn't have been able to penetrate the markets in so many places as quickly as they did after 1492.
Q24. The passage given below is followed by four alternate summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage.
Different from individuals, states conduct warfare operations using the DIME model— "diplomacy, information, military, and economics." Most states do everything they can to inflict pain and confusion on their enemies before deploying the military. In fact, attacks on vectors of information are a well-worn tactic of war and usually are the first target when the charge begins. It's common for telecom data and communications networks to be routinely monitored by governments, which is why the open data policies of the web are so concerning to many advocates of privacy and human rights. With the worldwide adoption of social media, more governments are getting involved in low-grade information warfare through the use of cyber troops. According to a study by the Oxford Internet Institute in 2020, cyber troops are "government or political party actors tasked with manipulating public opinion online." The Oxford research group was able to identify 81 countries with active cyber troop operations utilizing many different strategies to spread false information, including spending millions on online advertising.
Q1. The passage given below is followed by four alternate summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage.
Passage: Lyric poetry is a genre of private meditation rather than public commitment. The impulse in Marxism toward changing a society deemed unacceptable in its basic design would seem to place demands on lyric poetry that such poetry, with its tendency toward the personal, the small scale, and the idiosyncratic, could never answer. There is within Marxism, however, also a strand of thought that would locate in lyric poetry alternative modes of perception and description that call forth a vision of worlds at odds with a repressive reality or that draw attention to the workings of ideology within the hegemonic culture. The poetic imagination may indeed deflect larger social concerns, but it may also be implicitly critical and utopian.
Q2. There is a sentence that is missing in the paragraph below. Look at the paragraph and decide where (option 1, 2, 3, or 4) the following sentence would best fit.
Sentence: Taken outside the village of Trang Bang on June 8, 1972, the picture captured the trauma and indiscriminate violence of a conflict that claimed, by some estimates, a million or more civilian lives.
Paragraph: The horrifying photograph of children fleeing a deadly napalm attack has become a defining image not only of the Vietnam War but the 20th century. ___(1)___. Dark smoke billowing behind them, the young subjects' faces are painted with a mixture of terror, pain and confusion. ___(2)___. Soldiers from the South Vietnamese army's 25th Division follow helplessly behind. ___(3)___. The picture was officially titled "The Terror of War," but the photo is better known by the nickname given to naked 9-year-old at its centre "Napalm Girl". ___(4)___.
Q3. The passage given below is followed by four alternate summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage.
Passage: Humans have managed to tweak the underlying biology of various plants and animals to produce high-tech crops and microbes. But regulating these entities is complicated, as the framework of policies and procedures are outdated and not flexible enough to adapt to emerging technology. The question is whether regulation will ever be able to keep up with human innovation, to regulate living things, which are apt to be unpredictable and unique; to capture all the potential risks when new biological entities are introduced, or when they pass on variations of their genes?
The passage below is accompanied by four questions. Based on the passage, choose the best answer for each question.
There is a group in the space community who view the solar system not as an opportunity to expand human potential but as a nature preserve, forever the provenance of an elite group of scientists and their sanitary robotic probes. These planetary protection advocates [call] for avoiding "harmful contamination" of celestial bodies. Under this regime, NASA incurs great expense sterilizing robotic probes in order to prevent the contamination of entirely theoretical biospheres. . . .
Transporting bacteria would matter if Mars were the vital world once imagined by astronomers who mistook optical illusions for canals. Nobody wants to expose Martians to measles, but sadly, robotic exploration reveals a bleak, rusted landscape, lacking oxygen and flooded with radiation ready to sterilize any Earthly microbes. Simple life might exist underground, or down at the bottom of a deep canyon, but it has been very hard to find with robots. . . . The upsides from human exploration and development of Mars clearly outweigh the welfare of purely speculative Martian fungi. . . .
The other likely targets of human exploration, development, and settlement, our moon and the asteroids, exist in a desiccated, radiation-soaked realm of hard vacuum and extreme temperature variations that would kill nearly anything. It's also important to note that many international competitors will ignore the demands of these protection extremists in any case. For example, China recently sent a terrarium to the moon and germinated a plant seed—with, unsurprisingly, no protest from its own scientific community. In contrast, when it was recently revealed that a researcher had surreptitiously smuggled super-resilient microscopic tardigrades aboard the ill-fated Israeli Beresheet lunar probe, a firestorm was unleashed within the space community. . . .
NASA's previous human exploration efforts made no serious attempt at sterility, with little notice. As the Mars expert Robert Zubrin noted in the National Review, U.S. lunar landings did not leave the campsites cleaner than they found it. Apollo's bacteria-infested litter included bags of feces. Forcing NASA's proposed Mars exploration to do better, scrubbing everything and hauling out all the trash, would destroy NASA's human exploration budget and encroach on the agency's other directorates, too. Getting future astronauts off Mars is enough of a challenge, without trying to tote weeks of waste along as well.
A reasonable compromise is to continue on the course laid out by the U.S. government and the National Research Council, which proposed a system of zones on Mars, some for science only, some for habitation, and some for resource exploitation. This approach minimizes contamination, maximizes scientific exploration . . . Mars presents a stark choice of diverging human futures. We can turn inward, pursuing ever more limited futures while we await whichever natural or manmade disaster will eradicate our species and life on Earth. Alternatively, we can choose to propel our biosphere further into the solar system, simultaneously protecting our home planet and providing a backup plan for the only life we know exists in the universe. Are the lives on Earth worth less than some hypothetical microbe lurking under Martian rocks?
Q4. The author mentions all of the following reasons to dismiss concerns about contaminating Mars EXCEPT:
Q5. The author's overall tone in the first paragraph can be described as:
Q6. The author is unlikely to disagree with any of the following EXCEPT:
Q7. The contrasting reactions to the Chinese and Israeli "contaminations" of lunar space:
Q8. There is a sentence that is missing in the paragraph below. Decide where it best fits.
Sentence: Many have had to leave their homes behind, with more than 1.3 million people being displaced due to the drought.
Paragraph: Somalia has been dealing with an enormous humanitarian catastrophe, driven by the longest and most severe drought the country has experienced in at least 40 years. ___(1)___. Five consecutive rainy seasons have failed, causing more than 8 million people - almost half of the country's population – to experience acute food insecurity. ___(2)___. More than 43,000 people are believed to have lost their lives, with half of the lives lost likely being children under five. The damage the drought has caused is far-reaching. ___(3)___. Farmers have lost all their agricultural income, while pastoralists have lost more than 3 million livestock, impoverishing entire communities, and leaving them on the brink of famine. ___(4)___. Some, like the pastoralists, may never be able to go back as their livelihoods have been irreversibly wiped out.
The passage below is accompanied by four questions. Based on the passage, choose the best answer for each question.
Languages become endangered and die out for many reasons. Sadly, the physical annihilation of communities of native speakers of a language is all too often the cause of language extinction. In North America, European colonists brought death and destruction to many Native American communities. This was followed by US federal policies restricting the use of indigenous languages, including the removal of native children from their communities to federal boarding schools where native languages and cultural practices were prohibited. As many as 75 percent of the languages spoken in the territories that became the United States have gone extinct, with slightly better language survival rates in Central and South America . . .
Even without physical annihilation and prohibitions against language use, the language of the "dominant" cultures may drive other languages into extinction; young people see education, jobs, culture and technology associated with the dominant language and focus their attention on that language. The largest language "killers" are English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Russian, Hindi, and Chinese, all of which have privileged status as dominant languages threatening minority languages.
When we lose a language, we lose the worldview, culture and knowledge of the people who spoke it, constituting a loss to all humanity. People around the world live in direct contact with their native environment, their habitat. When the language they speak goes extinct, the rest of humanity loses their knowledge of that environment, their wisdom about the relationship between local plants and illness, their philosophical and religious beliefs as well as their native cultural expression (in music, visual art and poetry) that has enriched both the speakers of that language and others who would have encountered that culture. . . .
As educators deeply immersed in the liberal arts, we believe that educating students broadly in all facets of language and culture . . . yields immense rewards. Some individuals educated in the liberal arts tradition will pursue advanced study in linguistics and become actively engaged in language preservation, setting out for the Amazon, for example, with video recording equipment to interview the last surviving elders in a community to record and document a language spoken by no children.
Certainly, though, the vast majority of students will not pursue this kind of activity. For these students, a liberal arts education is absolutely critical from the twin perspectives of language extinction and global citizenship. When students study languages other than their own, they are sensitized to the existence of different cultural perspectives and practices. With such an education, students are more likely to be able to articulate insights into their own cultural biases, be more empathetic to individuals of other cultures, communicate successfully across linguistic and cultural differences, consider and resolve questions in a way that reflects multiple cultural perspectives, and, ultimately extend support to people, programs, practices, and policies that support the preservation of endangered languages.
There is ample evidence that such preservation can work in languages spiraling toward extinction. For example, Navajo, Cree and Inuit communities have established schools in which these languages are the language of instruction and the number of speakers of each has increased.
Q9. The author believes that a liberal arts education combined with participation in language preservation empower students in all of the following ways EXCEPT that they will:
Q10. It can be inferred from the passage that it is likely South America had a slightly better language survival rate than North America for all of the following reasons EXCEPT:
Q11. Which one of the following hypothetical scenarios, if true, would most strongly undermine the central ideas of the passage?
Q12. In the context of the passage, which one of the following hypothetical scenarios, if true, is NOT an example of the kind of loss that occurs when a language becomes extinct?
Q13. There is a sentence that is missing in the paragraph below. Decide where it best fits.
Sentence: This reality is putting stress on employees who have to pay for transport, desk lunches, more childcare, clothing and that after-work socialisation – costs they haven't incurred for nearly two years.
Paragraph: ___(1)___. Prices are rising at their fastest rate in 40 years, consequently, return-to-office-related costs have shot up – think petrol and food, for instance. ___(2)___. Yet wages haven't kept up with inflation – even despite the salary growth many workers have enjoyed during a favourable pandemic labour market. ___(3)___. This is especially jarring for workers who were able to save during remote work, when these expenditures weren't a factor. ___(4)___. In April 2022, Umus, a London university lecturer, told BBC Worklife that they were spending nearly a quarter of what they made every day on return-to-work costs.
The passage below is accompanied by four questions. Based on the passage, choose the best answer for each question.
Moutai has been the global booze sensation of the decade. A bottle of its Flying Fairy which sold in the 1980s for the equivalent of a dollar now retails for $400. Moutai's listed shares have soared by almost 600% in the past five years, outpacing the likes of Amazon. . . .
It does this while disregarding every Western marketing mantra. It is not global, has meagre digital sales and does not appeal to millennials. It scores pitifully on environmental, social and governance measures. In the Boy Scout world of Western business it would leave a bad taste, in more ways than one.
Moutai owes its intoxicating success to three factors—not all of them easy to emulate. First, it profits from Chinese nationalism. Moutai is known as the "national liquor". It was used to raise spirits and disinfect wounds in Mao's Long March. It was Premier Zhou Enlai's favourite tipple, shared with Richard Nixon in 1972. Its centuries-old craftsmanship—it is distilled eight times and stored for years in earthenware jars—is a source of national pride. It also claims to be hangover-proof, which would make it an invention to rival gunpowder....
Second, it chose to serve China's super-rich rather than its middle class. Markets are littered with the corpses of firms that could not compete in the cut-throat battle for Chinese middle-class wallets. And the country's premium market is massive—at 73m-strong, bigger than the population of France, notes Euan McLeish of Bernstein, an investment firm, and still less crowded with prestige brands than advanced economies. Moutai is to these well-heeled drinkers what vintage champagne is to the rest of the world.....
Third, Moutai looks beyond affluent millennials and digital natives. The elderly and the middle-aged, it found, can be just as lucrative. Its biggest market now is (male) drinkers in their mid-30s. Many have no siblings, thanks to four decades of China's one-child policy—which also means their elderly parents can splash out on weddings and banquets. Moutai is often a guest of honour.
Moutai has succeeded thanks to nationalism, elitism and ageism, in other words—not in spite of this unholy trinity. But it faces risks. The government is its largest shareholder—and a meddlesome one. It appears to want prices to remain stable. Exorbitantly priced booze is at odds with its professed socialist ideals. Yet minority investors—including many foreign funds—lament that Moutai's wholesale price is a third of what it sells for in shops. Raising it could boost the company's profits further. Instead, in what some see as a travesty of corporate governance, its majority owner has plans to set up its own sales channel.....
In the long run, its biggest risk may be millennials. As they grow older, health concerns, work-life balance and the desire for more wholesome pursuits than binge-drinking may curb the "Ganbei!" toasting culture [heavy drinking] on which so much of the demand for Moutai rests. For the time being, though, the party goes on.
Q14. Which one of the following is both a reason for Moutai's success as well as a possible threat to that success?
Q15. In the context of the passage we can infer that to succeed in the liquor industry in China, a marketing firm must consider all of the following factors affecting the Chinese liquor market EXCEPT that
Q16. In the context of the passage, it is most likely that the author refers to Moutai's marketing strategy as "the unholy trinity" because
Q17. The phrase "would make it an invention to rival gunpowder" has been used in the passage in a sense that is:
Q18. Five jumbled up sentences (labelled 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5), related to a topic, are given below. Four of them can be put together to form a coherent paragraph. Identify the odd sentence and key in the number of that sentence as your answer.
Q19. Five jumbled up sentences (labelled 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5), related to a topic, are given below. Four of them can be put together to form a coherent paragraph. Identify the odd sentence and key in the number of that sentence as your answer.
Q20.The passage given below is followed by four alternate summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage. When the tradwife puts on that georgic, pinstriped dress, she is not just admiring the visual cues of a fantastical past. She takes these dreams of storybook bliss literally, tracing them backward in time until she reaches a logical conclusion that satisfies her. And by doing so, she ends up delivering an unhappy reminder of just how much our lives consist of artifice and playacting. The tradwife outrages people because of her deliberately regressive ideals. And yet her behaviour is, on some level, indistinguishable from the nontradwife's. The tradwife's trollish genius is to beat us at our own dress-up game. By insisting that the idyllic cottage daydream should be real, right down to the primitive gender roles, she leaves others feeling hollow, cheated. The hullabaloo and headaches she causes may be the price we pay for taking too many things at face value: our just deserts, served Instagram-perfect by a manicured hand on a gorgeous ceramic dish, with fat, mouthwatering maraschino cherries on top.
The passage below is accompanied by four questions. Based on the passage, choose the best answer for each question.
Fears of artificial intelligence (AI) have haunted humanity since the very beginning of the computer age. Hitherto these fears focused on machines using physical means to kill, enslave or replace people. But over the past couple of years new AI tools have emerged that threaten the survival of human civilisation from an unexpected direction. AI has gained some remarkable abilities to manipulate and generate language, whether with words, sounds or images. AI has thereby hacked the operating system of our civilisation.
Language is the stuff almost all human culture is made of. Human rights, for example, aren't inscribed in our DNA. Rather, they are cultural artefacts we created by telling stories and writing laws. Gods aren't physical realities. Rather, they are cultural artefacts we created by inventing myths and writing scriptures….What would happen once a non-human intelligence becomes better than the average human at telling stories, composing melodies, drawing images, and writing laws and scriptures? When people think about Chatgpt and other new AI tools, they are often drawn to examples like school children using AI to write their essays. What will happen to the school system when kids do that? But this kind of question misses the big picture. Forget about school essays. Think of the next American presidential race in 2024, and try to imagine the impact of AI tools that can be made to mass-produce political content, fake-news stories and scriptures for new cults…
Through its mastery of language, AI could even form intimate relationships with people, and use the power of intimacy to change our opinions and worldviews. Although there is no indication that AI has any consciousness or feelings of its own, to foster fake intimacy with humans it is enough if the AI can make them feel emotionally attached to it….
What will happen to the course of history when AI takes over culture, and begins producing stories, melodies, laws and religions? Previous tools like the printing press and radio helped spread the cultural ideas of humans, but they never created new cultural ideas of their own. AI is fundamentally different. AI can create completely new ideas, completely new culture…. Of course, the new power of AI could be used for good purposes as well. I won't dwell on this, because the people who develop AI talk about it enough….
We can still regulate the new AI tools, but we must act quickly. Whereas nukes cannot invent more powerful nukes, AI can make exponentially more powerful AI.… Unregulated AI deployments would create social chaos, which would benefit autocrats and ruin democracies. Democracy is a conversation, and conversations rely on language. When AI hacks language, it could destroy our ability to have meaningful conversations, thereby destroying democracy….And the first regulation I would suggest is to make it mandatory for AI to disclose that it is an AI. If I am having a conversation with someone, and I cannot tell whether it is a human or an AI—that's the end of democracy. This text has been generated by a human. Or has it?
Q21. The author identifies all of the following as dire outcomes of the capture of language by AI EXCEPT that it could
Q22. The author terms language "the operating system of our civilization" for all the following reasons EXCEPT:
Q23. The tone of the passage could best be described as:
Q24. We can infer that the author is most likely to agree with which of the following statements?