VARC Practice Test 6

TIME: 40 MINS
RC-1

The greatest challenge in understanding the role of randomness in life is that although the
basic principles of randomness arise from everyday logic, many of the consequences that
follow from those principles prove counterintuitive.

In the mid-1960s, Daniel Kahneman, a psychologist, was lecturing a group of Israeli air force
flight instructors on the conventional wisdom of behaviour modification and its application to
the psychology of flight training. He drove home the point that rewarding positive behaviour
works, but punishing mistakes does not. One of his students interrupted, saying ‘I’ve often
praised people warmly for beautifully executed manoeuvres, and the next time they always
do worse. And I’ve screamed at people for badly executed manoeuvres, and by and large
the next time they improve. Don’t tell me that reward works and punishment doesn’t.’ The
other flight instructors agreed. To Kahneman the flight instructors’ experiences rang true. On
the other hand, he believed in the animal experiments that demonstrated that reward works
better than punishment. He ruminated on this apparent paradox.

The answer lies in a phenomenon called regression towards the mean. That is, in any series
of random events an extraordinary event is most likely to be followed, purely due to chance,
by a more ordinary one. Here is how it works: The student pilots all had a certain personal
ability to fly fighter planes. Raising their skill level involved many factors and required
extensive practice, so although their skill was slowly improving through flight training, the
change wouldn’t be noticeable from one manoeuvre to the next. Any especially good or
especially poor performance was thus mostly a matter of luck. So if a pilot made an
exceptionally good landing – one far above his normal level of performance – then the odds
would be good that he would perform closer to his norm – that is, worse – the next day. And
if his instructor had praised him, it would appear that the praise had done no good. But if a
pilot made an exceptionally bad landing, then the odds would be good that the next day he
would perform closer to his norm – that is, better. And if his instructor had a habit of
screaming ‘you clumsy ape’ when a student performed poorly, it would appear that his
criticism did some good. In reality, it made no difference at all.

This error in intuition spurred Kahneman’s thinking. How widespread, he wondered, was this
misunderstanding of uncertainty? Do we make other misjudgements when faced with
uncertainty? And what are its implications for human decision making? Kahneman found that
even among sophisticated subjects, when it came to random processes, people’s beliefs and
intuition very often let them down.

Suppose four publishers have rejected the manuscript for your novel. Your intuition might
say that the rejections by all those publishing experts mean that your manuscript is no good.
But is your intuition correct? Is your novel unsellable? We all know from experience that if
several tosses of a coin come up heads, it doesn’t mean we are tossing a two-headed coin.
Could it be that publishing success is so unpredictable that even if our novel is destined for
the best-seller list, numerous publishers could miss the point and reject it? One book in the
1950s was initially rejected by publishers with such comments as ‘very dull’ and ‘a dreary
record of typical family bickering, petty annoyances and adolescent emotions’. Today, that
book, ​The Diary of a Young Girl​ by Anne Frank, has sold 30 million copies, making it one of
the best-selling books in history.
1) According to the passage, which of the following best explains the apparently paradoxical
observation that ​‘reward doesn’t improve performance but punishment does’​?

A. The basic principle of randomness is that rewarding positive behaviour works but
punishing mistakes does not.
B. Experiments in animal behaviour have proved that reward works better than
punishment.
C. Punishing mistakes merely preceded the improvement but contrary to appearances,
did not cause it.
D. Punishing mistakes tends to force the person making a mistake to be more careful
the next time, hence causes an improvement the next time, just as praise makes one
complacent.

2) Which of the following can be inferred from the student-pilots’ flight training example?

A. An excellent performance of a student at any time is an aberration and has no basis

in behaviour modification and its application in psychology.
B. Students should be complimented constantly if they have to improve their
performance gradually.
C. Students who have been screamed at with regularity, in spite of how they perform,
are more likely to better their performance than others who have never been
screamed at.
D. Students who maintain regularity of practice are more likely to gradually improve their
performance which may not be noticeable from one test to the next.

3) All these are examples of ‘regression towards the mean’ EXCEPT:

A. When there was a sudden increase in burglaries in a particular city, the number of
policemen in the city were increased, due to which the number of burglaries went
down.
B. Mahesh, a politician, seemed set to win the next election, but his popularity went
down abruptly after a scandal regarding his personal life became known.
C. Diego, a football player, broke the record for goals scored in one season, but the next
season, he scored far fewer goals, leading critics to wonder if he had lost his talent.
D. Previously, Sonia didn’t believe in homeopathic medicine, but when her particularly
bad migraine got better after she took some homeopathic medicine, she decided that
there must be something to it.

4) The example of Anne Frank’s book proves that …

A. Publishers are not good judges of the quality of literature.
B. Writers should keep trying to get their books published, even if they are rejected by
multiple publishers.
C. Success in publishing depends mainly on chance, not the quality of the work.
D. Intuition is not a good guide to predicting which books will be successful.
RC-2
The possibility of untimely death is frightening, but the inevitability of ageing and dying casts
the longest shadow on human life. Humankind’s efforts to overcome aging have been
impressively persistent. We have, however, not succeeded. By age 80, half of us will die; by
age 100, 99 percent; and by about age 115, every one of us will be dead, medical
breakthroughs notwithstanding.

During the past few hundred years, the average length of life (expectancy) in modern
societies has steadily increased, but the maximum duration of life (span) has not. Centuries
ago a few people may have lived to 115; today this maximum remains aboutthe same. All
the wonders of medicine, all the advances in public health have not demonstrably increased
the maximum duration of life. If ageing is a disease, it seems to be incurable.

Technically, we are not really talking about ageing, the process of growing older from birth
onwards, but senescence, the process of bodily deterioration that occurs at older ages.
Senescence is not a single process but is manifested in an increased susceptibility to many
diseases and a decreasing ability to repair damage. Death rates in modern developed
countries are very low at age 10 to 12, about 0.2 per 1000 children per year. The death rate
increases slowly to 1.35 per 1000 at age 30, then increases exponentially, doubling every 8
years. By age 90, the death rate is 169 per 1000. A person aged 100 has only a one-in-three
chance of living another year. Every year the mortality curve becomes steeper, until
eventually we all are gone.

Imagine a world in which all causes of premature death have been eliminated, so that all
deaths result from the effects of ageing. We would live hearty, healthy lives, until, in a sharp
peak of a few years centred at age 85, we would nearly all die. Conversely, imagine a world
in which senescence is eliminated, so that death rates do not increase with age but remain
throughout life at the level for eighteen-year-olds, that is, about 1 per 1000 per year. Some
people would still die at all ages, but half the population would live to age 693, and more
than 13 percent would live to age 2000! Even if death rates were much higher, say 10 per
1000, eliminating the effects of senescence would still give a substantial advantage, with
some people living to age 300. From an evolutionist’spoint of view, an individual who did not
senesce would have, to put it mildly, a substantial reproductive advantage.

This brings us to the mystery. If senescence so devastates our fitness, why hasn’t natural
selection eliminated it? This possibility seems preposterous only because senescence is
such an inescapable part of our experience. Consider, however, the miracle of development:
from a single cell with forty-six strands of nucleic acid, a body gradually forms, with each
often trillion cells in the right place, making tissues and organs that function together for the
good of the whole. Certainly it should be easier to maintain this body than to form it!

Furthermore, our bodies have remarkable maintenance capacities. Skin and blood cells are
replaced every few weeks. Our teeth get replaced once. Damaged liver tissue can be rapidly
replaced. Most wounds heal quickly. Broken bones grow back together. Our bodies do have
some capacity to repair damage and replace worn-out parts; it is just that this capacity is
limited. The body can’t maintain itself indefinitely. Why not?
5) All of the following are true according to the passage EXCEPT:

A. During the past few hundred years human life span has steadily increased.
B. Improved life expectancy is attributable to advances in medicine and public health
C. As an evolutionary principle, senescence is a puzzling phenomenon.
D. Eliminating senescence would substantially improve our life span.

6) Which of the following most accurately expressses the main idea of the passage?

A. The inevitability of death worries mankind the most, and all efforts to overcome
senescence are doomed to ultimate failure in the face of evolution.
B. It is a mystery that though natural selection has the capacity to eliminate senescence
and the inevitability of death, it does not do so
C. Ageing is an incurable disease; neither medicine nor advances in science can
eliminate senescence which is integral to natural selection
D. Though mankind is persistent in its efforts to overcome ageing, the inevitability of
death arises from senescence which, mysteriously, evolution does not try to correct.

7) Senescence is best described as:

A. The miracle of development from a single cell to trillion cells in the right place making
tissues and organs that function together for the good of the whole.
B. The process of ageing in which one grows older from birth onwards ultimately leading
to death.
C. Bodily deterioration and an increased susceptibility to diseases and a decreased
ability to repair the damage at older ages.
D. The remarkable maintenance capacities of our bodies in which damaged tissues are
rapidly replaced.

8) According to the author, which of the following indicates that it is possible for evolution to
do away with senescence?

A. Senescence is an inescapable part of our experience and it is preposterous to think

of that possibility.
B. From the point of view of evolution, it is easier to create a new body than to maintain
an existing one.
C. Our bodies have remarkable maintenance capacity by which damage is easily
repaired and worn out parts are replaced.
D. Our ability to live hearty, healthy lives, until the age of around 85.

RC-3
Home, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, is ‘A dwelling place; a person’s house or
abode; the fixed residence of a family or household; the seat of domestic life and interests’.
But more than that, while a house is the physical structure, a home is ‘The place where one
lives or was brought up, with reference to the feelings of belonging, comfort, etc., associated
with it’. It is a state of being as well as the place where one lives or one’s place of origin.
To speakers of English, or the Germanic and Scandinavian languages, or the Finno-Ugric
group – that is, the languages of north-western Europe, from Hungary to Finland and
Scandinavia, the German-speaking lands, and then descending to the Netherlands and
across the Channel to the British Isles – to these peoples, the differences between home
and house are obvious. They are two related but distinct things, and therefore they have two
separate words. These are languages of what I call ‘home’ countries. Speakers of Romance
and Slavic languages, living in ‘house’ countries, have by contrast just one word for both
meanings.

The existence of what I call home and house languages suggests something about the
societies in which they developed. The latter are societies where the community space, the
town, village or hamlet, is the canvas on which life is painted, and where an individual house
is only a more private area within that primary space. On the other hand, the former are
societies where the house is the focal point, while the town, village or hamlet functions
mainly as the route through which one passes in order to reach the essential privacies of the
houses. The reason for such differences is frequently put down to climate, and it is certainly
more pleasant to spend an autumn afternoon in a market square on the Mediterranean than
it is in Oslo. But while the weather is an element in the distinction between home and house
countries, it is only one element among many.

9) Which of the following best describes what the passage is trying to do?
A. Point out the difference in the importance of home life in different parts of Europe
B. Suggest a connection between the climate of a region and the emphasis on
private/public life in them
C. Compare attitudes towards the house/home in different societies based on the
languages spoken by them
D. Chart out some languages which do or do not differentiate between ‘house’ and
‘home’

10) In what way do ‘home’ countries primarily differ from ‘house’ countries, as per this
passage?
A. The home countries distinguish between the words ‘home’ and ‘house’.
B. Life in home countries revolves around the individual house rather than the
community.
C. The inhabitants in home countries tend to live closer to their place of origin.
D. Home countries have a relatively less congenial climate.

11) The author begins this passage with a dictionary definition in order to:

A. Provide the precise meaning of the word ‘home’.

B. Demonstrate that the word ‘home’ means something different to everyone.
C. Underline the difference between the official definitions of ‘house’ and ‘home’.
D. Introduce the idea that words suggest something about the societies in which they
developed.

RC-4
Have we become too obsessed with giving awards, especially participation awards, for youth
sports? With trophies given out like candy, have they lost their meaning?

If children always receive a trophy – regardless of effort or achievement – we’re teaching

kids that losing is so terrible that we can never let it happen. This is a destructive message,
because how we react to kids’ failure is just as crucial as celebrating their success. A recent
study found if parents thought failure was debilitating, their kids adopted that perspective. If
parents believed overcoming failure and mistakes made you stronger, then their children
believed it, too.

Thus letting kids lose, or not take home the trophy, isn’t about embarrassing children. It’s
about teaching them it can take a long time to get good at something, and that’s all right.
Kids need to know they don’t have to win every time. It’s O.K. to lose, to make a mistake. (In
a study of Gold Medal Olympians, they said a previous loss was key to their championships.)
It’s through failure and mistakes that we learn the most. We must focus on process and
progress, not results and rewards.

Some claim that constant awards improve children’s self-esteem, and, once kids have high
self-esteem, they’ll achieve more. But scientists have tested these claims and found them to
be false. Kids with already high self-esteem see the trophies as vindication they really are as
wonderful as they see themselves. In a longitudinal study, when parents regularly
overpraised their children’s performances, their children were more likely to be narcissistic
two years later.

And for kids with low self-esteem, undeserved praise doesn’t help them, either. Research
has found that kids with low self-esteem believe they can’t live up to their own hype, so they
withdraw even further.

Research has found that the best way to improve kids’ self-image is to help them develop
their abilities. Once they master a skill, they won’t need manufactured praise to tell them
they’ve done well. They’ll know it. And they’ll be thrilled. Like the child who just learned to tie
her shoes. That sense of accomplishment is worth more than any trophy.

Therefore, instead of blowing a team’s budget on participation trophies, spend that money
on kids’ and coaches’ skill development. Or donate the money to kids who can’t afford the
basic equipment they need to develop their own skills.

12) The central point in the second paragraph is that:

A. Teaching kids how to deal with failure is more important than celebrating their
success.
B. Helping kids deal with the inevitability of failure is just as important as rewarding their
achievements.
C. Giving kids trophies regardless of whether they have won or lost leads them to
devalue the importance of failure.
D. Rewarding kids regardless of their effort or achievement leaves them with an
unhealthy attitude towards failure.
13) What is the relation between giving kids undeserved trophies and their self- esteem, as
per this passage?

A. The trophies are beneficial only to the kids who already have high self- esteem.
B. The trophies are beneficial only to the kids who have low self-esteem.
C. The trophies have negative repercussions on kids’ self-esteem.
D. The trophies make no difference to kids, whatever their self-esteem.
14) The author of this passage would agree with all of the following statements, EXCEPT:

A. Failure can be an important step on the way to success.

B. Keeping the hope of reward alive can help people do their best.
C. Children must learn that it takes time to develop important skills.
D. Children should be praised only for their actual abilities and accomplishments.
PS-1
Norway is currently the world’s demonstration project for green transport solutions. It has the
highest EV penetration rate in the world. Nearly 40% of new cars sold are EVs.
Infrastructure, technologies and solutions are being developed, tested and assessed in
Norway. Valuable lessons have been learnt from looking at customer behavior. For example,
the fear of running out of battery power, or range anxiety, has been highlighted as a barrier
to EV uptake. While many drivers experience range anxiety at first, this fear quickly
subsides. In fact, only 4% of Norwegian EV drivers report having run out of battery power.
Businesses and governments from all over the world are looking to Norway to gain insights
into how the beginnings of a mass market for EVs functions in practice.

A. With the highest Electric Vehicle penetration, Norway is the mass-market

demonstration project in the world in terms of Infrastructure, technologies and
customer behavior.
B. Businesses and governments all over the world consider Norway as the mass market
demonstration project for electric vehicles in terms of penetration, Infrastructure, and
customer behavior.
C. With the highest Electric Vehicle sales, Norway provides insights to governments and
businesses into the beginnings of a market for Electric Vehicles in terms of
Infrastructure, technologies and customer behavior.
D. With the highest Electric Vehicle penetration and high sales of electric cars, with
infrastructure, technologies and solutions being developed and tested, Norway is the
demonstration project for green transport solutions in the world.

PS-2
Multipolarity is back, and with it strategic rivalry among the great powers. The re-emergence
of China and the return of Russia to the forefront of global politics are two of the most salient
international dynamics of the century thus far. In recent years, the tension between the
United States and these two countries increased markedly. As the US domestic political
environment has deteriorated, so, too, have America’s relations with those that are
perceived as its principal adversaries.

A. Multipolarity is back among the powers in global politics with the reemergence of
China, Russia and the increasing tensions with the US owing to a worsening of its
relations with adversaries.
B. The reemergence of China and Russia as global powers, the deterioration of the US
domestic politics and the increasing tensions with its adversaries have created a
multipolar world.
C. The return of China and Russia to the forefront of global politics and the increasing
tensions with the US exacerbated by its deteriorating domestic politics have created
a multipolar world.
D. The salient dynamics of this century are the reemergence of China and Russia and
the increasing tensions with the US in the face of its deteriorating domestic political
environment.

PS-3
According to its own traditions, the teachings of Jainism are eternal, and hence have no
founder; however, the Jainism of this age can be traced back to Mahavira, a teacher of the
sixth century BCE, a contemporary of the Buddha. Like those of the Buddha, Mahavira’s
doctrines were formulated as a reaction to and rejection of the Brahmanism then taking
shape. The brahmans taught the division of society into rigidly delineated castes, and a
doctrine of reincarnation guided by karma, or merit brought about by the moral qualities of
actions. Their schools of thought, since they respected the authority of the Vedas and
Upanisads, were known as orthodox darsanas. Jainism and Buddhism, along with a school
of materialists called Carvaka, were regarded as the unorthodox darsanas, because they
taught that the Vedas and Upanisads, and hence the brahman caste, had no authority.

A. Jainism originated with the teaching of Mahavira a contemporary of Buddha. Like

Budhism, Jainism was a reaction to Brahmanism and rejected the authority of the
Vedas and the Upanishads as unorthodox.
B. Teachings of Jainism considered eternal began with the teachings of Mahavira, who
was a contemporary of Buddha. Budhism and Jainism regarded as unorthodox by
the brahaman caste rejected the authority of Vedas and Upanisads.
C. Though considered eternal, teachings of Jainism can be traced back to Mahavira, a
contemporary of Buddha. Budhism and Jainism rejected Brahmanism - its scriptures,
caste system and its ideas of morality and reincarnation.
D. Jainism, considered eternal by its own traditions, can be traced back to the teachings
of Mahavira. Budhism and Jainism were reactions to the prevalent Brahmanism and
they rejected the authority of Vedas and Upanisads.

OMO-1
1. Passive sentences are useful in English because they allow people to say that something
happened without having to say who did it.

2. Science writers use them a lot, because a passive lets them say ‘The mixture was poured
into the beaker’ instead of the uncomfortably personal ‘I/we poured the mixture into the
beaker.’

3. Children as young as six do not grasp that the change in the form of the verb between
active and passive actually reverses the action.

4. But everyone uses passives sometimes, saying such things as ‘My house was just
painted’ or ‘Two people have been killed in an accident’ or ‘Entry is prohibited.’

5. People who recommend that the passive should be avoided – George Orwell was a
famous instance – forget cases like this, where we want to report an action without naming
the actor.

OMO-2
1. Our body dries out with every passing year; newborns are about 75 percent water, not
much different from an average potato.

2. The first 2.7 billion years of the history of life on earth were spent entirely in water, and the
imprint is in every living organism.
3. We may live on the ‘blue planet’ – unique in the known universe for its abundance of liquid
water – but our bodies’ ocean lies on the inside.

4. Most of the body’s water is not in the fluid of our blood, but remains locked inside the cells
of our muscles, brains and hearts.

5. Adult humans are about 57 per cent water by weight.

OMO-3
1. Mars’s Olympus Mons, the largest known volcano in the solar system, is about 2.5

times taller than Mt. Everest and so wide that, if placed on North America, it would extend
from New York City to Montreal, Canada.

2. The largest Martian canyon, Mariner Valley, which is probably the largest canyon in the
solar system, is so vast that, if placed on North America, it would extend from New York City
to Los Angeles.

3. But unlike the Grand Canyon, Mariner Valley does not have a river at the bottom.

4. The latest theory is that the more-than-three-thousand-mile canyon is the juncture of two
ancient tectonic plates, like the San Andreas Fault on Earth.

5. Hikers who have marvelled at the Grand Canyon would be astounded by this
extraterrestrial canyon network.