Referendums are supposed to get citizens engaged in politics and make governments responsive.

If
they worked, Europeans ought to be feeling particularly satisfied with their democracies. For
referendums are on the rise…

Despite this direct democracy, Europeans are alienated from politics and furious with their
governments. Referendum-mania has not slowed the rise of populist, Eurosceptic parties which
attack the establishment as corrupt and out of touch. Plebiscites meant to settle thorny issues instead
often aggravate them: after Scotland’s independence referendum failed in 2014, membership of the
Scottish National Party quadrupled, suggesting another confrontation is coming.

Referendums, it turns out, are a tricky instrument. They can bring the alienated back into politics,
especially where the issues being voted on are local and clear. On rare occasions they can settle
once-in-a-generation national questions, such as whether a country should be part of a larger union.
But, much of the time, plebiscites lead to bad politics and bad policy.

The most problematic are those on propositions that voters do not understand or subjects which are
beyond governments’ control. In 2015 Alexis Tsipras, prime minister of Greece, called a referendum
on the bail-out offered by his country’s creditors. His citizens - many of whom did not realise that
refusal meant default - voted no. Mr Tsipras had to take the deal anyway, exacerbating the public’s
cynicism about politics.
Plebiscites that ask a country’s voters what they think of a policy set by other countries often
disappoint. The Dutch rejected the EU-Ukraine agreement, but may be stuck with much of it unless
the EU’s other 27 members agree to changes. Switzerland does domestic referendums well, but is in
hot water over one that restricts immigration from the EU. That requires changes to its trade deal
with the EU; Brussels will not budge.
Because referendums treat each issue in isolation, they allow voters to ignore the trade-offs inherent
in policy choices and can thus render government incoherent… A second danger is that fringe
groups or vested interests use referendums to exercise outsized influence, particularly if few
signatures are needed to call one and voter turnout is low.

These dangers can be mitigated. Requiring minimum turnouts can guard against the tyranny of the
few. But the bigger point is that plebiscites are a worse form of democracy than representative
government. James Madison was right when he wrote that democracies in which citizens voted
directly on laws would be torn apart by factions…
Q1. Which of the following reasons can explain the rise in the membership of the Scottish National
Party after Scotland’s independence referendum?

a) The referendum settled a once-in-a-generation issue of national importance.

b) The referendum sparked an interest in the people who were out-of-touch with the issue of
Scotland’s independence.

c) The referendum allowed the people to vote on an issue which they did not understand.

d) Among the people who voted, the majority of them were against Scotland gaining
independence.
Q2. Which of the following risks inherent in referendums can best be mitigated by the measure(s)
suggested by the author in the last paragraph of the passage?

a) Voters ignore the trade-offs inherent in the issues that are to be voted on.
b) Minority groups may exercise disproportional influence through referendums to further their
interests.

c) Voters believe that the government is not paying heed to their opinion.

d) Voters may not select the course of action which is beneficial to the current government.
Being overweight can raise your blood pressure, cholesterol and risk for developing diabetes. It
could be bad for your brain, too.
A diet high in saturated fats and sugars, the so-called Western diet, actually affects the parts of the
brain that are important to memory and make people more likely to crave the unhealthful food, says
psychologist Terry Davidson, director of the Center for Behavioral Neuroscience at American
University in Washington, D.C.

He didn’t start out studying what people ate. Instead, he was interested in learning more about the
hippocampus, a part of the brain that’s heavily involved in memory.

He was trying to figure out which parts of the hippocampus do what. He did that by studying rats
that had very specific types of hippocampal damage and seeing what happened to them.

In the process, Davidson noticed something strange. The rats with the hippocampal damage would
go to pick up food more often than the other rats, but they would eat a little bit, then drop it.

Davidson realized these rats didn’t know they were full. He says something similar may happen in
human brains when people eat a diet high in fat and sugar. Davidson says there’s a vicious cycle of
bad diets and brain changes. He points to a 2015 study in the Journal of Pediatrics that found obese
children performed more poorly on memory tasks that test the hippocampus compared with kids who
weren’t overweight.

He says if our brain system is impaired by that kind of diet, "that makes it more difficult for us to
stop eating that diet. ... I think the evidence is fairly substantial that you have an effect of these diets
and obesity on brain function and cognitive function."
The evidence is growing. Research from the Cambridge Centre for Ageing and Neuroscience
published in July found that obese people have less white matter in their brains than their lean peers -
as if their brains were 10 years older. A more recent study from researchers at the University of
Arizona supports one of the leading theories, that high body mass is linked to inflammation, which
affects the brain.
Q3. Which of the following most comprehensively captures the relation between Western diet (as
referred to in the passage) and memory function?

a) Western diet may affect the hippocampus, because of which the memory function of the brain is
impaired.

b) Any damage to the hippocampus may result in people craving for Western diet.

c) People who eat a diet high in saturated fats and sugars eat more because they forget that they are
full.

d) Western diet impairs the memory function of the hippocampus, which may result in people
craving a diet high in saturated fats and sugars.
Q4. Which of the following can be best supported by Davidson’s experiment mentioned in the
passage?

a) Eating a diet high in saturated fats and sugars affects the hippocampus adversely.

b) An impaired hippocampus contributes to craving unhealthy food.

c) A damaged hippocampus contributes to overeating.

d) Both (A) and (B).

Which of the following can be inferred to be true about white matter in people’s brains?

a) Following a diet with high quantities of saturated fats and sugars results in decrease of the white
matter in the brain.

b) Gaining excessive weight could result in the decrease of white matter in the brain.

c) Having less white matter in the brain is a sign of obesity.

d) Obese people behave in a mature way because of the aging of their brains.
SET in the heart of Cambridge, the chapel at King’s College which is built in Gothic style is
remarkable. These days such structures have fallen out of fashion. They are too complicated for the
methods employed by most modern builders, and the skilled labour required to produce them is
scarce and pricey. Now, new technologies are allowing designers to envisage such kind of structures
again.

In a factory that makes precast concrete, in Doncaster, England, a robotic arm hangs over a wide
platform, a dribble of hard pink wax dangling from a nozzle at its tip. Called FreeFAB, the system
uses specialised wax to print ultra-precise moulds that, in turn, are used to cast concrete panels
which are being installed in passenger tunnels as part of Crossrail, Europe’s biggest construction
firm. Run by Laing O’Rourke, a construction firm, FreeFAB is the first 3D-printing technology used
in a big commercial building project. Show offices have been printed in Dubai and China, but are,
for now, just concepts. The problem is that printed concrete is currently produced in layers, which
are fused together to make a thicker panel. But the boundaries between the layers introduce
weaknesses that make the panels unsuitable for real buildings. These things can peel apart.

FreeFAB gets around that problem by printing moulds rather than trying to print structural material
directly. Invented by James Gardiner, an Australian architect, it has big advantages over traditional
mould-making techniques. It creates far less waste. Ordinary moulds are made from wood and
polystyrene, and can only be used to produce a single shape. Once they are finished with, they are
scrapped and sent to landfill. FreeFAB’s wax can be melted down and poured back into the tank,
ready to be re-extruded into a new form. It took Dr Gardiner three years to find a wax which could
be printed, milled and recycled.
The system also makes it cheaper to make even complicated moulds. Production of traditional
moulds is highly skilled work. Making a mould for a concrete panel that curves along two different
axes, like the ones used in Crossrail, takes about eight days. FreeFAB can print one in three hours.
That speed makes it possible to meet the design and cost demands of more complicated buildings.
Doing so with traditional methods would be expensive. And because the concrete itself is not being
printed, the panels are just as strong as the ones made in the traditional way. FreeFAB’s parts do not
peel, and have withstood twice the required force in bomb-proofing tests.

It is early days. The factory in Doncaster has had teething problems - it has proved tricky to print
moulds without flaws big enough to be visible in panels cast from them. But if the technology
matures enough, Laing O’Rourke plans to spin it out as a startup focused on this new 3D-printed
way of creating buildings.

If that happens, Philippe Block, an architectural engineer in Zurich, might be an early customer. Dr
Block makes floors that have the flowing, veined look of biological membranes and are just a few
centimetres thick. Instead of building floors that rely on steel reinforcement to hold them up, Dr
Block builds them under compression, so that each bit of the floor holds up the rest in a shallow
vault. Each is bespoke, designed by a computer to efficiently deal with the specific loads it must
bear. This allows him to build much thinner structures out of materials much weaker than reinforced
concrete.

Dr Block calculates that his new, thinner floors would need only about a third as much material as a
typical floor slab. Their thinness allows him to claw back enough vertical space to fit three floors into
the space that would be taken by two floors built in the standard way. At the Venice Architecture
Biennale in 2016, Dr Block constructed a 15-metre vaulted “tent” out of 399 blocks of cunningly
shaped limestone, each precisely milled to match the pattern of forces necessary to hold the vault up.
Dr Block’s group will also make the floors for a new part of the building called HiLo. The main
bottleneck is that it is expensive and slow to mill all the parts from blocks of stone, or to build
traditional moulds for each individual component. So Drs Block and Gardiner are planning to work
together on HiLo, using FreeFAB to print moulds that will produce segments of the floors.

Dr Gardiner also dreams about using FreeFAB to build thin bridges that span rivers in a single
bound. For now, that is a project for the future.
Q6. According to the passage, why have Gothic style structures fallen out of fashion?

a) They are old fashioned and costly to build.

b) They are complicated to build and there is lack of skilled labour.

c) Modern builders are reluctant to build such massive and intricately designed structures.

d) People nowadays give more importance to utility, cost, ambience and convenience rather than
aesthetic style or architectural designs.
Q7. Which of the following choices correctly summarizes the advantages of FreeFab as cited in the
passage?
a) FreeFab creates moulds from wood and polystyrene, reduces waste and the FreeFab technology is
recyclable.

b) FreeFab reduces cost, reduces the waste generation and the FreeFab technology is recyclable.

c) FreeFab reduces cost, reduces the waste generation, prints moulds rather than structural material
directly, takes 3 hours to create complex and durable designs, and the mould created can be
recycled.

d) FreeFab reduces cost, reduces the waste generation, takes 8 days to create complex designs,
prints moulds rather than structural material directly, and the mould created can be recycled.
Q8. Which of the following cannot be understood about the architectural technique already
employed by Dr. Philippe Block as discussed in the passage?

a) He makes floors that resemble biological membranes and are just a few centimetres thick.

b) His floors are designed to maximize usage of space, can deal with specific loads and need less
starting raw material.

c) Each bit of his floor can withstand the external forces and can hold up the rest in a shallow
vault.

d) He relied on steel reinforcements to hold the floors up.

a) The boundaries between printed concrete layers introduce weaknesses that make the panels
unsuitable for real buildings.
b) The moulds printed using FreeFab’s wax are not without flaws and the technology is still in its
early days.

c) The FreeFab technology needs more starting material as compared to Dr. Philippe Block’s
methodology.

d) The FreeFab technology cannot be employed for making structures involving the use of vaults.
To the extent that Foucault fits into the philosophical tradition, it is the critical tradition of Kant, and
his project could be called a Critical History of Thought. This should not be taken to mean a history
of ideas that would be at the same time an analysis of errors that might be gauged after the fact; or a
decipherment of the misinterpretations linked to them and on which what we think today might
depend. If what is meant by thought is the act that posits a subject and an object, along with their
possible relations, a critical history of thought would be an analysis of the conditions under which
certain relations of subject to object are formed or modified, insofar as those relations constitute a
possible knowledge [savoir]. It is not a matter of defining the formal conditions of a relationship to
the object; nor is it a matter of isolating the empirical conditions that may, at a given moment, have
enabled the subject in general to become acquainted with an object already given in reality. The
problem is to determine what the subject must be, to what condition he is subject, what status he
must have, what position he must occupy in reality or in the imaginary, in order to become a
legitimate subject of this or that type of knowledge [connaissance]. In short, it is a matter of
determining its mode of “subjectivation”, for the latter is obviously not the same, according to
whether the knowledge involved has the form of an exegesis of a sacred text, a natural history
observation, or the analysis of a mental patient’s behavior. But it is also and at the same time a
question of determining under what conditions something can become an object for a possible
knowledge [connaissance], how it may have been problematized as an object to be known, to what
selective procedure it may have been subjected, the part of it that is regarded as pertinent. So it is a
matter of determining its mode of objectivation, which is not the same either, depending on the type
of knowledge [savoir] that is involved.
This objectivation and this subjectivation are not independent of each other. From their mutual
development and their interconnection, what could be called the “games of truth” come into being —
that is, not the discovery of true things but the rules according to which what a subject can say about
certain things depends on the question of true and false. In sum, the critical history of thought is
neither a history of acquisitions nor a history of concealments of truth; it is the history
of “veridictions”, understood as the forms according to which discourses capable of being declared
true or false are articulated concerning a domain of things. What the conditions of this emergence
were, the price that was paid for it, so to speak, its effect on reality and the way in which, linking a
certain type of object to certain modalities of the subject, it constituted the historical a priori of a
possible experience for a period of time, an area and for given individuals.
Now, Michel Foucault did not pose this question — or this series of questions, which are those of
an “archaeology of knowledge” — and does not wish to pose it concerning just any game of truth,
but concerning only those in which the subject himself is posited as an object for possible
knowledge: What are the processes of subjectivation and objectivation that made it possible for the
subject qua subject to become an object of knowledge [connaissance], as a subject ? Of course it is a
matter not of ascertaining how a “psychological knowledge” was constituted in the course of history
but of discovering how various truth games were formed through which the subject became an
object of knowledge. Michel Foucault attempted to conduct his analysis in two ways. First, in
connection with the appearance and insertion of the question of the speaking, labouring, and living
subject, in domains and according to the form of a scientific type of knowledge. This had to do with
the formation of certain “human sciences”, studied in reference to the practice of the empirical
sciences, and of their characteristic discourse in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (The order
of Things). Foucault also tried to analyse the formation of the subject as he may appear on the other
side of a normative division, becoming an object of knowledge — as a madman, a patient or a
delinquent, through practices such as those of psychiatry, clinical medicine and penality (Madness
and Civilization, Birth of the Clinic, Discipline and Punish).
Foucault has now undertaken, still within the same general project, to study the constitution of the
subject as an object for himself: the formation of procedures by which the subject is led to observe
himself, analyse himself, interpret himself, recognize himself as a domain of possible knowledge. In
short, this concerns the history of “subjectivity”, if what is meant by the term is the way in which the
subject experiences himself in a game of truth where he relates to himself. The question of sex and
sexuality appeared in Foucault’s view, to constitute not the only possible example, certainly, but at
least a rather privileged case. Indeed, it was in this connection that through the whole of Christianity
and perhaps beyond, individuals were all called on to recognize themselves as subjects of pleasure,
of desire, of lust, of temptation and were urged to deploy, by various means (self-examination,
spiritual exercises, admission, confession), the game of true and false in regard to themselves and
what constitutes the most secret, the most individual part of their subjectivity. In sum, this history of
sexuality is meant to constitute a third segment, added to the analyses of relations between the
subject and truth or, to be exact, to the study of the modes according to which the subject was able to
be inserted as an object in the games of truth.
Q10. What according to the author does not constitute a part of Foucault’s Critical History of
thought?
a. An analysis of the conditions under which subject-object relations are formed or modified.
b. Isolating the empirical conditions that enable a subject in general to become acquainted with an
object already given in reality.
c. An analysis of errors linked to the history of ideas and their possible misinterpretations.
d. Both b and c
Q11. The history of ‘veridictions’ as mention in the passage comes closest to:
a. The history of the process of discovery and concealment of truth in a domain of various things.
b. The history of emergence of games of truth, concerning the rules according to which what a
subject says depends upon the question of truth and falsehood.
c. The history of the forms according to which discourses between subject and object, which are
capable of being declared true or false are articulated in the area of philosophy.
d. A study of the emergence of ‘subjectivation’ and ‘objectivation’ in formal discourse.
Q12. Michel Foucault was concerned with which of the following?
a. Validating the fact that what the subject says about the object depends on games of truth.
b. The formation of the subject becoming an object of truth.
c. Proving that the mode of objectivization of a subject remains same under various conditions.
d. Studying procedures which were responsible for the subject becoming an object for himself.
Q13. According to the passage, how is Foucault’s earlier approach to the project different from the
later one?
a. Both approaches are inherently same and have not been modified in any way.
b. Foucault’s approach to the project depends upon the availability of the subject and the study of
their subjectivity in relation to the game of truths.
c. Foucault modified his earlier approach and included, in the second one, the study of the
composition of the processes through which the subject experiences himself.
d. Foucault’s earlier approach was restricted to the study of the object in isolation with the concerned
subject, however the latter one included the study of the subject in isolation with the object.
Q14. It can be inferred from the passage that as a philosopher Foucault would subscribe most easily
to the views of:
a. Philosophers who are interested in propounding truth.
b. Philosophers who bring a spirit of critical enquiry into the examination of things.
c. Philosophers who are out to gain more and more knowledge.
Q15. OOO
1.
Passengers may find the biggest elephant on their journey is the white one they are riding.
2.
When Kenya launched its new railway last year, connecting the coastal city of Mombasa to the
capital, Nairobi, passenger tickets sold out.
3.
The seats are comfortable and, at just 700 shillings, affordable and lucky passengers see elephants
along the way.
4.
The new line, run by Chinese engineers who wander up and down the carriages, has cut the journey
to between four and six hours, depending on the number of stops.
5.
Travelling between the country's two biggest cities overland had meant crowding into a bus for 12
hours, or riding the old British-built railway, which might have taken 24 hours.
Q16. OOO
1.
The monastery has been attacked and looted at least four times, most recently by the occupying
Italians in 1936, each time being rebuilt, but it is unlikely that the gospels have ever left the walls of
the monastery.
2.
The ongoing dispute over where and how the gospels should be kept, and who may see them, is
intensely local yet symbolic.
3.
The Garima Gospels are not easy to see.
4.
The roughly 100 monks store the two books in a circular treasure-house next to the church and have
protected the relics from Muslim invaders, colonial armies and fires.
5.
These illuminated Christian manuscripts - at around 1500 years old, perhaps the oldest of their kind
in existence - belong to the Abba Garima monastery, which is perched on a remote outcrop in the
Tigray region of northern Ethiopia.
Q17. OOO
1.
They feast on blood, not brains, and hop about rather than stagger forwards, and the differences
extend to economics.
2.
The zombies that appear in Chinese legends are not quite the same as their Western counterparts.
3.
This small excursion into the world of the undead is one of the many gems in Dinny McMohan's
new book “China's Great Wall of Debt”, a vivid account of China's economic problems, from debt to
falsified data.
4.
Yet for all the undeniable weaknesses in China's economy, the central argument of the book is
debatable.
5.
Chinese officials, like their Western peers, openly fret about zombie companies - insolvent firms
kept alive by banks - but are far less willing to kill them off.
Short Summaries
Q18. Even though New York is a prosperous city yet it is has one of the world’s most impaired and
inefficient transportation systems. City Department of Transportation contends that the Average
traffic speeds In the city have fallen nearly 22 percent in the past seven years, thanks to the potholes.
To travel a 60-kilometer stretch one needs to travel a minimum of three to four hours during
nonpeak hours and for 5 hours during peak time.
a. Even though Governor Andrew Cuomo assured to fix the traffic mess a year ago, but the
problem is he does not have the means to carry out the repairs.
b. During peak hours the average speed of vehicular traffic is 12 kmph, and in other times the
speed would be around 15 to 20 kmph.
c. Like Mumbai, New York is also facing identical transportation problem and the villain is not
only the seasonal rains but also the corrupt representatives of the people
d. In spite of being prosperous, the street of New York is full of potholes that have reduced the
average traffic speed by nearly 22 percent and the governor has failed miserably to fulfill his
promise.
Q19. President Trump wants to create a sixth branch of the military called the Space Force.
Everybody knows that Trump loves Star Wars and other movies of the same genre’ and maybe he
firmly believes in the existence of aliens who should be stopped from invading our planet by all
means. An individual can have any thought process. But as the President of the USA, to carry such a
notion and believe in it is nothing but a clear sign of delusion. Maybe Trump thinks that his aliens
are the Russians and the Koreans who would dominate space soon and terrorize American people
a. Russians and the Koreans have been sending drones and shortly are planning to set up colonies
in Space and will have armies to protect them from American spaceships
b. Russians and Koreans cannot be fought on land or sea, and the best way to counter them is to
attack them in space
c. Nobody knows why Trump wants to create Space Force and the motive could be his
fascination for Star War type movies and the deluded thinking that aliens exist.
d. The way movies like Star Wars and the films of the same genre’ are made one is forced to
believe in the reality of aliens who want to conquer the earthlings, and this belief remains on a
delusional level in many people
Q20. The list of Indian citizens in Assam is the National Register of Citizens, and its final draft was
released on Monday. After a Supreme Court order, the selection was updated to weed out illegal
immigration from neighboring regions. The reason for the student’s agitation in the state during the
80’s was the firm belief among indigenous Assamese in the state that illegal immigrants have
changed the demographic nature of the state, had promised to deport outsiders who were mainly
Muslims.
a. The indigenous Assamese fumed when many from neighboring regions entered Assam,
disturbing the demography of the state and the BJP in 2016 promised to weed the illegal majority
Muslim immigrants, and the NRC draft is the culmination of the assurance given.
b. In the 80’s the student’s agitation in Assam crippled the state for days and they had demanded
the eviction of Bangladeshis and other nationals from the state
c. In the2016 state elections, BharatiyaJanta Party had pledged to the people of Assam that they
would weed out the obnoxious aliens from the state of Assam and preserve the dignity of the local
people.
d. National Register of Citizens contains the list of Indian citizens in Assam, and the refugees
from neighboring regions were depriving the locals of jobs, money, and land.