1. Read the following passage & answer the questions that follow:
[Wilson’s “exposé” on Darwin characterised] the famous scientist as a fraud, a thief, a liar, a racist and a rouser of Nazism... And so, here we are again, quietly drawing breath and smiling politely while the same familiar “discoveries” about Darwin arise once more. Was the blood spilled by the Nazis on Darwin’s hands? Did he steal his big idea from others? Is evolution by natural selection a great hoax? Are the “Darwinians” covering something up?...
In the world’s museums and store-rooms, there are hundreds of millions of [fossils] and they all fit into broadly recognisable patterns of geological age and within the framework of what you or I would call evolution... Knowing what I have learned about the intricacy and rarity of fossilisation, if anything would make me genuinely consider the presence of an all-seeing God it would be the discovery of an unbroken chain of 60,000 fossil skeletons, following the strata upwards, going smoothly from species A to species B. But that’s not the point, I guess, and Wilson should know it.
Scientists tend to fit into two camps on the issue of how to deal with this familiar kind of Darwin-baiting. In the modern age some, such as American science communicator Bill Nye, choose to debate the anti-Darwinians on live TV. Others, such as Richard Dawkins, prefer to starve them of the oxygen they require by politely ignoring them – a kind of personal exercise in the non-validation of non-scientific ideas...
The truth is that – and this is worth saying a million times over – most scientists probably don’t think about Darwin very much in their day-to-day studies and would consider themselves as much “Darwinist” as they would “round-Earthers” or “wifi-users”. This is, after all, the best working theory we have to understand the nature that we see around us. Also, I think we are all OK with entertaining the idea that, if a more scientifically accurate way of explaining the diversity of life on Earth comes along, Darwin would be ousted. It’s just that, based on current evidence, Darwin’s ideas still seem capable of explaining much, if not all, of what we see in nature...
Sadly, many people will not find their way to this end-point, so suspicious are they of science, evolution and scientific ideas. For me, one of the most pressing problems in science is how we engage this lost audience, because they’re missing out on a wonderful experience – that of chasing real truths about some of the most beautiful and complex repeating patterns in nature, an apparent universal law that many people can and do balance regularly alongside their religious beliefs. For starters, their scepticism could come in quite handy.
1. What is the author’s primary viewpoint about Darwin?
(1) Darwin’s ideas can be disproved eventually.
(2) The author does not consider herself to be a “Darwinist”.
(3) Darwin’s ideas were used by the Nazis.
(4) Everyone should know and examine Darwin’s theories.
2. According to the passage, Darwin has been accused of all of the following EXCEPT
(1) His ideologies led to xenophobia and hatred of a race of people.
(2) Darwin had secrets that are being covered up till today.
(3) Darwin faked fossils to prove evolution.
(4) Darwin’s ideas were not original.
3. What is the main proof of Darwin’s theories of evolution?
(1) The lack of any other theory explaining evolution.
(2) Availability of fossils showing evolution.
(3) The diversity of life present on Earth today.
(4) Intricate and rare fossils found by scientists.
4. Why does the author speak about “round-Earthers” or “wifi-users”?
(1) To establish that scientists are not blindly following Darwin.
(2) To prove that Darwin’s theory is one of many things people follow.
(3) To prove that Darwin is more important for his refuters than his followers.
(4) To show that scientists are not overly passionate about proving Darwin correct.
2. Read the following passage & answer the questions that follow:
[Right after taking a frustrating exam] for which he would receive a B, Cardale Jones – a student-athlete at Ohio State University – tweeted something that he would later regret: why should we have to go to school if we came here to play football, we ain't come to play school, this is stupid. Jones saw college as football and classes as an inconvenience. At the time, and again two years later when the quarterback led his team to a national championship, Jones’s tweet brought intense criticism. But maybe it shouldn’t have.
College football players spend more than 40 hours per week on football, including time on the practice field, in the weight room, with trainers, and in film study and team meetings. On average, college athletes spend more than 30 hours a week on their sport... Many athletes evince a dedication exceeding all but the most committed students...
[Any] college course catalogue today reveals many majors focused primarily on a physical or practical, rather than theoretical, field of study. [Universities support] majors in art practice, dance and performance studies, theatre and performance studies, music, film, creative writing, journalism, communications, and business administration...
The football major [will have] physical training, practice, film study and meetings. Courses [could] also be required in the history, science, criticism and business of the discipline, as well as in the related fields of physiology, nutrition, journalism and sports management. Indeed, all of these fields of study already exist. A graduate of the football major [will have the] potential for significant impact, as an athlete, coach, trainer, agent, commentator, consultant, or team member in a complex organisation.
Some critics might argue that sport is not intellectual enough to be enshrined as a field of academic study. But this objection presumes a much too restricted view of intellect... Sport intelligence requires cognitive performance that is extremely demanding: the ability to read the complexity of a situation, to come to near-instantaneous intuitive judgments about how to react, and to move the body accordingly. It requires, [as journalist Chuck Squatriglia explained,] ‘what neuropsychologists call executive functions, which include the ability to be immediately creative, see new solutions and quickly change tactics’...
American football players spend more time in meeting rooms, watching film and reading binders of plays than doing anything else...What players learn is then tested under high-stress real-world conditions, in practice and actual games. How many fields of study can say the same?...
[People do recognise] the unique intelligence of athletes and how that intelligence can translate into other domains. Businesses, law firms and other complex organisations requiring a sophisticated balance of competition and cooperation often recruit from college athletics, especially from team sports...
[Sport] is a booming multi-billion dollar industry in the United States and around the world. It offers potential for employment in an extensive variety of fields: coaching (high school, college, pro), physical training, marketing, law, consulting, design, management, and more. Sports majors would help athletes to succeed in these fields.
For at least a century, US universities have decided to include athletics in higher education... We just haven’t pursued the logic to its proper end. It is time to make football a major.
5. Why was Cardale Jones frustrated?
(1) He was failing a subject.
(2) He did not have time to study and play football.
(3) He was in college to play, not study.
(4) He was participating in a national championship and wanted to practise instead of studying.
6. Which of the following reasons for making sports a college major has NOT been given in the passage?
(1) Sports help students deal with high-stress environments.
(2) Most subjects that a football major would study are already being taught.
(3) Sports generates many employment opportunities.
(4) Playing sports well requires a lot of intelligence.
7. Why does the author speak about other university courses in the course catalog?
(1) To speak about avant-garde education today.
(2) To use existing practical courses to argue that sports can also be a major.
(3) To speak about what subjects sports courses could include.
(4) To broaden the definition of study and intellectual pursuit.
8. Which of the following, if true, would weaken the author’s arguments the most?
(1) Most students interested in pursuing sports will not be selected as professional players.
(2) Most sports players spend only 10-20 hours a week playing the sport.
(3) The business and law firms that hire team sports players require them to get a business or law degree.
(4) Many sports players typically decide to hedge their bets by majoring in something other than sports.
3. Read the following passage & answer the questions that follow:
[CAT 2018, Slot 1]
NOT everything looks lovelier the longer and closer its inspection. But Saturn does. It is gorgeous through Earthly telescopes. However, the 13 years of close observation provided by Cassini, an American spacecraft, showed the planet, its moons and its remarkable rings off better and better, revealing finer structures, striking novelties and greater drama.
By and large the big things in the solar system—planets and moons—are thought of as having been around since the beginning. The suggestion that rings and moons are new is, though, made even more interesting by the fact that one of those moons, Enceladus, is widely considered the most promising site in the solar system on which to look for alien life. If Enceladus is both young and bears life, that life must have come into being quickly. This is also believed to have been the case on Earth. Were it true on Enceladus, that would encourage the idea that life evolves easily when conditions are right.
One reason for thinking Saturn’s rings are young is that they are bright. The solar system is suffused with comet dust, and comet dust is dark. Leaving Saturn’s ring system (which Cassini has shown to be more than 90% water ice) out in such a mist is like leaving laundry hanging on a line downwind from a smokestack: it will get dirty. The lighter the rings are, the faster this will happen, for the less mass they contain, the less celestial pollution they can absorb before they start to discolour Jeff Cuzzi, a scientist at America’s space agency, NASA, who helped run Cassini, told the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in Houston that combining the mass estimates with Cassini’s measurements of the density of comet-dust near Saturn suggests the rings are no older than the first dinosaurs, nor younger than the last of them—that is, they are somewhere between 200m and 70m years old.
That timing fits well with a theory put forward in 2016, by Matija Cuk of the SETI Institute, in California and his colleagues. They suggest that at around the same time as the rings came into being an old set of moons orbiting Saturn destroyed themselves, and from their remains emerged not only the rings but also the planet’s current suite of inner moons—Rhea, Dione, Tethys, Enceladus and Mimas.
Dr Cuk and his colleagues used computer simulations of Saturn’s moons’ orbits as a sort of time machine. Looking at the rate at which tidal friction is causing these orbits to lengthen they extrapolated backwards to find out what those orbits would have looked like in the past. They discovered that about 100m years ago the orbits of two of them, Tethys and Dione, would have interacted in a way that left the planes in which they orbit markedly tilted. But their orbits are untilted. The obvious, if unsettling, conclusion was that this interaction never happened—and thus that at the time when it should have happened, Dione and Tethys were simply not there. They must have come into being later.
9. The phrase “leaving laundry hanging on a line downwind from a smokestack” is used to explain how the ringed planet’s:
(1) atmosphere absorbs comet dust.
(2) moons create a gap between the rings.
(3) rings discolour and darken over time.
(4) rings lose mass over time.
10. Data provided by Cassini challenged the assumption that:
(1) all big things in the solar system have been around since the beginning.
(2) new celestial bodies can form from the destruction of old celestial bodies.
(3) Saturn’s ring system is composed mostly of water ice.
(4) there was life on earth when Saturn’s rings were being formed.
11. Based on information provided in the passage, we can infer that, in addition to water ice, Saturn’s rings might also have small amounts of:
(1) methane and rock particles.
(2) rock particles and comet dust.
(3) helium and methane.
(4) helium and comet dust.
12. The main objective of the passage is to:
(1) provide evidence that Saturn’s rings and moons are recent creations.
(2) highlight the beauty, finer structures and celestial drama of Saturn’s rings and moons.
(3) demonstrate how the orbital patterns of Saturn’s rings and moons change over time.
(4) establish that Saturn’s rings and inner moons have been around since the beginning of time.
13. Based on information provided in the passage, we can conclude all of the following EXCEPT:
(1) Saturn’s lighter rings discolour faster than rings with greater mass.
(2) Thethys and Dione are less than 100 million years old.
(3) none of Saturn’s moons ever had suitable conditions for life to evolve.
(4) Saturn’s rings were created from the remains of older moons.
Solution
RC 1
1. (4)
2. (3)
3. (2)
4. (4)
RC 2
5. (3)
6. (1)
7. (2)
8. (4)
RC 3
9. (3)
10. (1)
11. (2)
12. (1)
13. (3)
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