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CAT DE India Contest - English Test 1

Directions for Questions from 1 to 5:
The key we shall try to use to unlock the prison door is to say that a brain contains knowledge and information, written in its own language. This is actually a very complicated
statement. We may all think that we know what is meant by ‘information’, but it is really a very subtle concept, not easy to analyze. The word is of course borrowed from
ordinary speech, but we shall try to give it a more precise meaning that will allow us to say that all life depends on a flow of information. Information is carried by physical
entities, such as books or sound waves or brains, but it is not itself material. Information in a living system is a feature of the order and arrangement of its parts, which
arrangement provides the signs that constitute a ‘code’ or code are transmitted along suitable channels; they provide the control that helps to maintain the order that is the
essence of life. So the concepts of signs and information, and of coding and language, are closely related to the nature of life itself, and like life they are not simple at all. We
shall return several times to discuss them.

For the present we can work with the idea that to understand a strange language means to be able to translate the sounds heard or the words written into one’s own
language. (although ‘translation’ is not at all a simple concept either). So to understand the language of the brain we must learn to recognize and interpret the elements of the
script and the meanings of the signs in which it is written. Neuroscience is beginning to do this. In this book I hope to show how the organization of the brain can be
considered as the written script of the programs of our lives. So the important feature of brains is not the material that they are made of but the information that they carry.

What neuroscience can do is to translate the language in which the brain programs are written into ordinary language. Since these are the programs that produce the
phenomena of human language we are not really escaping from our prison, but are as it were enlarging it. We are using the analogies of language and of writing to understand
the entities that produce them. As so often in the past, man, having invented an artifact (in this case writing to help him with his life (by carrying information), is now trying to
describe, himself in terms of his artifact.

However much wisdom we acquire, we shall remain limited human creatures. But I believe that such new knowledge of the brain of man enables us greatly to expand our
understanding of fundamental problems. We can give new meaning to concepts such as value, choice and decision and even provide some help with problems of the aims and
ends of life than trouble many people. We hope to gain from the discussion the power to give richer, fuller use to such words. It may be that some of our deepest difficulties
about the nature of mind, matter, and consciousness will turn out to be products of the very structure of the brain.

These may seem excessive claims to make for results from study of the brain, which some people may think to be a subject that is pedestrian, material, complicated, and even
faintly disgusting. I hope to be able to reverse this view and to show that study of the brain reveals outstandingly beautiful and intricate patterns, not only of matter but of
information and of action, whose significance we can still perceive only dimly.

1. In the statement “Which some people may think to be a subject that is pedestrian, material, complicated, and even faintly disgusting.” What does the word ‘pedestrian’ mean
in the given context?

Footslogger
Related to walking pedestals
Dull
Indolent
Prosaic
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2. In the statement “As so often in the past, man, having invented an artifact to help him with his life, is
now trying to describe himself in terms of his artifact.” What does the word ‘man’ allude to in the
overall context of the passage?

Human mind
Human brain
Human consciousness
Creator
Artisan
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3. Which statement in the passage makes use of ‘metaphorical allusions’ in order to epitomize the author’s intellectual and logical dilemma of using the analogies of language
and of writing towards understanding human brain?

Since these are the programs that produce the phenomena of human language we are not really escaping from our prison, but as it were enlarging it.
We are using the analogies of language and of writing to understand the entities that produce them.
However much wisdom we acquire, we shall remain limited human creatures.
These may seem excessive claims to make for results from study of the brain, which some people may think to be a subject that is pedestrian, material, complicated, and
even faintly disgusting.
As so often in the past, man, having invented an artifact to help him with his life, is now trying to describe himself in terms of his artifact.
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4. As per the passage, which of the following statements with regard to Neuroscience is untrue?

It has already recognized and interpreted beyond doubt, the elements of the script and the meanings of the signs in which the language of the brain is written.
It is trying to descramble the language in which the programs of brain are encrypted and render it into a lingo that is easy to comprehend.

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It refutes the claims that the brain can be studied on the basis of the phenomena of human language that it has produced itself.
It claims to explain only those set of problems that relate to rational issues and not that related to matters such as values or even purpose of life.
It considers brain as a reservoir of information written in a language that has been invented by the humans.
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5. All of the following statements can be attributed to the brain, except?

The brain has outstandingly beautiful and intricate patterns whose significance is still perceived only faintly.
Information is carried by physical entities such as brains.
The elements of the script and the meanings of the signs of the language of the brain can be realized and interpreted in order to understand it.
The intrinsic features of the brain can be impressed upon by the extrinsic signs and symbols.
The important feature of the brains is the material they are made up of.
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Directions for Questions from 6 to 10:

Fill up the blanks, numbered [31]....upto [35], in the passages below with most appropriate word from the options given for each blank.

THE French film industry is more often given to __[31]__ agonising about American cultural imperialism or the tyranny of the market than to self-congratulation. But this year,
__[32]__ triumph is in the air. It is not just that for the first time in 21 years the Cannes film festival jury, headed this time by Sean Penn, awarded its top prize, the Palme
d’Or, to a French film, Laurent Cantet’s “Entre les Murs” (“The Class”). Another homegrown movie, “Bienvenue Chez les Ch’tis” (which will be remade for an American audience
as “Welcome to the Sticks”), is set to overtake James Cameron’s Hollywood blockbuster, “Titanic”, as the country’s all-time top box-office hit.

Apart from their tiny budgets, these two films could scarcely differ more. The first is a __[33]__ documentarystyle classroom drama, filmed—like Nicolas Philibert’s charming
2002 film, “Etre et Avoir” (“To Be and To Have”)—with real pupils in a real school, this one in a multicultural quarter of Paris. It is adapted from a book by François Bégaudeau,
based on his experience as a teacher (he plays a fictionalised version of himself in the film). The second is a slick, warm, __[34]__ comedy, written by and starring Dany Boon,
a French comic, which overturns French prejudices about the beer-drinking, rain-soaked north. Since its release in February, “Bienvenue Chez les Ch’tis” has notched up a
__[35]__ 20m cinema tickets in France—just short of the 20.7m that “Titanic” secured—and over $157.6m in receipts.

6. 35.

sparse
bare
staggering
massive
laudatory
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7. 34.

redemptive
tedious
unamenable
dry
listless
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8. 33

boring
egregious
gritty
dreary
morose
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9. 32.

apologetic
significant
deliberative
unapologetic
reluctant
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10. 31.

cognitive
introspective
perceptive

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volatile
random
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