1. These are stimulating times for anyone interested
in questions of animal consciousness. On what seems
like a monthly basis, scientific teams announce the
results of new experiments, adding to a preponderance
5 of evidence that we’ve been underestimating animal
minds, even those of us who have rated them fairly
highly. New animal behaviors and capacities are
observed in the wild, often involving tool use-or at
least object manipulation-the very kinds of activity
10 that led the distinguished zoologist Donald R. Griffin to
found the field of cognitive ethology (animal thinking)
in 1978: octopuses piling stones in front of their
hideyholes, to name one recent example; or dolphins
fitting marine sponges to their beaks in order to dig for
15 food on the seabed; or wasps using small stones to
smooth the sand around their egg chambers, concealing
them from predators. At the same time neurobiologists
have been finding that the physical structures in our
own brains most commonly held responsible for
20 consciousness are not as rare in the animal kingdom as
had been assumed. Indeed they are common. All of this
work and discovery appeared to reach a kind of
crescendo last summer, when an international group of
prominent neuroscientists meeting at the University of
25 Cambridge issued “The Cambridge Declaration on
Consciousness in Non-Human Animals,” a document
stating that “humans are not unique in possessing the
neurological substrates that generate consciousness.”
It goes further to conclude that numerous documented
30 animal behaviors must be considered “consistent with
experienced feeling states.”

Q-1 Which choice best describes the organization of this passage?

Q-2 In line 21, the author’s focus shifts from

2. The following passage is adapted from Jane Austen,
Northanger Abbey, originally published In 1817.
No one who had ever seen Catherine Morland in
her infancy would have supposed her born to be an
heroine. Her situation in life, the character of her father
and mother, her own person and disposition, were all
5 equally against her. Her father was a clergyman, without being
neglected, or poor, and a very respectable man, though
his name was Richard-and he had never been
handsome. He had a considerable independence besides
10 two good livings-and he was not in the least addicted
to locking up his daughters. Her mother was a woman
of useful plain sense, with a good temper, and, what is
more remarkable, with a good constitution. She had
three sons before Catherine was born; and instead of
15 dying in bringing the latter into the world, as anybody
might expect, she still lived on – lived to have six
children more-to see them growing up around her,
and to enjoy excellent health herself. A family of ten
children will be always called a fine family, where there
20 are heads and arms and legs enough for the number;
but the Morlands had little other right to the word, for
they were in general very plain, and Catherine, for
many years of her life, as plain as any. She had a thin
awkward figure, a sallow skin without colour, dark lank
25 hair, and strong features-so much for her person; and
not less unpropitious for heroism seemed her mind.
She was fond of all boy’s plays, and greatly preferred
cricket not merely to dolls, but to the more heroic
enjoyments of infancy, nursing a dormouse, feeding a
30 canary-bird, or watering a rose-bush. Indeed she had
no taste for a garden; and if she gathered flowers at
all, it was chiefly for the pleasure of mischief-
at least so it was conjectured from her always
preferring those which she was forbidden to take.
35 Such were her propensities-her abilities were quite as
extraordinary. She never could learn or understand
anything before she was taught; and sometimes not
even then, for she was often inattentive, and occasionally
stupid. Her mother was three months in teaching her
40 only to repeat the “Beggar’s Petition”; and after all, her
next sister, Sally, could say it better than she did.
Not that Catherine was always stupid-by no means;
she learnt the fable of “The Hare and Many Friends” as
quickly as any girl in England. Her mother wished her
45 to learn music; and Catherine was sure she should like it,
for she was very fond of tinkling the keys of the old
forlorn spinner; so, at eight years old she began. She
learnt a year, and could not bear it; and Mrs. Morland,
who did not insist on her daughters being accomplished in
50 spite of incapacity or distaste, allowed her to leave
off. The day which dismissed the music-master was
one of the happiest of Catherine’s life. Her taste for
drawing was not superior; though whenever she could
obtain the outside of a letter from her mother or seize
55 upon any other odd piece of paper, she did what she
could in that way, by drawing houses and trees, hens
and chickens, all very much like one another. Writing
and accounts she was taught by her father; French
by her mother: her proficiency in either was not
60 remarkable, and she shirked her lessons in both
whenever she could. What a strange, unaccountable
character! – for with all these symptoms of profligacy
at ten years old, she had neither a bad heart nor a bad
temper, was seldom stubborn, scarcely ever
65 quarrelsome, and very kind to the little ones, with
few interruptions of tyranny; she was moreover noisy
and wild, hated confinement and cleanliness, and loved
nothing so well in the world as rolling down the green
slope at the back of the house.

Q-1 This passage is written from the perspective of

Q-2 The words “never,” “not even,” and “inattentive” (lines 36-38) mainly have the effect of

3. This passage is adapted from Barry Schwartz,” More
Isn’t Always Better,” 2006 by Harvard Business Review.
Marketers assume that the more choices they offer,
the more likely customers will be able to find just the
right thing. They assume, for instance, that offering 50
styles of jeans instead of two increases the chances that
5 shoppers will find a pair they really like. Nevertheless,
research now shows that there can be too much choice;
when there is, consumers are less likely to buy anything
at all, and if they do buy, they are less satisfied with their selection.
10 It all began with jam. In 2000, psychologists Sheena
Iyengar and Mark Lepper published a remarkable study.
On one day, shoppers at an upscale food market saw a
display table with 24 varieties of gourmet jam. Those
who sampled the spreads received a coupon for $1 off
15 any jam. On another day, shoppers saw a similar table,
except that only six varieties of the jam were on display.
The large display attracted more interest than the small
one. But when the time came to purchase, people who
saw the large display were one-tenth as likely to buy as
20 people who saw the small display.
Other studies have confirmed this result that more
choice is not always better. As the variety of snacks,
soft drinks, and beers offered at convenience stores
increases, for instance, sales volume and customer
25 satisfaction decrease. Moreover, as the number of
retirement investment options available to employees
increases, the chance that they will choose any
decreases. These studies and others have shown not
only that excessive choice can produce “choice
30 paralysis,” but also that it can reduce people’s
satisfaction with their decisions, even if they made
good ones. My colleagues and I have found that
increased choice decreases satisfaction with matters as
trivial as ice cream flavors and as significant as jobs.
35 These results challenge what we think we know
about human nature and the determinants of well-being.
Both psychology and business have operated on the
assumption that the relationship between choice and
well-being is straightforward: The more choices people
40 have, the better off they are. In psychology, the benefits
of choice have been tied to autonomy and control. In
business, the benefits of choice have been tied to the
benefits of free markets more generally. Added options
make no one worse off, and they are bound to make
45 someone better off. Choice is good for us, but its
relationship to satisfaction appears to be more complicated
than we had assumed. There is diminishing marginal utility in
having alternatives; each new option subtracts a little
50 from the feeling of well-being, until the marginal
benefits of added choice level off. What’s more,
psychologists and business academics alike have .
largely ignored another outcome of choice: More of it
requires increased time and effort and can lead to
55 anxiety, regret, excessively high expectations, and
self-blame if the choices don’t work out. When the
number of available options is small, these costs
are negligible, but the costs grow with the number of
options. Eventually, each new option makes us feel
60 worse off than we did before. Without a doubt, having
more options enables us, most of the time, to achieve
better objective outcomes. Again, having 50 styles of
jeans as opposed to two. increases the likelihood that
customers will find a pair,
65 that fits. But the subjective outcome may be that
shoppers will feel overwhelmed and dissatisfied. This
dissociation between objective and subjective results
creates a significant challenge for retailers and
marketers that look to choice as a way to enhance the
70 perceived value of their goods and services.
Choice can no longer be used to justify a marketing
strategy in and of itself. More isn’t always better,
either for the customer or for the retailer.
Discovering how much assortment is warranted is a
75 considerable empirical challenge. But companies that
get the balance right will be amply rewarded.

Q-1 This passage is written from the perspective of

Q-2 Which of the following best describes the organization of the first two paragraphs(lines 1-20)?

4. The following passage is adapted from Olympe de
Gouges, Declaration of the Rights of Women. It was
initially published in 1791, during the French Revolution,
and was written in response to the Declaration of the
Rights of Man (1789.)
Woman, wake up; the toxin of reason is being
heard throughout the whole universe; discover your
rights. The powerful empire of nature is no longer
surrounded by prejudice, fanaticism, superstition, and
5 lies. The flame of truth has dispersed all the clouds of
folly and usurpation. Enslaved man has multiplied his
strength and needs recourse to yours to break his chains.
Having become free, he has become unjust to his
companion. Oh, women, women! When will you cease
10 to be blind? What advantage have you received from
the Revolution? A more pronounced scorn, a more
marked disdain. In the centuries of corruption you ruled
only over the weakness of men. The reclamation of
your patrimony, based on the wise decrees of nature –
15 what have you to dread from such a fine undertaking?
Do you fear that our legislators, correctors of that
morality, long ensnared by political practices now out
of date, will only say again to you: women, what is
there in common between you and us? Everything, you
20 will have to answer. If they persist in their weakness in
putting this hypocrisy in contradiction to their
principles, courageously oppose the force of reason to
the empty pretensions of superiority; unite yourselves
beneath the standards of philosophy; deploy all the
25 energy of your character. Regardless of what barriers
confront you, it is in your power to free yourselves; you
have only to want to. Let us pass not to the shocking
tableau of what you have been in society; and since
national education is in question at this moment, let us
30 see whether our wise legislators will think judiciously
about the education of women. Women have done more harm than
good. Constraint and dissimulation have been their lot. What force has
robbed them of, ruse returned to them; they had recourse
35 to all the resources of their charms, and the most
Irreproachable persons did not resist them. Poison and
the sword were both subject to them; they commanded
in crime as in fortune. The French government, especially,
depended throughout the centuries on the nocturnal
40 administrations of women; the cabinet could keep no
secrets as a result of their indiscretions; all have been
subject to the cupidity and ambition of this sex,
formerly contemptible and respected, and since the
revolution, respectable and scorned.
45 In this sort of contradictory situation, what remarks
could I not make! I have but a moment to make them,
but this moment will fix the attention of the remotest
posterity. Under the Old Regime, all was vicious,
all was guilty; but could not the amelioration of
50 conditions be perceived even in the substance of
vices? A woman only had to be beautiful or amiable;
when she possessed these two advantages, she saw a
hundred fortunes at her feet. If she did not profit from
them, she had a bizarre character or a rare philosophy
55 which made her scorn wealth; then she was deemed
to be like a crazy woman. A young, inexperienced
woman, seduced by a man whom she loves, will
abandon her parents to follow him; the ingrate will
leave her after a few years, and the older she has
60 become with him, the more inhuman is his
inconstancy; if she has children, he will likewise
abandon them. If he is rich, he will consider himself
excused from sharing his fortune with his noble victims.
If some involvement binds him to his duties, he will
65 deny them, trusting that the laws will support him.
If he is married, any other obligation loses its rights.
Then what laws remain to extirpate vice all the way to
its root? The law of dividing wealth and public
administration between men and women. It can easily
70 be seen that one who is born into a rich family gains
very much from such equal sharing. But the one born
into a poor family with merit and virtue – what is her
lot? Poverty and opprobrium. If she does not precisely
excel in music or painting, she cannot be admitted to
75 any public function when she has all the capacity for it.

Q-1 Which of the following best characterizes the narrator’s shift in lines 45-46?

5. The following passage is adapted from “Scientists
Discover Salty Aquifer, Previously Unknown Microbial
Habitat Under Antarctica,” 2015 by Dartmouth College.
Using an airborne imaging system for the first time
in Antarctica, scientists have discovered a vast network
of unfrozen salty groundwater that may support previously
unknown microbial life deep under the coldest, driest
5 desert on our planet. The findings shed new light on
ancient climate change on Earth and provide strong
evidence that a similar briny aquifer could support
microscopic life on Mars. The scientists used SkyTEM,
an airborne electromagnetic sensor, to detect and map
10 otherwise inaccessible subterranean features.
The system uses an antennae suspended beneath
a helicopter to create a magnetic field that reveals the
subsurface to a depth of about 1,000 feet. Because a
helicopter was used, large areas of rugged terrain could
15 be surveyed. The SkyTEM team was funded by the
National Science Foundation and led by researchers
from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville (UTK), and
Dartmouth College, which oversees the NSF’s SkyTEM project.
20 “These unfrozen materials appear to be relics of
past surface ecosystems and our findings provide
compelling evidence that they now provide deep
subsurface habitats for microbial life despite extreme
environmental conditions,” says lead author Jill Mikucki,
25 an assistant professor at UTK. “These new belowground
visualization technologies can also provide insight
on glacial dynamics and how Antarctica responds to climate change.”
Co-author Dartmouth Professor Ross Virginia is
30 SkyTEM’s co-principal investigator and director of
Dartmouth’s Institute of Arctic Studies. “This project is
studying the past and present climate to, in part,
understand how climate change in the future will affect
biodiversity and ecosystem processes,” Virginia says.
35 “This fantastic new view beneath the surface will help
us sort out competing ideas about how the McMurdo
Dry Valleys have changed with time and how this history
influences what we see today.” The researchers found that the unfrozen brines form
40 extensive, interconnected aquifers deep beneath glaciers
and lakes and within permanently frozen soils. The
brines extend from the coast to at least 7.5 miles inland
in the McMurdo Dry Valleys, the largest ice-free region
in Antarctica. The brines could be due to freezing and/or
45 deposits. The findings show for the first time that the
Dry Valleys’ lakes are interconnected rather than isolated;
connectivity between lakes and aquifers is important in
sustaining ecosystems through drastic climate change,
such as lake dry-down events. The findings also challenge
50 the assumption that parts of the ice sheets below the
pressure melting point are devoid of liquid water.
In addition to providing answers about the biological
adaptations of previously unknown ecosystems that
persist in the extreme cold and dark of the Antarctic
55 winter, the new study could help scientists to
understand whether similar conditions might exist
elsewhere in the solar system, specifically beneath the
surface of Mars, which has many similarities to the
Dry Valleys. Overall, the Dry Valleys ecosystem –
60 cold, vegetation-free and home only to microscopic
animal and plant life – resembles, during the Antarctic
summer, conditions on the surface on Mars.
SkyTEM produced images of Taylor Valley along
the Ross Sea that suggest briny sediments exist at
65 subsurface temperatures down to perhaps -68°F,
which is considered suitable for microbial life. One of
the studied areas was lower Taylor Glacier, where the
data suggest ancient brine still exists beneath the
glacier. That conclusion is supported by the presence
70 of Blood Falls, an iron-rich brine that seeps out of the
glacier and hosts an active microbial ecosystem.
Scientists’ understanding of Antarctica’s
Underground environment is changing dramatically as
research reveals that subglacial lakes are widespread
75 and that at least half of the areas covered by the ice
sheet are akin to wetlands on other continents. But
groundwater in the ice-free regions and along the
coastal margins remains poorly understood.

Q-1 Which choice best describes the organization of this passage?