rc passage for cat

8/15/2019 RC Passage for CAT

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/rc-passage-for-cat 1/3

DIRECTIONS for questions 1 to 3: The passage given below isfollowe b! a set of questions" Choose the #ost appropriateanswer to ea$h question"

PASSAGE 3

Scarcity is easier to deal with than abundance, because when somethingbecomes rare, we simply think it more valuable than it was before, aconceptually easy change. Abundance is dierent: its advent means wecan start treating previously valuable things as if they were cheap enoughto waste, which is to say cheap enough to experiment with. Becauseabundance can remove the tradeos we!re used to, it can be disorientingto the people who!ve grown up with scarcity. "hen a resource is scarce,people often regard it as valuable in itself, without stopping to considerhow much of the value is tied to its scarcity. #or example, for years afterthe price of longdistance phone calls collapsed, my older relatives wouldstill announce that a call was $long distance!. Such calls had previouslybeen special, because they were expensive% it took people years tounderstand that cheap longdistance calls removed the rationale forregarding them as inherently valuable.

Similarly, the advent of the &nternet has made publication go from beinghard to being virtually eortless. 'eople used to the old system oftenregard publishing by amateurs as frivolous, as if publishing was aninherently serious activity. &t never was, though. 'ublishing had to betaken seriously when its cost and eort made people take it seriously ( if

you made too many mistakes, you were out of business. But if thesefactors collapse, then the risk collapses too. An activity that once seemedinherently valuable turned out to be only accidentally valuable, as achange in the economics revealed.

)arvey Swados, the American novelist, said of paperbacks, $"hether thisrevolution in the reading habits of the American public means that we arebeing inundated by a *ood of trash which will debase further the populartaste, or that we shall now have available cheap editions of an everincreasing list of classics, is a +uestion of basic importance to our socialand cultural development.! )e made this observation in -, two

decades into the spread of paperbacks, and curiously Swados was eventhen unable to answer his own +uestion. But by - the answer wasplain to see. /he public had no need to choose between a *ood of trashand a growing collection of classics. "e could have both 0which is what wegot1.

2ot only was $both! the answer to Swados!s +uestion% it has always beenthe answer whenever communications! abundance increases, from theprinting press on. /he printing press was originally used to provide cheapaccess to Bibles and the writings of 'tolemy, but all that old stu didn!t 3ll

a fraction of either the technological capacity or the audience!s desire. Sopeople took to writing new stu ( a lot of which was 4unk. 5ven more



relevant to today, we can!t have $an everexpanding list of classics!without also trying new forms% there is no easy formula for writingsomething that will become pri6ed for decades or centuries, so we needexperimentation.

/he low+uality material that comes with increased freedom accompaniesthe experimentation that creates the stu we will end up pri6ing. &ncomparison with a previous age!s scarcity, abundance brings a rapid fall inaverage +uality, but over time experimentation pays o, diversityexpands the range of the possible, and the best work becomes better thanwhat went before. After the printing press, publishing came to mattermore because the expansion of literary, cultural and scienti3c writingbene3ted society, even though it was accompanied by a whole lot of 4unk. /he same can be said of the &nternet today.

. "hat is the +uotation by )arvey Swados meant to show78 'aperbacks were the &nternet of their day.98 &t was strange that Swados was unable to answer his own +uestion.8 /he printing press provided both easier access to old classics, and a

greater amount of 4unk being published.;8 An increase in communication results in both $a *ood of trash! and

$an everincreasing list of classics!.

<ption =8 is extremely vague: in what sense were paperbacks the$&nternet of their day!7 "hile the author does comment that it was curiousthat Swados was unable to answer his own +uestion, that is hardly the

reason for including the +uotation in the 3rst place. Swados was talkingabout paperbacks speci3cally, not the printing press. So =8 is incorrect.But his speci3c point can be generali6ed to show that $a *ood of trash! and$an everincreasing list of classics! are the results of an increase in anykind of communication, as the author states in the penultimate paragraph.)ence, =;8.

9. "hat is this passage about78 /he dierence between abundance and scarcity, especially as they

relate to publishing98 /he changes in +uantity and +uality in publishing due to an

abundance of it, especially that made possible by the &nternet8 /he increasing abundance of publication from the time of the advent

of the printing press to the advent of the &nternet;8 A comparison of the eect of the printing press on society to that of

the &nternet on the same

/he $dierence between abundance and scarcity! is a point discussedmainly in the 3rst paragraph, so it cannot be said to be what this passageis about. Similarly, the eects of the printing press and the &nternet onsociety are mentioned mainly in the last paragraph. /he linear and

continuous growth in publication implied in =8 is not mentioned in thepassage at all. /he topic of the passage is to show that the abundance of



publication ( speci3cally, that facilitated by the &nternet ( has resulted inlowering the average +uality of material published, but overall, the vast+uantity produced provides the means for experimentation and greaterpossibilities. )ence, =98.

. According to this passage, how has publication changed due to theadvent of the &nternet78 'ublishing has changed from an inherently serious activity to a

frivolous one.98 'ublishing was originally intended for providing cheap access to

classics, but now it has loftier aims.8 /he abundance of published material has resulted in a fall in

average +uality, but has opened up greater possibilities forexperimentation.

;8 Both =98 and =8.

<ption =8 is incorrect, as the author clearly states in paragraph 9 thatpublishing was never a serious activity. /he dichotomy between $cheapaccess to classics! and $loftier aims! implied in =98 3nds no mention in thepassage. <nly option =8, which essentially summari6es the lastparagraph, shows how publication has changed due to the advent of the&nternet. )ence, =8.

rc passage for cat

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