The author of this book review is LEAST likely to support the view that:
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The passage below is accompanied by a set of questions. Choose the best answer to each question.
The sleights of hand that conflate consumption with virtue are a central theme in A Thirst for Empire, a sweeping and richly detailed history of tea by the historian Erika Rappaport. How did tea evolve from an obscure "China drink" to a universal beverage imbued with civilising properties? The answer, in brief, revolves around this conflation, not only by profit-motivated marketers but by a wide variety of interest groups. While abundant historical records have allowed the study of how tea itself moved from east to west, Rappaport is focused on the movement of the idea of tea to suit particular purposes.
Beginning in the 1700s, the temperance movement advocated for tea as a pleasure that cheered but did not inebriate, and industrialists soon borrowed this moral argument in advancing their case for free trade in tea (and hence more open markets for their textiles). Factory owners joined in, compelled by the cause of a sober workforce, while Christian missionaries discovered that tea "would soothe any colonial encounter". During the Second World War, tea service was presented as a social and patriotic activity that uplifted soldiers and calmed refugees.
But it was tea's consumer-directed marketing by importers and retailers “ and later by brands “ that most closely portends current trade debates. An early version of the "farm to table" movement was sparked by anti-Chinese sentiment and concerns over trade deficits, as well as by the reality and threat of adulterated tea containing dirt and hedge clippings. Lipton was soon advertising "from the Garden to Tea Cup" supply chains originating in British India and supervised by "educated Englishmen". While tea marketing always presented direct consumer benefits (health, energy, relaxation), tea drinkers were also assured that they were participating in a larger noble project that advanced the causes of family, nation and civilization. . . .
Rappaport's treatment of her subject is refreshingly apolitical. Indeed, it is a virtue that readers will be unable to guess her political orientation: both the miracle of markets and capitalism's dark underbelly are evident in tea's complex story, as are the complicated effects of British colonialism. . . . Commodity histories are now themselves commodities: recent works investigate cotton, salt, cod, sugar, chocolate, paper and milk. And morality marketing is now a commodity as well, applied to food, "fair trade" apparel and eco-tourism. Yet tea is, Rappaport makes clear, a world apart “ an astonishing success story in which tea marketers not only succeeded in conveying a sense of moral elevation to the consumer but also arguably did advance the cause of civilisation and community.
I have been offered tea at a British garden party, a Bedouin campfire, a Turkish carpet shop and a Japanese chashitsu, to name a few settings. In each case the offering was more an idea “ friendship, community, respect “ than a drink, and in each case the idea then created a reality. It is not a stretch to say that tea marketers have advanced the particularly noble cause of human dialogue and friendship.
Question 1 of 24
This book review argues that, according to Rappaport, tea is unlike other "morality" products because it:
According to this book review, A Thirst for Empire says that, in addition to "profit-motivated marketers", tea drinking was promoted in Britain by all of the following EXCEPT:
Today, "conflat[ing] consumption with virtue" can be seen in the marketing of:
Which one of the following, if true about the Classic Maya, would invalidate the purpose of the iPhone example in the passage?
Which one of the following, if true, would not undermine the democratising potential of the Classic Maya worldview?
On the basis of the passage, which one of the following worldviews can be inferred to be closest to that of the Classic Maya?
Which one of the following best explains the "additional complexity" that the example of the incense burner illustrates regarding personhood for the Classic Maya?
Following from the passage, which one of the following may be seen as a characteristic of a utopian society?
Which sequence of words below best captures the narrative of the passage?
All of the following statements can be inferred from the passage EXCEPT that:
All of the following arguments are made in the passage EXCEPT that:
All of the following constitute a point of difference between the "original" and "modified" versions of the marshmallow test EXCEPT that:
Which one of the following, if true, would best complement the passage's findings?
In which one of the following scenarios would the cuttlefish's behaviour demonstrate self-control?
Which one of the following cannot be inferred from Alexandra Schnell's experiment?
The passage given below is followed by four alternate summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage. McGurk and MacDonald (1976) reported a powerful multisensory illusion occurring with audio-visual speech. They recorded a voice articulating a consonant 'ba-ba-ba' and dubbed it with a face articulating another consonant 'ga-ga-ga'. Even though the acoustic speech signal was well recognized alone, it was heard as another consonant after dubbing with incongruent visual speech i.e., 'da-da-da'. The illusion, termed as the McGurk effect, has been replicated many times, and it has sparked an abundance of research. The reason for the great impact is that this is a striking demonstration of multisensory integration, where that auditory and visual information is merged into a unified, integrated percept.
Five jumbled up sentences, related to a topic, are given below. Four of them can be put together to form a coherent paragraph. Identify the odd one out and key in the number of the sentence as your answer: 1. The legal status of resources mined in space remains ambiguous; and while the market for asteroid minerals is currently nonexistent, this is likely to change as technical hurdles diminish. 2. Outer space is a commons, and all of it is open for exploration, however, space law developed in the 1950s and 60s is state-centric and arguably ill-suited to a commercial future. 3. Laws adopted by the US and Luxembourg are first steps, but they only protect firms from competing claims by their compatriots; a Chinese company will not be bound by US law. 4. Critics say the US is conferring rights that it has no authority to confer; Russia in particular has condemned this, citing the US' disrespect for international law. 5. At issue now is commercial activity, as private firms”rather than nation states”look to space for profit.
The four sentences (labelled 1, 2, 3, 4) below, when properly sequenced would yield a coherent paragraph. Decide on the proper sequencing of the order of the sentences and key in the sequence of the four numbers as your answer: 1. The work is more than the text, for the text only takes on life, when it is realized and furthermore the realization is by no means independent of the individual disposition of the reader. 2. The convergence of text and reader brings the literary work into existence and this convergence is not to be identified either with the reality of the text or with the individual disposition of the reader. 3. From this polarity it follows that the literary work cannot be completely identical with the text, or with the realization of the text, but in fact must lie halfway between the two. 4. The literary work has two poles, which we might call the artistic and the aesthetic; the artistic refers to the text created by the author, and the aesthetic to the realization accomplished by the reader.
The four sentences (labelled 1, 2, 3, 4) below, when properly sequenced would yield a coherent paragraph. Decide on the proper sequencing of the order of the sentences and key in the sequence of the four numbers as your answer: 1. A popular response is the exhortation to plant more trees. 2. It seems all but certain that global warming will go well above two degrees”quite how high no one knows yet. 3. Burning them releases it, which is why the scale of forest fires in the Amazon basin last year garnered headlines. 4. This is because trees sequester carbon by absorbing carbon dioxide.
The four sentences (labelled 1, 2, 3, 4) below, when properly sequenced would yield a coherent paragraph. Decide on the proper sequencing of the order of the sentences and key in the sequence of the four numbers as your answer: 1. In the central nervous systems of other animal species, such a comprehensive regeneration of neurons has not yet been proven beyond doubt. 2. Biologists from the University of Bayreuth have discovered a uniquely rapid form of regeneration in injured neurons and their function in the central nervous system of zebrafish. 3. They studied the Mauthner cells, which are solely responsible for the escape behaviour of the fish, and previously regarded as incapable of regeneration. 4. However, their ability to regenerate crucially depends on the location of the injury.
Five jumbled up sentences, related to a topic, are given below. Four of them can be put together to form a coherent paragraph. Identify the odd one out and key in the number of the sentence as your answer: 1. There is a dark side to academic research, especially in India, and at its centre is the phenomenon of predatory journals. 2. But in truth, as long as you pay, you can get anything published. 3. In look and feel thus, they are exactly like any reputed journal. 4. They claim to be indexed in the most influential databases, say they possess editorial boards that comprise top scientists and researchers, and claim to have a rigorous peer-review structure. 5. But a large section of researchers and scientists across the world are at the receiving end of nothing short of an academic publishing scam.
The passage given below is followed by four alternate summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage. Developing countries are becoming hotbeds of business innovation in much the same way as Japan did from the 1950s onwards. They are reinventing systems of production and distribution, and experimenting with entirely new business models. Why are countries that were until recently associated with cheap hands now becoming leaders in innovation? Driven by a mixture of ambition and fear they are relentlessly climbing up the value chain. Emerging-market champions have not only proved highly competitive in their own backyards, they are also going global themselves.
The passage given below is followed by four alternate summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage. Foreign peacekeepers often exist in a bubble in the poor countries in which they are deployed; they live in posh compounds, drive fancy vehicles, and distance themselves from locals. This may be partially justified as they are outsiders, living in constant fear, performing a job that is emotionally draining. But they are often despised by the locals, and many would like them to leave. A better solution would be bottom-up peacebuilding, which would involve their spending more time working with communities, understanding their grievances and earning their trust, rather than only meeting government officials.
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