CAT VARC QUIZ 21

Direction for Reading Comprehension : The passage given here are followed by some question that have four answer choices; read the passage carefully and pick the option whose answer best aligns with the passage. 

The University Grants Commission (UGC)’s letters to central universities, asking them to teach course based on students' demand, is based on questionable academic logical. How many students queue up for a course often reflects how much it boosts the chances of their employment. While important, for a university, that must not be the only metric in determining the span of its academic ambition. The work of producing knowledge, training students in critical thinking and pushing ideas towards new frontiers - the reasons why societies invest in universities -- cannot rest on a narrow, instrumentalist approach. That is to say, a university must make space for arcane philosophy as much as economics, even if there are few takers for the former. Seen in this light, the UGC’s insistence that course be taught or stopped based on the number of enrolled students seems rather short-sighted. The Delhi University Democratic Teachers’ front has said that it fears that “rationalising” course in this manner would have grim consequences for social science and language departments, as well as job losses for those who teach in them.

That is not to say that departments must not align course to “the marketplace of ideas”. but that presuppose a degree of autonomy - the freedom to design course, and draw up syllabi - that few public universities in India enjoy. Universities also need resources as much as autonomy. The national Education policy 2020’s ambitions for education and call for greater autonomy to higher educational institutions is undercut by several factors from the slashing of funds to the challenges of inequality. The NEP’s emphasis on inter disciplinary learning cannot also reflected in the shrinking space for free thought in universities. The growing state hostility to debates and dissent shows up in the desire of governments to vet the subject of webinars or to sanitise classrooms of all contentious ideas in the name of nationalism.

True , one of the biggest challenges of the higher education system is its inability to produce employable graduates in sufficiently large numbers. While universities and colleges must do more on this front, the decision of how to maximise their resources, how to hit the sweet spot between academic ambition and market pragmatism, must be left to the teaching community. Each university will find the answer to that question on its own terms. The UGC must not impose top- down criteria that further shrink the space for experimentation and innovation in higher education.

Why does UGC letter to central universities ?

Direction for Reading Comprehension : The passage given here are followed by some question that have four answer choices; read the passage carefully and pick the option whose answer best aligns with the passage.

The first global blockbuster of the season is don’t look up,a movie on Netflix about the discovery of a comet on collision course with Earth and the attempts of the astronomers who made the discovery to get those in power to prevent a mass extinction event. The movie is satirical but has resonance with scientists whose warning on pandemic and the climate crisis have gone unheeded.
Could a comet wipe out life on Earth ? in any given year,an extinction-causing comet colliding with Earth is a low probability, but a high-impact event. But zone of habitability in which earth exists now is not a permanent state. There have been two “Snowball Earth” events when the planet’s surface was almost completely frozen. Nascent life came precariously close to getting snuffed out. Over the course of earth’s history, cataclysmic events of this nature will happen. And suffice it to say, we are not ready for them.
How can we be so sure that an uncertain future awaits the planet? We only need to look around in the solar system. Our nearest neighbours Venus and Mars had more earth-like conditions in their early history too. What we have on earth is special and won’t last forever. Life has good run of around four billion years on this planet. As the sun get brighter, the Earth will heat up due to a runaway green house effect. And then, 1 billion years from now, all life on this planet will become toast .
That may seem a long time away as humans face the climate crisis, mass extinction, and catastrophic ecosystem losses. And it is indeed distant because we are adept at finding large-scale ways of ravaging at the planet. Just a few years ago, we were tearing a massive hole in the ozone layer and minutes away from nuclear annihilation.
We don’t have to look up in the sky to see ignored threats either. We can look down. There’s already another pandemic that we’re brushing off. I’m referring to the hidden pandemic of antibiotic-resistant super bugs.

What type of movie is don’t look up ?

Direction for Reading Comprehension : The passage given here are followed by some question that have four answer choices; read the passage carefully and pick the option whose answer best aligns with the passage. 

The University Grants Commission (UGC)’s letters to central universities, asking them to teach course based on students' demand, is based on questionable academic logical. How many students queue up for a course often reflects how much it boosts the chances of their employment. While important, for a university, that must not be the only metric in determining the span of its academic ambition. The work of producing knowledge, training students in critical thinking and pushing ideas towards new frontiers - the reasons why societies invest in universities -- cannot rest on a narrow, instrumentalist approach. That is to say, a university must make space for arcane philosophy as much as economics, even if there are few takers for the former. Seen in this light, the UGC’s insistence that course be taught or stopped based on the number of enrolled students seems rather short-sighted. The Delhi University Democratic Teachers’ front has said that it fears that “rationalising” course in this manner would have grim consequences for social science and language departments, as well as job losses for those who teach in them.

That is not to say that departments must not align course to “the marketplace of ideas”. but that presuppose a degree of autonomy - the freedom to design course, and draw up syllabi - that few public universities in India enjoy. Universities also need resources as much as autonomy. The national Education policy 2020’s ambitions for education and call for greater autonomy to higher educational institutions is undercut by several factors from the slashing of funds to the challenges of inequality. The NEP’s emphasis on inter disciplinary learning cannot also reflected in the shrinking space for free thought in universities. The growing state hostility to debates and dissent shows up in the desire of governments to vet the subject of webinars or to sanitise classrooms of all contentious ideas in the name of nationalism.

True , one of the biggest challenges of the higher education system is its inability to produce employable graduates in sufficiently large numbers. While universities and colleges must do more on this front, the decision of how to maximise their resources, how to hit the sweet spot between academic ambition and market pragmatism, must be left to the teaching community. Each university will find the answer to that question on its own terms. The UGC must not impose top- down criteria that further shrink the space for experimentation and innovation in higher education.

The Delhi University Democratic Teachers’ front has said-it fears that

Direction for Reading Comprehension : The passage given here are followed by some question that have four answer choices; read the passage carefully and pick the option whose answer best aligns with the passage.

The first global blockbuster of the season is don’t look up,a movie on Netflix about the discovery of a comet on collision course with Earth and the attempts of the astronomers who made the discovery to get those in power to prevent a mass extinction event. The movie is satirical but has resonance with scientists whose warning on pandemic and the climate crisis have gone unheeded.
Could a comet wipe out life on Earth ? in any given year,an extinction-causing comet colliding with Earth is a low probability, but a high-impact event. But zone of habitability in which earth exists now is not a permanent state. There have been two “Snowball Earth” events when the planet’s surface was almost completely frozen. Nascent life came precariously close to getting snuffed out. Over the course of earth’s history, cataclysmic events of this nature will happen. And suffice it to say, we are not ready for them.
How can we be so sure that an uncertain future awaits the planet? We only need to look around in the solar system. Our nearest neighbours Venus and Mars had more earth-like conditions in their early history too. What we have on earth is special and won’t last forever. Life has good run of around four billion years on this planet. As the sun get brighter, the Earth will heat up due to a runaway green house effect. And then, 1 billion years from now, all life on this planet will become toast .
That may seem a long time away as humans face the climate crisis, mass extinction, and catastrophic ecosystem losses. And it is indeed distant because we are adept at finding large-scale ways of ravaging at the planet. Just a few years ago, we were tearing a massive hole in the ozone layer and minutes away from nuclear annihilation.
We don’t have to look up in the sky to see ignored threats either. We can look down. There’s already another pandemic that we’re brushing off. I’m referring to the hidden pandemic of antibiotic-resistant super bugs.

There’s already another pandemic that we are brushing off. What does writer refer to in the above line?

Direction for Reading Comprehension : The passage given here are followed by some question that have four answer choices; read the passage carefully and pick the option whose answer best aligns with the passage.

The first global blockbuster of the season is don’t look up,a movie on Netflix about the discovery of a comet on collision course with Earth and the attempts of the astronomers who made the discovery to get those in power to prevent a mass extinction event. The movie is satirical but has resonance with scientists whose warning on pandemic and the climate crisis have gone unheeded.
Could a comet wipe out life on Earth ? in any given year,an extinction-causing comet colliding with Earth is a low probability, but a high-impact event. But zone of habitability in which earth exists now is not a permanent state. There have been two “Snowball Earth” events when the planet’s surface was almost completely frozen. Nascent life came precariously close to getting snuffed out. Over the course of earth’s history, cataclysmic events of this nature will happen. And suffice it to say, we are not ready for them.
How can we be so sure that an uncertain future awaits the planet? We only need to look around in the solar system. Our nearest neighbours Venus and Mars had more earth-like conditions in their early history too. What we have on earth is special and won’t last forever. Life has good run of around four billion years on this planet. As the sun get brighter, the Earth will heat up due to a runaway green house effect. And then, 1 billion years from now, all life on this planet will become toast .
That may seem a long time away as humans face the climate crisis, mass extinction, and catastrophic ecosystem losses. And it is indeed distant because we are adept at finding large-scale ways of ravaging at the planet. Just a few years ago, we were tearing a massive hole in the ozone layer and minutes away from nuclear annihilation.
We don’t have to look up in the sky to see ignored threats either. We can look down. There’s already another pandemic that we’re brushing off. I’m referring to the hidden pandemic of antibiotic-resistant super bugs.

Why does writer want us to look down ?

Direction for Reading Comprehension : The passage given here are followed by some question that have four answer choices; read the passage carefully and pick the option whose answer best aligns with the passage.

The first global blockbuster of the season is don’t look up,a movie on Netflix about the discovery of a comet on collision course with Earth and the attempts of the astronomers who made the discovery to get those in power to prevent a mass extinction event. The movie is satirical but has resonance with scientists whose warning on pandemic and the climate crisis have gone unheeded.
Could a comet wipe out life on Earth ? in any given year,an extinction-causing comet colliding with Earth is a low probability, but a high-impact event. But zone of habitability in which earth exists now is not a permanent state. There have been two “Snowball Earth” events when the planet’s surface was almost completely frozen. Nascent life came precariously close to getting snuffed out. Over the course of earth’s history, cataclysmic events of this nature will happen. And suffice it to say, we are not ready for them.
How can we be so sure that an uncertain future awaits the planet? We only need to look around in the solar system. Our nearest neighbours Venus and Mars had more earth-like conditions in their early history too. What we have on earth is special and won’t last forever. Life has good run of around four billion years on this planet. As the sun get brighter, the Earth will heat up due to a runaway green house effect. And then, 1 billion years from now, all life on this planet will become toast .
That may seem a long time away as humans face the climate crisis, mass extinction, and catastrophic ecosystem losses. And it is indeed distant because we are adept at finding large-scale ways of ravaging at the planet. Just a few years ago, we were tearing a massive hole in the ozone layer and minutes away from nuclear annihilation.
We don’t have to look up in the sky to see ignored threats either. We can look down. There’s already another pandemic that we’re brushing off. I’m referring to the hidden pandemic of antibiotic-resistant super bugs.

What does writer want to say through this passage?

Direction for Reading Comprehension : The passage given here are followed by some question that have four answer choices; read the passage carefully and pick the option whose answer best aligns with the passage. 

The University Grants Commission (UGC)’s letters to central universities, asking them to teach course based on students demand, is based on questionable academic logical. How many students queue up for a course often reflects how much it boosts the chances of their employment. While important, for a university, that must not be the only metric in determining the span of its academic ambition. The work of producing knowledge, training students in critical thinking and pushing ideas towards new frontiers - the reasons why societies invest in universities -- cannot rest on a narrow, instrumentalist approach. That is to say, a university must make space for arcane philosophy as much as economics, even if there are few takers for the former. Seen in this light, the UGC’s insistence that course be taught or stopped based on the number of enrolled students seems rather short-sighted. The Delhi University Democratic Teachers’ front has said that it fears that “rationalising” course in this manner would have grim consequences for social science and language departments, as well as job losses for those who teach in them.

That is not to say that departments must not align course to “the marketplace of ideas”. but that presuppose a degree of autonomy - the freedom to design course, and draw up syllabi - that few public universities in India enjoy. Universities also need resources as much as autonomy. The national Education policy 2020’s ambitions for education and call for greater autonomy to higher educational institutions is undercut by several factors from the slashing of funds to the challenges of inequality. The NEP’s emphasis on inter disciplinary learning cannot also reflected in the shrinking space for free thought in universities. The growing state hostility to debates and dissent shows up in the desire of governments to vet the subject of webinars or to sanitise classrooms of all contentious ideas in the name of nationalism.

True , one of the biggest challenges of the higher education system is its inability to produce employable graduates in sufficiently large numbers. While universities and colleges must do more on this front, the decision of how to maximise their resources, how to hit the sweet spot between academic ambition and market pragmatism, must be left to the teaching community. Each university will find the answer to that question on its own terms. The UGC must not impose top- down criteria that further shrink the space for experimentation and innovation in higher education.

What is the biggest challenge of the higher education system ?

Direction for Reading Comprehension : The passage given here are followed by some question that have four answer choices; read the passage carefully and pick the option whose answer best aligns with the passage.

The first global blockbuster of the season is don’t look up,a movie on Netflix about the discovery of a comet on collision course with Earth and the attempts of the astronomers who made the discovery to get those in power to prevent a mass extinction event. The movie is satirical but has resonance with scientists whose warning on pandemic and the climate crisis have gone unheeded.
Could a comet wipe out life on Earth ? in any given year,an extinction-causing comet colliding with Earth is a low probability, but a high-impact event. But zone of habitability in which earth exists now is not a permanent state. There have been two “Snowball Earth” events when the planet’s surface was almost completely frozen. Nascent life came precariously close to getting snuffed out. Over the course of earth’s history, cataclysmic events of this nature will happen. And suffice it to say, we are not ready for them.
How can we be so sure that an uncertain future awaits the planet? We only need to look around in the solar system. Our nearest neighbours Venus and Mars had more earth-like conditions in their early history too. What we have on earth is special and won’t last forever. Life has good run of around four billion years on this planet. As the sun get brighter, the Earth will heat up due to a runaway green house effect. And then, 1 billion years from now, all life on this planet will become toast .
That may seem a long time away as humans face the climate crisis, mass extinction, and catastrophic ecosystem losses. And it is indeed distant because we are adept at finding large-scale ways of ravaging at the planet. Just a few years ago, we were tearing a massive hole in the ozone layer and minutes away from nuclear annihilation.
We don’t have to look up in the sky to see ignored threats either. We can look down. There’s already another pandemic that we’re brushing off. I’m referring to the hidden pandemic of antibiotic-resistant super bugs.

Why will all lives on this planet become toast?