VT 60 - RC

VARCTEST 60 - READING COMPREHENSION

Language in humans has evolved culturally rather than genetically, according to a study by the University
College London and US researchers. By modeling the ways in which genes for language might have evolved
alongside language itself, the study showed that genetic adaptation to language would be highly unlikely, as
cultural conventions change much more rapidly than genes. Thus, the biological machinery upon which
human language is built appears to predate the emergence of language. According to a phenomenon known
as the Baldwin effect, characteristics that are learned or developed over a lifespan may become gradually
encoded in the genome over many generations, because organisms with a stronger predisposition to acquire
a trait have a selective advantage. Over generations, the amount of environmental exposure required to develop
the trait decreases, and eventually no environmental exposure may be needed - the trait is genetically encoded.
An example of the Baldwin effect is the development of calluses on the keels and sterna of ostriches. The
calluses may initially have developed in response to abrasion where the keel and sterna touch the ground
during sitting. Natural selection then favored individuals that could develop calluses more rapidly, until callus
development became triggered within the embryo and could occur without environmental stimulation. The
PNAS paper explored circumstances under which a similar evolutionary mechanism could genetically assimilateproperties of language - a theory that has been widely favoured by those arguing for the existence of ‘language
genes’. The study modeled ways in which genes encoding language-specific properties could have coevolved
with language itself. The key finding was that genes for language could have coevolved only in a highly
stable linguistic environment; a rapidly changing linguistic environment would not provide a stable target for
natural selection. Thus, a biological endowment could not coevolve with properties of language that began as
learned cultural conventions, because cultural conventions change much more rapidly than genes.
The authors conclude that it is unlikely that humans possess a genetic ‘language module’ which has evolved
by natural selection. The genetic basis of human language appears to primarily predate the emergence of
language.
The conclusion is reinforced by the observation that had such adaptation occurred in the human lineage, these
processes would have operated independently on modern human populations as they spread throughout
Africa and the rest of the world over the last 100,000 years. If this were so, genetic populations should have
coevolved with their own language groups, leading to divergent and mutually incompatible language modules.
Linguists have found no evidence of this, however; for example, native Australasian populations have been
largely isolated for 50,000 years but learn European languages readily.
Professor Nick Chater, UCL Cognitive, Perceptual and Brain Sciences, says: “Language is uniquely human.
But does this uniqueness stem from biology or culture? This question is central to our understanding of what
it is to be human, and has fundamental implications for the relationship between genes and culture. Our paper
uncovers a paradox at the heart of theories about the evolutionary origin and genetic basis of human language
- although we appear to have a genetic predisposition towards language, human language has evolved far
more quickly than our genes could keep up with, suggesting that language is shaped and driven by culture
rather than biology.
“The linguistic environment is continually changing; indeed, linguistic change is vastly more rapid than
genetic change. For example, the entire Indo-European language group has diverged in less than 10,000
years. Our simulations show the evolutionary impact of such rapid linguistic change: genes cannot evolve fast
enough to keep up with this ‘moving target’.1 According to the passage which of the following precedes emergence of languages?
(1) The genetic adaptation to languages. (2) The changing cultural adaptations.
(3) The life mechanism. (4) Cultural conventions.
(5) Gene modeling.
2. Which of the following can be used to equal the Baldwin effect theory as used by the author?
(1) A cat’s affinity for fish. (2) A snake’s hissing.
(3) The petering of the tailbone in humans. (4) A woodpecker’s nest in the trees.
(5) The bat’s blindness.
3. According to the passage, the reason for the negation of the gene theory vis-à-vis language rests upon:
(1) The lack of a stable linguistic environment. (2) The lack of a natural selection.
(3) An unsuitable biological endowment. (4) The presence of cultural conventions.
(5) An inappropriate linguistic environment.
4.Which of the following best summarizes the passage?
(1) Language is determined by biology. (2) Language is motivated by culture.
(3) Grammar evolved through culture.
***

Skepticism quite properly forbids us to speculate beyond the content of our present experience and memory,
yet we find it entirely natural to believe much more than that. Hume held that these unjustifiable beliefs can be
explained by reference to custom or habit. That’s how we learn from experience. When I observe the constant
conjunction of events in my experience, I grow accustomed to associating them with each other.
Although many past cases of sunrise do not guarantee the future of nature, my experience of them does get
me used to the idea and produces in me an expectation that the sun will rise again tomorrow. I cannot prove
that it will, but I feel that it must.
Remember that the association of ideas is a powerful natural process in which separate ideas come to be
joined together in the mind. Of course they can be associated with each other by rational means, as they are in
the relations of ideas that constitute mathematical knowledge. But even where this is possible, Hume argued,
reason is a slow and inefficient guide, while the habits acquired by much repetition can produce a powerful
conviction independently of reason. Although the truth of “9 × 12 = 108” can be established rationally in
principle, most of us actually learned it by reciting our multiplication tables. In fact, what we call relative
probability is, on Hume’s view, nothing more than a measure of the strength of conviction produced in us by
our experience of regularity.
Our beliefs in matters of fact, then, arise from sentiment or feeling rather than from reason. For Hume, imagination
and belief differ only in the degree of conviction with which their objects are anticipated. Although this
positive answer may seem disappointing, Hume maintained that custom or habit is the great guide of life and
the foundation of all natural science.
According to Hume, our belief that events are causally related is a custom or habit acquired by experience:
having observed the regularity with which events of particular sorts occur together, we form the association of
ideas that produces the habit of expecting the effect whenever we experience the cause. But something is
missing from this account: we also believe that the cause somehow produces the effect. Even if this belief is
unjustifiable, Hume must offer some explanation for the fact that we do hold it. His technique was to search
for the original impression from which our idea of the necessary connection between cause and effect is
copied. The idea does not arise from our objective experience of the events themselves. All we observe is that
events of the “cause” type occur nearby and shortly before events of the “effect” type, and that this recurs
with a regularity that can be described as a “constant conjunction.” Although this pattern of experience does
encourage the formation of our habit of expecting the effect to follow the cause, it includes no impression of
a necessary connection.
Nor do we acquire this impression (as Locke had supposed) from our own capacity for voluntary motion.
Here the objective element of constant conjunction is rarely experienced, since the actions of our minds and
bodies do not invariably submit to our voluntary control. And even if volition did always produce the intended
movement, Hume argued, that would yield no notion of the connection between them. So there is no impression
of causal power here, either.
Still, we do have the idea of a necessary connection, and it must come from somewhere. For a (non-justificatory)
explanation, Hume refers us back to the formation of a custom or habit. Our (non-rational) expectation that
the effect will follow the cause is accompanied by a strong feeling of conviction, and it is the impression of
this feeling that is copied by our concept of a necessary connection between cause and effect. The force of
causal necessity is just the strength of our sentiment in anticipating efficacious outcomes.

4. According to Hume, the linking of an effect to a cause is based on all of the following except
(1) Our rational thinking. (2) Our expectation.
(3) Our feeling of conviction. (4) The initial impression that we carry
(5) Our sentiment.
5 What is the primary purpose of the passage?
(1) To highlight Hume’s theory of the predominance of custom or habit over reason in shaping beliefs
and ideas
(2) To demonstrate the preponderance of belief and reason over sentiments and superstitions
(3) To show the role of the constant conjunction in the formation of ideas about cause and effect
relations
(4) To discuss Hume’s theory regarding objective and subjective experience
(5) To differentiate between the role played by custom and habits in beliefs and imagination
6. Hume would agree with which of the following statements ?
(1) Association of ideas produces habit.
(2) Ideas cannot be associated by rational means.
(3) The self is immaterial in nature.
(4) Expectation of something leads to its experience.
(5) A cause cannot produce an effect.
7 The passage is most probably an extract from:
(1) A treatise on modern sociology
(2) A personal view on the formation of beliefs and ideas
(3) A novel from the Victorian period
(4) A book on the history of philosophy
(5) A work on existentialism

*****

Look around you. On the train platform, at the bus stop, in the car pool lane: these days someone there is
probably faking it, maintaining a job routine without having a job to go to. The Wall Street type in suspenders,
with his bulging briefcase; the woman in pearls, thumbing her BlackBerry; the builder in his work boots and
tool belt - they could all be headed for the same coffee shop, or bar, for the day.
“I have a new client, a laid-off lawyer, who’s commuting in every day - to his Starbucks,” said Robert C.
Chope, a professor of counseling at San Francisco State University and president of the employment division
of the American Counseling Association. “He gets dressed up, meets with colleagues, networks; he calls it his
Western White House. I have encouraged him to keep his routine.”
The fine art of keeping up appearances may seem shallow and deceitful, the very embodiment of denial. But
many psychologists beg to differ.
To the extent that it sustains good habits and reflects personal pride, they say, this kind of play-acting can be
an extremely effective social strategy, especially in uncertain times.
“If showing pride in these kinds of situations was always maladaptive, then why would people do it so often?”
said David DeSteno, a psychologist at Northeastern University in Boston. “But people do, of course, and we
are finding that pride is centrally important not just for surviving physical danger but for thriving in difficult
social circumstances, in ways that are not at all obvious.”
For most of its existence, the field of psychology ignored pride as a fundamental social emotion. It was
thought to be too marginal, too individually variable, compared with basic visceral expressions of fear, disgust,
sadness or joy. Moreover, it can mean different things in different cultures.

But recent research by Jessica L. Tracy of the University of British Columbia and Richard W. Robins of the
University of California, Davis, has shown that the expressions associated with pride in Western society -
most commonly a slight smile and head tilt, with hands on the hips or raised high - are nearly identical across
cultures. Children first experience pride about age 2 ½, studies suggest, and recognize it by age 4.
It’s not a simple matter of imitation, either. In a 2008 study, Dr. Tracy and David Matsumoto, a psychologist
at San Francisco State, analyzed spontaneous responses to winning or losing a judo match during the 2004
Olympic and Paralympic games. They found that expressions of pride after a victory were similar for athletes
from 37 nations, including for 53 blind competitors, many of them blind from birth. “It’s a self-conscious
emotion, reflecting how you feel about yourself, and it has this important social component,” Dr. Tracy said.
“It’s the strongest status signal we know of among the emotions; stronger than a happy expression, contentment,
anything.”
8. The passage mainly aims to:
(1) Defend pride in people. (2) Include pride as a positive sign.
(3) Bolster myths about pride. (4) Signal the onset of new challenges.
(5) Undermine the depression.
9. Why, according to the passage, has psychology ignored pride as a fundamental social emotion?
(1) Because it was culturally irrelevant. (2) Because it was too trivial and inconsistent.
(3) Because it not a basic threat. (4) Because it caused unhappiness.
(5) Because it caused differences in people.

10. The lines, “It’s not a simple matter of imitation, either” in the last paragraph connotes which of the
following?
(1) Pride is innate in children. (2) Pride has an unnatural onset.
(3) Pride is the fallout of the imagination. (4) Pride is only found in adults.
(5) Pride hampers growth in children.
11. The passage refers to the blind competitors to mainly highlight which of the following?
(1) The spontaneity of the reaction. (2) The strongest status signal in emotions.
(3) The universality of competitions. (4) The desire to succeed.
(5) The increase in blind competitors.
12. A suitable title for the passage will be:
(1) Pride before everything. (2) Pride hath a fall.
(3) Pride the new emotion. (4) When pride is all you have left.
(5) An about turn.
13. The word “maladaptive” in the passage means:
(1) Unable to adapt. (2) Failure to adapt to social conditions.
(3) Lack of adjustment. (4) Bad behaviour.
(5) Lack of regulation of performance.