AR 1

READING PASSAGE – 1

You are advised to spend about 20 minutes on questions 1 – 15, which are
based on Reading Passage 1.

EVOLUTION OF SURREALIST MOVEMENT

A. EM Forster was highly disgusted to observe the decline of human

values during the days of World War I. Being a pacifist he believed that
violence even in self defence is unjust under any conditions. He refused to
fight in the First World War as the war had brought untold miseries to people.
Andre Breton was a French writer and the founder of Surrealism and he
believed that the cultural sensibility of Europe was at crossroads. It was felt
that the most talented people were killed in the War and all discoveries and
innovations made before War proved counterproductive. Andrew Breton was
an established neurologist in Nantes where he came under the influence of
Jacques Vache, whose anti social attitude for conventional artistic tradition
inspired Breton. Breton in 1919 founded the Bureau of Surrealist Research in
collaboration with Tristan Tzara. He also published the “Surrealist Manifesto”
in 1924 and soon a group of artists such as Rene Crevel, Benjamin Peret and
Antonin Artaud started following him. Under his direction, Surrealism soon
became a European movement as he challenged the origin of human
understanding of things and events.
B. Surrealists regarded themselves as revolutionaries. All the
manifestoes, reviews, the paintings; writings highlight ideological development
of Surrealism. Andre Breton was categorical in his assertion that Surrealism
was a revolutionary movement. He began a series of articles in “La Revolution
Surrealist” propagating “automatic art” tradition. He joined the Dada activists
who believed that excessive rational thought and bourgeois values had
brought the terrifying conflict upon the world. His passionate effort was to
bring about a societal change as the society had fallen in a rut. As Eliot aptly

1
said “we are an alley where dead men lost their bones”. The Surrealists
refused to agree with the Dada philosophy and openly flouted all categories
and labels and advocated “intuition and imagination” following Hegelian
dialectical perspective. French artists, Louis Aragon, Jean Cocteau and Paul
Eluard produced accounts of dreams with a view to explore the unconscious.
C. Freud was an Austrian neurologist and his psychoanalytical theories
had a great impact on art, literature, philosophy and criticism. He propounded
theories of the unconscious mind, mechanism of repression and value of
dreams to comprehend the mystery of unconscious desires. Freud’s research
concentrated on association, dream analysis and the hidden conscious. This
information was vital to the Surrealists in developing techniques to liberate
imagination. Freud’s early work with psychoanalysis can be linked to Joseph
Breuer. A young girl of 21 came to Breuer having symptoms of “Female
Hysteria”. She had symptoms of paralysis of the limbs, split personality and
amnesia. Breuer investigated that her symptoms were associated with her
father’s illness and death. Freud followed Dr. Joseph Breuer and concentrated
on neurophysiology and made a hall mark discovery of “cell staining
technique”. He did not literally invent the idea of the conscious verses
unconscious mind, but he became an international celebrity for making it
popular. The conscious mind is awareness of a sensation at any particular
moment, your present perceptions, memories, thoughts, fantasies; Freud
called it “preconscious”. The largest part of the unconscious included all those
things that are uneasily available to awareness such as drives or instincts,
memories and emotions associated with trauma. According to Freud, the
source of our motivations is the unconscious whether they are simple desire
for food or sex, neurotic compulsion or the motives of an artist. Freudian
psychological reality starts with the world full of objects, the organism which
acts to survive and reproduce. At birth, the nervous system is motivated by Id,
the primary process. This primary process, Id works in keeping with the
pleasure principle, as the organism grows; The Id assumes the form of ego
which struggles to keep the Id happy.
D. All these Freudian theories greatly influenced the Surrealists. Freud
believed that the value of art lay in its therapeutic use. Through art, both the
artist and the public can disclose hidden conflicts and release tensions.

2
Fantasies, and day dreams as they enter into art, are transformed from an
escape from life into ways of meeting it. In the Surrealist movement, the
unconscious is used as a source of material in painting and poetry. The
Surrealists passionately struggled to revolutionize human experience
including its personal, cultural, social and political aspects, by freeing people
from false rationality, restrictive customs, oppressive and dogmatic ideas.
Breton observed thus: “the true aim of Surrealism is long live the social
revolution and id alone!” The Bureau of Surrealist Research was set up by
Breton in Paris where the writers and artists gathered to meet, discuss and
conduct interviews with the goal of investigating speech under trance. Rene
Magritte’s works were the product of disclosures of the mystery of the visible
world. His paintings conceal nothing; they don’t mean anything since mystery
means nothing in life. Painting had always seemed vaguely magical to him.
There is a strange juxtaposition of usual and unusual objects in his paintings.
Max Ernest invented frottage, a technique using pencil rubbings of objects.
E. The Surrealist movement encouraged new techniques and automatic
drawing came into existence. Breton doubted that visual arts could be useful
since they appeared less malleable; the new discoveries such as frottage and
decalcomania were experimented. The Surrealist artists, poets and painters
utilize numerous unique techniques and games to provide inspiration.
Automatic poetry was experimented by W.B Yeats and his wife; they evolved
other techniques such as collage, coulage cubomania, decalcomania and
dream resume. Aurelien Daughet in 1972 invented echo poem technique. The
most romantic and revolutionary was “entopic graph mania” technique
invented by Dolfi Trost. In its methods of drawing, dots are made at the sites
of impurities in a blank paper sheet and lines are made between the dots. In
1933 Surrealism entered a phase of world wide expansion. Breton and Dali
were popular from Japan to New York. Dali’s painting “The enigma of William
Telli” was created under Freudian influence, as he achieved a fusion of the
fanciful and the real paranoiac critical method.”

3
Directions: Reading Passage 1 has 5 paragraphs (A – E). Which paragraph
focuses on information below? Write the appropriate letter (A – E).

NB. Write only one letter for each answer.

How the Surrealists experimented with new techniques in arts and literature?

1.

Directions: Reading Passage 1 has 5 paragraphs (A – E). Which paragraph

focuses on information below? Write the appropriate letter (A – E).

NB. Write only one letter for each answer.

World War I proved to be a catalyst in the development of Surrealism.

1.

Directions: Reading Passage 1 has 5 paragraphs (A – E). Which paragraph

focuses on information below? Write the appropriate letter (A – E).

NB. Write only one letter for each answer.

How the Surrealists followed the Hegelian dialectical perspective?

1.

4
Directions: Reading Passage 1 has 5 paragraphs (A – E). Which paragraph
focuses on information below? Write the appropriate letter (A – E).

NB. Write only one letter for each answer.

Freudian analysis was used by the Surrealists to develop methods for

liberating imagination.

1.

Directions: Reading Passage 1 has 5 paragraphs (A – E). Which paragraph

focuses on information below? Write the appropriate letter (A – E).

NB. Write only one letter for each answer.

The Surrealist Movement sought to liberate humanity from dogma and

oppressive rationality.

1.

Directions: Choose the appropriate letter A - D.

According to the writer, the Surrealist movement was the product of

1. new ideological development of World War I era

2. the cultural decadence and instability of Europe

5
3. the new bourgeois culture of the West

4. the Freudian psychoanalytical theories of neurosis

Directions: Choose the appropriate letter A – D.

Freud has been credited with the invention of

1. anti romantic and anti intellectual stance

2. psychoanalytical theories

3. comprehensive view of life and art

4. cell staining technique

Directions: Choose the appropriate letter A – D.

According to the writer, Freudian theories

1. led to the growth of mysterious and fantastic art

2. resulted in the liberation of the imagination of the artists

3. led to the evolution of abstract and absurd art

4. greatly inspired the Surrealists.

Directions: Choose the appropriate letter A – D.

According to the writer, the surrealism is a style in which

6
1. a psycho analytical technique is followed in order to paint reality.

2. visual art is made comprehensible through images and symbols.

3. fantastic visual imagery from the subconscious mind is used.

4. there is a fusion of the imaginative and the neurotic images to convey

reality

Directions: Choose the appropriate letter A – D.

According to the author, the Surrealist art deals with

1. anxiety neurosis

2. sex repressions

3. entropy of self

4. innovative techniques

Directions: Answer the following question with appropriate information from

the passage.

Yes if the statement agrees with the information in the passage

No if the statement contradicts the information in the passage

Not Given if the statement states no information in the passage

The aftermath of World War I resulted into the evolution of Surrealism.

7
Directions: Answer the following question with appropriate information from
the passage.

Yes if the statement agrees with the information in the passage

No if the statement contradicts the information in the passage

Not Given if the statement states no information in the passage

The Surrealists sought inspiration from the Dada artists

1.

Directions: Answer the following question with appropriate information from

the passage.

Yes if the statement agrees with the information in the passage

No if the statement contradicts the information in the passage

Not Given if the statement states no information in the passage

The Surrealists were German painters who wanted to bring societal change
through art.

1.

Directions: Answer the following question with appropriate information from

the passage.

Yes if the statement agrees with the information in the passage

No if the statement contradicts the information in the passage

8
Not Given if the statement states no information in the passage

The experiments of Joseph Breuer inspired Freud.

1.

Directions: Answer the following question with appropriate information from

the passage.

Yes if the statement agrees with the information in the passage

No if the statement contradicts the information in the passage

Not Given if the statement states no information in the passage

The decline of the Surrealist movement was due to complex techniques of art.

1.

READING PASSAGE – 2

You are advised to spend about 20 minutes on questions 16 – 30, which are
based on Reading Passage 2.

THE FIRST HUMAN

A. Anthropologists all over the world are engaged today to find the
“missing links” between the humans and apes and a mad race to hunt fossils
in order to track down the real existence of the first Adam has started. The
quest for the earliest human ancestors is a challenging scientific pursuit to
know how the “first human” lived millions of years ago. Modern researchers
are seeking the help of molecular science to establish the veracity of

9
evidence taken from the fossils of humans and apes. In 1992, 17 specimens
of Hominid fossils were discovered
from Ethiopia, the “Ardipithecus ramidus” being the prominent, and a new
interpretation of early fossil history emerged. The discoverers endured the
heat and dust of the Sahara desert in their determination to find the First
Human of this Universe. Tim White and Gen Suwa estimated the age of
“ramidus” fossil at 4.4 millions years. It has many primitive ape-like features
such as the small brain size, small canine teeth. Tom Gray and Donald
Johnson discovered “Lucy” fossil that is 3.2 million years old. It is a fossil of a
young female of about 25 years of age. About 40% of her skeleton was found
and her pelvis, femur and tibia show her to have been bipedal. Le Clark
performed a morphological study of her teeth and jaws, since these formed
most of the fossil evidence and came to the conclusion that “Lucy fossil” was
human like and not ape like.
B. In November 2000, Martin Pickford and Brigitte Senut of France made
a remarkable discovery and unearthed “Orrorin fossil” from the Tugen hills of
Kenya. Martin and Brigitte had been studying fossils for the last 30 years; they
claimed that the bones were of a hominid - an early ancestor of humankind.
The bones were not of apelike creatures; Orrorin was a bipedal creature, and
CT scans of the femur bone reveal a pattern of bone intensity that could be
the result of an upright walking posture. This important fossil was 6 million
year old. “Tutavel Hunter” fossil was discovered by a team of French
discoverers. The fossil consists of a fairly complete face, with 5 molar teeth
and a part of the braincase. The skull contains a mixture of features from
archaic Homo sapiens and Homo erectus. Tutavel Hunter” was a prehistoric
hunter 450000 years ago. This First Adam lived in caves; survived on hunting,
selected rocks to make his tools. This Paleolithic hunter used sandstone slabs
for choppers, scrappers and the materials were available in his habitat.
C. Ann Gibbons introduces the various maverick fossil hunters such as
Brunet and Leakey who endured extreme heat, blowing sand and other
hazards of fieldwork in Africa. The million dollar question is why did Raymond
Dart and Robert Boom go to Africa in search of early hominid fossils? Why did
they not go to Australia, Siberia or other parts of the world? It is an
established fact that humans are most closely related to the great apes that

10
are indigenous to Africa, as confirmed by DNA investigations of fossils.
Perhaps they evolved from a closer species that no longer exists. Charles
Darwin had stated this long before any hominid fossils were discovered.
Darwin observed thus:
“It is probable that Africa was formerly inhabited by extinct apes closely allied
to the gorilla and chimpanzee and these two species are now man’s nearest
allies; it is somewhat more probable that our early progenitors lived on the
African Continent than elsewhere”. Most scientists agree that modern humans
first evolved in Africa and later colonized the globe. Some anthropologists
believe that a wave of migration from Africa started about 50,000 years ago
with modern humans moving from North Africa into the Middle East, then
moving in to Asia and Europe and Australia. They crossed the Red Sea,
journeyed along the Arabian Peninsula to India, Malaysia and Australia. The
mitochondrial DNA investigations have proved that Nicobarese, Onge,
Anamneses, African tribes reveal the same genetic ancestry and it is
concluded that these tribes descend from “the early migrants out of Africa”.
D. Vincent Macaulay of the University of Glasgow in Scotland conducted
his research on the basis of ecological and archaeological evidence and
contended that “modern humans left Africa via a southern migration route“.
They had to master ocean travel; life was pretty hard for them, but crossing
the Red Sea would not have been impossible and they had successfully
crossed the sea on a raft. They used boats to cover a distance of 12000 km to
reach Australia.
The archaeologists observe that the prehistoric hunters from Spain and
France sailed to North America as the glaciers started receding around 17000
years ago. These migrants were hunting marine animals such as seals,
walrus and tuna and they miraculously crossed the Atlantic on boats after
years of perseverance, hardships, and trials and tribulations. Radioactive
carbon dating and microscopic analysis of ancient hair prove that humans
crossed a land bridge from Asia to the Americas and these settlers were
called the Clovis people.
E. The earliest tools found in Asia are attributed to Homo erectus, a
species of African origin. Its body, hard and sturdy, had long limbs, a brain
that was capable of hunting and suited to life in prehistoric Asian terrain. Early

11
humans lived in China about 1.66 million years ago; they used stone tools or
bones of deer to butcher them for food. Neanderthal human utilized language
and tools, played musical instruments, danced and sang, walked, ran and
jumped; he had the potential to play music. The first evidence is a piece of
small bone from a deer with holes looking like a flute discovered in the
Neander valley of Germany in 1856. Even Darwin had observed “our
ancestors endeavoured to charm each other with musical notes and rhythm”.
Scientists observe that it was music that helped hominids to find a mate,
soothe a child and cheer a companion in inhospitable habitat. Thus, the fossil
investigations reveal that the immediate ancestors of early humans were living
in East Africa and they have been identified as Homo rudolfensis, a Homo
erectus. It is believed that the early humans had about 35% larger brains than
those of the great apes. People, but not apes, have a gene that stops the
production of N-glycolylneuramine acid. Modern day scientists of the
University of California have used “Molecular Clock Analysis” to determine the
evolutionary process of the growth of genetic mutation of human beings that
led to their growth and modernism.

Directions: Choose the appropriate letter A – D.

According to the author, early humans of Asia

1. were ape-like, living in forests of Africa.

2. were seal hunters of prehistoric times.

3. lived in caves in the Stone Age

4. went to Americas by land

Directions: Choose the appropriate letter A – D.

The first ‘modern humans’ were

12
1. gorillas and Chimpanzees of Australia

2. Africans who crossed the Red Sea

3. seal hunters of Europe who crossed the Atlantic

4. Clovis people who lived in primitive caves.

Directions: Choose the appropriate letter A – D.

Orrorin fossil proved that the Orrorin was

1. ape like

2. Homo erectus

3. a bipedal creature

4. a Paleolithic hunter

Directions: Choose the appropriate letter A – D.

Neanderthal humans

1. loved hunting and caved life

2. used stone tools for hunting

3. adapted to inhospitable environment

4. played music, walked and jumped

13
Directions: Complete the summary below from Reading Passage 2. Choose
your answers from the given Word List below.

NB: There are many words than spaces, so you will not be able to use them
all. You may use any word or phrase more than once.

Anthropologists, throughout the world, are engaged in __(20)__ the missing

links between humans and apes in a race of fossil hunting to know the
earliest time when the first Adam __(21)__. 'Ardipithecus ramidus' is the most
prominent among the 17 specimens of Hominid fossils __(22)__in 1992. The
CT scan of Orrorin femur bones reveal that the pattern of their bones was
quite __(23)__ ; possibly their walking posture was __(24)__. The DNA
investigations of fossils __(25)__ that humans are quite __(26)__ to apes that
are the indigenous inhabitants of Africa. Chimpanzee and gorillas, perhaps
the former inhabited apes of Africa have become __(27)__ .

1.

Directions: Complete the sentences below. Use No More Than Three

Words from the passage for each answer. Write your answers in boxes 28 –
30 on your answer sheet.

The earliest tools found in Asia were built by________.

1.

14
Directions: Complete the sentences below. Use No More Than Three
Words from the passage for each answer. Write your answers in boxes 28 –
30 on your answer sheet.

The fossils found in Asia had the characteristics _______the Asian terrain.

1.

Directions: Complete the sentences below. Use No More Than Three

Words from the passage for each answer. Write your answers in boxes 28 –
30 on your answer sheet.

The Neanderthal humans had the _________ to play music.

1.

READING PASSAGE – 3

You are advised to spend about 20 minutes on questions 31 – 40, which are
based on Reading Passage 3.

ROUSSEAU AND FRENCH REVOLUTION

A. The French revolution of 1789 was a prominent event in Western

civilization and its pervasive impact in the growth of culture, philosophy,
individualism and nationalism was unprecedented. Ironically all the ideals of
liberty, equality and fraternity propagated by Rousseau tumbled down with the
outbreak of Reign of Terror. Rousseau was a prolific theorist of the
Enlightenment, his works inspired the young people of his age as he declared
that “man is born free but he is still in chains”. This fired the imagination of

15
William Wordsworth who wholeheartedly supported the French Revolution.
The ideals of French Revolution encouraged the Romantics to dethrone
Classicism of Dryden, Pope, and Dr. Johnson, who had insisted on order,
elegance, and harmony. In 1755, Rousseau published, “Discourse on the
Origin of Inequality.” He claimed that original man, while solitary was happy,
good and free. The Social Contract of 1762 suggested how man might
recover his freedom in future. Rousseau hated urbanization and civilization
and gave the slogan “Back to Nature” which Wordsworth followed and wrote
“nature poetry” articulating his mysticism. The publication of Rousseau’s
works caused uproar among French Catholics. They were deeply offended
and publicly burnt the books and ordered the arrest of Rousseau. He became
paranoid and insecure, lived in exile in Prussia and England, came in contact
with David Hume, and grew into an undisciplined and unconventional thinker.
B. Few thinkers of the world have equalled Rousseau’s influence in
politics, literature and philosophy. Darwin’s theory of “natural selection”
metamorphosed the 19th century thoughts and philosophy. Similarly
Rousseau’s ideas proved to be powerful weapons. He was a moralist rather
than a metaphysician, a political theorist, an innovator and an original thinker.
He assumed that man is by nature good but the society in which he lives has
corrupted his sensibility. The fall of humanity was a social occurrence. His
quest is for freedom, not an unlicensed freedom but perfect submission of the
individual to the “General Will”. Rousseau gave a new definition of freedom in
the 19th century. Freedom is obedience to a self imposed law of reason. The
main purpose of civil law and government is to bring about the rule and
supremacy of the General Will. He argued that sovereignty should be in the
hands of people but he was bitterly opposed to the idea that the people
should exercise sovereignty via a representative assembly. He was the first
thinker who attacked private property and is considered a precursor of
modern socialism and communism of Engels and Marx.
C. Historical thinkers aver that the French Revolution of 1789 was a
failed revolution as all the basic ideals for which the people fought were
flouted, the revolution spun out of control and began to murder itself. First the
Royalists were beheaded, next the Girondists. The era of violence and
bloodshed started. It is horrifying to observe that in just 47 days, a large

16
number of people were guillotined. Madam Jeanne Roland’s last words before
her death on the guillotine were, “O liberty! How they have played with you”.
From Lafayette to Robespierre, no one could control the “death dance” and
the people of France had to witness barbarity. “Every man was against
everyman in a restless desire for power that ceased only in death”. King Louis
XVI was beheaded and paraded in the streets of Paris by the Revolutionary
Tribunal. Wordsworth was shocked to see the domestic carnage” and
excesses of the Reign of Terror and wrote thus;
“Friends, enemies of all parties, ages’ ranks/heads after head and never
heads enough/for those that bade them fall”
D. If the French revolution resulted into the end of monarchy and
aristocratic privilege, it also led to the evolution of modern totalitarianism and
Nazism. Rousseau’s faith in the Sovereign to force men to be free in the
interests of the General Will led to dictatorships as he distrusted democratic
institutions. No wonder, his legacy was Robespierre and the radicals who
fathered the Reign of Terror in France. He supported the supremacy of the
Sovereign to have full control over individuals to protect and grant liberty. In
the centuries that followed, the Sovereign became a dictator and men such as
Hitler and Mussolini justified the despotic powers of the Sovereign. When we
read the social contract theory of Rousseau, we do not find the cool breeze of
democracy of Athens bellowing in his pages. The rule of the General Will was
the rule of the autocratic collectivist society and the concept of modern
totalitarianism emanated from Rousseau’s concept of the General Will. So
Rousseau was not a champion of liberty but a precursor of nightmarish
totalitarianism, Nazism and Fascism. Napoleon’s rise to power was
charismatic and he observed thus; “If there had been no Rousseau, there
would have been no Revolution and without the Revolution I should have
been impossible”. Stalin and Hitler and Mussolini could also say the same in
expressing their debt to the concept of the” Sovereign” of Rousseau and its
metaphysical identification with the people.
E. Indeed the French revolution was the source of all dictatorships.
Robespierre cannot be the guiding source of inspiration to the posterities. He
considered the presence of the king as a threat to the growth of revolution.
His forceful ideas led to the assassination of Louis XIV and Robespierre

17
became the dominant force on the committee of Public Safety. It was his
belief that the terror was necessary, laudable and inevitable. His sin was to be
absolutely honest to the revolution; he was an idealist, a true believer and an
honest politician, but the modern historians condemn the idealistic philosophy
of Robespierre who was responsible for the reign of blood shed. The true
descendants of Robespierre believed in wholesale violence, the chopping of
people’s heads, for freedom was indeed anachronistic.

Directions: Complete the sentence by choosing a phrase (A – K) from the

given list.

NB: There are more phrases (A – K) than sentences, so you will not need to
use them all. You may use each phrase once only.

The French revolution of 1789 was a prominent political event in Western

Europe which brought about–

1.

Wordsworth supported the ideas of the French revolution and wrote–

18
1.

Rousseau met David Hume in England and turned into a

1.

Rousseau reinterpreted freedom as obedience–

1.

Rousseau attacked private property and became a–

1.

Rousseau was not a believer of liberty–

1.

Directions: Answer the following question with appropriate information from

the passage.

Yes if the statement agrees with the information in the passage

No if the statement contradicts the information in the passage

19
NG if the statement states no information in the passage

The greatest precursor of the French Revolution was Rousseau’s meeting

with David Hume in England.

1.

Directions: Answer the following question with appropriate information from

the passage.

Yes if the statement agrees with the information in the passage

No if the statement contradicts the information in the passage

NG if the statement states no information in the passage

William Wordsworth was disgusted with the reign of bloodshed in France.

1.

Directions: Answer the following question with appropriate information from

the passage.

Yes if the statement agrees with the information in the passage

No if the statement contradicts the information in the passage

NG if the statement states no information in the passage

Rousseau's General Will led to modern individualism.

1.

20
Directions: Answer the following question with appropriate information from
the passage.

Yes if the statement agrees with the information in the passage

No if the statement contradicts the information in the passage

NG if the statement states no information in the passage

French Revolution led to the evolution of democratic societies.

1.

21