Re: Perceiving, for all its nicety of functioning in the dark room under
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01 May 2020, 16:18
Answers are in bold.
1 The closest meaning of the word “autistic” in the context of the passage is
a) Rational
b) Selfish
c) Limited
d) Irrelevant
e) Focussed
Explanation of question 1
Who do we call an autistic person, one who has autism. So clearly we are talking about a disability here. A lot of you might take offence to that and say a better usage of the word is "special needs". Agreed, but I am trying to solve this question, so unfortunately had to use this. Bear with me for a moment. So the word DISABILITY has a negative connotation to it. We are not done yet, we look at this the line in which the passage autistic is mentioned - "All of which is not to say that perception is always wishful or “autistic.”" The underlined portion indicates that the previous paragraph does not mean that perception is always wishful or autistic. The previous paragraph is mentioning the what the current study deals with and also mentions the axioms related to it. Now let us look into the choices -
We can eliminate A & E because they are positive words, and we discussed that cannot be right.
B absolutely does not make sense. Perception is selfish does not make whole lot of sense.
D - Let us assume this is the answer. Now the sentence will stand like this - it is not to say that perception is always wishful or IRRELEVANT. I mean this has to go yin-yang. And irrelevant is not going as an opposite to wishful.
C - This just about fits.
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2 The primary purpose of the author is to show that
a) Ultimately the mechanism of perception involves a complex set of processes which are not fully understood.
b) The most important factor in the mechanism of perception is essentially the stimulus as it influences the constructive -defense mechanism.
c) It is important to understand the directive factors in the perceiving process as they influence the process of perception.
d) Incongruity has been given very less attention in experiments and needs to be thoroughly researched.
e) There are many factors in perception which we take for granted and hence our axioms are suspect.
Explanation of question 2
This is a tough passage, and needs at least two reads to get a grip of what the author intends to convey. But before we look at the choices, let us do a quick memory jog of what was stated in the passage in the simplest way possible. The passage is about "perception" as evident from the very first word of the passage! The author says that it consists of a lot of complex processes and it depends on a) the stimulus, and b) expectancy of the organism to receive the stimulus. Then the author describes why he is not happy about the current study. So two choices come close to being the answer
A - The passage states that - "Perceiving, <modifier>, comprises a highly complex series of little understood psychological processes." So yes we do talk about this point definitely. But this is not the main purpose of the passage. As we discussed earlier, author not only says perception is complex, he also makes an effort to understand what affects it, the axioms involved, and why it is flawed.
C - This option addresses the main purpose of the passage.
I will also quickly go through the other choices, just to let you know that you could reach to A and C just by doing POE.
B - MOST is too extreme
D - level of attention given to incongruity is not discussed.
E - axioms are something which are taken for granted. The factors are NOT taken for granted.
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3 Which of the following statements cannot be inferred from the passage?
A. The theories of perception are confusing and this can be largely attributed to the complacency among the students of perception.
B. Theories of perception need a serious review as the old theories were based on the assumption of an indifferent organism.
C. Incongruities would not be perceived if an organism decided to give up in face of non-confirmation of expectations.
a) Only A
b) A and B
c) B and C
d) A and C
e) A, B and C
Explanation of question 3
A - no this definitely cannot be inferred. Problem with this statement is this portion - "complacency among the students of perception". The students have just refrained from large scale statement of principle, but this is no way means they were complacent.
B - INDIFFERENT organism I think means organism which is indifferent to stimulus? If that is the case, then we cannot infer this information simply because firstly perceiving depends on stimulation. And stimuli do not act upon indifferent organism. Therefore, we cannot infer that old theories were based on indifferent organisms.
C - Very clever choice and might fall in the trap if you do not know the meaning of incongruity. Incongruity means incompatibility. Let is now write in simple words what the last paragraph means. The last para tells us incongruity is a problem for theory of perception. But I do not think that incongruities would not be perceived at all.