Test - GRE-Reading Comprehension

Select one answer choice from the given options.

1

In the world of literary criticism, there are few things worse than the mealymouthed mixed review. You know the kind: careful and fair, studded with caveats, animated by a vague air of disappointment. The eye stumbles on irritating qualifiers: "nonetheless," "to be fair," "still." The reader finishes the piece dissatisfied and confused. This kind of review pleases no one: not the editor, who wants a provocative piece; not the author, who wants nothing but praise; and certainly not the reader, who wants the critic to be decisive above all.

Critical uncertainty is irritating because it suggests that the critic has failed to do her job. The work of literary criticism, as it's commonly understood, is to render a firm judgment: the critic gathers up a text's contradictions and resolves them into a coherent account of the work's failure or success. She is decisive, knowledgeable, authoritative. The critic masters a text—one could even say dominates it—and the author, who usually has no recourse once a review has been published, must submit to the critic's will.

The passage is primarily concerned with

tracing how an author views the criticism rendered to his book by a critic

explaining how a positive literary criticism can help an author's career

differentiating between what readers and critics think about a literary work

contrasting the approaches taken by readers and critics towards a literary work

presenting the kind of literary criticism the readers expect to read

Select one answer choice from the given options.

2

In the world of literary criticism, there are few things worse than the mealymouthed mixed review. You know the kind: careful and fair, studded with caveats, animated by a vague air of disappointment. The eye stumbles on irritating qualifiers: "nonetheless," "to be fair," "still." The reader finishes the piece dissatisfied and confused. This kind of review pleases no one: not the editor, who wants a provocative piece; not the author, who wants nothing but praise; and certainly not the reader, who wants the critic to be decisive above all.

Critical uncertainty is irritating because it suggests that the critic has failed to do her job. The work of literary criticism, as it's commonly understood, is to render a firm judgment: the critic gathers up a text's contradictions and resolves them into a coherent account of the work's failure or success. She is decisive, knowledgeable, authoritative. The critic masters a text—one could even say dominates it—and the author, who usually has no recourse once a review has been published, must submit to the critic's will.

In the context in which it appears, "mealymouthed" most nearly means

edifying

roundabout

sophisticated

painstaking

retrospective

Select one answer choice from the given options.

3

In the world of literary criticism, there are few things worse than the mealymouthed mixed review. You know the kind: careful and fair, studded with caveats, animated by a vague air of disappointment. The eye stumbles on irritating qualifiers: "nonetheless," "to be fair," "still." The reader finishes the piece dissatisfied and confused. This kind of review pleases no one: not the editor, who wants a provocative piece; not the author, who wants nothing but praise; and certainly not the reader, who wants the critic to be decisive above all.

Critical uncertainty is irritating because it suggests that the critic has failed to do her job. The work of literary criticism, as it's commonly understood, is to render a firm judgment: the critic gathers up a text's contradictions and resolves them into a coherent account of the work's failure or success. She is decisive, knowledgeable, authoritative. The critic masters a text—one could even say dominates it—and the author, who usually has no recourse once a review has been published, must submit to the critic's will.

It can be inferred from the passage that "critical uncertainty" refers to the

approach taken by the readers while analyzing a literary work, depending on whether the work is carefully written or not

practice utilized by critics in order to make their work of literary criticism more convincing to the readers

convention followed by critics while writing literary reviews and the way readers can identify them efficiently

practice among literary critics of reviewing a literary work in equivocal terms without showing decisiveness

assumption made by literary critics that the work of a literary criticism is to provide a firm judgement

Select one answer choice from the given options.

4

In the world of literary criticism, there are few things worse than the mealymouthed mixed review. You know the kind: careful and fair, studded with caveats, animated by a vague air of disappointment. The eye stumbles on irritating qualifiers: "nonetheless," "to be fair," "still." The reader finishes the piece dissatisfied and confused. This kind of review pleases no one: not the editor, who wants a provocative piece; not the author, who wants nothing but praise; and certainly not the reader, who wants the critic to be decisive above all.

Critical uncertainty is irritating because it suggests that the critic has failed to do her job. The work of literary criticism, as it's commonly understood, is to render a firm judgment: the critic gathers up a text's contradictions and resolves them into a coherent account of the work's failure or success. She is decisive, knowledgeable, authoritative. The critic masters a text—one could even say dominates it—and the author, who usually has no recourse once a review has been published, must submit to the critic's will.

The passage mentions which of the following as objectives of a work of literary criticism?

Provide a decisive judgement on the value of literary work

Praise the author in unqualified terms rather than provide a negative review

Evaluate a literary text on its relative merits and demerits in certain terms

Select one answer choice from the given options.

5

Enunciated by Jung as an integral part of his psychology in 1916 immediately after his unsettling confrontation with the unconscious, the transcendent function was seen by Jung as uniting the opposites, transforming psyche, and central to the individuation process. It also undoubtedly reflects his personal experience in coming to terms with the unconscious. Jung portrayed the transcendent function as operating through symbol and fantasy and mediating between the opposites of consciousness and the unconscious to prompt the emergence of a new, third posture that transcends the two. In exploring the details of the transcendent function and its connection to other Jungian constructs, this work has unearthed significant changes, ambiguities, and inconsistencies in Jung's writings. Further, it has identified two separate images of the transcendent function: (1) the narrow transcendent function, the function or process within Jung's pantheon of psychic structures, generally seen as the uniting of the opposites of consciousness and the unconscious from which a new attitude emerges; and (2) the expansive transcendent function, the root metaphor for psyche or being psychological that subsumes Jung's pantheon and that apprehends the most fundamental psychic activity of interacting with the unknown or other. This book has also posited that the expansive transcendent function, as the root metaphor for exchanges between conscious and the unconscious, is the wellspring from whence flows other key Jungian structures such as the archetypes and the Self, and is the core of the individuation process. The expansive transcendent function has been explored further by surveying other schools of psychology, with both depth and non-depth orientations, and evaluating the transcendent function alongside structures or processes in those other schools which play similar mediatory and/or transitional roles.

It can be definitely inferred from the passage that

the expansive transcendent function would include elements of both the consciousness and the unconscious

archetypes emerge from the narrow transcendent function

the whole work, from which this excerpt is taken, primarily concerns itself with the consistencies in Jung's writings

the transcendent is the core of the individuation process

Jung's pantheon of concepts subsumes the root metaphor of psyche

Select one answer choice from the given options.

6

Enunciated by Jung as an integral part of his psychology in 1916 immediately after his unsettling confrontation with the unconscious, the transcendent function was seen by Jung as uniting the opposites, transforming psyche, and central to the individuation process. It also undoubtedly reflects his personal experience in coming to terms with the unconscious. Jung portrayed the transcendent function as operating through symbol and fantasy and mediating between the opposites of consciousness and the unconscious to prompt the emergence of a new, third posture that transcends the two. In exploring the details of the transcendent function and its connection to other Jungian constructs, this work has unearthed significant changes, ambiguities, and inconsistencies in Jung's writings. Further, it has identified two separate images of the transcendent function: (1) the narrow transcendent function, the function or process within Jung's pantheon of psychic structures, generally seen as the uniting of the opposites of consciousness and the unconscious from which a new attitude emerges; and (2) the expansive transcendent function, the root metaphor for psyche or being psychological that subsumes Jung's pantheon and that apprehends the most fundamental psychic activity of interacting with the unknown or other. This book has also posited that the expansive transcendent function, as the root metaphor for exchanges between conscious and the unconscious, is the wellspring from whence flows other key Jungian structures such as the archetypes and the Self, and is the core of the individuation process. The expansive transcendent function has been explored further by surveying other schools of psychology, with both depth and non-depth orientations, and evaluating the transcendent function alongside structures or processes in those other schools which play similar mediatory and/or transitional roles.

As per the passage, the key Jungian structure—other than the Self—that emerges from the expansive transcendent function may NOT be expressed as a(n):

Stereotype

Anomaly

Idealized model

Original pattern

Epitome

Select one answer choice from the given options.

7

Economics seems destined for a somewhat ambiguous and problematic place in the spectrum of knowledge. There is no need to sing lamentations about this ambiguity. Instead, we can see that it speaks to the effervescent life of economics as a set of discourses. And this life may be most attributable to the 'undecidables' and 'aporia' that can be said to characterize modern economics' ambiguity, the fact that pure scientificity always seems out of reach as the ostensible achievement of the discipline. Now, of course, in some versions of this perceived ambiguity, the point is to clean up economics by removing the vestiges of fanciful theories and ideological frenzies that are seen to still remain. Still other versions have it that as long as economics remains a 'human' science, it will forever be impossible to accurately model economic behavior since humans, it is said, confound models in their resort to just plain inexplicable or indefensible actions, at times. And there are others who, in fact, speak to what they consider the pure blasphemy in economists' trying to model human behavior at all, seeing such desire for mechanistic control in economic models as a violation of the basic freedom of human beings and of the fundamental dignity and meaning of human life.

According to the author, which of the following takes economic theory towards undecidables and away from scientificity?

It is nothing but a set of discourses abstracted from reality.

It is based on opinions and ideologies, rather than on a set of principles.

It is modeled on essentially unpredictable and often irrational human behavior.

Number	Status	Marked
1	Not answered
2	Not answered
3	Not answered
4	Not answered
5	Not answered
6	Not answered
7	Not answered

GRE-Reading Comprehension - 13