XAT 2020 Question Paper | Verbal Ability and Logical Reasoning

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Comprehension: Read the passage below and answer the 3 associated questions:
The nature of knowledge cannot survive unchanged within this context of general transformation. It can fit into the new channels, and become operational, only if learning is translated into quantities of information. We can predict that anything in the constituted body of knowledge that is not translatable in this way will be abandoned and that the direction of new research will be dictated by the possibility of its eventual results being translatable into computer language. The “producers” and users of knowledge must know, and will have to, possess the means of translating into these languages whatever they want to invent or learn. Research on translating machines is already well advanced. Along with the hegemony of computers comes a certain logic, and therefore a certain set of prescriptions determining which statements are accepted as “knowledge” statements. We may thus expect a thorough exteriorisation of knowledge with respect to the “knower,” at whatever point he or she may occupy in the knowledge process. The old principle that the acquisition of knowledge is indissociable from the training (Bildung) of minds, or even of individuals, is becoming obsolete and will become ever more so. The relationships of the suppliers and users of knowledge to the knowledge they supply and use is now tending, and will increasingly tend, to assume the form already taken by the relationship of commodity producers and consumers to the commodities they produce and consume – that is, the form of value. Knowledge is and will be produced in order to be sold, it is and will be consumed in order to be valorised in a new production: in both cases, the goal is exchange. Knowledge ceases to be an end in itself, it loses its “use-value.”

Question 24 : Which of the following statements BEST captures the essence of the passage?

1. Knowledge shall no longer be evaluated by its truth but its commercial value.
2. Translation of knowledge into machine language exteriorises it.
3. Market forces have taken over the process of knowledge production.
4. Suppliers and users of knowledge have become its producers and consumers.
5. Knowledge shall be exclusively produced to be sold.

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Explanatory Answer

A. Knowledge shall no longer be evaluated by its truth but its commercial value. – The passage talks about knowledge and how much transformation it is undergoing and will undergo. The other statements in the passage are just additional supportive arguments to that notion. The final statement of the passage sums this up. Option, A, thus, becomes the right answer choice.
B. Translation of knowledge into machine language exteriorises it. – This is just a statement mentioned in the passage, and is not the essence of it. Hence, this option can be eliminated.
C. Market forces have taken over the process of knowledge production. – There is no mention of “market forces” anywhere, and the passage only talks about producers and consumers in the general sense. Hence, this cannot be the right option.
D. Suppliers and users of knowledge have become its producers and consumers. – This, again, is an anecdote from the passage, and does not essentially sum up the essence of the passage. Hence, this option can be eliminated as well.
E. Knowledge shall be exclusively produced to be sold. – There is no “exclusivity” mentioned in the passage, but only a mention that knowledge would be evaluated by its commercial value. Hence, this option can be eliminated.

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The question is "Which of the following statements BEST captures the essence of the passage?"

Hence, the answer is Knowledge shall no longer be evaluated by its truth but its commercial value.

Choice A is the correct answer.

 

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