XAT 2020 Question Paper | Verbal Ability and Logical Reasoning

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Read the passage below and answer the 3 associated questions:

Once, during a concert of cathedral organ music, as I sat getting gooseflesh amid that tsunami of sound, I was struck with a thought: for a medieval peasant, this must have been the loudest human-made sound they ever experienced, awe-inspiring in now-unimaginable ways. No wonder they signed up for the religion being proffered. And now we are constantly pummeled with sounds that dwarf quaint organs. Once, hunter-gatherers might chance upon honey from a beehive and thus briefly satisfy a hardwired food craving. And now we have hundreds of carefully designed commercial foods that supply a burst of sensation unmatched by some lowly natural food. Once, we had lives that, amid considerable privation, also offered numerous subtle, hard-won pleasures. And now we have drugs that cause spasms of pleasure and dopamine release a thousandfold higher than anything stimulated in our old drug-free world.

An emptiness comes from this combination of over-the-top nonnatural sources of reward and the inevitability of habituation; this is because unnaturally strong explosions of synthetic experience and sensation and pleasure evoke unnaturally strong degrees of habituation. This has two consequences. First, soon we barely notice the fleeting whispers of pleasure caused by leaves in autumn, or by the lingering glance of the right person, or by the promise of reward following a difficult, worthy task. And the other consequence is that we eventually habituate to even those artificial deluges of intensity. If we were designed by engineers, as we consumed more, we’d desire less. But our frequent human tragedy is that the more we consume, the hungrier we get. More and faster and stronger. What was an unexpected pleasure yesterday is what we feel entitled to today, and what won’t be enough tomorrow.

Question 7 : Going by the author, which of the following options BEST answers the question “how can one sustain the pleasure derived from any experience?"

1. Periodic displeasure with synthetic experiences leads to sustaining pleasure
2. Awareness of a habituation moment helps sustain pleasure
3. The closer the experience is to nature, the more sustainable it is
4. Training to appreciate sweet whispers and fleeting moments of joy to sustain pleasure
5. The harder to replicate, the more sustainable the pleasure from that experience

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Explanatory Answer

A. Periodic displeasure with synthetic experiences leads to sustaining pleasure – The passage does not mention anywhere about periodic displeasure. So this is incorrect.
B. Awareness of a habituation moment helps sustain pleasure- The passages does not talk about being aware of habituation moment to sustain pleasure. So this too is incorrect.
C. The closer the experience is to nature, the more sustainable it is –The mentioning of consuming honey against commercially produced foods is pleasurable, may trick us into choosing this option. But this is not true. The author believes that more we consume something, less pleasurable it feels to us and it being natural or not is immaterial. So this option is not correct.
D. Training to appreciate sweet whispers and fleeting moments of joy to sustain pleasure – The author only mentions that people are no longer enjoying the joy in simple things. He doesn’t imply that we must train to appreciate it. This is incorrect.
E. The harder to replicate, the more sustainable the pleasure from that experience - The author clearly implies this through the music and honey example where they were pleasurable when not replicable artificially. This is the right choice.

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The question is "Going by the author, which of the following options BEST answers the question “how can one sustain the pleasure derived from any experience?""

Hence, the answer is The harder to replicate, the more sustainable the pleasure from that experience

Choice E is the correct answer.

 

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