Reading Comprehension-predictions

Reading Comprehension-Predicting the information

Ever wonder at your endless capacity to predict the information! You have the quality, the required vision and patience to guess the next thing in life and you would agree that we all guess. For instance, when you have a class you would think about the tutor, the content, the questions you would face in the class including the possible off-hand concern for pleasure sought in the back! Similarly, when you watch a suspense movie or read a thriller or roam in the city you would anticipate as to what comes next minute. Just the same, please rely on this natural skill to expect the information in the flow next. This would help you so much that you fall in love with what you do and begin appreciating your own skill. The joys you get on knowing that your expectations have come true should only be, ideally, felt and it would be inappropriate to describe them. However, as the time moves, it would be appropriate for you to read something and muse over the idea, information in queue.

While making guesses we all should be extra vigilant so as to never make a mistake or get on to a costly guess. It is not something like a wild, point-less and mere wish sort of a guess but a well calculated, scientifically arrived at and logically fitting type of guess. Rationalistic in object, purposeful in reading and realistic in imagination- you would be able to reach at a right conclusion. Please bear in mind that you are reading someone else's piece of written work and this fact must prevent you from "obsessive imagination". One would be an ardent devotee or at the best foolish dreamer to simply expect a beautiful oasis amidst a widely spreading desert.

Let's now see the various ways and means through which we could know the information ahead on the basis of what is presently available.

An understanding and a deeper analysis of the structure of the passage would also help us in evaluating the information present to forecast the information coming next.

Exercise-1

A recent study has provided clues to predator-prey dynamics in the late Pleistocene era. Researchers compared the number of tooth fractures in present-day carnivores with tooth-fractures in carnivores that lived, 36000 to 10,000 years ago and that were preserved in the Rancho la Brea tar pits in Los Angeles. The breakage frequencies in the extinct species were strikingly higher than those in the present-day species.

Now, guess what would be discussed in the next paragraph? Firstly, answer the following basic questions-

What has been the primary idea? 

 What are the main points?

Is there a comparison between Pleistocene carnivores in other areas and Pleistocene carnivores in the La Brea area?

Why did the writer talk about tooth fracture? What would be the finding of the researchers?

What are the possible causes for the high frequency of tooth breakage in carnivores found in La Brea area?

What would Researchers consider for the researcher or dismiss?

That would complete it. Now, you please write down the ideas you get(possible information in the coming paragraph after the first paragraph).

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Here is the complete text(second paragraph) for your understanding and self-evaluation:

In considering possible explanations for this finding, the researchers dismissed demographic bias because older individuals were not over represented in the fossil samples. They rejected preservational bias because a total absence of breakage in two extinct species demonstrated that the fractures were not the result of abrasion within the pits. They ruled out local bias because breakage data obtained from other Pleistocene sites were similar to the La Brea data. The explanation they consider most plausible is behavioural differences between extinct and present-day carnivores-in particular, more contact between the teeth of predators and the bones of prey due to more thorough consumption of carcasses by the extinct species. Such thorough carcass consumption implies to the researchers either that prey availability was low, at least seasonally, or that there was intense consumption over kills and a high rate of carcass theft due to relatively high predator densities. 

 You may check your level of accuracy and the points you missed or the wrong direction you missed. Such an analysis should promote accurate predictions next time.

Exercise-2:

Until recently, scientists did not know of a close vertebrate analogue to the extreme form of altruism observed in eusocial insects like ants and bees, whereby, individuals cooperate, sometimes even sacrificing their own opportunities to survival and reproduce, for the good of others. However, such a vertebrate society may exist among underground colonies of the highly social rodent Heterophalusglaber, the naked mole rat.

To predict the information that comes next, we first begin by asking ourselves a few questions. There are chances that such questions help one in improving the accuracy level of prediction.

Let's try some fundamental aspects of learning:

What is the basic idea in the paragraph?

What is the idea of the author when he say "such a vertebrate society may exist among underground colonies"?

Since there is a mention of "naked mole rat" in the first paragraph, will there be some additional information in the second paragraph?

Is there any uniqueness in the naked mole rat?    

Please make your notes here in the space:

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Here is the second paragraph. Please read it carefully and check your understanding.

A naked mole rat colony, like a beehive, wasp's nest, or termite mound, is ruled by its queen, or reproducing female. Other adult female mole rats neither ovulate nor breed. The queen is the largest member of the colony and she maintains her breeding status through a mixture of behavioural and, presumably, chemical control. Queens have been long-lived in capacity, and when they die or are removed from a colony one sees a violent fighting for breeding status among the larger remaining females, leading to a takeover by a new queen.   

Exercise-3

Instructions: Please read the passage carefully and then guess the content of the missing paragraph.

The emergence of the knowledge society, building on the pervasive influence of modern information and communication technologies, is bringing about a fundamental reshaping of the global economy. Its significance goes well beyond the hyping of the Internet. What is underway is a transformation of our economy and society.

Knowledge has always been a factor of production, and a driver of economic and social development. Earlier economies depended, for example, on knowledge about how to farm, how to build and how to manufacture. However, the capacity to manipulate, store and transmit large quantities of information cheaply has increased at a staggering rate over recent years.

The digitization of information and the associated pervasiveness of the Internet are facilitating a new intensity in the application of knowledge to economic activity, to the extent that it has become the predominant factor in the creation of wealth. As much as 70 to 80 percent of economic growth is now said to be due to new and better knowledge. Information and communication technologies (ICTs) are also facilitating a rapid globalization of economic activity.

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It is about making a product or offering a service that no one had thought of before. And it is about putting new ideas to work in enterprise and having a skilled work force that can use those new ideas. It is a further feature of the knowledge economy that it increasingly relies on the diffusion and use of information and knowledge, as well as its creation.

The success of enterprises, and of national economies, becomes increasingly dependent on the information infrastructure that is necessary for the gathering and utilization of knowledge. The importance of broadband telecommunications infrastructure in this context must be recognized as no less significant than the importance of electricity to 20th century industrial development.

Knowledge has become the key resource. Knowledge has value, but so too does knowledge about knowledge. Creating value is about creating new knowledge and capturing its value. The most important property is now intellectual property, not physical property. And it is the hearts and minds of people, rather than traditional labour that are essential to growth and prosperity. Workers at all levels in the 21st century knowledge society will need to be lifelong learners, adapting continuously to changed opportunities, work practices, business models and forms of economic and social organization.

Questions:

What did the author speak about in the initial lines?

What is the significance of the paragraph starting with the lines: "The digitization of information and the associated pervasiveness of the Internet are facilitating a new intensity in the application of knowledge to economic activity, to the extent that it has become the predominant factor in the creation of wealth."?

What is the importance of the lines in the paragraph starting with the words:" It is about making a product or offering a service that no one had thought of before. And it is about putting new ideas to work in enterprise and having a skilled work force that can use those new ideas."?

What would be the best title for the passage?

If title for the passage is "Knowledge society", will it be helpful in guessing the content of the passage?

Now, you can make some notes for your activity:

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Here is your missing paragraph from the long passage you have just finished!

In an increasingly global economy, where knowledge about how to excel competitively and information about who excels are both more readily available, the effective creation, use and dissemination of knowledge is increasingly the key to success, and thus to sustainable economic and social development that benefits us all. Innovation, which fuels new job creation and economic growth, is quickly becoming the key factor in global competitiveness. Innovation fundamentally means coming up with new ideas about how to do things better or faster.

You may check your answers, your analysis and predictions with the content of the paragraph given.

Exercise-4

Instructions: Please read the passage carefully and then guess the content of the missing paragraph.

Although Mischel’s hot-cool framework may explain our ability to delay gratification, another theory known as willpower depletion has emerged to explain what happens after we’ve resisted temptation after temptation. Every day, in one form or another, you exert willpower. You resist the urge to surf the Web instead of finishing your expense report. You reach for a salad when you’re craving a burger. You bite your tongue when you’d like to make a snide remark. Yet a growing body of research shows that resisting repeated temptations takes a mental toll.

Some experts liken willpower to a muscle that can get fatigued from overuse. Some of the earliest evidence of this effect came from the lab of Roy Baumeister. In one early study, he brought subjects into a room filled with the aroma of fresh-baked cookies. The table before them held a plate of the cookies and a bowl of radishes. Some subjects were asked to sample the cookies, while others were asked to eat the radishes. Afterward, they were given 30 minutes to complete a difficult geometric puzzle. Baumeister and his colleagues found that people who ate radishes (and resisted the enticing cookies) gave up on the puzzle after about 8 minutes, while the lucky cookie-eaters persevered for nearly 19 minutes, on average. Drawing on willpower to resist the cookies, it seemed, drained the subjects’ self-control for subsequent situations. Since that work was published in 1998, numerous studies have built a case for willpower depletion, or ego depletion, as some experts call it. In one example, volunteers who were asked to suppress their feelings as they viewed an emotional movie gave up sooner on a test of physical stamina than did volunteers who watched the film and reacted normally. In another, people who actively suppressed certain thoughts were less able to stifle their laughter in a follow-up test designed to make them giggle.

Unfortunately, depleting events are all too common. If you’ve ever willed yourself to be diplomatic with an infuriating colleague or forced a smile through your in-laws’ extended visit, you’ve probably discovered that social interactions often demand self-control. Indeed, research shows that interacting with others and maintaining relationships can deplete willpower.

 In one demonstration of that effect, Kathleen Vohs, PhD, of the University of Minnesota, and her A growing body of research shows that resisting repeated temptations takes a mental toll. Some experts liken willpower to a muscle that can get fatigued from overuse. Is Willpower a Limited Resource? What You Need to Know about Willpower: The Psychological Science of Self-Control 6 colleagues found that people who were asked to convince a hostile audience that they were likable suffered more willpower depletion than people who were asked to act naturally before the audience. Dealing with a hostile audience (or your in-laws) may feel exhausting, but depletion is not simply a matter of being tired, as Vohs demonstrated. She subjected half of her study subjects to 24 hours of sleep deprivation before asking them to suppress their emotional reactions to a film clip. Then she tested the subjects’ self-control strength. To her surprise, she found that the subjects who’d been up all night were no more likely to become willpower-depleted than those who’d spent the night snug in their beds.

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Questions:

What is the central theme of the passage?

What is the significance of the first lines?

What is the importance of the lines:" To her surprise, she found that the subjects who’d been up all night were no more likely to become willpower-depleted than those who’d spent the night snug in their beds."

Do you think that since the previous paragraph is all about the experiments conducted the next paragraph will be about the results, consequences of the research?

Do you think it would be wiser to give titles to all the paragraphs? Please try –

Here is the space provided for your notes:

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Now, you have the missing paragraph here:

 So if depletion isn’t physical fatigue, what is it? Recent investigations have found a number of possible mechanisms for willpower depletion, including some at a biological level. Scientists at the University of Toronto found that people whose willpower was depleted by self-control tasks showed decreased activity in the anterior cingulate cortex, a brain region involved with cognition. When your willpower has been tested, your brain may actually function differently.

Exercise-5

In this exercise you will practice giving suitable titles to all the paragraphs and also provide a proper title for the entire passage.

Instructions: Please read the passage carefully and then guess the content of the missing paragraph.

 Title:----------------------------------------------------------------

Paragraph-1

Title:-------------------------------------

In all societies people differ from each other on the basis of their age, sex and personal characteristics. Human society is not homogeneous but heterogeneous. Apart from the natural differences, human beings are also differentiated according to socially approved criteria. So, socially differentiated men are treated as socially unequal from the point of view of enjoyment of social rewards like status, power, income etc. That may be called social inequality. The term social inequality simply refers to the existence of socially created inequalities.

Paragraph-2

Title:------------------                     

Social stratification is a particular form of social inequality. All societies arrange their members in terms of superiority, inferiority and equality. Stratification is a process of interaction or differentiation whereby some people come to rank higher than others. In one word, when individuals and groups are ranked, according to some commonly accepted basis of valuation in a hierarchy of status levels based upon the inequality of social positions, social stratification occurs. Social stratification means division of society into different strata or layers. It involves a hierarchy of social groups. Members of a particular layer have a common identity. They have a similar life style.

Paragraph 3:

Title:-----------------------------------------

The Indian Caste system provides an example of stratification system. The society in which divisions of social classes exist is known as a stratified society. Modern stratification fundamentally differs from stratification of primitive societies. Social stratification involves two phenomena (i) differentiation of individuals or groups on the basis of possession of certain characteristics whereby some individuals or groups come to rank higher than others, (ii) the ranking of individuals according to some basis of evaluation. Sociologists are concerned not merely with the facts of social differences but also with their social evaluation.

Paragraph 4:

Title: Definitions

1. Ogburn and Nimkoff:

‘The process by which individuals and groups are ranked in more or less enduring hierarchy of status is known as stratification”

1. Lundberg:

“A stratified society is one marked by inequality, by differences among people that are evaluated by them as being “lower” and “higher”.

1. Gisbert:

“Social stratification is the division of society into permanent groups of categories linked with each other by the relationship of superiority and subordinations”.

1. Williams:

Social Stratification refers to “The ranking of individuals on a scale of superiority-inferiority-equality, according to some commonly accepted basis of valuation.

1. Raymond W. Murray:

Social stratification is horizontal division of society into “higher” and “lower” social units.”

1. Melvin M Tumin:

“Social stratification refers to “arrangement of any social group or society into hierarchy of positions that are unequal with regard to power, property, social evaluation and psychic gratification”.

Paragraph 5

Title:--------------------------------

Regarding the origin of stratification many views have been given. (i) According to Davis, social stratification has come into being due to the functional necessity of the social system. (ii) Professor Sorokin attributed social stratification mainly to inherited difference in environmental conditions. (iii) According to Karl Mrax, social factors are responsible for the emergence of different social strata, i.e. social stratification. (iv) Gumplowioz and other contended that the origin of social stratification is to be found in the conquest of one group by another. (v) According to Spengler, social stratification is founded upon scarcity which is created whenever society differentiates positive in terms of functions and powers. (vi) Racial differences accompanied by dissimilarity also leads to stratification.

Paragraph 6:

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Paragraph(concluding):

Title: What is social mobility and how it is different from social stratification?

Social mobility refers to the movement within the social structure, from one social position to another. It means a change in social status. All societies provide some opportunity for social mobility. But the societies differ from each other to extent in which individuals can move from one class or status level to another.

It is said that the greater the amount of social mobility, the more open the class structure. The concept of social mobility has fundamental importance in ascertaining the relative “openness” of a social structure. The nature, forms, direction and magnitude of social mobility depends on the nature and types of social stratification. Sociologists study social mobility in order to find out the relative ‘openness’ of a social structure.

Any group that improves its standard will also improve its social status. But the rate of social mobility is not uniform in all the countries. It differs from society to society from time to time. In India the rate of mobility is naturally low because of agriculture being the predominant occupation and the continuity of caste system as compared to the other countries of the world.

Answers:

Title for the Passage: Social stratification

Paragraph 1: What is social stratifications?

Paragraph 2: Meanings

Paragraph 3: Indian caste system

Paragraph 4: Definitions

Paragraph 5: Origin of stratification

Paragraph 6:

So, here is the missing paragraph and you are advised to check its contents.

Types of Social Stratification:

Social stratification is based upon a variety of principles. So we find different type of stratification. The major types of stratification are:(i) Caste(ii) Class (iii) Estate (iv) Slavery. It can be further explained that(i) Caste is a hereditary endogamous social group in which a person’s rank and its accompanying rights and obligations are ascribed on the basis of his birth into a particular group. For example-Brahmins, Kshyatryas, Vaishyas and Sudra Caste. (ii) Class-Stratification on the basis of class is dominant in modern society. In this, a person’s position depends to a very great extent upon achievement and his ability to use to advantage the inborn characteristics and wealth that he may possess. (iii) Estate system of medieval Europe provides another system of stratification which gave much emphasis to birth as well as to wealth and possessions. Each estate had a state. (iv) Slavery had economic basis. In slavery, every slave had his master to whom he was subjected. The master’s power over the slave was unlimited.

Teaser:

Do you want to suggest an alternative title for the concluding paragraph?

Answer:------------------------------------------

Paragraph(concluding):

Title: Social Stratification and Social Mobility:

 Thank you for doing these exercises, so sincere you are all !!!

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? Prepared by M V L Narasimham Naresh