FACE, BODY AND SPEECH IN INTERACTION
Everyday interaction depends on subtle relationships between what we convey with our faces and bodies and what we express in words. We use the facial expressions and bodily gestures of other people to fill in what they communicate verbally, and to check how far they are sincere in what they say. Mostly without realizing it, each of us keeps a tight and continuous control over facial expression, bodily posture, and movement in the course of our daily interaction with others.

Sometimes, however, we make verbal slips that, as Freud's example of the "murderers" indicates, briefly reveal what we wish to keep concealed, consciously or unconsciously. Many verbal slips inadvertently display our true feelings.

Face, bodily management, and speech, then, are used to convey certain meanings and to hide others. We also organize our activities in the contexts of social life to achieve the same ends, as we shall now see.

Encounters

In many social situations, we engage in what Goffman calls unfocused interaction with others. Unfocused interaction takes place whenever individuals exhibit mutual awareness of one another's presence. This is usually the case anywhere large numbers of people are assembled together, as on a busy street, in a theater crowd, or at a party. When people are in the presence of others, even if they do not directly talk to them, they continually communicate nonverbally through their posture and facial and physical gestures.

Focused interaction occurs when individuals directly attend to what others say or do. Except when someone is standing alone, say at a party, all interaction involves both focused and unfocused exchanges. Goffman calls an instance of focused interaction an encounter, and much of our day-to­day life consists of encounters with other people-family, friends, workmates-frequently occurring against the background of unfocused interaction with others present on the scene. Small talk, seminar discussions, games, and routine face-to-face contacts (with ticket derks, waiters, shop assistants, and so forth) are all examples of encounters.

Encounters always need tlopenings," which indicate that civil inattention is being discarded. When strangers meet and begin to talk at a party, the moment of ceasing civil inattention is always risky, since misunderstandings can easily occur about the nature of the encounter being established. Hence, the making of eye contact may first be ambiguous and tentative. A person can then act as though he had made no direct move if the overture is not accepted. In focused interaction, person communicates as much by facial expression and gesture as by the words actually exchanged. Goffman distinguishes between the expressions individualstlgivetl and those they tlgive off." The first are the words and facial expressions people use to produce certain impressions on others. The second are the clues that others may spot to check their sincerity or truthfulness. For instance, a restaurant owner listens with a polite smile to the statements ofcustomers about how much they enjoyed their meals. At the same time, he is noting how pleased they seemed to be while eating the food, whether a lot was left over, and the tone of voice they use to express their satisfaction.

Markers

Most of us meet and talk to a variety of people in the course of an average day. Catherine, for example, gets up, breakfasts with her family, and perhaps accompanies her children to school, stopping briefly to exchange pleasantries with a friend at the school gates. She drives to work, probably listening to the radio. During the course of the day, she enters into interchanges with colleagues and visitors, ranging from transitory conversations to formal meetings. Each of these encounters is likely to be separated by markers, or what Goffman calls brackets, which distinguish each episode of focused interaction from the one before and from unfocused interaction taking place in the background.

At a party, for example, people talking together will tend to position themselves and control their voice levels so as to create a "huddle," separate from others. They may stand facing one another, effectively making it difficult for others to intrude until they decide to break up, or until they soften theedges oftheirfocused interaction bymovingtodifferentpositions intheroom. Onmoreformal occasions, recognized devices are often used to signal the opening and ending of a particular encounter. To signal the opening of a play, for instance, the lights go down and the curtain is raised. At the end of the performance, the auditorium lights are turned on again and the curtain falls.

Markers are particularly important either when an encount.er is especially out of the ordinary or when there might be ambigUity about what is going on. For example, when a model poses naked in front of an art class, he does not usually undress or dress in the presence of the group. Undressing and dressing in private allows the body to be suddenly exposed and hidden. This both marks the boundaries of the episode and conveys that it is devoid of the sexual meanings that otherwise might be conveyed.

In very confined spaces, such as elevators, it is difficult to mark off an area of focused interaction. Nor is it e(3sy for other people present to indicate, as they will do in other situations, that they are not listening to whatever conversation is carried on. It is also difficult for strangers not to be seen looking at others more directly than the norms of civil inattention allow. Thus, in elevators, people often adopt an exaggerated "not listening" and "not looking" pose, staring into space or at the panel of buttons-anywhere but at their fellow passengers. Conversation is usually suspended or confined to brief exchanges. Similarly, if several people are talking to one another in an office and one is interrupted to take a phone call, the others cannot readily show complete inattention, and they may carry on a sort of hesitant, limp conversation on their own.


Impression Management

Goffman and other writers on social interaction often use notions from the theater in analyzing social interaction. The concept of social role, for example, originated in a theatrical setting. Roles are socially defined expectations that a person in a given status (or/social position) follows. To be a teacher is to hold a specific position; the teacher"s role consists of acting in specified ways toward his/her pupils. Goffman sees social life as though played out by actors on a stage-or on many stages, because how we act depends on the roles we are playing at a particular time. People are s.ensitive to how they are seen by others, and use many forms of impression management to compel others to react to them in the ways they wish. Although we may sometimes do this in a calculated way, usually it is among the things we do without conscious attention. When Philip attends a business meeting, he wears a suit and tie and is on his best behavior; that evening, when relaxing with friends at a football game, he wears jean and sweatshirt and tells a lot of jokes. This is impression management.

As we just noted above, the social roles that we adopt are highly dependent on our social status. A person's social status can be different depending on social context. For instance, as a "student" you have a certain status and are expected to act a certain way when you are around your professors. As a "son" or "daughter" you have a different status from a student, and society (especially your parents) has different expectations for you. Likewise, as a "friend" you have an entirely different position in the social order and the roles you adopt would change accordingly. Obviously, a person has many statuses at the same time. Sociologists refer to the group of statuses that you occupy as a status set.

Sociologists also like to distingUish between ascribed status and achieved status. An ascribed status is one that you are "assigned" based on biological factors such as race, sex, or age. Thus your ascribed statuses could be "white'" "female," and "teenager.II An achieved status is one that is earned through an individual's own effort. Your achieved statuses could be "high-school graduate," "athlete," or lIemployee." While we may like to believe that it is our achieved statuses that are most important, society may not agree. In any society, some statuses have priority over all other statuses and generally determine a person's overall position in society. Sociologists refer to this as a master status. The most common master statuses are those based on gender and race. Sociologists have shown that in an encounter, one of the first things that people notice about one another is gender and race. As we shall see shortly, both race and gender strongly shape our social interactions.

Front and Back Regions

Much of social life, Goffman suggested, can be divided into front regions and back regions. Front regions are social occasions or encounters in which individuals act out formal roles; they are "onstage performances." Teamwork is often involved in creating front-region performances. Two prominent politicians in the same party may put on an elaborate show of unity and friendship before the television cameras, even though each cordially detests the other. A wife and husband may take care to conceal their quarrels from their children, preserving a front of harmony, only to fight bitterly once the children are safely tucked up in bed.

The back regions are where people assemble the props and prepare themselves for interaction in the more formal settings. Back regions resemble the backstage of a theater or the off-camera activities of filming. When they are safely behind the scenes, people can relax and give vent to feelings and styles of behavior they keep in check when on front stage. Back regions permit "profanity, open sexual remarks, elaborate griping ... rough informal dress, "sloppy" sitting and standing posture, 'use of dialect or substandard speech, mumbling and shouting, playful aggressiveness and "kidding," inconsiderateness for the other in minor but potentially symbolic acts, minor self-involvement such as humming, whistling, chewing, nibbling, belching and ,flatulence.

Thus, a waitress may be the soul of quiet courtesy when serving a customer but become loud and aggressive once behind the swing doors of the kitchen. There are probably few restaurants customers would patronize if they could see all that goes on in the kitchen.

Adopting Roles: Intimate Examinations

For an example of collaboration in impression management that also borrows from the theater, let's look at one particular study in some detail. James Henslin and Mae Biggs studied a specific, highly delicate type of encounter: a woman's visit to a gynecologist. At the time of the study, most pelvic examinations were carried out by male doctors, and hence the experience was (and sometimes is) fraught with potential ambiguities and embarrassment for both parties. Men and women in the West are socialized to think of the genitals as the most private part of the body, and seeing, and particularly feeling, the genitals of another person is ordinarily associated with intimate sexual encounters. Some women feel so worried by the prospect of a pelvic examination that they refuse to visit the doctor, male or female, even when they suspect there is a strong medical reason to do so.

Henslin and Biggs analyzed material collected by Biggs, a trained nurse, from a large number of gynecological examinations. They interpreted what they found as having several typical stages. Adopting a dramaturgical metaphor, they suggested that each phase can be treated as a distinct scene, in which the parts the actors play alter as the episode unfolds. In the prologue, the woman enters the waiting room preparing to assume the role of patient, temporarily discarding her outside identity. Called into the consulting room, she adopts the "patient" role, and the first scene opens. The doctor assumes a businesslike, professional manner and treats the patient as a proper and competent person, maintaining eye contact and listening politely to what she has to say. If he decides an examination is called for, he tells her so and leaves the room; scene one is over.

As he leaves, the nurse comes in. She is an important stagehand in the main scene shortly to begin. She soothes any worries that the patient might have, acting as both a confidante-knowing some of the "things women have to put up with"-and a collaborator in what is to follow. Crucially, the nurse helps alter the patient from a person to a "nonperson" for the vital scene-which features a body, ·part of which is to be scrutinized, rather than a complete human being. In Henslin and Biggs's study, the nurse not only supervises the patient's undressing, but takes over aspects that normally the patient would control. Thus, she takes the patient's clothes and folds them. Most women wish their underwear to be out of sight when the doctor returns, and the nurse makes sure that this is so. She guides the patient to the examining table and covers most of her body with a sheet before the physician returns.

The central scene now opens, with nurse as well as doctor taking part. The presence of the nurse helps ensure that the interaction between doctor and patient is free of sexual overtones, and also ,provides a legal witness should the physician be charged with unprofessional conduct. The examination proceeds as though the personality of the patient were absent; the sheet across her separates the genital area from the rest of her body, and her position does not allow her to watch the examination itself. Save for any specific medical queries, the doctor ignores her, sitting on a low stool, out of her line of vision. The patient collaborates in becoming a temporary nonperson, not initiating conversation and keeping any movements to a minimum.

In the interval between this and the final scene, the nurse again plays the role of stagehand, helping the patient to become a full person once more. At this juncture, the two may again engage in conversation, the patient expressing relief that the examination is over. Having dressed and regroomed herself, the patient is ready to face the concluding scene. The doctor reenters and, in discussing the results of the examination, again treats the patient as a complete and responsible person. Resuming his polite, professional manner, he conveys that his reactions to her are in no way altered by the intimate contact with her body. The epilogue is played out when she leaves the physician's office, taking up again her identity in the outside world. Patient and doctor have thus collaborated in such a way as to manage the interaction and the impression each participant forms of the other.

Personal Space

There are cultural differences in the definition of personal space. In Western culture, people usually maintain a distance of at least three feet when engaged in focused interaction with others; when standing side by side, they may stand more closely together. In the Middle East, people often stand closer to one another than is thought acceptable in the West. Westerners visiting that part of the world are likely to find themselves disconcerted by this unexpected physical proximity.

Edward T. Hall, who has worked extensively on nonverbal communication, distinguishes four zones of personal space. Intimate distance, of up to one and a half feet, is reserved for very few social contacts. Only those involved in relationships in which regular touching is permitted, such as lovers or parents and children, operate within this zone of private space.

Personal distance (from one and a half to four feet) is the normal spacing for encounters with friends and close acquaintances. Some intimacy of contact is permitted,. but this tends to be strictly limited. Social distance, from four to twelve feet, is the zone usually maintained in formal settings such as interviews. The fourth zone is that of public distance, beyond twelve feet, preserved by those who are performing to an audience.

In ordinary interaction, the most fraught zones are those of intimate and personal distance. If these zones are invaded, people try to recapture their space. We may stare at the intruder as if to say, "Move away!" or elbow him aside. When people are forced into proximity closer than they deem desirable, they might create a kind of physical boundary: a reader at a crowded library desk might physically demarcate a private space by stacking books around its edges.

Answer the following questions from the above passage:

1. Everyday interaction between people

A. is not a matter of sociological inquiry

B. depends on facial expression alone

C. involves facial expressions, body language and speech

D. involves speech and medical intervention

2. Concealed true feelings are revealed through

A. bodily postures

B. facial expressions

C. verbal slips

D. subtle relationships

3. Focused interaction is an instance of

A. an 'Encounter'

B. a 'Meeting'

C. a

D. a

4. Unfocussed interaction

A. is always between two people having coffee on the street

B. happens in public places with many people

C. happens when people don't want to communicate with others

D. cannot happen with people

5. All social encounters start with

A. a 'Beginning'

B. an 'Opening'

C. an 'Initialising'

D. none of the above

6. An example of civil inattention is

A. a restaurant owner accepting compliments about the food from her/his guests

B. not making eye contact with others

C. a close encounter with a friend

D. cannot be seen in facial expression

7. Individuals in several social encounters discern one focused interaction from another by using certain

A. parenthesis

B. hyphenations

C. brackets

D. punctuations

8. Expressions we and 'give-off happen in

A. unfocused interaction

B. focused interaction

C. encounter before opening

D. all of the above

9. Markers

A. are brackets which can separate one focused interaction from another

B. have little place in focused interaction

C. always happen in cramped rooms

D. come in all shapes and colours

10. Lack of markers leads to

A. the end of focused interaction

B. the beginning of focused interaction

C. continuation of focused interaction

D. ambiguity among actors/participants

11. .social interaction between people

A. is possible with the help of a film director

B. is an exercise of impression management

C. cannot be staged

D. depends on their mathematical abilities

12. According to the author, in the given passage social roles are dependent on

A. income

B. prestige

C. social status

D. family

13. Two key aspects that people see in an encounter according to the author are

A. income and prestige

B. gender and race

C. family and kinship

D. all of the above

14. Sociologists refer to a status set

A. as role playing

B. a group of statuses that a person has

C. encounters

D. impressions made by others

15. An ascribed status

A. is not the same as the achieved one

B. is the achieved one

C. is both achieved and biological

D. can never be based on biological characteristics

16. Queen Elizabeth is an example of

A. achieved status

B. master status

C. ascrtbed status

D. status consistency

17. Individuals are involved in Impression management to

A. prove they care about others in society

B. to prove their social status

C. compel others to react to them in ways they wish

D. to become social beings

18."Front regions' and 'Back regions' in social life are similar to

A. film screenings

B. book readings

C. hostel life

D. theatre performances

19. A married couple's quarrel in the bedroom after their children sleep is an example of behaviour in

A. the 'back region'

B. the 'front region'

C. the performance stage

D. the master status

20. Back Region is where there are

A. actors preparing for a drama

B. people prepare for interaction

C. people store their props

D. all of the above

21. Team work involves

A. on stage performance

B. front region behaviour

C. lots of practice sessions

D. all of the above

22. A gynecological examination is less embarrassing for a woman when

A. she collaborates as a nonperson

B. it like scenes on stage for a drama

C. a nurse acts as a confidant/stage hand and is present at the time of examination

D. all of the above

23. The presence of afemale nurse and a male gynecologist

A. makes a female patient more comfortable

B. allows for sexual harassment

C. makes the maie patient more comfortable

D. is not required in a medical encounter

24. Cultural definitions of personal space are

A. same across the world

B. differ across countries and societies

C. have not much relevance

D. none of the above

25. Physical distance between people

A. is the same in all cultures

B. has a relation to their social relationships

C. is not personal space

D. is always one foot and depends on age

26. A physical boundary is created to demarcate social barriers

A. in 'front regions'

B. in 'back regions'

C. in all regions

D. in western cultures

27. Exaggerated pose is found in

A. theatre performances

B. classrooms

C. cramped spaces

D. phone calls

28. Usually if a person's intimate and personal distance is invaded in an encounter, he/she tries to

A. violently react

B. be silent

C. recapture the personal space

D. move away

29. Verbal slips

A. are made by Freud

B. often reveal those that we intend to keep to ourselves

C. are the same as bad postures

D. cannot ever be shown in facial expressions

30. An 'Opening' is not possible unless

A. encounter takes place

B. civil inattention ceases

C. both the individuals are sincere

D. eye contact takes place

31. Pointing to an old lady Sabitha said, 'Her son is my son's uncle'. How is the old lady related to Sabitha

A. Mother

B. Daughter

C. Grand Mother

D. Sister

32. Raju's rank is 19th in a class of 40 students. What is his rank from the last

A. 19th

B. 20th

C. 21st

D. 22nd

33. If Z denotes Y denotes X denotes -then 13Y26X22Z 324

A.90

B.80

C.9

D.8

34. 4,64,36,512,100,

A.1756

B. 1728

C. 1748

D. 1712

35. A man is climbing a hill at a speed of 60 metres an hour but after every 60 meters he slips, down to 40 meters. How many hours it will take him to reach a height of 1200 meters?

A. 120

B. 20

C. 60

D. None of the above

36. Which of the following is equivalent to 125/75


A. 5/3

B. 5/25

C. 25/5

D. 3/5


37. 1/5th percent of 520 is

A. 0.l04

B. l0.4

C. 1.04

D. 104

38. In an election the votes polled for three candidates were 1237, 9658 and 7356. What percentage of the total votes did the winning candidate get?

A. 41.8

B. 51.2

C. 42.9

D.52.9

39. The total of the ages of Sekhar, Anwar, Anthony is 60 years. What was the total of their ages three years ago?

A. 51 years

B. 52 years

C. 54 years

D. 57 years

40. A man has Rs. 640 in the denominations of one-rupee notes, five-rupee notes and ten­rupee notes. The number of notes of each denomination is equal. What is the total number of notes that he has?

A. 130

B. 150

C. 120

D. 125

41. What is the product of all the numbers in the dial of a telephone?

A.1,62,320

B.1,75,640

C.l,25,718

D. None of these

42. In a garden, there are 8 rows and 10 columns of Coconut trees. The distance between the two trees is 3 metres and a distance of one metre is left from all sides of the boundary of the garden. The length of the garden is

A. 29

B. 27

C. 25

D. 24

43. A tailor had a number of shirt pieces to cut from a roll of fabric. He cut each roll of equal length into 6 pieces. He cut at the rate of 25 cuts a minute. How many rolls would be cut in 20 minutes?


A. 80

B. 90

C. 100

D. ll0

44. If you write down all the numbers from 1 to 100, then how many times do you write

A. 11

B. 18

C. 20

D. 21

45. Kanaka cuts a cake into two halves and cuts one half into smaller pieces of equal size. Each of small pieces is thirty grams in weight. If she has eight pieces of the cake in all with her, how heavy was the original cake?

A. 420gm

B. 220 gm

C. 320 gm

D. 480gm

46. Sana got twice as many sums wrong as she got right. If Sana attempted 57 sums in all, how many did she solve correctly?


A. 18

B. 19

C. 28.5

D. 29.5

47. There are elephants and rabbits in a zoo. By counting heads they are 60. The number of their legs is 180. How many rabbits are there?

A. 20

B. 30

C. 50

D. 60

48. Find the odd one out

A. Whale

B. Dolphin

C. Seal

D. Octopus

49. Fruits in a garden double after every minute. If the garden is full in 60 minutes how many minutes back the garden was half-filled?

A. 30

B. 1

C. 20

D. 15

50. In a certain code GALIB is represented by HBMJC. TIGER will be represented by

A.UJHFS

B. UHJSF

C. JHUSF

D. HUJSF

51. In a certain cricket tournament 45 matches were played. Each team played once against each of the other teams. The number of teams participated in the tournament is

A. 8

B. 10

C. 12

D. 14

52.<img src='./qimages/2-56A.jpg'>

Which of the following represents the relationship between the above correctly?

A. <img src='./qimages/2-56A.jpg'>

B. <img src='./qimages/2-56A.jpg'>

C. <img src='./qimages/2-56A.jpg'>

D. <img src='./qimages/2-56A.jpg'>

53. The missing number in the series 40, 120, 60, 180, 90, I 130, 390 is

A. 110

B. 270

C. 105

D. 210

54. If the statement 'some men are honest' is false, which among the following statements will be true. Choose the correct code given below:

A. All men are honest.

B. No men are honest.

C. Some men are not honest.

D. All men are dishonest.

55. P,is the father of RandS is the son of Q and T is the brother of P. If R is the sister of how is Q related to T7

A. Wife

B. Sister-in-law

C. Brother-in-law

D. Daughter-in-law

The world is what it is; men who are nothing, who allow themselves to become nothing, have no place in it.
Africa was my home, had been the home of my family for centuries. But we came from the east coast, and that made the difference. The coast was not truly African. It was an Arab-Indian-Persian­Portuguese place, and we who lived there were really people of the Indian Ocean. True Africa was at our back We looked east to the lands with which we traded -Arabia, India, Persia. These were also the lands of our ancestors. But we could no longer say that we were Arabians or Indians or Persians; when we compared ourselves with these people, we felt like people of Africa.
My family was Muslim. But we were a special group. We were distinct from the Arabs and other Muslims of the coast; in our customs and attitudes we were closer to the Hindus of north-western India, from which we had originally come. When we had come no one could tell me. We were not that kind of people. We simply lived; we did what was expected of us, what we had seen the previous generation do. We never asked why; we never recorded. We felt in our bones that we were a very old people; but we seemed to have no means of gauging thoe passing of time. Neither my father nor my grandfather could put dates to their stories. Not because they had forgotten or were confused; the past was simply the past.

17


I hearing from my grandfather that he had once shipped a boatful of slaves as a cargo of rubber. He couldn't tell me when he had done this. It was just there in his memory, floating around, without date or other association, as an unusual event in an uneventful life. He didn't tell me as a piece of wickedness or trickery or as a joke; he just told it as something unusual he had done -not shipping the slaves, but describing them as rubber. And without my own memory of the old man's story I suppose that would have been a piece of history lost forever.
Of that whole period of upheaval in Africa -the expulsion of the Arabs, the expansion of Europe, the parcelling out of the continent -that is the only family story I have. That was the sort of people we were. All that I know of our history and the history of the Indian Ocean I have got from books written by Europeans. If I say that our Arabs in their time were great adventurers and writers; that our sailors gave the Mediterranean the lateen sail that made the discovery of the Americas possible; that an Indian pilot led Vasco da Gama from East Africa to Calicut; that the very word cheque was first used by our Persian merchants; if I say these things it is because I got them from European books. They formed no part of our knowledge or pride. Without Europeans, I feel, all our
past would have been washed away.........

Once the Arabs had ruled here; then the Europeans had come; now the Europeans were about to go away. But little had changed in the manners or minds of men. The fishermen's boats on that beach were still painted with large"eyes on the bows for good luck; and the fishermen' could get very angry, even murderous, if some visitor tried to photograph them -tried to rob them of their souls. People lived as they had always done; there was no break between past and present. All that happened in the past was washed away; there was always only the present.
The slavery of the east coast was not like the slavery of the west coast. No one was shipped off to plantations. Most of the people who left our coast went to Arabian homes as domestic servants. Some became members of the family they had joined; a few became powerful in their own right. To an African, a child of the forest who had marched down hundreds of miles from the interior and was far from his Village and tribe, the protection of a foreign family was preferable to being alone among strange and unfriendly Africans. This was one reason why the trade went on long after it had been outlawed by the European powers; and why, at the time when the Europeans were dealing in one kind of rubber, my grandfather could still occasionally deal in another. This was also the reason why a secret slavery continued on the coast until the other day. The slaves, or the people who might be considered slaves, wanted to remain as they were.
Once, great explorers and warriors, the Arabs had ruled. They had pushed far into the interior and had built towns and planted orchards in the forest. Then their power had been broken by Europe. Their towns and orchards disappeared, swallowed up in bush. They ceased to be driven on by their idea of their position in the world, and their energy was they forgot who they were and where they had come from. They knew only that they were Muslims; and in the Muslim way they needed wives and more wives. But they were cut off from their roots in Arabia and could only find their wives among the African women who had once been their slaves. Soon, therefore, the Arabs, or the people who called themselves Arabs, had become indistinguishable from Africans. They barely
18



had an .idea of their original civilization. They had the Koran and its laws; they stuck to certain in dress, wore a certain kind of cap, had a special cut of beard; and that was all. They had little idea of what their ancestors had done in Africa. They had only the habit of authority, without the energy or the education to back up that authority. The authority of the Arabs -which was real enough when I was a boy -was only a matter of custom. It could be blown away at any time. The world is what it is.
I was worried for the Arabs. I was also worried for us. Because, so far as power went, there was no difference between the Arabs and ourselves. We were both small groups living under a European flag at the edge of the continent. In our family house when I was a child I never heard a discussion about our future or the future of the coast. The assumption seemed to be that things would continue, that marriages would continue to be arranged between approved parties, that trade and business would go on, that Africa would be for us as it had been.
I used to think of this feeling of insecurity as a weakness, a failing of my own temperament, and I would have been ashamed if anyone had found out about it. I kept my ideas about the future to myself, and that was easy enough in our house, where, as I have said, there was never anything like a political discussion. My family were not fools. My father and his brothers were traders, businessmen; in their own way they had to keep up with the times. They could assess situations; they took risks and sometimes they could be very bold. But they were buried so deep in their lives that they were not able to stand back and consider the nature of their lives. They did what they had to do. When things went wrong they had the consolations of religion. This wasn't just a readiness to accept Fate; this was a quiet and profound conviction about the vanity of all human endeavour.
I could never rise so high. My own pessimism, my insecurity, was a more terrestrial affair. I was without the religious sense of my family. The insecurity I felt was due to my lack of true religion, and was like the small change of the exalted pessimism of our faith, the pessimism that can drive men on to do wonders. It was the price for my more materialist attitude, my seeking to occupy the middle ground, between absorption in life and soaring above the cares of the earth.
If the insecurity I felt about our position on the coast was due to my temperament, then little occurred to calm me down. Events in this part of Africa began to move fast. To the north there was a bloody rebellion of an up-country tribe which the British seemed unable to put down; and there were explosions of disobedience and rage in other places as well. Even hypochondriacs sometimes have real illnesses, and I donlt think it was my nervousness alone that made me feel that the political system we had known was coming to an end, and that what was going to replace It wasn't going to be pleasant. I feared the lies -black men assuming the lies of white men.
If it was that gave us on the coast some idea of our history, it was Europe, I feel, that also introduced us to the lie. Those of us who had been in that part of Africa before the Europeans had never lied about ourselves. Not because we were moral. We didn't lie because we never assessed
.. ourselves and didn't think there was anything for us to lie about; we were people who simply did
what we did. But the Europeans could do one thing and say something quite different; and they could act in this way because they had an idea of what they owed to their civilization. It was their great advantage over us. The Europeans wanted gold and slaves, like everybody else; but at the same time they wanted statues put up to themselves as people who had done good things for the slaves. Being an intelligent and energetic people, and


at the peak of their powers, they could express both sides of their civilization; and they got both the slaves and the statues.
Because they could assess themselves, the Europeans were better equipped to cope with changes than we were. And I saw, when I compared the Europeans with ourselves, that we had ceased to count in Africa, that really we no longer had anything to offer. The Europeans were preparing to get out, or to fight, or to meet the Africans half-way. We continued to live as we had always done, blindly. Even at this late stage there was never anything like a political discussion in our house or in
the houses of families I knew. The subject was avoided. I found myself avoiding it.
Answer the following questions on the above passage:
56. What does the writer mean by saying "the world is what it is"
A. The strong will always assert themselves
B. Men who are nothing will remain so
C. Men have to become something to be in this world
D. All the above

57. How does the writer identify himself?
A. Primarily as African
B. African but historically Indian
C. Indian but Muslim
D. All the above

58. Who among the following built towns and planted orchards in the forest?
A. Arab-Indians
B. Arabs
C. Persians
-D. Africans


59. Why was the "coast not truly African" according to the writer?
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A. It was owned by Arabs only
B. It was owned by Arabs and Portuguese only
C. People of many nationalities were present there
D. None of the above

60. From what the writer says, coastal African culture can be said to be
A. Asian
B. Arabian
C. Polyglot
D. None of the above

61. Why does the writer feel that without Europeans all their past would have been washed away?
A. Without Europeans there is no past
B. Only Europeans have a past
C. Europeans recorded history
D. None of the above

62. What is the only family story the writer says he has:
A. The story told by his grandfather
B. The removal of the Arabs
C. The division of Africa
D. None of the above

63. How did the writer come to know of his people's history?
A. By listening to his grandfather
B. By reading books written by Europeans
C. From an Indian sailor who had led Vasco Da Gama to India
D. None of the above

64. The fishermen getting angry when someone tries to pnotograph them indicates:
A. That the fishermen are superstitious
B. That they do not like photographers
C. They would like to get paid first before being photographed
D. None of the above


65. What characterized slavery on the west coast?
A. Slaves were shipped off to plantations
B. No one was shipped off to plantations
C. Some slaves became eventually very powerful
D. None of the above

66. What was the writer feeling insecure about?
A. About not getting married
B. About the future of his people and the Arabs
C. About the past
D. None of the above

67. The writer's worry was in terms of:
A. The political condition becoming unfavourable for his people
B. The writer being sent away by his people
C. His people moving away from him
D. None of the above

68. The writer's people were not worried because:
A. They were too busy with everyday life
B. They did what they had to do
C. If things went wrong they found solace in religion
D. All the above

69. Temperamentally the writer was:
A. Insecure
B. Insecurity due to lack of religion
C. Of a more materialist attitude
D. All the above
70. The writer found his insecurities coming true due to:
A. Increasing shortage of marital partners
B.. Fast-changing political conditions

C. Political condition remaining static
D. All the above


71. The political condition was changing because of
A. A violent revolution in one country in Africa
B. Political protests in other places in Africa
C. Rising power of black people
D. All the above

72. The that the writer talks about is:
A. How the dominant powers justify their actions
B. How the dominant powers say one thing while doing another
C. Talking noble ideas but wanting more gold and slaves
D. All the above

73. The writer's fear is about:
A. A familiar political system coming to an end Powerful black men replacing powerful white men
C. Both the above
D. None of the above

74. According to the writer, the Europeans
A. Were preparing for the power struggle with the Africans
B. Were preparing to flee
C. Were preparing to be under the power of the blacks
D. None of the above

75. The writer's grievance against his people is that
A. They have no sense of history
B. They have no sense of politics
C. They had no sense of the future
D. All the above


PART-D [25 Marks]
CURRENT AFFAIRS

76. The Novel'Samskara' was authored by
A. U.R.Ananthamurthy
B. Javeed Akhtar
C. Nirmal Verma
D. M.T.Vasudevan Nair

77. 'Vishishtathvaita' is a philosophy developed by
A. Adi Shankara
B. Madhva
C. Sri Ramanujacharya
D. Ramakrishna Pramahamsa

78. Which one among the following industries is the maximum consumer of water in India?
A. Engineering
B. Paper and pulp
C. Textiles
D. Thermal power

79. Disguised unemployment generally means
A. large number of people remain unemploye.d
B. alternative employment is not available
C. marginal productivity of labour is zero
D. productivity of workers is low

80. According to the Constitution of India, which of the following provides foundations for the governance of the country?
A. Fundamental Rights
B. Fundamental Duties
C. Directive Principles of State Policy
D. Fundamental Rights and Fundamental Duties

81. The first Indian to become the President of UN General Assembly

A. V.K.Krishna Menon
B. T.N.Kaul
C. Dr.S.Radhakrishnan
D. Vijayalakshmi Pandit
82. 'Amnesty International' has its headquarters at
A. London
B. Geneva
C. New York
D. Bangkok
83. The words 'Satyameva Jayate' inscribed in our national emblem are taken from
A. Rig Veda
B. Bhagavad Gita
C. Mundak Upanishad
D. Ramayana
84. Who wrote the famous book the People"?
A. Kushwant Singh
B. Chetan Bhagat
C. Nani Palkhiwala
D. Amitava Ghosh
85. B.C.Roy award is given in the field of
A. Medicine
B. Music
C. Cricket
D. Economics
86. Which is the Headquarter of ONGC -Oil and Natural Gas Commission
A. Mumbai
B. Vishakapatnam
C. Dehradun
D. Cochin 87. Who is the first Indian woman to win an Aisan Games gold medal in 400m run?


A. P.T.Usha
B. Shaini Wilson
C. Kamaljit Sandhu
D. K.Malleshwari
88. Who among the following is the father of India's 'White Revolution'
A. Verghese Kurien
B. C.Subramaniam
C. M.S.Swaminathan
D. Homi Bhaba
89. The permanent secretariat of SAARC is located in
A. New Delhi
B. Rawalpindi
C. Dhaka'
D. Kathmandu
90. When was the 'Swachh Bharat Abhiyan' launched?
A. 2nd October, 2014
B. 14th November, 2014
C. 15th August, 2014
D. 2nd October, 2013
91. Which one of the following do you think is true with regard to the formation of Government in the event of a hung Parliament?
A. When no political party secures the 2/3rd majority in the ensuing general elections, the President will,in strict compliance with the written rules and regulations, invite the single largest party, or the second largest party in the event of former's unwillingness, to form the Government and prove its majority on the floor of the house;
B. When no political party secures the 2/3rd majdrity in the ensuing general elections, the President will, by a mere convention evolved over a period of time, invite the single largest party, or the second largest party in the event of former's unwillingness, to form the Government and prove its majority on the floor of the house;
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C. The President always follows his/her own conscience in deciding which party he/she should invite to form the Government immediately after every general election;
D. The President relies primarily upon the advice of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court in making up his/her mind on matters of Government formation at the centre.
92. How many registered political parties did participate in the general elections 2014?
A. 363
B. 609
C. 1687
D. 2231
93. Which one of the following is a unique feature of the 16th Loksabha?
A. The members elected to it are the first ever parliamentarians to face the NOTA Option
B. It is the first ever legislative house in India to face the NOTA option during its election
C. It functions without the leader of opposition for the first time in its history
D. After the t h Loksabha, it is, for the first time, presided over by a party with more than 2/3rd majority
94. Which of the following policy of the Government of India makes the socio-economic impact assessment mandatory before the land is bought from the farmers for non-agricultural purposes?
A. The Land Acquisition Act, 1894
B. Land Acquisition (Companies) Rules, 1963
C. National Rehabilitation