Meet Your Zen Mentor

Shabana Shahab
Specialization:
VARC, GDPI, Communications skills
Scores and Experience
CAT VARC: 99+ Percentiler
Teaching experience – 14+ years
CAT VARC is not as
hard as you think...
Mera objective kya hai?
To make your VARC and life easy!!
Agenda of the session
-Tones
-Main Idea
-Chit chat
-Bonding
-We are us
 SOME VERY COMMON TONES
- Positive - Questioning - Empathetic
- Negative - Argumentative - Conclusive
- Neutral - Debating - Assertive
- Objective - Supporting - Suggesting
- Subjective - Optimistic - Suggestive
- Critical - Pessimistic - Recommending
- Ironic - Praising - Cautioning / cautionary
- Sarcastic - Eulogising - Alarmist
- Descriptive - Laudatory - Prescient
- Explanatory - Quizzical - Skeptical
- Expository - Investigative - Apprehensive
- Analytical - Sympathetic
SOME EXTREME TONES (WHICH CAN BE
1. Harsh 11. Raucous
ELIMINATED)
2. Cynical 12. Acerbic
3. Pretentious 13. Biased
4. Scathing 14. Judgemental
5. Vituperative 15. Subjective
6. Acrimonious 16. Indifferent
7. Bitter 17. Apathetic
8. Inimical 18. Disparaging
9. Pretentious
[Link]
 LEARN THESE DIFFICULT WORDS /
TONES
Possible tone Meaning of the word
Acerbic Harsh/ severe; bitter
Aggressive Forceful; tending towards unprovoked offensiveness
Angry/indignant
Apathetic Emotionless; not interested/ concerned; indifferent; unresponsive
Expressing remorse, regret, sorrow for having failed, injured,
Apologetic
insulted or wronged another
Belligerent Aggressively hostile; bellicose
Favouring one thing/person/group over another for personal
Biased
reasons.
 LEARN THESE DIFFICULT WORDS /
Possible tone Meaning of the word
Caustic TONES Biting; acerbic
Commiserating Feeling/ expressing sorrow for; empathizing with; pity
Patronizing; showing/implying patronising descent from dignity/
Condescending
superiority
Contemptuous Expressing contempt/ disdain
displaying a belief that people are always self-seeking and never
Cynical
altruistic in their actions
Derisive Unkind and displaying contempt
Disparaging Speak slightingly; depreciating; belittling
 LEARN THESE DIFFICULT WORDS /
Possible tone Meaning of the word
DogmaticTONES Asserting opinions in an arrogant manner; imperious; dictatorial
Easily affected by feelings actuated by experiencing love, hate, fear
Emotional
and the like
Ethical Dealing with principles of morality; honest; righteous
Substitution of mild, indirect or vague expression for one thought to
Euphemistic
be offensive, harsh or blunt
Grandiose More complicated/ elaborated than necessary; pompous
Humanistic Evincing keen interest in human affairs, nature, welfare, values
Humourous Funny and amusing
 LEARN THESE DIFFICULT WORDS /
Possible tone Meaning of the word
TONES
Introspective Consider one's own internal state of feelings
Incendiary Causing strong feelings
Laudatory Praising; extolling; applauding
Motivating Impelling; inciting
Obsequious Fawning; showing servile complaisance; flattering; deferent
Pedestrian Lacking vitality, imagination, distinction
Egalitarian; pertaining to the characteristics of common people/
Populist
working class
Provocative Inciting; stimulating; irritating; vexing
 LEARN THESE DIFFICULT WORDS /
Possible tone Meaning of the word
Romantic
TONES Fanciful; impractical; unrealistic; extravagant; exaggerated
Sarcastic Harsh, bitter derision; taunting; sneering; cutting remarks
Satirical Ironical; taunting; human folly held up to scorn/ derision/ ridicule
Theoretical rather than practical; thoughtful; reflective;
Speculative
hypothetical
Using terminology or treating subject matter in a manner peculiar
Technical
to a particular field, as a writer or a book
Vitriolic Full of anger and hatred
Vituperative Cruel and angry criticism
TYPES OF TONE QUESTIONS:
1. General tone
2. Specific-info tone
WHERE TO LOOK FOR THE TONE:
(general
1. Adjectives
2. Adverbs
tone)
3. Last four lines
 Practice Questions
Nearly 20 years ago, in speaking of her craft, the novelist Margaret Atwood
observed that “a character in a book who is consistently well behaved probably
spells disaster for the book. “She might have asserted the more general principle
that consistent anything in a character can prove tedious. If we apply the old
Forsterian standard, that round characters are the ones, “capable of surprising
in a convincing way, “Atwood’s new novel, for all its multilayered story-within-a-
story construction, must be judged flat as a pancake. In The Blind Assassin,
overlong and badly written, our first impressions of the dramatis personae prove
not so much lasting as total. The setup and setting are promising enough.
1. The author finds Atwood’s style of writing
A. piercing and trenchant
B. feminist and racial
C. culture-centered and didactic
D. redundant and clogged
E. indoctrinating and pedantic
The promoters of New Towns so far in the United States have been developers, builders, and financial
institutions. The main interest of these promoters is economic gain. Furthermore, federal regulations
designed to promote the New Town idea do not consider social needs as the European New Town plans
do. In fact, our regulations specify virtually all the ingredients of the typical suburban community, with a
bit of political rhetoric thrown in.

2. The author’s tone in discussing “developers, builders, and financial institutions” can best be described
as

(A) critical
(B) pedantic
(C) evasive
(D) captious
(E) vitriolic
Beyond acting as frames of reference, hot spots apparently influence the
geophysical processes that propel the plates across the globe. When a continental
plate comes to rest over a hot spot, material welling up from deeper layers forms
a broad dome that, as it grows, develops deep fissures. In some instances, the
continental plate may rupture entirely along some of the fissures so that the hot
spot initiates the formation of a new ocean. Thus, just as earlier theories have
explained the mobility of the continental plates, so hot-spot activity may suggest a
theory to explain their mutability.
3. The author’s style can best be described as

(A) dramatic
(B) archaic
(C) esoteric
(D) objective
(E) humanistic
Most paints, have body or pigment colours. In these, light is reflected from the surface without much
colour change, but the body material absorbs some colours and reflects others; hence, the diffused
reflection from the body of the material is coloured but often appears to be overlaid and diluted with a
“white” reflection from the glossy surface of the paint film. In paints and enamels, the pigment
particles, which are usually opaque, are suspended in a vehicle such as oil or plastic. The particles of
a dye, on the other hand, are considerably finer and may be described as colouring matter in solution.
The dye particles are more often transparent or translucent.

5. In form and style, the passage can best be described as:

A. An objective presentation
B. A biased exposition
C. A tentative hypothesis
D. An ambivalent portrayal
E. A flawed synopsis
Laura dies and leaves behind a science fiction novel, The Blind assassin, which becomes a great
posthumous success. Atwood’s enveloping novel of the same name fails to keep up. Atwood lengthily
taxonomizes the city of SakielNorn and its class-stratified inhabitants. But she proves unable to
relieve the reader’s tedium with the place’s kinkier features, like children who weave carpets until
they are blind and then go on to become throat-cutting hired killers. Despite her assertion in a recent
interview that this new book’s fantasy material has its roots in popular prewar genre magazines,
Atwood seems to be sleepwalking through a Doris Lessing phase, or exercising once again her own
allegorical bent, most famously displayed in “The Handmaid’s Tale”.

6. The critic’s attitude toward Atwood’s ‘The Blind Assassin’ is one of

A. pointed criticism
B. unbiased approval
C. obvious indifference
D. objective admiration
E. scrupulous betrayal
Eugenics, Dean Inge writes in one of his essays, is capable of becoming the most sacred ideal of the
human race, as a race; one of the supreme religious duties. In this I entirely agree with him. Once
the full implications of evolutionary biology are grasped, eugenics will inevitably become part of the
religion of the future, or of what every complex of sentiments may in the future take the place of
organized religion. It is not merely a sane outlet for human altruism, but is of all outlets for altruism that
which is most comprehensive and of longest range.

However, in addition to holding out these emotional possibilities, the eugenic movement must obey
practical necessities. At the moment, it is idle to pretend that it had advanced very far in either direction.
True that to a limited number of men and women, it is already an inspiring ideal: but for the bulk of
people, if not a subject for a jest, it remains either mistrusted or wholly neglected.
It may be that, as a scientist myself, I overrate the importance of the
scientific side. At any rate, it is my conviction that eugenics cannot gain
power as an ideal and a motive until it has improved its position as a
body of knowledge and a potential instrument of control; Eugenics falls
within the province of the social sciences, not of the natural sciences.
Personally, I do not think that this criticism is justified.
This, however, is not all. The social sciences in certain respects differ radically from the natural
sciences; But the social scientist cannot do this sort of thing: he can at the best find a correlation
between several variables. And, of course, the inevitable obverse of the principle of multiple causes is
the principle of multiple effect. I need not labour the point, save to stress the need for the working out
of suitable methods, of partial correlation and the like, to deal with this multiple complexities.

7. The tone of the passage can best be described as

A. argumentative
B. non-committal
C. hortatory
D. enthusiastic
E. moralistic
Such characteristics are said to be polygenetic: that is, under the influence of two or
more genes. This is why it is impossible to predict exactly what a new baby will look
like, or how it will grow to adulthood, simply by looking at its parents. If the mother
has blue eyes and the father has brown, the offspring will not have one eye of each
colour, but probably either brown or blue, or perhaps even green, depending on how
the recessive and dominant genes match up in its chromosomes. If mother is tall while
father is short, the chances are that the offspring will be in between; but he or she
might be very well end up taller than either parent, or shorter than both, even without
any environmental influence on growth, because of the polygenetic influence of many
genes working together to determine the phenotype. Of course, we may say that a boy
‘has his father’s nose’, or that a girl’s eyes are ‘just like her grandfather’s; even within
your own family you can see the inheritability of characteristics. But you cannot
predict in advance that one, or any, of your own children will have your nose or their
grandmother’s hair. Control genes guide our development from conception to
maturity, and ensure that we develop as members of Homo sapiens, not as horses or
pigs.
8. The tone of the passage may be classified as —
1) Researching
2) Didactic
3) Factual
4) Critical
The first management theorist to emphasize the importance of marketing, German-born
Levitt, who has been associated with Harvard Business School for over thirty years, is
unusual in having established his reputation as a guru on the basis of single article –
‘Marketing Myopia’, published in the Harvard Business Review in the summer of 1960. It
has since sold more than 500,000 reprinted copies.
In this extraordinarily influential article, Levitt argued powerfully that ‘an industry is a
customer-satisfying process, not a goods-producing process.’ Levitt can claim to have had
more articles published in the Harvard Business Review than any other guru.
Like other gurus, notably Kenichi Ohmae, Levitt has recently diversified into the subject of
the global market place and ‘global branding.’
Levitt’s views of his own influence is modest.
Today marketing is no longer, as Levitt called it in 1960, a ‘stepchild.’ Getting and staying close to the
customer was enshrined by Tom Peters and Robert Waterman’s In Search of Excellence as a prime
component of the top-performing company. But that was in 1982. More than twenty years earlier, the
idea was sufficiently novel for Levitt’s Harvard Business Review article to start an earthquake in
management thinking.
9. The tone of the passage towards Levitt is
1) Critical
2) Neutral
3) Investigating
4) Extolling
A computer researcher in conversation with a journalist reveals that his area of research
is ‘artificial intelligence’. The journalist expresses some scepticism about this;
intelligence seems to be something beyond the scientist’s domain, part of the mysterious
machinations of the mind. ‘What’, replies the researcher, used to such arguments, ‘is so
special about the mind?’ Mind, the ‘secret working mind’, as Yeats called it; surely it
does not need to prove itself special? It is the origin of our identity, of our consciousness,
of our lives.
Science, as we have already discovered, is outrageously demanding. There has, however,
been one region of doubt, one part of the universe that, perhaps does not obey any such
laws.
Cartesian dualism came under the most convincing – and entertaining – assault in 1949
by the Oxford philosopher Gilbert Ryle.
A categorical mistake is usually just a simple error, but one that can be hard to detect and
correct.
As we saw earlier with the case of personal computing, our lives are filled with people making category
mistakes.
The important point about Ryles’s argument and work by psychologists such as Skinner was that they
dragged the mind out from behind the veil of dualism into the domain of scientific reality.
10. The tone of the passage can be best described as :-
1) Contemplative
2) Derisive
3) Critical
4) Facetious
 CAT 2024
Oftentimes, when economists cross borders, they are less interested in learning from others
than in invading their garden plots. Gary Becker, for instance, pioneered the idea of human
capital. To do so, he famously tackled topics like crime and domesticity, applying methods
honed in the study of markets to domains of nonmarket life. He projected economics
outward into new realms: for example, by revealing the extent to which humans calculate
marginal utilities when choosing their spouses or stealing from neighbors. At the same time,
he did not let other ways of thinking enter his own economic realm: for example, he did not
borrow from anthropology or history or let observations of nonmarket economics inform his
homo economicus. Becker was a picture of the imperial economist in the heyday of the
discipline's bravura.

Times have changed for the once almighty discipline. Economics has been taken to task,
within and beyond its ramparts. Some economists have reached out, imported, borrowed,
and collaborated—been less imperial, more open. Consider Thomas Piketty and his outreach
to historians. The booming field of behavioral economics—the fusion of economics and
social psychology—is another case. Having spawned active subfields, like judgment,
decision-making and a turn to experimentation, the field aims to go beyond the caricature of
Rational Man to explain how humans make decisions….
It is important to underscore how this flips the way we think about economics. For
generations, economists have presumed that people have interests—"preferences," in the
neoclassical argot—that get revealed in the course of peoples' choices. Interests come
before actions and determine them. If you are hungry, you buy lunch; if you are cold, you
get a sweater. If you only have so much money and can't afford to deal with both your
growling stomach and your shivering, which need you choose to meet using your scarce
savings reveals your preference.

Psychologists take one look at this simple formulation and shake their heads.
Increasingly, even some mainstream economists have to admit that homo economicus
doesn't always behave like the textbook maximizer; irrational behavior can't simply be
waved away as extra-economic expressions of passions over interests, and thus the
domain of other disciplines…. This is one place where the humanist can help the
economist. If narrative economics is going to help us understand how rivals duke it out,
who wins and who loses, we are going to need much more than lessons from
epidemiological studies of viruses or intracranial stimuli.
Above all, we need politics and institutions. Shiller [the Nobel prize winning economist] connects perceptions of
narratives to changes in behavior and thence to social outcomes. He completes a circle that was key to behavioral
economics and brings in storytelling to make sense of how perceptions get framed. This cycle (perception to behavior
to society) was once mediated or dominated by institutions: the political parties, lobby groups, and media
organizations that played a vital role in legitimating, representing, and excluding interests. Yet institutions have been
stripped from Shiller's account, to reveal a bare dynamic of emotions and economics, without the intermediating
place of politics..
Q. "Times have changed for the once almighty discipline." We can infer from this statement
and the associated paragraph that the author is being
A. disparaging of economists' inability to precisely predict market behaviour, and are now
borrowing from other disciplines to remedy this.
B. sarcastic about how economists, who earlier shunned other disciplines, are now beginning
to incorporate them in their analyses.
C. critical of economists' openly borrowing and collaborating across disciplines to explain
how humans make decisions.
D. judgemental about the ability of economic tools to accurately manage crises leading to the
downfall of this lofty science.
There is a group in the space community who view the solar system not as an opportunity to
expand human potential but as a nature preserve, forever the provenance of an elite group of
scientists and their sanitary robotic probes. These planetary protection advocates [call] for
avoiding "harmful contamination" of celestial bodies. Under this regime, NASA incurs great
expense sterilizing robotic probes in order to prevent the contamination of entirely theoretical
biospheres. . . .

Transporting bacteria would matter if Mars were the vital world once imagined by
astronomers who mistook optical illusions for canals. Nobody wants to expose Martians to
measles, but sadly, robotic exploration reveals a bleak, rusted landscape, lacking oxygen and
flooded with radiation ready to sterilize any Earthly microbes. Simple life might exist
underground, or down at the bottom of a deep canyon, but it has been very hard to find with
robots. . . . The upsides from human exploration and development of Mars clearly outweigh
the welfare of purely speculative Martian fungi. . . .
The other likely targets of human exploration, development, and settlement, our moon and the asteroids, exist in a
desiccated, radiation-soaked realm of hard vacuum and extreme temperature variations that would kill nearly
anything. It's also important to note that many international competitors will ignore the demands of these
protection extremists in any case. For example, China recently sent a terrarium to the moon and germinated a
plant seed—with, unsurprisingly, no protest from its own scientific community. In contrast, when it was recently
revealed that a researcher had surreptitiously smuggled super-resilient microscopic tardigrades aboard the ill-
fated Israeli Beresheet lunar probe, a firestorm was unleashed within the space community. . . .

NASA's previous human exploration efforts made no serious attempt at sterility, with
little notice. As the Mars expert Robert Zubrin noted in the National Review, U.S. lunar
landings did not leave the campsites cleaner than they found it. Apollo's bacteria-infested
litter included bags of feces. Forcing NASA's proposed Mars exploration to do better,
scrubbing everything and hauling out all the trash, would destroy NASA's human
exploration budget and encroach on the agency's other directorates, too. Getting future
astronauts off Mars is enough of a challenge, without trying to tote weeks of waste along
as well.
A reasonable compromise is to continue on the course laid out by the U.S. government and the National
Research Council, which proposed a system of zones on Mars, some for science only, some for
habitation, and some for resource exploitation. This approach minimizes contamination, maximizes
scientific exploration . . . Mars presents a stark choice of diverging human futures. We can turn inward,
pursuing ever more limited futures while we await whichever natural or manmade disaster will eradicate
our species and life on Earth. Alternatively, we can choose to propel our biosphere further into the solar
system, simultaneously protecting our home planet and providing a backup plan for the only life we
know exists in the universe. Are the lives on Earth worth less than some hypothetical microbe lurking
under Martian rocks?
The author's overall tone in the first paragraph can be described as
A. approving of the amount of money NASA spends to restrict the spread of contamination in space.
B. sceptical about the excessive efforts to sanitise planets where life has not yet been proven to exist.
C. indifferent to the elitism of a few scientists aiming to corner space exploration.
D. equivocal about the reasons extended by the group of scientists seeking to limit space exploration.
Fears of artificial intelligence (AI) have haunted humanity since the very beginning of the computer age. Hitherto these
fears focused on machines using physical means to kill, enslave or replace people. But over the past couple of years new
AI tools have emerged that threaten the survival of human civilisation from an unexpected direction. AI has gained some
remarkable abilities to manipulate and generate language, whether with words, sounds or images. AI has thereby hacked
the operating system of our civilisation.

Language is the stuff almost all human culture is made of. Human rights, for example, aren't
inscribed in our DNA. Rather, they are cultural artefacts we created by telling stories and writing
laws. Gods aren't physical realities. Rather, they are cultural artefacts we created by inventing
myths and writing scriptures….What would happen once a non-human intelligence becomes better
than the average human at telling stories, composing melodies, drawing images, and writing laws
and scriptures? When people think about Chatgpt and other new AI tools, they are often drawn to
examples like school children using AI to write their essays. What will happen to the school
system when kids do that? But this kind of question misses the big picture. Forget about school
essays. Think of the next American presidential race in 2024, and try to imagine the impact of AI
tools that can be made to mass-produce political content, fake-news stories and scriptures for new
cults…
Through its mastery of language, AI could even form intimate relationships with people, and use the
power of intimacy to change our opinions and worldviews. Although there is no indication that AI has
any consciousness or feelings of its own, to foster fake intimacy with humans it is enough if the AI can
make them feel emotionally attached to it….

What will happen to the course of history when AI takes over culture, and begins producing
stories, melodies, laws and religions? Previous tools like the printing press and radio helped
spread the cultural ideas of humans, but they never created new cultural ideas of their own.
AI is fundamentally different. AI can create completely new ideas, completely new culture….
Of course, the new power of AI could be used for good purposes as well. I won't dwell on
this, because the people who develop AI talk about it enough….
We can still regulate the new AI tools, but we must act quickly. Whereas nukes cannot invent more
powerful nukes, AI can make exponentially more powerful AI.… Unregulated AI deployments would
create social chaos, which would benefit autocrats and ruin democracies. Democracy is a conversation,
and conversations rely on language. When AI hacks language, it could destroy our ability to have
meaningful conversations, thereby destroying democracy….And the first regulation I would suggest is
to make it mandatory for AI to disclose that it is an AI. If I am having a conversation with someone, and
I cannot tell whether it is a human or an AI—that's the end of democracy. This text has been generated
by a human. Or has it?
The tone of the passage could best be described as
A. cautionary, because the author lays out some adverse effects of the proliferation of unregulated AI
tools.
B. alarmist, because the passage discusses scenarios of the influence of new AI tools on language and
human emotions.
C. quizzical, as the passage poses several questions, concluding with the question of whether or not the
passage content has been generated by AI.
D. prescient, as the author analyses the future impact of the use of new AI tools on crucial areas of our
society and culture.
MAIN IDEA QUESTIONS
• Many critics of the current welfare system argue that existing welfare regulations foster family instability. They
maintain that those regulations, which exclude most poor husband-and-wife families from Aid to Families with
Dependent Children assistance grants, contribute to the problem of family dissolution. Thus, they conclude that
expanding the set of families eligible for family assistance plans or guaranteed income measures would result in
a marked strengthening of the low-income family structure. If all poor families could receive welfare, would the
incidence of instability change markedly? The answer to this question depends on the relative importance of
three categories of potential welfare recipients. The first is the “cheater”—the husband who is reported to have
abandoned his family, but in fact disappears only when the social caseworker is in the neighborhood. The second
consists of a loving husband and devoted father who, sensing his own inadequacy as a provider, leaves so that his
wife and children may enjoy the relative benefit provided by public assistance. There is very little evidence that
these categories are significant.
The third category is the unhappily married couple who remain together out of a sense of economic
responsibility for their children, because of the high costs of separation, or because of the consumption benefits
of marriage. This group is numerous. The formation, maintenance and dissolution of the family is in large part a
function of the relative balance between the benefits and costs of marriage as seen by the individual members of
the marriage. The major benefit generated by the creation of a family is the expansion of the set of consumption
possibilities. The benefits from such a partnership depend largely on the relative dissimilarity of the resources or
basic endowments each partner brings to the marriage. Persons with similar productive capacities have less
economic “cement” holding their marriage together. Since the family performs certain functions society regards
as vital, a complex network of social and legal buttresses has evolved to reinforce marriage. Much of the
variation in marital stability across income classes can be explained by the variation in costs of dissolution
imposed by society, e.g., division of property, alimony, child support, and the social stigma attached to divorce.
• Marital stability is related to the costs of achieving an acceptance agreement on family consumption and production and to
the prevailing social price of instability in the marriage partners’ social-economic group. Expected AFDC income exerts
pressures on family instability by reducing the cost of dissolution. To the extent that welfare is a form of government-
subsidized alimony payments, it reduces the institutional costs of separation and guarantees a minimal standard of living for
wife and children. So welfare opportunities are a significant determinant of family instability in poor neighborhoods, but this
is not the result of AFDC regulations that exclude most intact families from coverage. Rather, welfare-related instability
occurs because public assistance lowers both the benefits of marriage and the costs of its disruption by providing a system of
government-subsidized alimony payments.
Q. Which of the following best summarizes the main idea of the passage?

(A) Welfare restrictions limiting the eligibility of families for benefits do not contribute to low-
income family instability.
(B) Contrary to popular opinion, the most significant category of welfare recipients is not the
“cheating” father.
(C) The incidence of family dissolution among low-income families is directly related to the inability
of families with fathers to get welfare benefits.
(D) Very little of the divorce rate among low-income families can be attributed to fathers’ deserting
their families so that they can qualify for welfare.
• Cultivation of a single crop on a given tract of land leads eventually to decreased yields. One reason for this is
that harmful bacterial phytopathogens, organisms parasitic on plant hosts, increase in the soil surrounding plant
roots. The problem can be cured by crop rotation, denying the pathogens a suitable host for a period of time.
However, even if crops are not rotated, the severity of diseases brought on by such phytopathogens often
decreases after a number of years as the microbial population of the soil changes and the soil becomes
“suppressive” to those diseases. While there may be many reasons for this phenomenon, it is clear that levels of
certain bacteria, such as Pseudomonas fluorescens, a bacterium antagonistic to a number of harmful
phytopathogens, are greater in suppressive than in nonsuppressive soil. This suggests that the presence of such
bacteria suppresses phytopathogens. There is now considerable experimental support for this view. Wheat yield
increases of 27 percent have been obtained in field trials by treatment of wheat seeds with fluorescent
pseudomonads. Similar treatment of sugar beets, cotton, and potatoes has had similar results.
•
These improvements in crop yields through the application of Pseudomonas fluorescens suggest that agriculture
could benefit from the use of bacteria genetically altered for specific purposes. For example, a form of
phytopathogen altered to remove its harmful properties could be released into the environment in quantities
favorable to its competing with and eventually excluding the harmful normal strain. Some experiments suggest
that deliberately releasing altered nonpathogenic Pseudomonas syringae could crowd out the nonaltered variety
that causes frost damage. Opponents of such research have objected that the deliberate and large-scale release of
genetically altered bacteria might have deleterious results. Proponents, on the other hand, argue that this
particular strain is altered only by the removal of the gene responsible for the strain’s propensity to cause frost
damage, thereby rendering it safer than the phytopathogen from which it was derived.
•
Some proponents have gone further and suggest that genetic alteration techniques could create organisms with
totally new combinations of desirable traits not found in nature. For example, genes responsible for production
of insecticidal compounds have been transposed from other bacteria into pseudomonads that colonize corn roots.
Experiments of this kind are difficult and require great care: such bacteria are developed in highly artificial
environments and may not compete well with natural soil bacteria. Nevertheless, proponents contend that the
prospects for improved agriculture through such methods seem excellent. These prospects lead many to hope that
current efforts to assess the risks of deliberate release of altered microorganisms will successfully answer the
concerns of opponents and create a climate in which such research can go forward without undue impediment.
• Which one of the following best summarizes the main idea of the passage?

(A) Recent field experiments with genetically altered Pseudomonas bacteria have shown that releasing
genetically altered bacteria into the environment would not involve any significant danger.
(B) Encouraged by current research, advocates of agricultural use of genetically altered bacteria are optimistic
that such use will eventually result in improved agriculture, though opponents remain wary.
(C) Current research indicates that adding genetically altered Pseudomonas syringae bacteria to the soil
surrounding crop plant roots will have many beneficial effects, such as the prevention of frost damage in certain
crops.
(D) Genetic alteration of a number of harmful phytopathogens has been advocated by many researchers who
contend that these techniques will eventually replace such outdated methods as crop rotation.
Thank
s