When I wrote about the Chinese in the New Yorker, most readers seemed to appreciate the unusual perspective. But as I often find with topics that involve the Middle East, some people had trouble getting past the black-and-white quality of a byline. “This piece is so orientalist I don’t know what to do,” Aisha Gani, a reporter who worked at The Guardian, tweeted. Another colleague at the British paper, Iman Amrani, agreed: “I wouldn’t have minded an article on the subject written by an Egyptian woman—probably would have had better insight.” . . .
As an MOL (man of language), I also take issue with this kind of essentialism. Empathy and understanding are not inherited traits, and they are not strictly tied to gender and race. An individual who wrestles with a difficult language can learn to be more sympathetic to outsiders and open to different experiences of the world. This learning process—the embarrassments, the frustrations, the gradual sense of understanding and connection—is invariably transformative. In Upper Egypt, the Chinese experience of struggling to learn Arabic and local culture had made them much more thoughtful. In the same way, I was interested in their lives not because of some kind of voyeurism, but because I had also experienced Egypt and Arabic as an outsider. And both the Chinese and the Egyptians welcomed me because I spoke their languages. My identity as a white male was far less important than my ability to communicate.
And that easily lobbed word—“Orientalist”—hardly captures the complexity of our interactions. What exactly is the dynamic when a man from Missouri observes a Zhejiang native selling lingerie to an Upper Egyptian woman? . . . If all of us now stand beside the same river, speaking in ways we all understand, who’s looking east and who’s looking west? Which way is Oriental?
For all of our current interest in identity politics, there’s no corresponding sense of identity linguistics. You are what you speak—the words that run throughout your mind are at least as fundamental to your selfhood as is your ethnicity or your gender. And sometimes it’s healthy to consider human characteristics that are not inborn, rigid, and outwardly defined. After all, you can always learn another language and change who you are.
Which of the following can be inferred from the author’s claim, “Which way is Oriental?”
Goodwill alone mitigates cultural hierarchies and barriers.
Learning another language can mitigate cultural hierarchies and barriers.
Globalisation has mitigated cultural hierarchies and barriers.
- Orientalism is a discourse of the past, from colonial times, rarely visible today.
The Correct Option is B
Solution and Explanation
The question is about inferring which statement aligns with the author’s claim, "Which way is Oriental?" from the given passage. The passage discusses the experience of Chinese individuals in Upper Egypt and their impact due to their outsider status and linguistic adaptability.
1. The author narrates how Chinese people in Upper Egypt selling lingerie adapt by learning Arabic, which is not inflected in the same way as Mandarin. The Chinese learn by ear, often adopting speech patterns from female customers. This demonstrates their openness to understanding another culture, enhancing their acceptance in a conservative society.
2. The discussion around Orientalism suggests that identity is not just about ethnicity or gender but also about language. The author refutes the essentialism criticism by emphasizing the role of language in creating empathy and understanding across cultural boundaries.
3. The author believes language learning is transformative and fosters better understanding and connection with the world. The ability to communicate in different languages is portrayed as a more significant aspect of identity than race or gender.
4. The author criticizes the lack of 'identity linguistics' in contemporary identity politics, suggesting that language significantly contributes to selfhood and can alter individual identity.
In light of these points, the inference that "Learning another language can mitigate cultural hierarchies and barriers." is correct. The passage highlights how the Chinese men's efforts to learn Arabic facilitated their acceptance across cultural barriers in Egypt, which reflects on the power of language learning in mitigating cultural differences.
A French ethnographer decides to study the culture of a Nigerian tribe. Which of the following is most likely to be the view of the author of the passage?
The author would discourage the ethnographer from conducting the study as Nigerian ethnographers can better understand the tribe.
- The author would encourage the ethnographer and recommend him/her to hire a good translator for the purpose of holding interviews.
- The author would encourage the ethnographer, but ask him/her to first learn the language of the Nigerian tribe s/he wishes to study
- The author would encourage the ethnographer, but ask him/her to be mindful of his/her racial and gender identity in the process.
The Correct Option is C
Solution and Explanation
The passage emphasizes the importance of language learning and cultural understanding over inherent characteristics such as race or gender. The author shares experiences where language proficiency facilitated deeper connections and understanding, regardless of ethnicity or gender. Both the author and the Chinese merchants were accepted because of their ability to communicate in the local language, highlighting that language learning and cultural immersion are transformative.
The author's stance in the passage suggests that they value the ability to learn and communicate in the local language as a crucial aspect of conducting meaningful ethnographic studies. This aligns with the option:
"The author would encourage the ethnographer, but ask him/her to first learn the language of the Nigerian tribe s/he wishes to study."
This option emphasizes the significance of language learning as a gateway to empathy and understanding, resonating with the passage's core message about transcending racial and gender boundaries through linguistic engagement.
The author’s critics would argue that:
- Linguistic politics can be erased.
- Empathy can overcome identity politics.
- Language is insufficient to bridge cultural barriers.
Orientalism cannot be practiced by Egyptians.
The Correct Option is C
Solution and Explanation
- Linguistic politics can be erased.
- Empathy can overcome identity politics.
- Language is insufficient to bridge cultural barriers.
- Orientalism cannot be practiced by Egyptians.
According to the passage, which of the following is not responsible for language’s ability to change us?
According to the passage, which of the following is not responsible for language’s ability to change us?
Language’s intrinsic connection to our notions of self and identity.
Language’s ability to mediate the impact of identity markers one is born with.
- The twists and turns in the evolution of language over time.
- The ups and downs involved in the course of learning a language.
The Correct Option is C
Solution and Explanation
To solve the question on which aspect is not responsible for language's ability to change us, we need to examine the passage and assess each option in the context of how language influences identity and self-transformation.
The passage explores the effect of language on personal identity and how learning a new language can lead to a transformation in personality and perceptions. It suggests several factors contributing to this transformation:
- Language's intrinsic connection to our notions of self and identity: The passage highlights that language is fundamental to selfhood, suggesting that learning a new language affects one's identity.
- Language's ability to mediate the impact of identity markers one is born with: The passage indicates that language learning can transcend inborn characteristics like gender and race, fostering empathy and understanding.
- The twists and turns in the evolution of language over time: The passage does not imply that the historical evolution of language influences personal identity or transformation; it is more focused on the individual's language learning process.
- The ups and downs involved in the course of learning a language: The passage discusses the challenges and gains from struggling with a language, emphasizing these experiences as transformational.
Given this analysis, the correct answer is that The twists and turns in the evolution of language over time are not responsible for language's ability to change us, as the passage focuses more on personal language experiences and transformations rather than historical language evolution.
Top Questions on Reading Comprehension
- Shown below are letters ‘e’ taken from four popular logos, arranged in a sequence. Which of the options is the correct sequence?
- UCEED - 2026
- English Language Comprehension
- Reading Comprehension
- Shown below are four options, each showing consecutive frames representing the movement of a pendulum of an old-style wall clock for an animation movie. Which is the correct option?
- UCEED - 2026
- English Language Comprehension
- Reading Comprehension
- Acrucial moderating factor in how people experience comparisons is self-esteem. Individuals with high self-esteem are more likely to interpret upward comparison as informative rather than threatening. They are more resilient in the face of others’ success and more likely to believe they can reach their own goals. In contrast, people with low self-esteem are more prone to interpret comparison as judgment, reinforcing negative self-views and triggering feelings of inadequacy.
This dynamic creates a self-reinforcing loop. People with high self-esteem are less vulnerable to upward comparison, which intensifies those doubts. Those with a secure sense of self are more likely to use comparison as a learning tool. The same external stimulus—a colleague’s achievements, a friend’s popularity—can have radically different effects depending on internal stability.
Self-esteem also influences how people choose their comparison targets. Research has found that individuals often engage in “selective comparison,” seeking out those who confirm their existing beliefs about themselves. This can become a subtle form of self-sabotage. Someone who feels unworthy may subconsciously seek out targets that reinforce that sense, perpetuating a narrative of inferiority. One of the most promising antidotes to social comparison is temporal comparison—evaluating oneself not against others, but against one’s own past. This method has been shown to increase motivation and satisfaction, especially when individuals can see concrete progress. Temporal comparison activates the same reward circuits as social comparison but avoids the threat systems associated with social ranking. It also reinforces agency: individuals focus on what they can control and improve rather than what others control. In therapeutic and coaching settings, temporal comparison is used to help clients build self-efficacy and track growth over time.
Moreover, people who focus on self-improvement rather than social dominance are less likely to fall into cycles of envy or self-pity. They can still use others as inspiration, but they do so without attaching their self-worth to the outcome. This is not to say they never compare—but that they focus on learning, rather than judgment. The most skilful approach to comparison may lie in eliminating it, but in reframing it as feedback. When we interpret comparison as information rather than a verdict, we can ask, “What can I learn from this?” This shift turns comparison into a growth tool. Teachers mentor their students, not as rivals. Psychologists emphasize that the key variable here is mindset.
A fixed mindset sees comparison as a threat. If someone else is better, it means we are worse. A growth mindset sees comparison as a map. If someone else has reached a certain level, it means the path exists. This reframing is not just a cognitive trick. It changes the emotional tone of comparison, making it more likely to inspire than to wound. Reframing also requires emotional regulation—the ability to notice an initial pang of envy or shame without reacting impulsively. With practice, individuals can learn to pause, reflect, and reinterpret their emotional responses. Over time, this builds resilience and self-trust, allowing comparison to become a learning tool rather than a cage.- XAT - 2026
- Verbal and Logical Ability
- Reading Comprehension
When people who are talking don’t share the same culture, knowledge, values, and assumptions, mutual understanding can be especially difficult. Such understanding is possible through the negotiation of meaning. To negotiate meaning with someone, you have to become aware of and respect both the differences in your backgrounds and when these differences are important. You need enough diversity of cultural and personal experience to be aware that divergent world views exist and what they might be like. You also need the flexibility in world view, and a generous tolerance for mistakes, as well as a talent for finding the right metaphor to communicate the relevant parts of unshared experiences or to highlight the shared experiences while demphasizing the others. Metaphorical imagination is a crucial skill in creating rapport and in communicating the nature of unshared experience. This skill consists, in large measure, of the ability to bend your world view and adjust the way you categorize your experiences. Problems of mutual understanding are not exotic; they arise in all extended conversations where understanding is important.
When it really counts, meaning is almost never communicated according to the CONDUIT metaphor, that is, where one person transmits a fixed, clear proposition to another by means of expressions in a common language, where both parties have all the relevant common knowledge, assumptions, values, etc. When the chips are down, meaning is negotiated: you slowly figure out what you have in common, what it is safe to talk about, how you can communicate unshared experience or create a shared vision. With enough flexibility in bending your world view and with luck and charity, you may achieve some mutual understanding.
Communication theories based on the CONDUIT metaphor turn from the pathetic to the evil when they are applied indiscriminately on a large scale, say, in government surveillance or computerized files. There, what is most crucial for real understanding is almost never included, and it is assumed that the words in the file have meaning in themselves—disembodied, objective, understandable meaning. When a society lives by the CONDUITmetaphor on a large scale, misunderstanding, persecution, and much worse are the likely products.- XAT - 2026
- Verbal and Logical Ability
- Reading Comprehension
Later, I realized that reviewing the history of nuclear physics served another purpose as well: It gave the lie to the naive belief that the physicists could have come together when nuclear fission was discovered (in Nazi Germany!) and agreed to keep the discovery a secret, thereby sparing humanity such a burden. No. Given the development of nuclear physics up to 1938, development that physicists throughout the world pursued in all innocence of any intention of finding the engine of a new weapon of mass destruction—only one of them, the remarkable Hungarian physicist Leo Szilard, took that possibility seriously—the discovery of nuclear fission was inevitable. To stop it, you would have had to stop physics. If German scientists hadn’t made the discovery when they did, French, American, Russian, Italian, or Danish scientists would have done so, almost certainly within days or weeks. They were all working at the same cutting edge, trying to understand the strange results of a simple experiment bombarding uranium with neutrons. Here was no Faustian bargain, as movie directors and other naifs still find it intellectually challenging to imagine. Here was no evil machinery that the noble scientists might hide from the problems and the generals. To the contrary, there was a high insight into how the world works, an energetic reaction, older than the earth, that science had finally devised the instruments and arrangements to coart forth. “Make it seem inevitable,” Louis Pasteur used to advise his students when they prepared to write up their discoveries. But it was. To wish that it might have been ignored or suppressed is barbarous. “Knowledge,” Niels Bohr once noted, “is itself the basis for civilization.” You cannot have the one without the other; the one depends upon the other. Nor can you have only benevolent knowledge; the scientific method doesn’t filter for benevolence. Knowledge has consequences, not always intended, not always comfortable, but always welcome. The earth revolves around the sun, not the sun around the earth. “It is a profound and necessary truth,” Robert Oppenheimer would say, “that the deep things in science are not found because they are useful; they are found because it was possible to find them.”
...Bohr proposed once that the goal of science is not universal truth. Rather, he argued, the modest but relentless goal of science is “the gradual removal of prejudices.” The discovery that the earth revolves around the sun has gradually removed the prejudice that the earth is the center of the universe. The discovery of microbes is gradually removing the prejudice that disease is a punishment from God. The discovery of evolution is gradually removing the prejudice that Homo sapiens is a separate and special creation.- XAT - 2026
- Verbal and Logical Ability
- Reading Comprehension
Questions Asked in CAT exam
- The passage given below is followed by four summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage.
In the dynamic realm of creativity, artists often find themselves at the crossroads between drawing inspiration from diverse cultures and inadvertently crossing into the territory of cultural appropriation. Inspiration is the lifeblood of creativity, driving artists to create works that resonate across borders. In a globalized era of the modern world, artists draw from a vast array of cultural influences. When approached respectfully, inspiration becomes a bridge, fostering understanding and appreciation of cultural diversity. However, the line between inspiration and cultural appropriation can be thin and easily blurred.
Cultural appropriation occurs when elements from a particular culture are borrowed without proper understanding, respect, or acknowledgment. This leads to the commodification of sacred symbols, the reinforcement of stereotypes, and the erasure of the cultural context from which these elements originated. It is essential to recognize that the impact of cultural appropriation extends beyond the realm of artistic expression, influencing societal perceptions and perpetuating power imbalances.- CAT - 2025
- Para Summary
- The number of distinct integers $n$ for which $\log_{\left(\frac14\right)}(n^2 - 7n + 11)>0$ is:
- CAT - 2025
- Linear Inequalities
- In the set of consecutive odd numbers $\{1, 3, 5, \ldots, 57\}$, there is a number $k$ such that the sum of all the elements less than $k$ is equal to the sum of all the elements greater than $k$. Then, $k$ equals?
- CAT - 2025
- Number Systems
- The number of distinct pairs of integers $(x, y)$ satisfying the inequalities $x>y \ge 3$ and $x + y<14$ is:
- CAT - 2025
- Number Systems
For any natural number $k$, let $a_k = 3^k$. The smallest natural number $m$ for which \[ (a_1)^1 \times (a_2)^2 \times \dots \times (a_{20})^{20} \;<\; a_{21} \times a_{22} \times \dots \times a_{20+m} \] is:
- CAT - 2025
- Linear Inequalities