Comprehension
The genius of American democracy comes not from any special virtue of the American people but from the unprecedented opportunities of this continent and from a peculiar and unrepeatable combination of historical circumstances. These circumstances have given our institutions their character and their virtues. The very same facts which explain these virtues, explain also our inability to make a ``philosophy'' of them. They explain, therefore, why we have nothing in the line of a theory that can be exported to other peoples of the world. We should not ask others to adopt our ``philosophy'' because we have no philosophy which can be exported. My argument is simple. It is based on forgotten commonplaces of American history—facts so obvious that we no longer see them. I argue, in a word, that American democracy is unique. It possesses a ``genius'' all its own. By this I mean what the Romans might have described as the tutelary spirit assigned to our nation at its birth and presiding over its destiny. Or what we more prosaically might call a characteristic disposition of our culture.
In one sense, of course, everybody has a political theory, even if it is expressed only in hostility to theories. But this is a barren paradox, concealing more than it discovers. In our political life we have been like Molière's M. Jourdain, who was astonished to discover that all his life he had been speaking prose. We have not been much interested in the ``grammar'' of politics; we have been more interested in the way it works rather than in the theory behind it.
In one sense, of course, everybody has a political theory, even if it is expressed only in hostility to theories. But this is a barren paradox, concealing more than it discovers. In our political life we have been like Molière's M. Jourdain, who was astonished to discover that all his life he had been speaking prose. We have not been much interested in the ``grammar'' of politics; we have been more interested in the way it works rather than in the theory behind it.
Question: 1
The main purpose of the author is to
The main purpose of the author is to
Show Hint
Pay attention to the overall message of the passage when identifying the main purpose.
Updated On: Oct 1, 2025
- Criticize the people who ask others to adopt the American philosophy
- Challenge the political philosophies of countries other than America
- Suggest an alternate way of looking at political theory of America
- Explain the complexities faced by the American genius
- Argue why a country cannot theorize its achievement
Hide Solution
Verified By Collegedunia
The Correct Option is C
Solution and Explanation
Step 1: Identify the main argument of the passage.
The author argues that American democracy has a unique "genius" but lacks a fully formed "philosophy" of its own. Instead, the author suggests that American democracy should not adopt a formal theory, but rather be viewed through its historical and cultural context.
Step 2: Analysis of options.
- (A) Criticize the people who ask others to adopt the American philosophy: The passage does not focus on criticizing others who ask to adopt the philosophy.
- (B) Challenge the political philosophies of countries other than America: This is not the central focus of the passage. The author is not targeting other countries' philosophies.
- (C) Suggest an alternate way of looking at political theory of America: Correct. The author suggests that American democracy should be understood through its unique historical context, not by adopting a formal philosophical theory.
- (D) Explain the complexities faced by the American genius: The passage focuses more on the uniqueness of American democracy rather than explaining its complexities.
- (E) Argue why a country cannot theorize its achievement: While the author discusses the difficulty in creating a philosophy, the argument is more about suggesting a new perspective than simply arguing against theorizing achievements.
Step 3: Conclusion.
The correct answer is (C), as it best captures the author's main argument.
The author argues that American democracy has a unique "genius" but lacks a fully formed "philosophy" of its own. Instead, the author suggests that American democracy should not adopt a formal theory, but rather be viewed through its historical and cultural context.
Step 2: Analysis of options.
- (A) Criticize the people who ask others to adopt the American philosophy: The passage does not focus on criticizing others who ask to adopt the philosophy.
- (B) Challenge the political philosophies of countries other than America: This is not the central focus of the passage. The author is not targeting other countries' philosophies.
- (C) Suggest an alternate way of looking at political theory of America: Correct. The author suggests that American democracy should be understood through its unique historical context, not by adopting a formal philosophical theory.
- (D) Explain the complexities faced by the American genius: The passage focuses more on the uniqueness of American democracy rather than explaining its complexities.
- (E) Argue why a country cannot theorize its achievement: While the author discusses the difficulty in creating a philosophy, the argument is more about suggesting a new perspective than simply arguing against theorizing achievements.
Step 3: Conclusion.
The correct answer is (C), as it best captures the author's main argument.
Was this answer helpful?
0
0
Question: 2
The author sets of the word “grammar” with quotation marks in order to
The author sets of the word “grammar” with quotation marks in order to
Show Hint
Quotation marks can be used to highlight figurative language or to criticize overused concepts.
Updated On: Oct 1, 2025
- Emphasize its departure from the concepts of philosophy
- Indicate that the word is his favorite
- Assert that the nation is disinterested in political theory
- Show that people have overemphasized theory behind grammar
- Highlight his aversion to the word
Hide Solution
Verified By Collegedunia
The Correct Option is D
Solution and Explanation
Step 1: Understand the context of the word "grammar."
The author uses quotation marks around the word "grammar" to emphasize that it is being used in a figurative sense to mean the way things work in politics, rather than its literal meaning. The author is critiquing how people focus too much on theory rather than the actual functioning of political processes.
Step 2: Analysis of options.
- (A) Emphasize its departure from the concepts of philosophy: While the word "grammar" is contrasted with philosophy, it does not explicitly emphasize a departure from it.
- (B) Indicate that the word is his favorite: This is not the case. The word is used critically, not because it is favored.
- (C) Assert that the nation is disinterested in political theory: This is a possible interpretation of the passage, but the use of quotation marks emphasizes how people overemphasize the theory behind grammar.
- (D) Show that people have overemphasized theory behind grammar: Correct. The author uses the quotation marks to critique how people overemphasize theoretical constructs in politics, focusing too much on "theory" instead of how things work in practice.
- (E) Highlight his aversion to the word: The author is not expressing aversion, but rather using the term critically.
Step 3: Conclusion.
The correct answer is (D), as it best captures the author's purpose in using quotation marks.
The author uses quotation marks around the word "grammar" to emphasize that it is being used in a figurative sense to mean the way things work in politics, rather than its literal meaning. The author is critiquing how people focus too much on theory rather than the actual functioning of political processes.
Step 2: Analysis of options.
- (A) Emphasize its departure from the concepts of philosophy: While the word "grammar" is contrasted with philosophy, it does not explicitly emphasize a departure from it.
- (B) Indicate that the word is his favorite: This is not the case. The word is used critically, not because it is favored.
- (C) Assert that the nation is disinterested in political theory: This is a possible interpretation of the passage, but the use of quotation marks emphasizes how people overemphasize the theory behind grammar.
- (D) Show that people have overemphasized theory behind grammar: Correct. The author uses the quotation marks to critique how people overemphasize theoretical constructs in politics, focusing too much on "theory" instead of how things work in practice.
- (E) Highlight his aversion to the word: The author is not expressing aversion, but rather using the term critically.
Step 3: Conclusion.
The correct answer is (D), as it best captures the author's purpose in using quotation marks.
Was this answer helpful?
0
0
Top Questions on Reading Comprehension
For the past two years at FasCorp, there has been a policy to advertise any job opening to current employees and to give no job to an applicant from outside the company if a FasCorp employee applies who is qualified for the job. This policy has been strictly followed, yet even though numerous employees of FasCorp have been qualified for any given entry-level position, some entry-level jobs have been filled with people from outside the company.
If the information provided is true, which of the following must on the basis of it also be true about FasCorp during the past two years?- GRE - 2025
- Verbal Reasoning
- Reading Comprehension
As an example of the devastation wrought on music publishers by the photocopier, one executive noted that for a recent choral festival with 1,200 singers, the festival’s organizing committee purchased only 12 copies of the music published by her company that was 5 performed as part of the festival.
Which of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the support the example lends to the executive’s contention that music publishers have been devastated by the photocopier?- GRE - 2025
- Verbal Reasoning
- Reading Comprehension
- In the 1970s, two debates engaged many scholars of early United States history. One focused on the status of women, primarily White women. Turning on the so-called golden age theory, which posited that during the eighteenth-century colonial era, American women enjoyed a brief period of high status relative to their English contemporaries and to nineteenth-century American women, this debate pitted scholars who believed women’s lives deteriorated after 1800 against those who thought women’s lives had been no better before 1800. At issue were the causes of women’s subordination: were these causes already in place when the English first settled North America or did they emerge with the rise of nineteenth-century industrial capitalism?
The second debate, the so-called origins debate, concerned the emergence of racial slavery in the southern colonies: was slavery the inevitable result of the deep-rooted racial prejudice of early British colonists or did racial prejudice arise only after these planters instituted slave labor?
Although these debates are parallel in some respects, key differences distinguished them. Whereas the debate over women’s status revolved around implicit comparisons of colonial women to their counterparts in the antebellum period (1800--1860), thus inviting comment from scholars of both historical periods, the origins debate was primarily confined to a discussion about slavery in colonial America. Second, in contrast to the newness of the debate over women’s status and its continued currency throughout the early 1980s, the debate over race and slavery, begun in the 1950s, had lost some of its urgency with the publication of Morgan’s American Slavery, American Freedom (1975), widely regarded as the last word on the subject.
Each debate also assumed a different relationship to the groups whose histories it concerned. In its heyday, the origins debate focused mainly on White attitudes toward Africans rather than on Africans themselves. With few exceptions, such as Wood’s Black Majority (1974) and Mullin’s Flight and Rebellion (1972), which were centrally concerned with enslaved African men, most works pertaining to the origins debate focused on the White architects, mostly male, of racial slavery. In contrast, although women’s historians were interested in the institutions and ideologies contributing to women’s subordination, they were equally concerned with documenting women’s experiences. As in the origins debate, however, early scholarship on colonial women defined its historical constituency narrowly, women’s historians focusing mainly on affluent White women.
Over time, however, some initial differences between the approaches taken by scholars in the two fields faded. In the 1980s, historians of race and slavery in colonial America shifted their attention to enslaved people; interest in African American culture grew, thereby bringing enslaved women more prominently into view. Historians of early American women moved in similar directions during the decade and began to consider the effect of racial difference on women’s experience.- GRE - 2025
- Verbal Reasoning
- Reading Comprehension
- The most plausible justification for higher taxes on automobile fuel is that fuel consumption harms the environment and thus adds to the costs of traffic congestion. But the fact that burning fuel creates these “negative externalities” does not imply that no tax on fuel could ever be too high. Economics is precise about the tax that should, in principle, be levied to deal with negative externalities:
the tax on a liter of fuel should be equal to the harm caused by using a liter of fuel.
If the tax is more than that, its costs (including the inconvenience to those who would rather have used their cars) will exceed its benefits (including any reduction in congestion and pollution).- GRE - 2025
- Verbal Reasoning
- Reading Comprehension
- Objectively, of course, the various ecosystems that sustain life on the planet proceed independently of human agency, just as they operated before the hectic ascendancy of Homo sapiens. But it is also true that it is difficult to think of a single such system that has not, for better or worse, been substantially modified by human culture. Nor is this simply the work of the industrial centuries. It has been happening since the days of ancient Mesopotamia. It is coeval with the origins of writing, and has occurred throughout our social existence. And it is this irreversibly modified world, from the polar caps to the equatorial forests, that is all the nature we have.
- GRE - 2025
- Verbal Reasoning
- Reading Comprehension
View More Questions
Questions Asked in GMAT exam
- If y = 3, then y³(y³-y) =
- GMAT - 2025
- Algebra
If \(8x + 5x + 2x + 4x = 114\), then, \(5x + 3 = ?\)
- GMAT - 2025
- Algebra
If \(r = 5 z\) then \(15 z = 3 y,\) then \(r =\)
- GMAT - 2025
- Algebra
- Solve the following equation for A: 2A/3 = 8 + 4A
- GMAT - 2025
- Algebra
- Over the past 7 weeks, the Smith family had weekly grocery bills of $74, $69, $64, $79, $64, $84, and $77. What was the Smiths' average (arithmetic mean) weekly grocery bill over the 7-week period?
- GMAT - 2025
- Averages
View More Questions