The passage given below is followed by four alternate summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage.
The weight of society's expectations is hardly a new phenomenon but it has become particularly draining over recent decades, perhaps because expectations themselves are so multifarious and contradictory. The perfectionism of the 1950 s was rooted in the norms of mass culture and captured in famous advertising images of the ideal white American family that now seem self-satirising. In that era, perfectionism meant seamlessly conforming to values, behaviour and appearance: chiselled confidence for men, demure graciousness for women. The perfectionist was under pressure to look like everyone else, only more so. The perfectionists of today, by contrast, feel an obligation to stand out through their idiosyncratic style and wit if they are to gain a foothold in the attention economy.
The passage given below is followed by four alternate summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage.
The weight of society's expectations is hardly a new phenomenon but it has become particularly draining over recent decades, perhaps because expectations themselves are so multifarious and contradictory. The perfectionism of the 1950 s was rooted in the norms of mass culture and captured in famous advertising images of the ideal white American family that now seem self-satirising. In that era, perfectionism meant seamlessly conforming to values, behaviour and appearance: chiselled confidence for men, demure graciousness for women. The perfectionist was under pressure to look like everyone else, only more so. The perfectionists of today, by contrast, feel an obligation to stand out through their idiosyncratic style and wit if they are to gain a foothold in the attention economy.
- Though long-standing, the pressure to appear perfect and thereby attract attention, has evolved over time from one of conformism to one of non-conformism.
- The image of perfectionism is reflected in and perpetuated by the media; and people do their best to adhere to these ideals.
- The pressure to appear perfect has been the cause of tension and conflict because the idea itself has been in a state of flux and hard to define.
- The desire to attract attention is so deep-rooted in individual consciousness that people are willing to go to any lengths to achieve it.
The Correct Option is A
Solution and Explanation
The sentence draws a comparison between the 1950s, when perfectionism meant following social conventions, and the present, when people feel under pressure to stand out and attract attention with their distinct sense of style and wit. The passage's main idea—that is, the transition from conformism to non-conformism—makes Option A the most appropriate statement.
It does a good job of capturing how perfectionism has changed over the years in reaction to many conflicting and varying cultural demands.
Option B emphasizes people following ideals and the involvement of the media, which is not the main point of the paragraph that shows how society standards have changed over time.
The paragraph highlights the historical movement in expectations rather than conflict, despite Option C's suggestion of tension and conflict related to the evolving notion of perfection.
The statement made by Option D, which oversimplifies by suggesting that people will do anything to get attention, is not directly backed up by the section that emphasizes how perfectionism is evolving.
The correct option is (A): Though long-standing, the pressure to appear perfect and thereby attract attention, has evolved over time from one of conformism to one of non-conformism..
Top Questions on Para Summary
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Public debates often oversimplify complex issues into binary choices such as right/wrong or safe/unsafe. This reductive framing limits nuanced thinking, discourages dialogue, and pushes people to defend positions rather than understand diverse viewpoints.Which sentence best summarizes this paragraph?
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Certain codes may, of course, be so widely distributed in a specific language community or culture, and be learned at so early an age, that they appear not to be constructed – the effect of an articulation between sign and referent – but to be ‘naturally’ given. Simple visual signs appear to have achieved a ‘near-universality’ in this sense: though evidence remains that even apparently ‘natural’ visual codes are culture specific. However, this does not mean that no codes have intervened; rather, that the codes have been profoundly naturalized. The operation of naturalized codes reveals not the transparency and ‘naturalness’ of language but the depth, the habituation and the near-universality of the codes in use. They produce apparently ‘natural’ recognitions. This has the (ideological) effect of concealing the practices of coding which are present.
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