List of top Verbal Ability & Reading Comprehension (VARC) Questions

Power and possession have been central pursuits of modern civilization for a long time. They blocked out or distorted other features of the westernized renaissance (revival), which promised so much for humanity. What people have been and are still being taught to prize is money, success, control over the lives of others; acquisition of more and more objects.
Modern social, political and economic systems, whether capitalist, fascist or communist, reject in their working the basic principle that the free and creative unfoldment of every man, woman and child is the true measure of the worth of any society. Such unfoldment requires understanding and imagination, integrity, compassion and cooperation among people and harmony between the human species and the rest of nature.
Acquisitiveness and the pursuit of power have made modern man an aggressor against everything that is non human, an exploiter and oppressor of those who are poor, meek and unorganized. He has become a pathological type who hates and distrusts the world and suffers from both acute loneliness and false pride.
The need for a new renaissance is deeply felt by those sensitive and conscientious men and women
who not only perceive the dimensions of the crisis of our age but who also realize that only through conscious and cooperative human effort will this crisis be met and probably even overcome.

In 2024, we are celebrating the 50th anniversary of Hawking's groundbreaking formula, a landmark in scientific theory that uncovers the remarkable nature of black holes. When Hawking passed away in March 2018 at the age of 76, his wish was honored, and the formula was inscribed on his tombstone in Westminster Abbey. He donated his office and personal belongings to the nation instead of paying inheritance tax. While sorting through Hawking's possessions, my colleagues at the Science Museum in London discovered the profound impact of the formula, which appeared in his papers, written bets, keepsakes, and even a silver beaker presented to him by the producers of the 2015 Hollywood movie "The Theory of Everything."
The idea behind black holes, which are the focus of this notable equation, was contemplated by theorists long before any tangible proof was found. In 1783, John Michell, a parson in Thornhill near Leeds, speculated about 'dark' stars using Sir Isaac Newton's principles. Newton regarded gravity as a force and light as particle-based. Michell suggested that light particles from a star would slow down due to the star's gravity, akin to how a bullet decelerates when fired into the sky from Earth. If the star’s gravity was intense enough, it would pull the light back to the surface. Although Michell's concept hinted at black holes, he was incorrect in crucial aspects. Albert Einstein’s 1915 theory of general relativity, which posits that the speed of light is constant, redefined gravity not as a force but as a distortion of spacetime, combining space and time. Earth, for example, bends the Universe in this manner, causing satellites to orbit along these curves, which we interpret as gravity.
Soon after Einstein released his theory, Karl Schwarzschild, a German artillery officer and physicist, used Einstein’s equations to propose that a mass could warp spacetime so severely that it would become invisible. However, his conclusions did not gain much recognition. In 1939, American theoretical physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, who would later become famous for his role in developing the atomic bomb, alongside Hartland Snyder, showed how a spherical dust cloud could collapse into a region from which light could not escape. Their work did not immediately persuade their contemporaries, though astronomers eventually found evidence of extremely dense objects.

In relation to Native American tribes, the idea of sovereign immunity is referred to as "tribal immunity." According to court decisions, Congress cannot have comprehensive jurisdiction over tribes under the Indian Commerce Clause unless it agrees to any litigation against a tribe. However, the concept of tribal immunity was developed by courts rather than politicians.
A Supreme Court justice has questioned whether tribal immunity is still applicable and stated that it would need to be reevaluated in the future, underscoring the need for a more thorough investigation of the idea. The Supreme Court created the idea in the United States v. United States Fidelity and Guaranty Co. ruling, ruling that Indian tribes are exempt from lawsuits unless Congress gives permission. The two main grounds for this exception, according to the Court, are the protection of tribal resources and the recognition of tribes as independent entities.
As the Court has emphasized in recent years, tribes are nonetheless endowed with all sovereign powers until specifically abrogated by Congress or proven to be inconsistent with their status. It is believed that they possess these types of talents naturally because of their restricted sovereignty. The Supreme Court has cited other cases that amply illustrate the crucial notion, even if it did not directly state it as a basis. Unlike the immunity of states, the federal government, and foreign nations, tribal immunity is unrestricted. Courts still use a broad interpretation of this doctrine, often declaring that a defendant—whether a state, local government, the federal government, or a foreign country—would be sued in state or federal courts.
For example, courts have often held that a tribe's immunity can only be waived with the tribe's or Congress's express consent. Implied exemptions are not usually upheld, in contrast to other governments, especially when tribal people do business on or off reservations. Purchasing insurance does not grant immunity as well. Tribal immunity therefore goes beyond that granted to states, the Native American tribes are not treated differently from other sovereign organizations when it comes to their economic or governmental activity. According to court rulings, it makes no difference if a tribe runs governmental, commercial, or private businesses. As such, tribal immunity continues to be more extensive than that of any other sovereign.

Before Joseph Glatthaar's "Forged in Battle," there had been several exceptional studies focusing on Black soldiers and their White commanders during the Civil War. However, Glatthaar's work distinguishes itself by utilizing a substantial collection of soldier letters and diaries, including rare documents from Black soldiers, and focusing on the interactions between Black and White soldiers within Black regiments. The book’s title succinctly encapsulates Glatthaar’s thesis: the shared perils faced by Black troops and their White officers in combat forged bonds of loyalty and respect between them.
Glatthaar thoroughly examines the government's biased treatment of Black soldiers, focusing on disparities in pay, promotion opportunities, medical care, and job assignments. He underscores the relentless efforts of Black soldiers and their officers to secure combat roles, despite army policies that largely confined Black units to rear-echelon positions and labor battalions. As a result, although Black units had a combat death rate that was only one-third of that of White units, their mortality rate from disease—a major cause of death during the war—was twice as high. Nevertheless, the valor and effectiveness demonstrated by several Black units in combat gradually won the respect of initially skeptical or hostile White soldiers. As one White officer remarked, "They have fought their way into the respect of all the army."
However, in his attempt to illustrate the extent of this shift in attitude, Glatthaar seems to overstate the prewar racism of the White men who became officers in Black regiments. He claims that “virtually all of them held powerful racial prejudices” before the war. While this might be true for those who joined Black units for personal gain, it misrepresents the many abolitionists who became officers in these regiments. These abolitionists, who had spent years fighting against the pervasive racial prejudice in American society, eagerly participated in this military experiment with the hope that it would advance African Americans' freedom and postwar civil equality. By contemporary standards of racial equality, their paternalism might be seen as racist. However, to describe their attitudes as "powerful racial prejudices" is to apply modern standards to a different historical context, which can lead to misinterpretation of their motives and actions.

The Impressionists openly rejected any philosophical connotations, although their avant-garde approach to painting had important philosophical implications. By drastically diverging from the conventional perspectives of artists on visual reality, they created a logical new mode of artistic expression. Greek painters even made the connection between abstract ideas and concrete shapes, demonstrating their concrete comprehension of the cosmos. This materialistic perspective dominated painting far into the nineteenth century. By contrast, the Impressionists felt that the fundamental element of visual reality was light, not substance. This viewpoint is aptly expressed by the philosopher Taine, who said, "The chief 'person' in a picture is the light in which everything is bathed."
The Impressionists held that all solid objects were connected by light and that any divisions between them were artificial. Solid objects were merely surfaces reflecting light. This alteration altered how color and outline were handled. It was discovered that color resulted from light vibrations on a colorless surface, refuting the earlier belief that color was an intrinsic feature of objects. Originally intended to indicate the edges of an item, outline is currently only used to indicate the boundaries of often overlapping patterns. Impressionist paintings saw the world as a sequence of surfaces reacting to light, rather than as a collection of distinct objects. Filtered light frequently produces the mosaic of colors seen in an Impressionist painting.According to Mauclair, "light becomes the sole subject of the picture," with the objects it illuminates playing a supporting role. This shift means that painting is no longer only a visual art form.
This ground-breaking new approach to art appreciation ignored all external ideas, whether they were moral, spiritual, or psychological, as well as any emotions that went beyond the purely aesthetic. The subjects of Impressionist paintings—people, places, and things—did not convey deeper meanings or tell tales. Instead, they merely served as elements of a light pattern that the painter used as inspiration from nature to create on canvas.

The passage below is accompanied by a set of questions. Choose the best answer to each question.
Interpretations of the Indian past...were inevitably influenced by colonial concerns and interests,and also by prevalent European ideas about history,civilization and the Orient. Orientalist scholars studied the languages and the texts with selected Indian scholars,but made little attempt to understand the world-view of those who were teaching them. The readings therefore are something of a disjuncture from the traditional ways of looking at the Indian past...
Orientalism [which we can understand broadly as Western perceptions of the Orient] fuelled the fantasy and the freedom sought by European Romanticism, particularly in its opposition to the more disciplined Neo-Classicism. The cultures of Asia were seen as bringing a new Romantic paradigm. Another Renaissance was anticipated through an acquaintance with the Orient,and this,it was thought,would be different from the earlier Greek Renaissance. It was believed that this Oriental Renaissance would liberate European thought and literature from the increasing focus on discipline and rationality that had followed from the earlier Enlightenment...[The Romantic English poets, Wordsworth and Coleridge,] were apprehensive of the changes introduced by industrialization and turned to nature and to fantasies of the Orient.
However,this enthusiasm gradually changed,to conform with the emphasis later in the nineteenth century on the innate superiority of European civilization. Oriental civilizations were now seen as having once been great but currently in decline. The various phases of Orientalism tended to mould European understanding of the Indian past into a particular pattern... There was an attempt to formulate Indian culture as uniform, such formulations being derived from texts that were given priority. The so-called 'discovery' of India was largely through selected literature in Sanskrit. This interpretation tended to emphasize non-historical aspects of Indian culture,for example the idea of an unchanging continuity of society and religion over 3,000 years; and it was believed that the Indian pattern of life was so concerned with metaphysics and the subtleties of religious belief that little attention was given to the more tangible aspects.
German Romanticism endorsed this image of India,and it became the mystic land for many Europeans,where even the most ordinary actions were imbued with a complex symbolism. This was the genesis of the idea of the spiritual east,and also, incidentally,the refuge of European intellectuals seeking to distance themselves from the changing patterns of their own societies. A dichotomy in values was maintained,Indian values being described as 'spiritual' and European values as 'materialistic',with little attempt to juxtapose these values with the reality of Indian society. This theme has been even more firmly endorsed by a section of Indian opinion during the last hundred years.
It was a consolation to the Indian intelligentsia for its perceived inability to counter the technical superiority of the west,a superiority viewed as having enabled Europe to colonize Asia and other parts of the world. At the height of anti-colonial nationalism it acted as a salve for having been made a colony of Britain.

Compare and contrast between Portia and Jessica characters in Merchant of Venice.

Direction for Reading Comprehension: The passages given here are followed by some questions that have four answer choices; read the passage carefully and pick the option whose answer best aligns with the passage
In a low-carbon world, renewable energy technologies are hot business. For investors looking to redirect funds, wind turbines and solar panels, among other technologies, seem a straightforward choice. But renewables need to be further scrutinized before being championed as forging a path toward a low-carbon future. Both the direct and indirect impacts of renewable energy must be examined to ensure that a climate-smart future does not intensify social and environmental harm. As renewable energy production requires land, water, and labor, among other inputs, it imposes costs on people and the environment. Hydropower projects, for instance, have led to community dispossession and exclusion . . .Renewable energy supply chains are also intertwined with mining, and their technologies contribute to growing levels of electronic waste . . . Furthermore, although renewable energy can be produced and distributed through small-scale, local systems, such an approach might not generate the high returns on investment needed to attract capital. Although an emerging sector, renewables are enmeshed in long-standing resource extraction through their dependence on minerals and metals . . . Scholars document the negative consequences of mining . . . even for mining operations that commit to socially responsible practices[:] “many of the world’s largest reservoirs of minerals like cobalt, copper, lithium,[and] rare earth minerals”—the ones needed for renewable technologies— “are found in fragile states and under communities of marginalized peoples in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.” Since the demand for metals and minerals will increase substantially in a renewable-powered future . . . this intensification could exacerbate the existing consequences of extractive activities.
Among the connections between climate change and waste, O’Neill . . . highlights that “devices developed to reduce our carbon footprint, such as lithium batteries for hybrid and electric cars or solar panels[,] become potentially dangerous electronic waste at the end of their productive life.” The disposal of toxic waste has long perpetuated social injustice through the flows of waste to the Global South and to marginalized communities in the Global North . ..
While renewable energy is a more recent addition to financial portfolios, investments in the sector must be considered in light of our understanding of capital accumulation. As agricultural finance reveals, the concentration of control of corporate activity facilitates profit generation. For some climate activists, the promise of renewables rests on their ability not only to reduce emissions but also to provide distributed, democratized access to energy . . .But Burke and Stephens . . . caution that “renewable energy systems offer a possibility but not a certainty for more democratic energy futures.” Small-scale, distributed forms of energy are only highly profitable to institutional investors if control is consolidated somewhere in the financial chain. Renewable energy can be produced at the household or neighborhood level. However, such small-scale, localized production is unlikely to generate high returns for investors. For financial growth to be sustained and expanded by the renewable sector, production and trade in renewable energy technologies will need to be highly concentrated, and large asset management firms will likely drive those developments.