Question
“We lived in a culture that denied any merit to literary works, considering them important only when they were handmaidens to something seemingly more urgent - namely ideology. This was a country where all gestures, even the most private, were interpreted in political terms.”
The author’s belief that ideology is not as important as literature is revealed by the word:
Official answer and solution
- Official answer
- B
- From
- Official GATE 2017 answer key
Solution
Analyze the rhetorical framing and semantic tone of the passage to identify the word revealing the author's critical perspective on ideology.
Examine the sentence:
“We lived in a culture that denied any merit to literary works, considering them important only when they were handmaidens to something seemingly more urgent - namely ideology.”
The author uses the adverb 'seemingly' to qualify 'more urgent'. By stating that ideology was only seemingly more urgent, the author indicates that its greater importance was merely an illusion or superficial perception held by that culture, not an objective truth. This directly reveals the author's personal belief that ideology was not truly more important than literature.
Thus, the word that reveals this belief is 'seemingly', corresponding to option B.
B
Choosing 'urgent', which on its own would imply the author genuinely thought ideology was urgent; 'seemingly' undercuts that assertion.
The answer is the one in the official GATE answer key. The solution is this site's own explanation.
Source
- Paper
- GATE 2017 Computer Science and Information Technology (CS) Session 2
- Question
- 61 of 65, printed as GA Q.6
- Section
- General Aptitude
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