XAT 2018 — VARC Question 18
Read the passage below and answer the questions that follow.
Labor and capital are the opposite poles of capitalist society. This polarity begins in each enterprise and is realized on a national and even international scale as a giant duality of classes which dominates the social structure. And yet this polarity is incorporated in a necessary identity between the two. Whatever its form, whether as money or commodities or means of production, capital is labor: it is labor that has been performed in the past, the objectified product of preceding phases of the cycle of production which becomes capital only through appropriation by the capitalist and its use in the accumulation of more capital. At the same time, as living labor which is purchased by the capitalist to set the production process into motion, labor is capital. That portion of money capital which is set aside for the payment of labor, the portion which in each cycle is converted into living labor power, is the portion of capital which stands for and corresponds to the
working population, and upon which the latter subsists. Before it is anything else, therefore, the working class is the animate part of capital, the part which will set in motion the process that
yields to the total capital its increment of surplus value. As such, the working class is first of all, raw material for exploitation. This working class lives a social and political existence of its own,
outside the direct grip of capital. It protests and submits, rebels or is integrated into bourgeois society, sees itself as a class or loses sight of its own existence, in accordance with the forces that act upon it and the moods, conjunctures, and conflicts of social and political life. But since, in its permanent existence, it is the living part of capital, its occupational structure, modes of work,
and distribution through the industries of society are determined by the ongoing processes of the accumulation of capital. It is seized, released, flung into various parts of the social machinery and expelled by others, not in accord with its own will or self-activity, but in accord with the movement of capital.
Read the following paragraph carefully and answer the question that follows:
The Lannisters had ______ gold than the Tyrells until the Lannister army sacked Highgarden and took the Tyrell fortune to pay back the Iron Bank. On the other hand, the Northern army has
______ than 10,000 men and therefore, Jon needs to bend the knee to Daenerys. What happens in the story next is dependent on George R. Martin, the writer of the series. For ______, he has not written anything further and we hope George R. Martin will get around to finishing the book _______. But as it happens, ________, book releases are delayed.
Fill in the blanks meaningfully, in the above paragraph, from the following options.
Answer & solution
less, fewer, some time, sometime, sometimes
- B
fewer, less, sometime, some time, sometimes
- C
less, fewer, sometime, some time, sometimes
- D
fewer, less, sometimes, sometime, some time
- E
fewer, less, some time, sometime, sometimes
According to the rules of usage, “fewer” is used when discussing countable things, while “less” is used for singular mass nouns. For example, you can have fewer ingredients, dollars, people, or puppies, but less salt, money, honesty, or gold. Had the first blank been followed by “grams of gold”, “fewer” would have been an appropriate choice. Thus, [1] and [3] are to be retained. In the third blank, we have to choose between “sometime” and “some time”. “Sometime” means “at some point” or “former”. “Some time” means “a period of time”. From the sentence, it is clear that George R. Martin has not worked on the book for “some time”. Thus, [1] is the only option remaining with us. Similarly, in the fourth blank, “sometime” is the most appropriate.
Hence, the correct answer is option 1.