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GATE 2023 EE GA Q.8: solution and answer

GATE 2023 · EEGA Q.8 · 2 marks · MCQ

Which one of the options does NOT describe the passage below or follow from it?

We tend to think of cancer as a ‘modern’ illness because its metaphors are so modern. It is a disease of overproduction, of sudden growth, a growth that is unstoppable, tipped into the abyss of no control. Modern cell biology encourages us to imagine the cell as a molecular machine. Cancer is that machine unable to quench its intial command (to grow) and thus transform into an indestructible, self-propelled automaton.

[Adapted from The Emperor of All Maladies by Siddhartha Mukherjee]

  1. (A)

    It is a reflection of why cancer seems so modern to most of us.

  2. (B)

    It tells us that modern cell biology uses and promotes metaphors of machinery.

  3. (C)

    Modern cell biology encourages metaphors of machinery, and cancer is often imagined as a machine.

  4. (D)

    Modern cell biology never uses figurative language, such as metaphors, to describe or explain anything.

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GATE 2023 EE GA question 8Tap to open full size

Answer and solution

ANSWER

(D) Modern cell biology never uses figurative language, such as metaphors, to describe or explain anything.

Official answer: DSource: Official answer key, GATE 2023 EE (IIT Kanpur)

  1. The question asks for the one option that is NOT supported. Each of the other options must either describe the passage or be an inference that follows from it.

  2. (A) holds. The first sentence says we think of cancer as a ‘modern’ illness because its metaphors are so modern. So the passage explains why cancer seems modern to us, and (A) describes it.

  3. (B) holds. The passage says "Modern cell biology encourages us to imagine the cell as a molecular machine." Encouraging people to picture the cell as a machine means the field uses the machine metaphor and promotes it.

  4. (C) holds. Its first half comes from the same sentence. Its second half comes from "Cancer is that machine ... self-propelled automaton", which pictures cancer as a machine.

  5. (D) contradicts the passage. The ‘molecular machine’ image is figurative language, and the passage says modern cell biology encourages it. So the claim that modern cell biology "never uses figurative language" is false. The absolute word never gives it away.

  6. So (D) is the only option that neither describes the passage nor follows from it.

KEY IDEA

In a NOT-supported question, check each option against a specific sentence in the passage. The odd one out usually contradicts the passage outright, and an absolute word such as 'never' is a common signal. Here the passage itself shows modern cell biology encouraging a metaphor (the cell as a molecular machine), so a claim that it never uses figurative language is refuted by the text.

WATCH OUT FOR

Some students reject (B) because the passage never uses the word 'metaphor' about cell biology. But 'encourages us to imagine the cell as a molecular machine' is exactly the promotion of a machine metaphor, so (B) follows. Others misread the question as asking which option IS supported.

From the GATE 2023 EE paper. Every question of this paper · Download the full paper · All 18 Reading questions, with notes

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