Question:
Read the passage given below and answer the question that follows:
I eschew the notion of racial kinship. I do so in order to be free to claim what the distinguished political theorist Michael Sandel labels "the unencumbered self." ... I shun racial pride because of my conception of what should properly be the object of pride for an individual: something that he or she has accomplished. I cannot feel pride in some state of affairs that is independent of my contribution to it. The color of my skin... and the various other signs that prompt people to label me black constitute such a state of affairs. I did not achieve my racial designation. It was something I inherited...
The author states his definition of "what should properly be the object of pride for an individual" in order to:
Read the passage given below and answer the question that follows:
I eschew the notion of racial kinship. I do so in order to be free to claim what the distinguished political theorist Michael Sandel labels "the unencumbered self." ... I shun racial pride because of my conception of what should properly be the object of pride for an individual: something that he or she has accomplished. I cannot feel pride in some state of affairs that is independent of my contribution to it. The color of my skin... and the various other signs that prompt people to label me black constitute such a state of affairs. I did not achieve my racial designation. It was something I inherited...
The author states his definition of "what should properly be the object of pride for an individual" in order to:
I eschew the notion of racial kinship. I do so in order to be free to claim what the distinguished political theorist Michael Sandel labels "the unencumbered self." ... I shun racial pride because of my conception of what should properly be the object of pride for an individual: something that he or she has accomplished. I cannot feel pride in some state of affairs that is independent of my contribution to it. The color of my skin... and the various other signs that prompt people to label me black constitute such a state of affairs. I did not achieve my racial designation. It was something I inherited...
The author states his definition of "what should properly be the object of pride for an individual" in order to:
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Think of this like defining the parameters of a fitness function in machine learning. The author first defines the strict parameters of "pride" (must = accomplishment), and then runs "race" through that function to prove it returns a null/false value.
Updated On: Mar 27, 2026
- ensure that readers do not perceive him as having the yearning that Michael Sandel calls a "manifestation of shallow liberalism"
- gain professional sops
- undermine what Sandel categorizes as "the unencumbered self"
- exhibit his support of Frederick Douglass's opinion at the end of paragraph one
- lay the foundation for his argument against racial solidarity
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Solution and Explanation
Step 1: Analyze the placement and function of the definition.
The author defines pride as deriving strictly from "something that he or she has accomplished." Immediately following this definition, he applies it to the concept of race, stating that race is inherited, not accomplished.
Step 2: Determine the logical goal.
By establishing this premise (pride requires accomplishment), the author logically concludes that one cannot be proud of their race. This dismantles the concept of "racial pride," thereby serving as the foundational argument against racial kinship and solidarity.
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Top MAH MBA CET English Questions
- Read the following passage carefully and answer the question that follows.
For generations, companies have been selling fair skin to young Indian women, promising better marriage and employment prospects. However, over the last few years, men have became a favoured target audience. This followed the realisation that the Indian alpha male, denied a choice in malespecific grooming products, had been using women's fairness creams all along. Until the mid-2000s, deodorants and shaving creams were the only grooming products advertised for men. But India's largest consumer goods companies sensed an opportunity, and launched a slew of fairness products for male consumers. In India, as in other parts of the world, light skin is the culturally accepted and endorsed form of beauty, and children absorb this message at a young age. According to a 2015 research report by Nielsen, urban Indian men believe that fair skin can improve professional prospects. The cultural pressure to look fair, argues Kiran Khalap, branding expert and founder at communications consultancy Chlorophyll, is something inherent in our society, not manufactured by companies. "And it is certainly not restricted to India: China and Japan have had skin-whitening products for centuries, well before they met Western 'white' people," he said. However, there is a growing awareness among consumers that companies are exploiting their insecurities, and critics have taken some of the biggest fairness brands, and the celebrities who endorse them, to task for their casual discrimination. Earlier this month, Bollywood actor Abhay Deol took to Facebook to trounce his fellow actors who earn millions from endorsing fairness creams. This comes a few years after actress Nandita Das launched the "Dark is Beautiful" campaign to encourage Indians to embrace a wider definition of beauty. These efforts are slowly making a difference, increasing awareness and encouraging consumers to take pride in their natural skin tones. That means Indian companies will eventually have to change their approach. "My sense is that brands will wake up to the new reality, and you will see propositions reworked around clearer skin (and) glow, rather than pure fairness," Leo Burnett's Sinha said. Rajesh Krishnamurthy, business head for the consumer product division at The Himalaya Drug Company, believes that over time the men's grooming category will evolve to include a wider range of products, including those for normal skin, just like in the women's skin care category. "Companies are increasingly realising that you cannot continue to bullshit consumers anymore; these are educated young men who will question what you sell to them," said Shantanu Deshpande, co-founder and CEO of the male-grooming startup Bombay Shaving Company.- MAH MBA CET - 2025
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Once upon a time, there lived a farmer who had a little land. His name was Tuan, and he was a very kind and good-natured person. He lived in a hut on his land with his wife and children and earned by selling whatever crops he could produce on his small land. Tuan loved to help others.
Whenever someone fell ill or needed something badly, Tuan was there to help that person. If someone died in the village, Tuan assisted the family members of the deceased person in whichever way he could. If anyone fell ill at night, Tuan was right beside the village doctor to help him prepare the medicines and tend to the sick. There seemed to be none who hated this man. He appeared to be loved by one and all. But there was one person who hated Tuan with all his heart. He was Juan, a neighbour of Tuan, who lived in the land next to him. A lazy person by nature, Juan hardly put in as much effort to cultivate his land as Tuan did to produce crops in his own. So, when the harvest season arrived every year, Juan found that he had very few crops to sell. Tuan, on the other hand, earned a handsome profit through the selling of his produces. One year, Juan could no longer contain his jealousy. Just days before Tuan was to reap his harvest, Juan set fire to his crops at night. Tuan was asleep at this time, and it was only the alertness of one of his other neighbors that saved much of his crops from being perished in the deadly flames of the fire that Juan had lighted. When the flames were doused, Tuan saw which direction the fire had started from. Juan's animosity towards him was unknown to Tuan. But he let the matters rest and decided to take action only if he saw Juan repeating his dastardly act once again. That year, Tuan managed to sell the rest of his crops at a good price, but he could not make much profit for a good part of his produces had been burnt. He had a heavy heart, but he did not like to tell anyone about it. Only days later, Tuan was awakened by the sound of lamentations. He went out to find a crowd beside Juan's hut. He rushed to find that Juan's son had fallen ill. He found that the village doctor was unable to provide a cure to his illness. Tuan knew what he had to do. He untied his own horse and rode it. Then he rushed to the town that was ten miles away and fetched a more experienced doctor who lived there. This doctor was able to guess the disease correctly and provided an exact cure for it. Within hours, the boy was found to sleep soundly and Tuan went with the doctor to take him back to the town. A day later, Juan went to Tuan's hut and began to weep bitterly. He confessed to his sins but was surprised when Tuan told him that he knew about it all. "You knew that I had set fire to your crops? And still you fetched the doctor for my son?" asked the astonished Juan. Tuan nodded and said, "I did what I knew was right. Could I do wrong just because you had done so?" Juan stood up and embraced Tuan. Both men were in tears and so were the others who stood by them. From that day, Juan changed himself. Within a year, he could produce much crops in his land through his hard work. When the others asked him how he had changed so much, he only replied, "It was the goodness and love of Tuan that transformed me."- MAH MBA CET - 2025
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The world population is living, working, vacationing, increasingly conglomerating along the coasts, and standing on the front row of the greatest, most unprecedented, plastic waste tide ever faced. Washed out on our coasts in obvious and clearly visible form, the plastic pollution spectacle blatantly unveiling on our beaches is only the prelude of the greater story that unfolded further away in the world's oceans, yet mostly originating from where we stand: the land. For more than 50 years, global production and consumption of plastics have continued to rise. An estimated 299 million tons of plastics were produced in 2013. representing a 4 percent increase over 2012, and confirming an upward trend over the past years. In 2008, our global plastic consumption worldwide has been estimated at 260 million tons, and, according to a 2012 report by Global Industry Analysts, plastic consumption is to reach 297.5 million tons by the end of 2015. Plastic is versatile, lightweight, flexible, moisture resistant, strong, and relatively inexpensive. Those are the attractive qualities that lead us, around the world, to such a voracious appetite and over-consumption of plastic goods. However, durable and very slow to degrade, plastic materials that are used in the production of so many products all, ultimately, become waste with staying power. Our tremendous attraction to plastic, coupled with an undeniable behavioural propensity of increasingly over-consuming, discarding, littering and thus polluting, has become a combination of lethal nature. A simple walk on any beach, anywhere, and the plastic waste spectacle is present. All over the world, the statistics are ever growing, staggeringly. Tons of plastic debris (which by definition are waste that can vary in size from large containers, fishing nets to microscopic plastic pellets or even particles) is discarded every year, everywhere, polluting lands, rivers, coasts, beaches, and oceans. Published in the journal Science in February 2015, a study conducted by a scientific working group at UC Santa Barbara's National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS), quantified the Input of plastic waste from land into the ocean. The results: every year, 8 million metric tons of plastic end up in our oceans. It's equivalent to five grocery bags filled with plastic for every foot of coastline in the world. In 2025, the annual input is estimated to be about twice greater, or 10 bags full of plastic per foot of coastline. So the cumulative input for 2025 would be nearly 20 times the 8 million metric tons estimate 100 bags of plastic per foot of coastline in the world! As per the passage,- MAH MBA CET - 2025
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For generations, companies have been selling fair skin to young Indian women, promising better marriage and employment prospects. However, over the last few years, men have became a favoured target audience. This followed the realisation that the Indian alpha male, denied a choice in malespecific grooming products, had been using women's fairness creams all along. Until the mid-2000s, deodorants and shaving creams were the only grooming products advertised for men. But India's largest consumer goods companies sensed an opportunity, and launched a slew of fairness products for male consumers. In India, as in other parts of the world, light skin is the culturally accepted and endorsed form of beauty, and children absorb this message at a young age. According to a 2015 research report by Nielsen, urban Indian men believe that fair skin can improve professional prospects. The cultural pressure to look fair, argues Kiran Khalap, branding expert and founder at communications consultancy Chlorophyll, is something inherent in our society, not manufactured by companies. "And it is certainly not restricted to India: China and Japan have had skin-whitening products for centuries, well before they met Western 'white' people," he said. However, there is a growing awareness among consumers that companies are exploiting their insecurities, and critics have taken some of the biggest fairness brands, and the celebrities who endorse them, to task for their casual discrimination. Earlier this month, Bollywood actor Abhay Deol took to Facebook to trounce his fellow actors who earn millions from endorsing fairness creams. This comes a few years after actress Nandita Das launched the "Dark is Beautiful" campaign to encourage Indians to embrace a wider definition of beauty. These efforts are slowly making a difference, increasing awareness and encouraging consumers to take pride in their natural skin tones. That means Indian companies will eventually have to change their approach. "My sense is that brands will wake up to the new reality, and you will see propositions reworked around clearer skin (and) glow, rather than pure fairness," Leo Burnett's Sinha said. Rajesh Krishnamurthy, business head for the consumer product division at The Himalaya Drug Company, believes that over time the men's grooming category will evolve to include a wider range of products, including those for normal skin, just like in the women's skin care category. "Companies are increasingly realising that you cannot continue to bullshit consumers anymore; these are educated young men who will question what you sell to them," said Shantanu Deshpande, co-founder and CEO of the male-grooming startup Bombay Shaving Company.- MAH MBA CET - 2025
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Once upon a time, there lived a farmer who had a little land. His name was Tuan, and he was a very kind and good-natured person. He lived in a hut on his land with his wife and children and earned by selling whatever crops he could produce on his small land. Tuan loved to help others.
Whenever someone fell ill or needed something badly, Tuan was there to help that person. If someone died in the village, Tuan assisted the family members of the deceased person in whichever way he could. If anyone fell ill at night, Tuan was right beside the village doctor to help him prepare the medicines and tend to the sick. There seemed to be none who hated this man. He appeared to be loved by one and all. But there was one person who hated Tuan with all his heart. He was Juan, a neighbour of Tuan, who lived in the land next to him. A lazy person by nature, Juan hardly put in as much effort to cultivate his land as Tuan did to produce crops in his own. So, when the harvest season arrived every year, Juan found that he had very few crops to sell. Tuan, on the other hand, earned a handsome profit through the selling of his produces. One year, Juan could no longer contain his jealousy. Just days before Tuan was to reap his harvest, Juan set fire to his crops at night. Tuan was asleep at this time, and it was only the alertness of one of his other neighbors that saved much of his crops from being perished in the deadly flames of the fire that Juan had lighted. When the flames were doused, Tuan saw which direction the fire had started from. Juan's animosity towards him was unknown to Tuan. But he let the matters rest and decided to take action only if he saw Juan repeating his dastardly act once again. That year, Tuan managed to sell the rest of his crops at a good price, but he could not make much profit for a good part of his produces had been burnt. He had a heavy heart, but he did not like to tell anyone about it. Only days later, Tuan was awakened by the sound of lamentations. He went out to find a crowd beside Juan's hut. He rushed to find that Juan's son had fallen ill. He found that the village doctor was unable to provide a cure to his illness. Tuan knew what he had to do. He untied his own horse and rode it. Then he rushed to the town that was ten miles away and fetched a more experienced doctor who lived there. This doctor was able to guess the disease correctly and provided an exact cure for it. Within hours, the boy was found to sleep soundly and Tuan went with the doctor to take him back to the town. A day later, Juan went to Tuan's hut and began to weep bitterly. He confessed to his sins but was surprised when Tuan told him that he knew about it all. "You knew that I had set fire to your crops? And still you fetched the doctor for my son?" asked the astonished Juan. Tuan nodded and said, "I did what I knew was right. Could I do wrong just because you had done so?" Juan stood up and embraced Tuan. Both men were in tears and so were the others who stood by them. From that day, Juan changed himself. Within a year, he could produce much crops in his land through his hard work. When the others asked him how he had changed so much, he only replied, "It was the goodness and love of Tuan that transformed me."- MAH MBA CET - 2025
- English
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- Direction: Read the following passage carefully and answer the following question.
The world population is living, working, vacationing, increasingly conglomerating along the coasts, and standing on the front row of the greatest, most unprecedented, plastic waste tide ever faced. Washed out on our coasts in obvious and clearly visible form, the plastic pollution spectacle blatantly unveiling on our beaches is only the prelude of the greater story that unfolded further away in the world's oceans, yet mostly originating from where we stand: the land. For more than 50 years, global production and consumption of plastics have continued to rise. An estimated 299 million tons of plastics were produced in 2013. representing a 4 percent increase over 2012, and confirming an upward trend over the past years. In 2008, our global plastic consumption worldwide has been estimated at 260 million tons, and, according to a 2012 report by Global Industry Analysts, plastic consumption is to reach 297.5 million tons by the end of 2015. Plastic is versatile, lightweight, flexible, moisture resistant, strong, and relatively inexpensive. Those are the attractive qualities that lead us, around the world, to such a voracious appetite and over-consumption of plastic goods. However, durable and very slow to degrade, plastic materials that are used in the production of so many products all, ultimately, become waste with staying power. Our tremendous attraction to plastic, coupled with an undeniable behavioural propensity of increasingly over-consuming, discarding, littering and thus polluting, has become a combination of lethal nature. A simple walk on any beach, anywhere, and the plastic waste spectacle is present. All over the world, the statistics are ever growing, staggeringly. Tons of plastic debris (which by definition are waste that can vary in size from large containers, fishing nets to microscopic plastic pellets or even particles) is discarded every year, everywhere, polluting lands, rivers, coasts, beaches, and oceans. Published in the journal Science in February 2015, a study conducted by a scientific working group at UC Santa Barbara's National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS), quantified the Input of plastic waste from land into the ocean. The results: every year, 8 million metric tons of plastic end up in our oceans. It's equivalent to five grocery bags filled with plastic for every foot of coastline in the world. In 2025, the annual input is estimated to be about twice greater, or 10 bags full of plastic per foot of coastline. So the cumulative input for 2025 would be nearly 20 times the 8 million metric tons estimate 100 bags of plastic per foot of coastline in the world! As per the passage,- MAH MBA CET - 2025
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Emotions often trump reason. The Cauvery water dispute is turning out to be less about water and irrigation and more about linguistic chauvinism and regional identity. Nothing else can explain the mindless violence in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu over the Supreme Court order asking the former to release water to the latter, keeping in view the distress situation in both States in a season of deficit rainfall. Many of the acts of violence have been perpetuated in the two States by chauvinistic, fringe organizations that have little to do with the farming community or its interests. It is clear that there is insufficient water in Karnataka's reservoirs to meet the full irrigation needs of both states. The point of the Supreme Court order was to make the States share their distress and not to magically fulfil the needs of farmers on both sides. But political parties and some media houses, especially regional language television channels, have sought to portray the issue as one that pits the people of one State against that of the other. Indeed, the two major national parties, the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party, have taken different stands in the two States on this issue. No party or State government appears to believe it can afford to be seen as taking even so much as a conciliatory step toward defusing the crisis. On some previous occasions when Karnataka released water in a distress year the State government did so quietly so as to not give chauvinistic elements any opportunity to inflame passions. Cauvery is an inter-State dispute, but this is no reason to turn the issue into a raging controversy that draws the peoples of the two States into confrontation!
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