Imagine a world in which artificial intelligence is entrusted with the highest moral responsibilities: sentencing criminals, allocating medical resources, and even mediating conflicts between nations. This might seem like the pinnacle of human progress: an entity unburdened by emotion, prejudice or inconsistency, making ethical decisions with impeccable precision. . . .

Yet beneath this vision of an idealised moral arbiter lies a fundamental question: can a machine understand morality as humans do, or is it confined to a simulacrum of ethical reasoning? AI might replicate human decisions without improving on them, carrying forward the same biases, blind spots and cultural distortions from human moral judgment. In trying to emulate us, it might only reproduce our limitations, not transcend them. But there is a deeper concern. Moral judgment draws on intuition, historical awareness and context – qualities that resist formalisation. Ethics may be so embedded in lived experience that any attempt to encode it into formal structures risks flattening its most essential features. If so, AI would not merely reflect human shortcomings; it would strip morality of the very depth that makes ethical reflection possible in the first place.

Still, many have tried to formalise ethics, by treating certain moral claims not as conclusions, but as starting points. A classic example comes from utilitarianism, which often takes as a foundational axiom the principle that one should act to maximise overall wellbeing. From this, more specific principles can be derived, for example, that it is right to benefit the greatest number, or that actions should be judged by their consequences for total happiness. As computational resources increase, AI becomes increasingly well-suited to the task of starting from fixed ethical assumptions and reasoning through their implications in complex situations.

But what, exactly, does it mean to formalise something like ethics? The question is easier to grasp by looking at fields in which formal systems have long played a central role. Physics, for instance, has relied on formalisation for centuries. There is no single physical theory that explains everything. Instead, we have many physical theories, each designed to describe specific aspects of the Universe: from the behaviour of quarks and electrons to the motion of galaxies. These theories often diverge. Aristotelian physics, for instance, explained falling objects in terms of natural motion toward Earth’s centre; Newtonian mechanics replaced this with a universal force of gravity. These explanations are not just different; they are incompatible. Yet both share a common structure: they begin with basic postulates – assumptions about motion, force or mass – and derive increasingly complex consequences. . . .

Ethical theories have a similar structure. Like physical theories, they attempt to describe a domain – in this case, the moral landscape. They aim to answer questions about which actions are right or wrong, and why. These theories also diverge and, even when they recommend similar actions, such as giving to charity, they justify them in different ways. Ethical theories also often begin with a small set of foundational principles or claims, from which they reason about more complex moral problems.

Correct Option: 1

Rationale: Option 1 best summarises the passage by capturing its full argumentative arc. The passage begins with the appeal of emotionless AI decision-making, moves into doubts about AI’s ability to grasp morality, warns that formalisation risks flattening context-sensitive judgement, and finally compares ethics to physics as a field marked by structured plurality rather than single-theory convergence.

Why other options wrong: Options 2 and 3 fail because the passage neither fully endorses nor completely rejects ethical formalisation. Option 4 is incorrect because the passage stresses divergence of ethical theories, not convergence.

Difficulty: Medium

Understanding the key properties of complex systems can help us clarify and deal with many new and existing global challenges, from pandemics to poverty . . . A recent study in Nature Physics found transitions to orderly states such as schooling in fish (all fish swimming in the same direction), can be caused, paradoxically, by randomness, or ‘noise’ feeding back on itself. That is, a misalignment among the fish causes further misalignment, eventually inducing a transition to schooling. Most of us wouldn’t guess that noise can produce predictable behaviour. The result invites us to consider how technology such as contact-tracing apps, although informing us locally, might negatively impact our collective movement. If each of us changes our behaviour to avoid the infected, we might generate a collective pattern we had aimed to avoid: higher levels of interaction between the infected and susceptible, or high levels of interaction among the asymptomatic.

Complex systems also suffer from a special vulnerability to events that don’t follow a normal distribution or ‘bell curve’. When events are distributed normally, most outcomes are familiar and don’t seem particularly striking. Height is a good example: it’s pretty unusual for a man to be over 7 feet tall; most adults are between 5 and 6 feet, and there is no known person over 9 feet tall. But in collective settings where contagion shapes behaviour – a run on the banks, a scramble to buy toilet paper – the probability distributions for possible events are often heavy-tailed. There is a much higher probability of extreme events, such as a stock market crash or a massive surge in infections. These events are still unlikely, but they occur more frequently and are larger than would be expected under normal distributions.

What’s more, once a rare but hugely significant ‘tail’ event takes place, this raises the probability of further tail events. We might call them second-order tail events; they include stock market gyrations after a big fall and earthquake aftershocks. The initial probability of second-order tail events is so tiny it’s almost impossible to calculate – but once a first-order tail event occurs, the rules change, and the probability of a second-order tail event increases.

The dynamics of tail events are complicated by the fact that they result from cascades of other unlikely events. When COVID-19 first struck, the stock market suffered stunning losses followed by an equally stunning recovery. Some of these dynamics are potentially attributable to former sports bettors, with no sports to bet on, entering the market as speculators rather than investors. The arrival of these new players might have increased inefficiencies and allowed savvy long-term investors to gain an edge over bettors with different goals. . . .

One reason a first-order tail event can induce further tail events is that it changes the perceived costs of our actions and changes the rules that we play by. This game-change is an example of another key complex systems concept: nonstationarity. A second, canonical example of nonstationarity is adaptation, as illustrated by the arms race involved in the coevolution of hosts and parasites [in which] each has to ‘run’ faster, just to keep up with the novel solutions the other one presents as they battle it out in evolutionary time.

Correct Option: 2

Rationale:

This option provides the most accurate and structurally complete summary, capturing the three sequential topics presented in the passage: 1. The introduction of the paradox that noise can create order (Paragraph 1); 2. The discussion of heavy-tailed distributions and cascades in complex systems (Paragraphs 2 and 3); and 3. The explanation of nonstationarity and its market illustration during the COVID-19 disruption (Paragraphs 4 and 5).

Why other options wrong:

Option 1 is incorrect because it uses overly generalized and definitive language (“always produce inefficiency,” “invariably profit”) that contradicts the passage’s cautious phrasing (“might have increased,” “potentially attributable”). It also fails to summarize the passage’s introductory concepts of noise and heavy-tailed distributions.

Option 3 is factually incorrect because the passage argues that social outcomes involving contagion often do not follow normal distributions and that extreme events are significant, not negligible.

Option 4 is incorrect because the passage uses the host-parasite system as an illustration only, and then explicitly applies the concept of nonstationarity to markets and public health dynamics, rather than rejecting these applications.

Difficulty: Medium

Often the well intentioned music lover or the traditionally-minded professional composer asks two basic questions when faced with the electronic music phenomena: (1) . . . is this type of artistic creation music at all? and, (2) given that the product is accepted as music of a new type or order, is not such music “inhuman”? . . . As Lejaren Hiller points out in his book Experimental Music (co-author Leonard M. Isaacson), two questions which often arise when music is discussed are: (a) the substance of musical communication and its symbolic and semantic significance, if any, and (b) the particular processes, both mental and technical, which are involved in creating and responding to musical composition. The ever-present popular concept of music as a direct, open, emotional expression and as a subjective form of communication from the composer, is, of course still that of the nineteenth century, when composers themselves spoke of music in those terms . . . But since the third decade of our century many composers have preferred more objective definitions of music, epitomized in Stravinsky’s description of it as “a form of speculation in terms of sound and time”. An acceptance of this more characteristic twentieth-century view of the art of musical composition will of course immediately bring the layman closer to an understanding of, and sympathetic response to, electronic music, even if the forms, sounds and approaches it uses will still be of a foreign nature to him.

A communication problem however will still remain. The principal barrier that electronic music presents at large, in relation to the communication process, is that composers in this medium are employing a new language of forms . . . where terms like ‘densities’, ‘indefinite pitch relations’, ‘dynamic serialization’, ‘permutation’, etc., are substitutes (or remote equivalents) for the traditional concepts of harmony, melody, rhythm, etc. . . . When the new structural procedures of electronic music are at last fully understood by the listener the barriers between him and the work he faces will be removed. . . .

The medium of electronic music has of course tempted many kinds of composers to try their hand at it . . . But the serious-minded composer approaches the world of electronic music with a more sophisticated and profound concept of creation. Although he knows that he can reproduce and employ melodic, rhythmic patterns and timbres of a traditional nature, he feels that it is in the exploration of sui generis languages and forms that the aesthetic magic of the new medium lies. And, conscientiously, he plunges into this search.

The second objection usually levelled against electronic music is much more innocent in nature. When people speak—sometimes very vehemently—of the ‘inhuman’ quality of this music they seem to forget that the composer is the one who fires the machines, collects the sounds, manipulates them, pushes the buttons, programs the computer, filters the sounds, establishes pitches and scales, splices tape, thinks of forms, and rounds up the over-all structure of the piece, as well as every detail of it.

Correct Option: 4

Rationale:

The goal of the author over the course of the passage is to defend electronic music from certain common charges. The passage is entirely structured around addressing the two basic questions (charges) leveled against electronic music by traditionalists: (1) Is it music at all? and (2) Is it “inhuman”? The author uses objective definitions (Stravinsky) and detailed descriptions of human involvement (composer manipulating machines) to systematically rebut these criticisms. Therefore, the overarching purpose is defense.

Why other options wrong:

Option 1 (defend the “serious-minded composer” from Lejaren Hill and Stravinsky) is incorrect because Hiller and Stravinsky are cited as supporting authorities, not critics.

Option 2 (differentiate the modern composer from the nineteenth century composer) is a necessary structural step used by the author to achieve the defense (establishing an objective definition of music), but it is not the ultimate goal of the passage.

Option 3 (differentiate between electronic music and other forms of music) is too narrow; the author differentiates electronic music primarily to validate it against the subjective, traditional view of music, making validation (defense) the higher goal.

Difficulty: Easy

Stories concerning the Undead have always been with us. From out of the primal darkness of Mankind’s earliest years, come whispers of eerie creatures, not quite alive (or alive in a way which we can understand), yet not quite dead either. These may have been ancient and primitive deities who dwelt deep in the surrounding forests and in remote places, or simply those deceased who refused to remain in their tombs and who wandered about the countryside, physically tormenting and frightening those who were still alive. Mostly they were ill-defined-strange sounds in the night beyond the comforting glow of the fire, or a shape, half-glimpsed in the twilight along the edge of an encampment. They were vague and indistinct, but they were always there with the power to terrify and disturb. They had the power to touch the minds of our early ancestors and to fill them with dread. Such fear formed the basis of the earliest tales although the source and exact nature of such terrors still remained very vague.

And as Mankind became more sophisticated, leaving the gloom of their caves and forming themselves into recognizable communities-towns, cities, whole cultures-so the Undead travelled with them, inhabiting their folklore just as they had in former times. Now they began to take on more definite shapes. They became walking cadavers; the physical embodiment of former deities and things which had existed alongside Man since the Creation. Some still remained vague and ill-defined but, as Mankind strove to explain the horror which it felt towards them, such creatures emerged more readily into the light.

In order to confirm their abnormal status, many of the Undead were often accorded attributes, which defied the natural order of things-the power to transform themselves into other shapes, the ability to sustain themselves by drinking human blood, and the ability to influence human minds across a distance. Such powers-described as supernatural-only [lent] an added dimension to the terror that humans felt regarding them.

And it was only natural, too, that the Undead should become connected with the practice of magic. From very early times, Shamans and witchdoctors had claimed at least some power and control over the spirits of departed ancestors, and this has continued down into more ” civilized” times. Formerly, the invisible spirits and forces that thronged around men’s earliest encampments, had spoken ” through” the tribal Shamans but now, as entities in their own right, they were subject to magical control and could be physically summoned by a competent sorcerer. However, the relationship between the magician and an Undead creature was often a very tenuous and uncertain one. Some sorcerers might have even become Undead entities once they died, but they might also have been susceptible to the powers of other magicians when they did.

From the Middle Ages and into the Age of Enlightenment, theories of the Undead continued to grow and develop. Their names became more familiar-werewolf, vampire, ghoul-each one certain to strike fear into the hearts of ordinary humans.

Option: 3. By using the word ‘shamans’, option 4 becomes too specific and misses the broader idea of the passage. It goes out. Option 3 looks good because theories of the undead is the chief concern of the passage and this evolution has been discussed, keeping the time reference from the ancient past to the age of Enlightenment. Option 2 does not even mention the word ‘undead’, instead of that it uses the word ‘primitive thinking’. ‘comprehending their environment’, a phrase in option 1, is completely out of context, too broad and fails to capture the keyword ‘theories of the undead’.

We begin with the emergence of the philosophy of the social sciences as an arena of thought and as a set of social institutions. The two characterisations overlap but are not congruent. Academic disciplines are social institutions. . . . My view is that institutions are all those social entities that organise action: they link acting individuals into social structures. There are various kinds of institutions. Hegelians and Marxists emphasise universal institutions such as the family, rituals, governance, economy and the military. These are mostly institutions that just grew. Perhaps in some imaginary beginning of time they spontaneously appeared. In their present incarnations, however, they are very much the product of conscious attempts to mould and plan them. We have family law, established and disestablished churches, constitutions and laws, including those governing the economy and the military. Institutions deriving from statute, like joint-stock companies are formal by contrast with informal ones such as friendships. There are some institutions that come in both informal and formal variants, as well as in mixed ones. Consider the fact that the stock exchange and the black market are both market institutions, one formal one not. Consider further that there are many features of the work of the stock exchange that rely on informal, noncodifiable agreements, not least the language used for communication. To be precise, mixtures are the norm . . . From constitutions at the top to by-laws near the bottom we are always adding to, or tinkering with, earlier institutions, the grown and the designed are intertwined.

It is usual in social thought to treat culture and tradition as different from, although alongside, institutions. The view taken here is different. Culture and tradition are sub-sets of institutions analytically isolated for explanatory or expository purposes. Some social scientists have taken all institutions, even purely local ones, to be entities that satisfy basic human needs – under local conditions . . . Others differed and declared any structure of reciprocal roles and norms an institution. Most of these differences are differences of emphasis rather than disagreements. Let us straddle all these versions and present institutions very generally . . . as structures that serve to coordinate the actions of individuals. . . . Institutions themselves then have no aims or purpose other than those given to them by actors or used by actors to explain them . . .

Language is the formative institution for social life and for science . . . Both formal and informal language is involved, naturally grown or designed. (Language is all of these to varying degrees.) Languages are paradigms of institutions or, from another perspective, nested sets of institutions. Syntax, semantics, lexicon and alphabet/character-set are all institutions within the larger institutional framework of a written language. Natural languages are typical examples of what Ferguson called ‘the result of human action, but not the execution of any human design’[;] reformed natural languages and artificial languages introduce design into their modifications or refinements of natural language. Above all, languages are paradigms of institutional tools that function to coordinate.

Option: 4. To answer this question, we have to look for the broader picture. Option 1 says ‘it is usual….’…whether something is usual or not is not the theme of the passage. Also, language and the stock exchange are not the broad ideas. 4 is the best choice simply by elimination because right across the passage the author discusses the importance of institutions. The last sentence of the paragraph says “Above all, languages are paradigms of institutional tools that function to coordinate.”….language is also an institution…but not the only institution.