GMAT Practise Questions

hii sir, I am preparing for the GMAT Examinations will you please provide me the Sample question paper for the GMAT Examination Reading Comprehensive Section ?

[Shaleen]

As you asking for the Sample question for the Reading Comprehensive
Section the questions are as follow :

Reading Comprehension Practice Questions

Directions: Answer the questions after reading through the passage. Base
your answers on information that is either stated or implied in the passage.

Passage

The rich analyses of Fernand Braudel and his fellow Annales historians have
made significant contributions to historical theory and research. In a
departure from traditional historical approaches, the Annales historians
assume (as do Marxists) that history cannot be limited to a simple recounting
of conscious human actions, but must be understood in the context of forces
that underlie human behavior. Braudel was the first Annales historian to gain
widespread support for the idea that history should synthesize data from
social sciences, especially economics, to provide a broader historical view of
human societies over time (although Febvre and Bloch, founders of the
Annales school, originated this approach).



Braudel conceived of history as the dynamic interaction of three
temporalities. The first of these, the evenementielle, involved short-lived
dramatic "events," such as battles, revolutions, and the actions of great men,
which had preoccupied traditional historians like Carlyle. Conjonctures was
Braudel's term for the larger, cyclical processes that might last up to half a
century. The longue duree, a historical wave of great length, was for Braudel
the most fascinating of the three temporalities. Here he focused on those
aspects of everyday life that might remain relatively unchanged for
centuries. What people ate, what they wore, their means and routes of travel
—for Braudel these things create "structures" that define the limits of
potential social change for hundreds of years at a time.




Braudel's concept of the longue duree extended the perspective of historical
space as well as time. Until the Annales school, historians had taken the
juridicial political unit—the the nation-state, duchy, or whatever—as their
starting point. Yet, when such enormous time spans are considered,
geographical features may have more significance for human populations
than national borders. In his doctoral thesis, a seminal work on the
Mediterranean during the reign of Philip II, Braudel treated the geohistory of
the entire region as a "structure" that exerted myriad influences on human
lifeways since the first settlements on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea.



And so the reader is given such arcane information as the list of products
that came to Spanish shores from North Africa, the seasonal routes followed
by Mediterranean sheep and their shepherds, and the cities where the best
ship timber could be bought.



Braudel has been faulted for the imprecision of his approach. With his
Rabelaisian delight in concrete detail, Braudel vastly extended the realm of
relevant phenomena; but this very achievement made it difficult to delimit
the boundaries of observation, a task necessary to beginning any social
investigation. Further, Braudel and other Annales historians minimize the
differences among the social sciences. Nevertheless, the many similarly
designed studies aimed at both professional and popular audiences indicate
that Braudel asked significant questions which traditional historians had
overlooked.

Question 1

The primary purpose of the passage is to



A. show how Braudel's work changed the conception of Mediterranean life held by previous historians.
B. evaluate Braudel's criticisms of traditional and Marxist historiography
C. contrast the perspective of the longue duree with the actions of major historical figures
D. illustrate the relevance of Braudel's concepts to other social sciences
E. outline some of Braudel's influential conceptions and distinguish them from conventional approaches

Question 2
The author refers to the work of Febvre and Bloch in order to

A. illustrate the limitations of the Annales tradition of historical investigation
B. suggest the relevance of economics to historical investigation
C. debate the need for combining various sociological approaches
D. show that previous Annales historians anticipated Braudel's focus on economics
E. demonstrate that historical studies provide broad structures necessary for economic analysis

Question 3
According to the passage, all of the following are aspects of Braudel's approach to history EXCEPT that he

A. attempted to unify various social sciences
B. studied social and economic activities that occurred across national boundaries
C. pointed out the link between increased economic activity and the rise of nationalism
D. examined seemingly unexciting aspects of everyday life
E. visualized history as involving several different time frames

Question 4
The passage suggests that, compared to traditional historians, Annales historians are

A. more interested in other social sciences than in history
B. more critical of the achievements of famous historical figures
C. more skeptical of the validity of most economic research
D. more interested in the underlying context of human behavior provided by social structure
E. more inclined to be dogmatic in their approach to history

Question 5
The author is critical of Braudel's perspective for which of the following reasons?
A. It seeks structures that underlie all forms of social activity.
B. It assumes a greater similarity among the social sciences than actually exists.
C. It fails to consider the relationship between short-term events and long-term social activity.
D. It clearly defines boundaries for social analysis.
E. It attributes too much significance to conscious human actions.