University of Hyderabad (UoH) 2011 M.A Sociology Entrance for M .A - Question Paper
ENTRANCE EXAMINATIONS, 2011 M.A. (SOCIOLOGY)
TIME: 2 HOURS MAX. MARKS: 100 HALL TICKET NUMBER
Read carefully the following instructions:
1. This question paper has two parts: Part A and Part B.
2. Part A Consists of 25 objective type questions of one mark each. There is negative marking of 0.33 marks for every wrong answer. Maries obtained by the candidate in this part will be used for resolving tie cases. Part B carries 75 Marks.
3. The entrance test paper is not to be taken out of the examination hall.
4. Answers should be written in the space provided after each question.
5. Use the last page for your rough work.
_This book contains 16 pages_
PART-A
QUESTION 1 COMPREHENSION MARKS: 15
Towards a post-industrial society?
Many observers have suggested that what is occurring today is a transition to a new society no longer primarily based on industrialism. We are entering, they claim, a phase of development beyond the industrial era altogether. Alvin Toffler has argued that what is occurring now is, in all likelihood, bigger, deeper, and more important than the Industrial Revolution... The present moment represents nothing less than the second great divide in human history*.
A variety of terms have been coined to describe the new social order supposedly coming into being, such as the information society, service society or knowledge society. The sense that we are moving beyond the old forms of industrial development has led many to introduce terms including the world post (meaning after) to refer to the changes. Authors have spoken of postmodern or post-scarcity society, for example. The term which has come into most common usage, however - apparently first employed by Daniel Bell, writing in the United States, and Alain Touraine, working in France - is post-industrial society.
The diversity of names is one indication of the many ideas put forward to interpret current social changes. But one theme that consistently appears is the significance of the use of information or knowledge in the society of the future. Our way of life, based on the manufacture
of material goods, centred on the power machine and the factory, is being displaced by one in which information is becoming the main basis of the productive system.
The clearest and most comprehensive portrayal of the post-industrial society is provided by Daniel Bell in his work The coming of the post-industrial society. The post-industrial order, Bell argues, is distinguished by a growth of service occupations at the expense of those producing material goods. The blue collar worker, employed in a factory or workshop, is no longer the most essential type of employee. White-collar (clerical and professional) workers come to outnumber those in blue-collar jobs, with professional and technical occupations growing fastest of all.
People working in higher-level white-collar occupations specialize in the production of information and knowledge. The production and control of what Bell calls codified knowledge -systematic, coordinated information - is the main strategic resource on which the society depends. Those who are concerned with its creation and distribution - scientists, computer specialists, economists, engineers and professionals of all kinds - increasingly become the leading social groups, replacing the industrialists and entrepreneurs of the old system. On the level of culture, there is a shift away from the work ethic* towards an emphasis on a freer and more pleasure-seeking life-style. The work-discipline characteristic of industrialism relaxes in the post-industrial order; people are freer to innovate in both their work and their domestic lives.
Critical evaluation
How valid is the view that the old industrial order is being superseded by a post-industrial society? While the thesis has been widely accepted, there are good reasons to treat it with some caution. The empirical assertions on which the notion depends are suspect in several ways.
1. The idea that information is becoming the main basis of the economic system is based on a questionable interpretation of the shift towards service occupations. This trend, accompanied by a decline in employment in other production sectors, dates back almost to the beginning of industrialism itself; it is not simply a recent phenomenon. From the early 1800s onwards manufacture and services both expanded at the expense of agriculture, with the service sector consistently showing a faster rate of increase than manufacture. The blue-collar worker never really was the most common type of employee; a higher proportion of paid employees has always worked in agriculture and services, with the service sector increasing proportionally as the numbers in agriculture dwindled. Easily the most important change has not been from industrial to service work, but from farm employment to all other types of occupation.
2. The service sector is very heterogeneous. Service occupations' cannot be simply treated as identical to white-collar jobs; many jobs in services (such as that of petrol-station attendant) are blue-collar, in the sense that they are manual. Most white-collar positions involve very little specialized knowledge - and have become substantially mechanized. This is true of most lower-level office work, such as secretarial or clerical duties.
3. Many service jobs contribute to a process which in the end produces material goods -and therefore should really be counted as part of manufacture. Thus a computer-programmer working for an industrial firm, designing and monitoring the operation of machine tools, is directly involved in a process of making material goods. Analysing service occupations, Jonathan Gershuny concludes that more than half are concerned with manufacturing production in such a way.
4. Bell proposes that the United States has advanced further than any other country towards becoming a post-industrial society - it is the furthest along a course of development that others will increasingly follow. Yet the American economy has long been different from that of other industrialized countries: throughout this century, a higher relative proportion of workers has been in service occupations in the United States. There remain today wide variations in the ratio between service and manufacturing occupations in different countries, and it is not clear that other countries will ever become as service-based as the USA. What some see as general trends might really be specific characteristics of American Society.
5. No one can be sure what the long-term impact of the spreading use of micro-processing and electronic communications systems will be. At the moment, these are integrated within manufacturing production, rather than displacing it. It seems certain that such technologies will continue to show very high rates of innovation, and will permeate more areas of social life. But any assessment of their impact still has to be speculative. How far we yet live in a society in which codified knowledge is the main resource is very unclear.
6. Like convergence theory, the post-industrial society thesis tends to exaggerate the importance of economic factors in producing social change. Such a society is described as the outcome of developments in the economy which lead to changes in other institutions. Most of those advancing the post-industrial hypothesis have been little influenced by, or are directly critical of, Marx; but their position is a quasi-Marxist one in the sense that economic factors are held to dominate social change.
Some of the developments cited by the post-industrial theorists are important features of the current era, but it is not obvious that the concept of post-industrial society is the best way to come to terms with them. Moreover, the forces behind the changes going on today are political and cultural as well as economic.
Comprehension Questions
1. Alvin Toffler says
a. industrialism leads to a static society.
b. development has gone beyond industrialism.
c. there can be no divisions after the industrial revolution.
d. there is no possibility of a post-industrial society.
2. The post-industrial society is
.a. the second and more intensive phase of industrial society.
b. dominated by blue-collar jobs.
c. a service society.
d. the end of industrial society.
3. The word post when affixed to terms referring to changes calls attention to
a. movement beyond older forms of development.
b. movement within forms of development.
c. constant change.
<L Things prior to change.
4. What is the most frequent theme that obtains within current interpretations of social change?
a. Rise of factory system.
b. Manufacturing and machine production.
c. Centrality of information and knowledge.
d. Scarcity.
5. Codified knowledge is a term associated with
a. Touraine.
b. Daniel Bell.
c. Alvin Toffler.
d. All of the above.
6. Professional and technical occupations grow fastest of all is
a. industrial society.
b. knowledge society.
c. blue-collar society.
d. modem society.
7. One of the arguments put forth by sociologists that the old industrial order is being superseded by post-industrial society has to be treated with caution because
a. blue collar workers were never really the most common type of employee even in industrial society.
b. it is the service sector which replaced agricultural labourers.
c. the most observable change is from agriculture to other types of work.
d. all of the above.
8. Bell explains that the course of development is
a. moving in a linear fashion
b. only seen in the American economy.
c. a tussle between service economy and capitalism
d. moving toward the core periphery paradigm.
9. The work-discipline characteristic of industrialism
a. becomes more rigid in post-industrial order
b. is marked by the freedom to innovate.
c. both of the above.
d. none of the above.
10. Those who are critical of the idea of a transition into a post-industrial society emphasise the following.
a. Question the shift towards service occupations
b. Heterogeneity of service sector.
c. Question the rigid separation of service occupations from manufacturing.
d. All of the above.
11. All service occupations should be considered as
a. not identical to blue-collar jobs'.
b. identical to blue-collar jobs.
c. not identical to white-collar jobs.
d. identical to 'white-collar jobs.
12. Those service jobs involved in manufacturing
a. should be included under manufacturing.
b. should be included under services.
c. should not be included either under manufacturing or services.
d. vone of the above.
13. Critics point out that the thesis of post-industrial society
a. cannot be generalised.
b. is specific to America.
c. both of the above.
d. involves specialization of jobs.
14. The post-ind'istrial society thesis
a. does not believe in economic factors producing social change.
b. believes in knowledge producing social change
c. believes in white-collar workers producing social change.
d. believes in economic factors producing social change.
15. The theory of post-industrial society overlaps with convergence theory because
a. both emphasise political and cultural forces
b. both hold economic factors as primary in inducing social change.
c. both argue for codified knowledge
d. both stress manufacturing problem.
QUESTION NO. 2: ARITHMETIC AND REASONING Marks: 10
1. Fill in the next number in the series 1,8,15,22,29,_
(a) 33 (b) 36 (c)37 (d) 39
2. The average height of students in a class of 10 is 105 cm. If 20 more students with an average height of 120 cms join the class, what will the average height be?
(a) 105 cms. (b) 110 cms. (c) 112 cms. (d) 115 cms.
3. If GHOST is coded as HOSTE, then HORSE will be coded as.............
(a) ORSEG (b) ORSEF (c) FORSE (d) SEFOR
4. If a sum of Rs.300/- is given on loan at 8% simple interest, what amount is due at the end of two years and six months?
(a) Rs. 400/- (b) Rs. 500 (c)Rs.350/- (d)Rs.360/-
5. If today is Thursday, what will be the day after 363 days?
(a) Sunday (b) Monday (c) Tuesday (d) None of the above.
6. Members of a club are gentlemen. Some members are Officers. Officers are invited to a Party. Therefore, we may deduce that
(a) All members are invited to the Party
(b) All gentlemen are invited to the Party
(c) Officers who are gentlemen are invited to the Party
(d) Some gentlemen are invited to the Party.
7. In a certain code, BAD is written as XZW, SAID is written as HZRW. LOVE will be written as_
(a) WXMN (b) MRSU (c) BRTP (d) OLEV
8. Pointing to a women in a group photograph, Rita said, Her sisters father is the only son of my grandfather. How is Rita related to women in the photograph?
(a) Mother (b) Aunt (c) Sister (d) Daughter
9. Meghna is taller than Sujata, but she is not taller than Natasha of the same class. Indira is shorter than Natasha but taller than Meghna. If Natasha is the tallest in the class, who is the shortest?
(a) Meghna (b) Indira (c) Sujata (d) None of the these
10. In a class, 1/3 of the total students were regular absentees. On a particular day, in addition to the regular absentees, the number of other absentees was half of the regular absentees, which amounted to only 50% of the total attendance in the class. What is the total strength of the class?
Write in your own words a summary of the following passage in about 120 words. Also give a title for the summary.
How should poverty be defined? A distinction is usually made between subsistence or absolute poverty and relative poverty. Charles Booth was one of the first to try to* establish a consistent standard of subsistence poverty, which refers to lack of basic requirements to sustain a physically healthy existence - sufficient food and shelter to make possible the physically efficient functioning of the body. Booth assumed that these requirements would be more or less the same for people of equivalent age and physique living in any country. This is essentially the concept still used most frequently in the analysis of poverty worldwide.
Subsistence definitions of poverty have various inadequacies, especially when formulated as specific income level. Some parts of the country, for example, are much more expensive to live in than others. Moreover, the subsistence calculation of poverty does not take into account the impact of generally rising living standards. It is more realistic to adjust ideas about levels of poverty to the changing norms and expectations in a society as economic growth occurs. Problems with formulations of relative poverty are also complex, however. Income criteria are again generally used, but these conceal variabilities in the actual needs people have.
Some societies do exist - such as Sweden - in which subsistence poverty has been almost completely eliminated. A social price probably has to be paid for this, not just in terms of high levels of taxation, but in the development of bureaucratic government agencies which may appropriate a great deal of power. Yet the more the distribution of wealth and income in a country is left open to mechanisms of the markets the greater material inequalities found. The theory underlying the policies of many contemporary governments is that cutting tax rates for individuals and corporations would generate high levels of economic growth, the fruits of which would trickle down to the poor. The evidence does not support this thesis. Such an economic policy may or may not generate acceleration of economic development, but the result tends actually swelling the numbers of those living in subsistence poverty to expand the differentials between the poor and the wealthy.
Surveys in different national contexts have shown that the majority of citizens regard the poor as responsible for their own poverty and are suspicious of those who live for free on government handouts. Many believe that people on welfare could find work if they were determined to do so. Unfortunately, these views are completely out of line with the realities of poverty. About a quarter of those officially living in poverty are in work anyway, but earn too little to bring them over the poverty threshold.
Lack of public awareness of the extent of poverty probably rests partly on the low visibility of the poor. Most of those in the more privileged sections of society rarely visit the areas, urban or rural, where poverty is concentrated. Some issues connected with poverty, such as high rates of crime, regularly command public attention, but the widespread existence of poverty tends otherwise to be overlooked.
Write a short note (150 words) on any one of the following topics:
MARKS: 15
1. Honour killings
2. Euthanasia (Mercy killing)
3. Development and Displacement
* ../
QUESTION III ESSAY
MARKS: 30
Write an essay of 500 words on any one of the following:
1. Recent upsurge in the Arab World
2. Liberalisation and Corruption
3. Youth and Pleasure
Start writing from here
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