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English Test 38
Directions for Questions from 1 to 5:
“Contested Identity” is the title of a collection of articles on the ethnography of gender and kinship in
contemporary Greek society. There is a wild garden variety of “contested” experiences, for the phrase can refer, singly or in conjunction with others, to gender, ethnic, class,
regional, religious, professional and national affiliations. Have I forgotten to name any? Anthropologists also like to speak of “contesting identity” to indicate the ongoing,
unresolved quality of the social experience that is being researched. Just as we have called into question the concept of culture as a permanent, fixed substance, we now turn
attention to the concept of identity and attempt to reveal its fluid but nonetheless real forms. The phrase “cultural” in conjunction with “community” is the typical shorthand
way of representing identity in the dominant singular form. Social experience, however, is never singular, it is always plural. “Contesting identity” is, I think, the only singular
way to encompass the basic pluralities of social life. “Contestedness” involves those mediating practices between “conflict” on one hand and “consensus” on the other. For
experience to be “contested” there is an implicit “contesting”, or present participial action. Contested identity means contesting identities. Neither the essential agreement of
“cultural consensus” nor the absolute contradiction of “class conflict” pervades the notion of “contested identity”.

“Being contested” is being in the middle. The term can refer to disputes between two, or even more groups, over the same cultural stuff, including historical space. The
ideological and political duel over the name Macedonia, the sun-beam symbol (from an ancient archeological find), and the heroic Alexander (taught by Aristotle) come
immediately to mind. “Contested identity” in this set of situations requires a semiotic analysis by the anthropologist, in which icons, indices, and symbols (Charles Peirce’s triad
of signs) constitute the interpretive field. In order to identify contestedness, one must perceive and select from the repertoire of signed activity in a social field. If “the past” is,
as Appadurai (1981) once proposed, “a scarce resource”, contests over the rare “goods” can be lively, virulent, and violent. Anthropologists, but rarely their informants,
“approach history as a negotiable entity”. Our informants bitterly resent any allusion to their history as “imagined community”. Nevertheless, we can point out that
resemblance between persons who share an icon from the past signal, at one moment their conjunctive community, and at another moment, their disjunctive contempt. Again,
as Appadurai noted in a keen semiotic perception, the hyphen in “nation-state” can now “serve less an icon of conjunction, than an index of disjunction”. “Blood” can unite
“brothers”, it can also denote theft and betrayal, as when one speaks of “bad blood”. The tropes in these representations guide the narrative substance of a theory, or an
ideology, or a discourse. Tropes make (as in poesis) for a strong and durable image, cementing, as it were, the social memory.

For ethnic, national, and political narratives, genealogical continuity, as in a family’s lineage, is a characteristic theme. The metaphor of family is genealogical, revealed in
portraits, and to make the iconic resemblance even more persuasive, the metonyms of blood and bones are conjoined. Violent ruptures in continuity and foreign penetration
into territory - Ottoman domination, or “Turkey in Europe” - provide the tragic contrasts to the narrative of continuity. “Ours Once More!”, “a Nation Once Again!”, are familiar
refrains in hymns to the nation’s fall from Eden and its (often her) redemption.

“Contested identity” is one of the sure ways to characterize “the Macedonian problem”. I won’t go into the history of this idea but merely skim off the recent past. “The
Balkans” in general, and Macedonia in particular, are characterized as an ambiguous region between East and West. Indeed, the perennially sensitive regions in Europe tend to
lie “betwixt and between”, stretching from the Baltic north to the Balkan south. Both as a territory and as an ancient historical object Macedonia symbolized Europe’s
triumphant expansion into the Orient: the age of Hellenism. During the Ottoman Empire Macedonia was portrayed in the exact reverse as “Turkey in Europe”. Modern
Macedonia thereby “personifies” contested identities, with the culinary symbol “Salade Macedoine” consisting of numerous sliced fruits and vegetables.

Contested identity within a nation-state seems at first glance to be an abnormality. Macedonia is thought of as a rare specimen, not only because it is composed of
heterogeneous cultures, but because its creation was the result of outside political forces and interests. Is that so unusual? Doesn’t every nation-state have “peculiar”origins?
Isn’t this why the hyphen between nation and state is, as already noted, not so much “an icon ofconjuncture as an index of disjuncture”? Macedonian identity, in its strongest
national discourse, claims itslong genealogy as an ancestor of Western European authority. In the present, its reality is made the object of ridicule.

Macedonia, then, is a creation of contested identities, involving broken and continuous genealogies. One ofthe main problems in the “contested identity” of Macedonia is that
so many neighboring “others” (Greece,Bulgaria, Serbia, Albania) have denied its authenticity, its “real genealogy” as a people. Lack of recognitionis a big scar for Macedonians.
In international diplomacy, the Republic is called by the anonymous acronym“FYROM” (Former Yugoslavian Republic of Macedonia).

If the Republic is to stay alive in this time of ordeals, it will continue to involve contesting identities of the sorts just named. That is a much, much better alternative to an
all-out ethnic war with its Albanian citizens.

1. Contested identity is one of the surest ways to characterise “the Macedonian Problem” because

Macedonia has ancient roots.

Macedonia is a very sensitive region.
Macedonia is the object of ridicule.
Macedonia is characterised as an ambiguous region.
Macedonia suffers from lack of recognition.
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2. It can be inferred that ‘semiotic perception’ as used in the passage is a useful trait for

The linguist looking for latent meaning behind obvious words and symbols that help explain a certain context
The anthropologist researching into socio-cultural symbols that pervade the national consciousness of the people of a country
The astrologer who uses the signs of the Zodiac to make predictions about the future
Only 2 above
Both 1 & 2 above
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3. The culinary symbol ‘Salade Macedoine’ has been evoked in the passage to serve

as a metaphorical representation of the contested identities exemplified through the case of modern Macedonia.
as a personification of the idea of cultural consensus mentioned in Para 2

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as an illustration of the diverse ethnic groups that populate modern Macedonia

as an example of the cuisine for which Macedonia is famous the world over
as a symbol of reconciliation between cultural consensus and class conflict in any society
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4. The notion of ‘contested identities’ as discussed in the passage can be best described as

One of the many manifestations of the essential pluralities of social life

Those rare and precious icons, indices and symbols from a nation’s past that are contested, sometimes virulently.
A balancing force between agreement and contradiction in the socio-cultural or historical space that arises more out of tension than out of reconciliation
The only sure way of characterizing the Macedonian problem
A trope that makes for a powerful and durable image, cementing, in the process, social memory
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5. Which of the following would not qualify as an example of the hyphen in nation-state serving less as
“an icon of conjuncture, than an index of disjuncture”?

The birth, after British rule, of the Indian Republic with its diverse ethnic groups, all of them subscribing to a common idea of India or ‘Bharat’ from the past.
The formation of the Republic of Yugoslavia after the First World War, composed of diverse ethnic groups, many of them under Turkish Ottoman rule for centuries.
The creation of modern Germany, post the fall of the Berlin Wall, after Germany had been split into two after the end of the Second World War.
The formation of the Central Asian republics of people of Mongol origin after the breakup of the former USSR
The creation of the state of Macedonia whose people claim its long genealogy as the ancestor of Western European authority.
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Directions for Questions from 6 to 8:

Identify the correct sentence or sentences.

6. A Eyebrows made a big difference in how people perceived the mood of the woman in the picture.
B When the brows were lowered or slanted toward the nose, or when forehead wrinkles were added,
ratings of anger and disgust increased.
C Also, raising the outer corner of the eyebrows produced the increase in the perception of surprise.
D Raising the inner corner of the eyebrows away from the nose was perceived as a sad facial expression.

A
B
C
D
None
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7. A Confronted with an intoxicating scene of enviable excess and success, the visitor to ‘Street &
Studio: An Urban History of Photography’ will surely identify with that waiter.
B To view the show not as a triumph but solely as a site of squandered opportunity is, however, to
succumb to the false dichotomy suggested by its title: for these are triumph and waste simultaneously.
C Its ultimate failure is the inevitable culmination of a long history of victories and successes.
D Let’s start, like the show, a long way back, in the last decade of the 19th century, with one of these
early successes.

A
B
C
D
None
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8. A Part of my working life was as a field ecologist, probing about magic of invisible animal kingdoms.
B In my most recent collection, The Invisible Kings, the Romani language attempts an opening between fields of language.
C Romani contains many words and phrases from other tongues - language is absorbed as it is travelled through.
D Gypsy place-names for example are precise riddles that speak shrewdly from the travellers’ point of view.

A
B
C
D
None
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Directions for Questions from 9 to 10:

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Fill up the blanks, numbered (46), (47) ..... up to (50), in the passages
below with the most appropriate word from the options given for each blank.

I feel that we magicians, especially mentalists, feel that we have to apologize for creating fantasy. That is why there is so much debate in mentalist circles on how one should
structure, or even have, a statement ___(46)___ that what we are doing isn’t real. Sometimes this ranges from the goofy to the clever to the misleading. I think all
approaches are wrong. It is ironic to me that the one group of people trying to ___(47)___ peoples’ feelings of astonishment, wonder, and magic are magicians. We should be
at the front of the line promoting magic and wonder. We should not be making excuses for creating surprise, joy, and magic. We should be the ones, not tearing other peoples’
beliefs down but building up the ___(48)___ value that a sense of wonder can bring to people. Yet, so many magicians are so scared to create a magic that is so strong that
people are really getting into it. It is my opinion that most people are thirsty to experience real wonder. I know that I am. I got into magic like many of you did: I had an
experience with a magician that brought a sense of wonder to me. This feeling was like a white flash of brilliance that seared into my mind a sense that there is something
more than the ___(49)___ “real” world. This event happened to me around six years old and it placed within me a desire to learn more about magic and it led me to become a
magician. My personal ___(50)___ about how magic should be presented is very different from my early years. I want to make people experience what I felt when I
experience magic for the first time.

9. 50.

desire
affliction
paradigm
quandary
ambitions
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10. 49

surreal
execrable
sorcerous
prosaic
theurgic
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