Read the passage and answer the questions. If so much of present day cultural…
2020
Read the passage and answer the questions.
If so much of present day cultural learning depends on situation and context how do the resulting assemblages acquire an organised coherence? One way this issue is being raised in recent anthropology is through the concern with identity, whether defined as identity of the person of an ethnic group or of an entire nation. But identities do not swim above in the stream of social life like amoebas in fermenting banana soup. If definitions of identity involve a characterisation of attributes and a drawing of boundaries around the units so defined, in contrast with other units, this must have a causal context. Moreover, we know that the search for identity varies historically, intensifying or slackening over periods of time. Thus, a major rise occurred in the demand for identity with the advent of the nation-state and the collateral development of nationalism, which hoped to create a unified and identifiable 'people', out of diverse populations with distinctive identities of their own. Recently, the demand for identities has risen once again, precisely at a time when cultural repertoires are becoming again more heterogeneous, as people have responded to changes in the social division of labour, in their relation to governments, in reaction to new modes of communication. These repertoires of cultural understandings and practices do not easily fit any traditional notion of culture as an integral and integrated set of forms and meanings.
Ques: The advent of nationalism led to
- A.
Competing identities
- B.
Single identity across the nation
- C.
The emergence of a unified cultural repertoire
- D.
Unity within diverse identities
Show answer & explanation
Correct answer: B
Concept
An inference-type comprehension question is answered by locating the single sentence in the passage that directly bears on the stem, and then reading what that sentence actually claims as the goal or outcome — not by importing a familiar slogan from outside the text. The wording of the passage, not a popular phrase, decides the answer.
Application
The stem asks what the advent of nationalism led to. The governing sentence is: nationalism “hoped to create a unified and identifiable ‘people’, out of diverse populations with distinctive identities of their own.” Here the diverse populations with their distinct identities are the raw material that nationalism worked on; the aim and outcome it describes is a single, unified, identifiable people. So the advent of nationalism led to one shared identity spanning the whole nation — “Single identity across the nation.”
Contrast
Reading each remaining choice against that governing sentence:
“Competing identities” describes rivalry between groups, but the passage frames nationalism as forging unity, not setting identities against one another.
“The emergence of a unified cultural repertoire” is contradicted by the text, which says cultural repertoires were becoming more heterogeneous, not unified.
“Unity within diverse identities” keeps the diverse identities intact, yet the passage says nationalism sought to fuse the diverse populations into one identifiable people rather than preserve their separateness.
Hence the option matching the passage’s stated aim — forging one unified people out of many — is “Single identity across the nation.”
Note: the phrase “with distinctive identities of their own” modifies the diverse populations that nationalism started from, not the result it aimed at; misreading it as the outcome is the common trap behind the “unity in diversity” misreading.