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GATE 2023 XH2 (English) – Question 21

Reasoning and Comprehension · Verbal reasoning and comprehension · 2 marks · Multiple choice

The stranger is by nature no "owner of soil" -- soil not only in the physical, but also in the figurative sense of a life-substance, which is fixed, if not in a point in space, at least in an ideal point of the social environment. Although in more intimate relations, he may develop all kinds of charm and significance, as long as he is considered a stranger in the eyes of the other, he is not an "owner of soil." Restriction to intermediary trade, and often (as though sublimated from it) to pure finance, gives him the specific character of mobility. If mobility takes place within a closed group, it embodies that synthesis of nearness and distance which constitutes the formal position of the stranger. For, the fundamentally mobile person comes in contact, at one time or another, with every individual, but is not organically connected, through established ties of kinship, locality, and occupation, with any single one.

What assumptions can be made about the stranger from the passage above?

  1. The stranger can become an owner of soil through developing all kinds of charm in more intimate relations.
  2. The stranger cannot become an owner of soil either in the physical or psychological sense.
  3. The stranger can become an owner of soil through establishing ties of kinship and so on.
  4. The stranger might become an owner of soil in the physical sense but not in the psychological

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Show answer and explanation

Correct answer: (B) The stranger cannot become an owner of soil either in the physical or psychological sense.

Explanation

The passage says that the stranger is by nature not an owner of soil, either physically or in the figurative sense, as long as he is seen as a stranger, however much charm he develops. Ties of kinship are what the stranger lacks.