Read the passage and answer the question based on it. 174 incidents of piracy were reported to the International Maritime Bureau last year, with Somali pirates responsible for only three. The rest ranged from the discreet theft of coils of rope in the Yellow Sea to the notoriously ferocious Nigerian gunmen attacking and hijacking oil tankers in the Gulf of Guinea, as well as armed robbery off Singapore and the Venezuelan coast and kidnapping in the Sundarbans in the Bay of Bengal. For [Dr. Peter] Lehr, an expert on modern-day piracy, the phenomenon’s history should be a source of instruction rather than entertainment, piracy past offering lessons for piracy present. . . . But . . . where does piracy begin or end? According to St Augustine, a corsair captain once told Alexander the Great that in the forceful acquisition of power and wealth at sea, the difference between an emperor and a pirate was simply one of scale. By this logic, European empire-builders were the most successful pirates of all time. A more eclectic history might have included the conquistadors, Vasco da Gama and the East India Company. But Lehr sticks to the disorganised small fry, making comparisons with the renegades of today possible. The main motive for piracy has always been a combination of need and greed. Why toil away as a starving peasant in the 16th century when a successful pirate made up to £4,000 on each raid? Anyone could turn to freebooting if the rewards were worth the risk . . . . Increased globalisation has done more to encourage piracy than suppress it. European colonialism weakened delicate balances of power, leading to an influx of opportunists on the high seas. A rise in global shipping has meant rich pickings for freebooters. Lehr writes: “It quickly becomes clear that in those parts of the world that have not profited from globalization and modernisation, and where abject poverty and the daily struggle for survival are still a reality, the root causes of piracy are still the same as they were a couple of hundred years ago.” . . . Modern pirate prevention has failed. After the French yacht Le Gonant was ransomed for $2million in 2008, opportunists from all over Somalia flocked to the coast for a piece of the action. . . . A consistent rule, even today, is there are never enough warships to patrol pirate-infested waters. Such ships are costly and only solve the problem temporarily; Somali piracy is bound to return as soon as the warships are withdrawn. Robot shipping, eliminating hostages, has been proposed as a possible solution; but as Lehr points out, this will only make pirates switch their targets to smaller carriers unable to afford the technology. His advice isn’t new. Proposals to end illegal fishing are often advanced but they are difficult to enforce. Investment in local welfare put a halt to Malaysian piracy in the 1970s, but was dependent on money somehow filtering through a corrupt bureaucracy to the poor on the periphery. Diplomatic initiatives against piracy are plagued by mutual distrust: the Russians execute pirates, while the EU and US are reluctant to capture them for fear they’ll claim asylum.
“Why toil away as a starving peasant in the 16th century when a successful pirate made up to £4,000 on each raid?” In this sentence, the author’s tone can best be described as being:
ironic, about the reasons why so many took to piracy in medieval times.
The sentence is a rhetorical question: why would anyone toil as a starving peasant when a successful pirate could earn a fortune on each raid?
The author is not angry about pirate wealth, not setting out a careful contrast, and not joking about peasant hardship; with a wry twist he points to the obvious pull of need and greed.
This tongue-in-cheek framing of a grim choice is ironic, about why so many turned to piracy.
Hence, ironic, about the reasons why so many took to piracy in medieval times.
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Identify the odd sentence out and key in the number of that sentence as your answer.
The last paragraph of the passage refers to “middle-class, white, professional men”. Which one of the following qualities best describes the connection among them?
Study the following sets of concepts and identify the set that is conceptually closest to the concerns and arguments of the passage.
According to the passage, who or what was an “alienist”?
“Conversely, when a defendant struck officials as unlike themselves, whether by dint of disease, gender, confession, or race, the precariousness of judgments about mental state was exposed.” Which one of the following best describes the use of the word “confession” in this sentence?
According to the incentive or moral hazard argument, which one of the designs below is most consistent with the claim that some inequality can raise growth?
Which one of the options below best summarises the passage?
The primary function of the three-part case for a positive income inequality–economic growth link in the first half of the passage is to show that:
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Important Questions from Non Grammar
- In formulating Principle VI (a), the ILC clarified the term "waging of a war of aggression" because:
- The author attributes the growing public frustration with the UN primarily to which pair of continuous failures?
- A primary point of divergence between the US Conservative position and the Secretary-General's Conservative position on security matters, according to the summary is:
- According to the critique's conclusion, the immediate, insurmountable barrier preventing the implementation of any reform, major or minor, is:
- The Secretary-General's 'Agenda for Peace' proposed a specific military capability intended to address the gap between traditional peace-keeping and full military action. This proposed unit was explicitly characterized by the summary as being:
