Verbal Ability & Reading Comprehension (VARC) Test - 20

Read the passage carefully and answer the following questions:

Why would 12 of the richest men in football, executives paid for their supposed prowess in managing global brand names such as Barcelona and Manchester United, screw up so badly? Why did they think the players, the fans, Uefa, Fifa and the national governments of Europe would let them walk away with a £4bn cartel, leaving the eviscerated corpse of ordinary football on the dressing room floor? As the European Super League plan lies in ruins, the answer is clear: capital. There’s too much of it chasing too little real economic value in the world.

Capitalism is confined within the oxygen tent of central bank money. The more central banks print money, the cheaper it is to borrow. And yet the real economy, its dynamism flattened after the 2008 crash and its capacity scarred by the Covid-19 pandemic, remains sluggish. So the free money created by governments - and yes, central banks are ultimately part of the state - can only flow upwards. A glance at the leaked details of the Super League proposal should provide a teachable moment about financialised monopoly capitalism. The aim was to create a cartel of clubs that would generate £4bn a year - double the revenue of the current European Champions League. Closing entry to the league was only half of the plan. The other half was to operate a US-style spending and salary cap, effectively forcing individual clubs and players into a semi-feudal relationship with the Super League itself. They would operate the same “capitalist communism” as the National Football League in the US - sharing the revenue more evenly than in a truly competitive competition.

The Super League used the Spanish courts - some of the most politicised and questionable in the developed world - to prevent Fifa and Uefa from blocking the move. But when the British political elite united in condemnation of the scheme - with Boris Johnson threatening to drop a “legislative bomb” - that was decisive. English football was at the epicentre of the Super League scheme because it is the most financialised, with major clubs already grabbed by asset strippers and riddled with the dodgy money of foreign magnates. It is the league in which fans have least control, but where players have gamed the system to achieve a high degree of autonomy, and political salience.

The “super league” idea has been around for more than 20 years. It will stay around because the US sports cartel model works. There is no international basketball, baseball or gridiron football for a reason: these are American-owned cartel sports, staged as a circus for global entertainment. They work because they embody the essential principles of monopoly capitalism: the cartel is more powerful than the companies within it; the companies more powerful than the employees (the players); and the consumers have no choice. The point about cartels, however, is that they kill capitalism, innovation, and choice. What we really need is public ownership, regulation, and control of the national football infrastructure.

Read the passage carefully and answer the following questions:

Why would 12 of the richest men in football, executives paid for their supposed prowess in managing global brand names such as Barcelona and Manchester United, screw up so badly? Why did they think the players, the fans, Uefa, Fifa and the national governments of Europe would let them walk away with a £4bn cartel, leaving the eviscerated corpse of ordinary football on the dressing room floor? As the European Super League plan lies in ruins, the answer is clear: capital. There’s too much of it chasing too little real economic value in the world.

Capitalism is confined within the oxygen tent of central bank money. The more central banks print money, the cheaper it is to borrow. And yet the real economy, its dynamism flattened after the 2008 crash and its capacity scarred by the Covid-19 pandemic, remains sluggish. So the free money created by governments - and yes, central banks are ultimately part of the state - can only flow upwards. A glance at the leaked details of the Super League proposal should provide a teachable moment about financialised monopoly capitalism. The aim was to create a cartel of clubs that would generate £4bn a year - double the revenue of the current European Champions League. Closing entry to the league was only half of the plan. The other half was to operate a US-style spending and salary cap, effectively forcing individual clubs and players into a semi-feudal relationship with the Super League itself. They would operate the same “capitalist communism” as the National Football League in the US - sharing the revenue more evenly than in a truly competitive competition.

The Super League used the Spanish courts - some of the most politicised and questionable in the developed world - to prevent Fifa and Uefa from blocking the move. But when the British political elite united in condemnation of the scheme - with Boris Johnson threatening to drop a “legislative bomb” - that was decisive. English football was at the epicentre of the Super League scheme because it is the most financialised, with major clubs already grabbed by asset strippers and riddled with the dodgy money of foreign magnates. It is the league in which fans have least control, but where players have gamed the system to achieve a high degree of autonomy, and political salience.

The “super league” idea has been around for more than 20 years. It will stay around because the US sports cartel model works. There is no international basketball, baseball or gridiron football for a reason: these are American-owned cartel sports, staged as a circus for global entertainment. They work because they embody the essential principles of monopoly capitalism: the cartel is more powerful than the companies within it; the companies more powerful than the employees (the players); and the consumers have no choice. The point about cartels, however, is that they kill capitalism, innovation, and choice. What we really need is public ownership, regulation, and control of the national football infrastructure.

Read the passage carefully and answer the following questions:

Around 2700 years ago, the Greek poet Archilochus wrote: “the fox knows many things; the hedgehog one big thing.” In the 1950s, philosopher Isaiah Berlin used that sentence as the basis of his essay “The Hedgehog and the Fox.” In it, Berlin divides great thinkers into two categories: hedgehogs, who have one perspective on the world, and foxes, who have many different viewpoints. Although Berlin later claimed the essay was not intended to be serious, it has become a foundational part of thinking about the distinction between specialists and generalists.

A generalist is a person who is a competent jack of all trades, with lots of divergent useful skills and capabilities. Specialist, on the other hand, is someone with distinct knowledge and skills related to a single area. The generalist and the specialist are on the same continuum; there are degrees of specialization in a subject. There’s a difference between someone who specializes in teaching history and someone who specializes in teaching the history of the American Civil war, for example. Likewise, there is a spectrum for how generalized or specialized a certain skill is. Some skills — like the ability to focus, to read critically, or to make rational decisions — are of universal value. Others are a little more specialized but can be used in many different careers. Examples of these skills would be design, project management, and fluency in a foreign language.

Generalists have the advantage of interdisciplinary knowledge, which fosters creativity and a firmer understanding of how the world works. They have a better overall perspective and can generally perform second-order thinking in a wider range of situations than the specialist can. Generalists often possess transferable skills, allowing them to be flexible with their career choices and adapt to a changing world. Managers and leaders are often generalists because they need a comprehensive perspective of their entire organization. And an increasing number of companies are choosing to have a core group of generalists on staff, and hire freelance specialists only when necessary. The métiers at the lowest risk of automation in the future tend to be those which require a diverse, nuanced skill set.

When their particular skills are in demand, specialists experience substantial upsides. The scarcity of their expertise means higher salaries, less competition, and more leverage. The downside is that specialists are vulnerable to change. Many specialist jobs are disappearing as technology changes. Stockbrokers, for example, face the possibility of replacement by AI in coming years. That doesn’t mean no one will hold those jobs, but demand will decrease. Many people will need to learn new work skills, and starting over in a new field will put them back decades. That’s a serious knock, both psychologically and financially.

What’s the safest option, the middle ground? By many accounts, it’s being a specialist in one area, while retaining a few general iterative skills-a generalizing specialist. Many great thinkers are (or were) generalizing specialists. Shakespeare, Da Vinci, Kepler, and Boyd excelled by branching out from their core competencies. These men knew how to learn fast, picking up the key ideas and then returning to their specialties. Unlike their forgotten peers, they didn’t continue studying one area past the point of diminishing returns; they got back to work — and the results were extraordinary.

Read the passage carefully and answer the following questions:

Around 2700 years ago, the Greek poet Archilochus wrote: “the fox knows many things; the hedgehog one big thing.” In the 1950s, philosopher Isaiah Berlin used that sentence as the basis of his essay “The Hedgehog and the Fox.” In it, Berlin divides great thinkers into two categories: hedgehogs, who have one perspective on the world, and foxes, who have many different viewpoints. Although Berlin later claimed the essay was not intended to be serious, it has become a foundational part of thinking about the distinction between specialists and generalists.

A generalist is a person who is a competent jack of all trades, with lots of divergent useful skills and capabilities. Specialist, on the other hand, is someone with distinct knowledge and skills related to a single area. The generalist and the specialist are on the same continuum; there are degrees of specialization in a subject. There’s a difference between someone who specializes in teaching history and someone who specializes in teaching the history of the American Civil war, for example. Likewise, there is a spectrum for how generalized or specialized a certain skill is. Some skills — like the ability to focus, to read critically, or to make rational decisions — are of universal value. Others are a little more specialized but can be used in many different careers. Examples of these skills would be design, project management, and fluency in a foreign language.

Generalists have the advantage of interdisciplinary knowledge, which fosters creativity and a firmer understanding of how the world works. They have a better overall perspective and can generally perform second-order thinking in a wider range of situations than the specialist can. Generalists often possess transferable skills, allowing them to be flexible with their career choices and adapt to a changing world. Managers and leaders are often generalists because they need a comprehensive perspective of their entire organization. And an increasing number of companies are choosing to have a core group of generalists on staff, and hire freelance specialists only when necessary. The métiers at the lowest risk of automation in the future tend to be those which require a diverse, nuanced skill set.

When their particular skills are in demand, specialists experience substantial upsides. The scarcity of their expertise means higher salaries, less competition, and more leverage. The downside is that specialists are vulnerable to change. Many specialist jobs are disappearing as technology changes. Stockbrokers, for example, face the possibility of replacement by AI in coming years. That doesn’t mean no one will hold those jobs, but demand will decrease. Many people will need to learn new work skills, and starting over in a new field will put them back decades. That’s a serious knock, both psychologically and financially.

What’s the safest option, the middle ground? By many accounts, it’s being a specialist in one area, while retaining a few general iterative skills-a generalizing specialist. Many great thinkers are (or were) generalizing specialists. Shakespeare, Da Vinci, Kepler, and Boyd excelled by branching out from their core competencies. These men knew how to learn fast, picking up the key ideas and then returning to their specialties. Unlike their forgotten peers, they didn’t continue studying one area past the point of diminishing returns; they got back to work — and the results were extraordinary.

Read the passage carefully and answer the following questions:

Around 2700 years ago, the Greek poet Archilochus wrote: “the fox knows many things; the hedgehog one big thing.” In the 1950s, philosopher Isaiah Berlin used that sentence as the basis of his essay “The Hedgehog and the Fox.” In it, Berlin divides great thinkers into two categories: hedgehogs, who have one perspective on the world, and foxes, who have many different viewpoints. Although Berlin later claimed the essay was not intended to be serious, it has become a foundational part of thinking about the distinction between specialists and generalists.

A generalist is a person who is a competent jack of all trades, with lots of divergent useful skills and capabilities. Specialist, on the other hand, is someone with distinct knowledge and skills related to a single area. The generalist and the specialist are on the same continuum; there are degrees of specialization in a subject. There’s a difference between someone who specializes in teaching history and someone who specializes in teaching the history of the American Civil war, for example. Likewise, there is a spectrum for how generalized or specialized a certain skill is. Some skills — like the ability to focus, to read critically, or to make rational decisions — are of universal value. Others are a little more specialized but can be used in many different careers. Examples of these skills would be design, project management, and fluency in a foreign language.

Generalists have the advantage of interdisciplinary knowledge, which fosters creativity and a firmer understanding of how the world works. They have a better overall perspective and can generally perform second-order thinking in a wider range of situations than the specialist can. Generalists often possess transferable skills, allowing them to be flexible with their career choices and adapt to a changing world. Managers and leaders are often generalists because they need a comprehensive perspective of their entire organization. And an increasing number of companies are choosing to have a core group of generalists on staff, and hire freelance specialists only when necessary. The métiers at the lowest risk of automation in the future tend to be those which require a diverse, nuanced skill set.

When their particular skills are in demand, specialists experience substantial upsides. The scarcity of their expertise means higher salaries, less competition, and more leverage. The downside is that specialists are vulnerable to change. Many specialist jobs are disappearing as technology changes. Stockbrokers, for example, face the possibility of replacement by AI in coming years. That doesn’t mean no one will hold those jobs, but demand will decrease. Many people will need to learn new work skills, and starting over in a new field will put them back decades. That’s a serious knock, both psychologically and financially.

What’s the safest option, the middle ground? By many accounts, it’s being a specialist in one area, while retaining a few general iterative skills-a generalizing specialist. Many great thinkers are (or were) generalizing specialists. Shakespeare, Da Vinci, Kepler, and Boyd excelled by branching out from their core competencies. These men knew how to learn fast, picking up the key ideas and then returning to their specialties. Unlike their forgotten peers, they didn’t continue studying one area past the point of diminishing returns; they got back to work — and the results were extraordinary.

Read the passage carefully and answer the following questions:

Around 2700 years ago, the Greek poet Archilochus wrote: “the fox knows many things; the hedgehog one big thing.” In the 1950s, philosopher Isaiah Berlin used that sentence as the basis of his essay “The Hedgehog and the Fox.” In it, Berlin divides great thinkers into two categories: hedgehogs, who have one perspective on the world, and foxes, who have many different viewpoints. Although Berlin later claimed the essay was not intended to be serious, it has become a foundational part of thinking about the distinction between specialists and generalists.

A generalist is a person who is a competent jack of all trades, with lots of divergent useful skills and capabilities. Specialist, on the other hand, is someone with distinct knowledge and skills related to a single area. The generalist and the specialist are on the same continuum; there are degrees of specialization in a subject. There’s a difference between someone who specializes in teaching history and someone who specializes in teaching the history of the American Civil war, for example. Likewise, there is a spectrum for how generalized or specialized a certain skill is. Some skills — like the ability to focus, to read critically, or to make rational decisions — are of universal value. Others are a little more specialized but can be used in many different careers. Examples of these skills would be design, project management, and fluency in a foreign language.

Generalists have the advantage of interdisciplinary knowledge, which fosters creativity and a firmer understanding of how the world works. They have a better overall perspective and can generally perform second-order thinking in a wider range of situations than the specialist can. Generalists often possess transferable skills, allowing them to be flexible with their career choices and adapt to a changing world. Managers and leaders are often generalists because they need a comprehensive perspective of their entire organization. And an increasing number of companies are choosing to have a core group of generalists on staff, and hire freelance specialists only when necessary. The métiers at the lowest risk of automation in the future tend to be those which require a diverse, nuanced skill set.

When their particular skills are in demand, specialists experience substantial upsides. The scarcity of their expertise means higher salaries, less competition, and more leverage. The downside is that specialists are vulnerable to change. Many specialist jobs are disappearing as technology changes. Stockbrokers, for example, face the possibility of replacement by AI in coming years. That doesn’t mean no one will hold those jobs, but demand will decrease. Many people will need to learn new work skills, and starting over in a new field will put them back decades. That’s a serious knock, both psychologically and financially.

What’s the safest option, the middle ground? By many accounts, it’s being a specialist in one area, while retaining a few general iterative skills-a generalizing specialist. Many great thinkers are (or were) generalizing specialists. Shakespeare, Da Vinci, Kepler, and Boyd excelled by branching out from their core competencies. These men knew how to learn fast, picking up the key ideas and then returning to their specialties. Unlike their forgotten peers, they didn’t continue studying one area past the point of diminishing returns; they got back to work — and the results were extraordinary.