Reading Comprehension – Despite their fierce reputation, Vikings

Reading Comprehension

The passage below is accompanied by a set of three questions. Choose the best answer to each question.

Despite their fierce reputation. Vikings may not have always been the plunderers and pillagers popular culture imagines them to be. In fact, they got their start trading in northern European markets, researchers suggest.

Combs carved from animal antlers, as well as comb manufacturing waste and raw antler material has turned up at three archaeological sites in Denmark, including a medieval marketplace in the city of Ribe. A team of researchers from Denmark and the U.K. hoped to identify the species of animal to which the antlers once belonged by analyzing collagen proteins in the samples and comparing them across the animal kingdom, Laura Geggel reports for LiveScience. Somewhat surprisingly, molecular analysis of the artifacts revealed that some combs and other material had been carved from reindeer antlers…. Given that reindeer (Rangifer tarandus) don’t live in Denmark, the researchers posit that it arrived on Viking ships from Norway. Antler craftsmanship, in the form of decorative combs, was part of Viking culture. Such combs served as symbols of good health, Geggel writes. The fact that the animals shed their antlers also made them easy to collect from the large herds that inhabited Norway.

Since the artifacts were found in marketplace areas at each site it’s more likely that the Norsemen came to trade rather than pillage. Most of the artifacts also date to the 780s, but some are as old as 725. That predates the beginning of Viking raids on Great Britain by about 70 years. (Traditionally, the so-called “Viking Age” began with these raids in 793 and ended with the Norman conquest of Great Britain in 1066.) Archaeologists had suspected that the Vikings had experience with long maritime voyages [that] might have preceded their raiding days. Beyond Norway, these combs would have been a popular industry in Scandinavia as well. It’s possible that the antler combs represent a larger trade network, where the Norsemen supplied raw material to craftsmen in Denmark and elsewhere.

Questions

Q1) The primary purpose of the passage is:

A) to explain the presence of reindeer antler combs in Denmark.
B) to contradict the widely-accepted beginning date for the Viking Age in Britain, and propose an alternate one.
C) to challenge the popular perception of Vikings as raiders by using evidence that suggests their early trade relations with Europe.
D) to argue that besides being violent pillagers, Vikings were also skilled craftsmen and efficient traders.

Q2) The evidence – “Most of the artifacts also date to the 780s, but some are as old as 725” – has been used in the passage to argue that:

A) the beginning date of the Viking Age should be changed from 793 to 725.
B) the Viking raids started as early as 725.
C) some of the antler artifacts found in Denmark and Great Britain could have come from Scandinavia.
D) the Vikings’ trade relations with Europe pre-dates the Viking raids.

Q3) All of the following hold true for Vikings EXCEPT

A) Vikings brought reindeer from Norway to Denmark for trade purposes.
B) Before becoming the raiders of northern Europe, Vikings had trade relations with European nations.
C) Antler combs, regarded by the Vikings as a symbol of good health, were part of the Viking culture.
D) Vikings, once upon a. time, had trade relations with Denmark and Scandinavia.

Answers

Q1: Option (C)
Q2: Option (D)
Q3: Option (A)

Solutions

Q1) As per the passage from CAT 2017 – Reading Comprehension, Vikings have a reputation that they are plunderers and pillagers. The passage finds out the the other side of them, as traders. Option C is the right answer.

Q2) As per the passage from CAT 2017 – Reading Comprehension, this has been used to show that Vikings began their trade relations with Europeans 70 years before they started raiding them. Option D is the correct answer.

Q3) As per the passage from CAT 2017 – Reading Comprehension, Vikings brought reindeer antlers from Norway, not entire reindeers. Option A is the right answer.

Download CAT 2017 Question Paper with answers and detailed solutions in PDF

CAT 2017 Questions from Reading Comprehension

Reading Comprehension – Set 1: Typewriters are the epitome of a technology that has been comprehensively rendered obsolete by the digital age.
Reading Comprehension – Set 2: The end of the age of the internal combustion engine is in sight. There are small signs everywhere
Reading Comprehension – Set 3: During the frigid season…it’s often necessary to nestle under a blanket to try to stay warm.
Reading Comprehension – Set 4: Creativity is at once our most precious resource and our most inexhaustible one.
Reading Comprehension – Set 5: Do sports mega events like the summer Olympic Games benefit the host city economically?
Reading Comprehension – Set 6: Scientists have long recognized the incredible diversity within a species.
Reading Comprehension – Set 7: This year alone, more than 8,600 stores could close, according to industry estimates, many of them the brand -name anchor outlets that real estate developers once stumbled over themselves to court.
Reading Comprehension – Set 8: I used a smartphone GPS to find my way through the cobblestoned maze of Geneva’s Old Town, in search of a handmade machine that changed the world more than any other invention.
Reading Comprehension – Set 9: Understanding where you are in the world is a basic survival skill, which is why we, like most species come hard-wired with specialized brain areas to create congnitive maps of our surroundings.

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