Read the passage and mark the letter A, B, C or D on your answer sheet to indicate the best answer to each of the following questions from 2...

Read the passage and mark the letter A, B, C or D on your answer sheet to indicate the best answer to each of the following questions from 27 to 34.

        The internet was once hailed as a cartographer of enlightenment, mapping a global commons where truth could surge like a torrent and rinse away parochialism. Social platforms amplified that ideal by promising unprecedented conviviality across networks; movements flourished, long-distance bonds thickened. Yet the same infrastructures incubate division: engagement-hungry systems prioritize spectacle, and minor disagreements metastasize into rancor. In this double-edged arena, amplification is indifferent to accuracy, and virality can enthrone hearsay as if it were proof.

        Consider debates over hydroxychloroquine during Covid-19: opinions hardened into camps whose beliefs scarcely overlapped, even as communication remained abundant. Curiously, it seems that whether or not one thinks hydroxychloroquine will be effective against Covid-19 rests strongly on one’s political persuasion – a radical politicization of truth. Amid fake news and viral misinformation, identity begins to adjudicate evidence. When allegiance precedes appraisal, facts are retrofitted to fit a tribe, and polarization ossifies – not because data are absent, but because meaning is pre-assigned.

        Democracy depends less on unanimity of beliefs than on a shared pool of information from which citizens can assess credibility. If my feed celebrates Apollo 11 while yours insists it was staged, our judgments scarcely intersect. Remove real encounters and each of us is marooned inside self-reinforcing convictions. This state increasingly typifies the personalized web, the filter bubble Eli Pariser named: algorithmic curation, propelled by surveillance-capitalist incentives, sieves what we see, matching cravings rather than civic nourishment.

        Our clicks confess who we are; platforms harvest those signals to optimize return visits. Tristan Harris calls it the attention economy – systems designed to discover what will keep us scrolling. Personalization can shade into manipulation: curated timelines may induce mood shifts and behavioral nudges, a kind of massive-scale emotional contagion. When convenience outruns autonomy, the architecture of choice invisibly narrows. The line between persuading citizens and steering them blurs, and a shared reality fractures into monetized micro-realities.

(Adapted from Montana State University, “Social Media and the Filter Bubble”)

Question 27. The word torrent in paragraph 1 can be best replaced by ______?

A. respite                B. deluge                        C. eddy                        D. trickle

Question 28. Which of the following is NOT mentioned in paragraph 2 as contributing to the politicization of truth?

A. Viral misinformation                                B. Fake news

C. Enhanced cross-party deliberation                D. Identity-driven judgments

Question 29. The word contagion in paragraph 4 is OPPOSITE in meaning to ______.

A. infection                B. isolation                        C. spread                        D. transmission

Question 30. The word This state in paragraph 3 refers to ______.

A. the condition in which encounters are removed and beliefs become isolated

B. the Apollo 11 moon landing and its aftermath

C. a society where everyone shares identical beliefs

D. the credibility of scientific evidence in general

Question 31. Which of the following best paraphrases the underlined sentence in paragraph 2?

A. Perceptions of hydroxychloroquine effectiveness appear to depend on party affiliation, exemplifying the transformation of evidence into partisan signaling.

B. Strikingly, beliefs regarding hydroxychloroquine efficacy correlate with political alignment, illustrating how factual claims become ideologically inflected.

C. Judgments about hydroxychloroquine largely track partisan identity, turning empirical assessment into a political litmus test.

D. Opinions on hydroxychloroquine split along political lines, demonstrating how scientific questions increasingly serve as markers of tribal membership.

Question 32. Which of the following is TRUE according to paragraph 3?

A. Democratic resilience derives from everyone believing the same things rather than sharing informational baselines for evaluation.

B. When people view disjoint streams, they struggle to judge each other’s evidence because relevant exposure is missing.

C. Algorithmic curation primarily rewards content that citizens need for responsible deliberation, not what they already prefer.

D. Filter bubbles dissolve once users occasionally encounter sensational headlines from opposing media ecosystems.

Question 33. Which paragraph mentions algorithms and surveillance-capitalist incentives structuring personalized information streams?

A. Paragraph 1        B. Paragraph 2                C. Paragraph 3                D. Paragraph 4

Question 34. Which paragraph mentions mood manipulation, nudges, and emotional contagion as risks of personalization?

A. Paragraph 1        B. Paragraph 2                C. Paragraph 3                D. Paragraph 4