Instructions

Read the following passage and answer the THREE questions that follow.

Recently, a team of social scientists launched an experiment to test that hypothesis. They recruited 1,500 entrepreneurs in West Africa—a mix of women and men in their 30s, 40s, and 50s—who were running small startups in manufacturing, service, and commerce. They randomly assigned the founders to one of three groups. One was a control group: they went about their business as usual. The other two were training groups: they spent a week learning new concepts, analyzing them in case studies of other entrepreneurs, and applying them to their own startups through role-play and reflection exercises. What differed was whether the training focused on cognitive skills or character skills. In cognitive skills training, the founders took an accredited business course created by the International Finance Corporation. They studied finance, accounting, HR, marketing, and pricing, and practiced using what they learned to solve challenges and seize opportunities. In character skills training, the founders attended a class designed by psychologists to teach personal initiative. They studied proactivity, discipline, and determination, and practiced putting those qualities into action. Character skills training had a dramatic impact. After founders had spent merely five days working on these skills, their firms’ profits grew by an average of 30 percent over the next two years. That was nearly triple the benefit of training in cognitive skills. Finance and marketing knowledge might have equipped founders to capitalize on opportunities, but studying proactivity and discipline enabled them to generate opportunities. They learned to anticipate market changes rather than react to them. They developed more creative ideas and introduced more new products. When they encountered financial obstacles, instead of giving up, they were more resilient and resourceful in seeking loans. Along with demonstrating that character skills can propel us to achieve greater things, this evidence reveals that it’s never too late to build them … Character doesn’t set like plaster—it retains its plasticity. Character is often confused with personality, but they’re not the same. Personality is your predisposition—your basic instincts for how to think, feel, and act. Character is your capacity to prioritize your values over your instincts. Knowing your principles doesn’t necessarily mean you know how to practice them, particularly under stress or pressure. It’s easy to be proactive and determined when things are going well. The true test of character is whether you manage to stand by those values when the deck is stacked against you. If personality is how you respond on a typical day, character is how you show up on a hard day. Personality is not your destiny—it’s your tendency. Character skills enable you to transcend that tendency to be true to your principles. It’s not about the traits you have—it’s what you decide to do with them. Wherever you are today, there’s no reason why you can’t grow your character skills starting now.

Question 13.

Which of the following views would the author BEST agree with?

A
Putting our values and principles to practice requires transcending our personality.
B
Our values and principles are always put to test by our personality.
C
Our behavior is a function of our character not our personality.
D
Character skills risk abandoning your personality along with your instincts.

Question Explanation

Text Explanation

Let us examine the given choices - Option A: This aligns with the ideas presented in the passage. The author differentiates personality (our predispositions or instincts) from character (the ability to prioritize values over instincts). The passage emphasizes that practising values often requires overcoming the limitations of personality (instincts), particularly under stress or adverse conditions. The author notes: “Character is your capacity to prioritize your values over your instincts.”“Character skills enable you to transcend that tendency to be true to your principles.” Option B: While personality can create challenges in practising values, the author does not emphasize a constant “test” dynamic. Instead, the focus is on pushing past the limitations of personality, not necessarily being "tested" by it. Option C: The passage does not claim that behaviour is exclusively shaped by character. Instead, it recognizes both personality and character as influential, with character allowing us to act beyond our predispositions. Option D: This misinterprets the passage. The author does not suggest abandoning personality but rather channelling it to align with principles. Option E: This is an inaccurate representation of the idea in the passage. The need for character is not premised on the conflict of principles with instincts. Instead, the author simply discusses how character enables the application of values in alignment with principles, especially under pressure. Hence, Option A is the correct choice.

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