The author reflects on the concept of Blue Ocean Strategy. He explains that this concept delivers an instinctive framework for developing uncontested market space and making competition irrelevant. The author remarks that Blue Ocean Strategy is about having the best mix of attributes that results in the creation of uncontested market space and high growth, and not about being the best.

The above paragraph appears to be an attempt at

Question

The passage below is accompanied by four questions. Based on the passage, choose the best answer for each question.
For early postcolonial literature, the world of the novel was often the nation. Postcolonial novels were usually [concerned with] national questions. Sometimes the whole story of the novel was taken as an allegory of the nation, whether India or Tanzania. This was important for supporting anti-colonial nationalism, but could also be limiting - land-focused and inward looking.
My new book "Writing Ocean Worlds" explores another kind of world of the novel: not the village or nation, but the Indian Ocean world. The book describes a set of novels in which the Indian Ocean is at the centre of the story. It focuses on the novelists Amitav Ghosh, Abdulrazak Gurnah, Lindsey Collen and Joseph Conrad [who have] centred the Indian Ocean world in the majority of their novels. . . Their work reveals a world that is outward-looking full of movement, border-crossing and south-south interconnection. They are all very different - from colonially inclined (Conrad) to radically anti-capitalist (Collen), but together draw on and shape a wider sense of Indian Ocean space through themes, images, metaphors and language. This has the effect of remapping the world in the reader's mind, as centred in the interconnected global south. ... The Indian Ocean world is a term used to describe the very long-lasting connections among the coasts of East Africa, the Arab coasts, and South and East Asia.
These connections were made possible by the geography of the Indian Ocean. For much of history, travel by sea was much easier than by land, which meant that port cities very far apart were often more easily connected to each other than to much closer inland cities. Historical and archaeological evidence suggests that what we now call globalisation first appeared in the Indian Ocean. This is the interconnected oceanic world referenced and produced by the novels in my book. For their part Ghosh, Gurnah, Collen and even Conrad reference a different set of histories and geographies than the ones most commonly found in fiction in English. Those [commonly found ones] are mostly centred in Europe or the US, assume a background of Christianity and whiteness, and mention places like Paris and New York. The novels in [my] book highlight instead a largely Islamic space, feature characters of colour and centralise the ports of Malindi, Mombasa, Aden, Java and Bombay. . . . It is a densely imagined, richly sensory image of a southern cosmopolitan culture which provides for an enlarged sense of place in the world.
This remapping is particularly powerful for the representation of Africa. In the fiction, sailors and travellers are not all European. . . African, as well as Indian and Arab characters, are traders, nakhodas (dhow ship captains), runaways, villains, missionaries and activists. This does not mean that Indian Ocean Africa is romanticised. Migration is often a matter of force; travel is portrayed as abandonment rather than adventure, freedoms are kept from women and slavery is rife. What it does mean is that the African part of the Indian Ocean world plays an active role in its long, rich history and therefore in that of the wider world.

Answer 1

The trick in this question is to notice who is doing the talking. The paragraph never says 'Blue Ocean Strategy is...' in its own voice; it keeps saying 'the author reflects', 'the author explains', 'the author remarks'. That single clue about voice decides the answer, so go through the options with that in mind.

defining Blue Ocean Strategy: a definition would be stated directly by the passage itself, not credited each time to 'the author'. Since the paragraph keeps attributing the ideas to someone else, it is not offering its own definition.
developing the framework for Blue Ocean Strategy: developing a framework means building it up with new reasoning. Here the paragraph only reports a framework that already exists in someone else's work, it adds nothing new to it.
reviewing an article or a book on Blue Ocean Strategy: summarizing what 'the author' says, and then adding a remark about what the strategy is really about (a mix of attributes, not being 'the best'), is exactly what a book or article review does. This matches the paragraph's structure closely.
highlighting how Blue Ocean Strategy leads to better returns: returns or profit are never the focus here; 'uncontested market space' and 'high growth' are mentioned only while describing the author's own claims, not as the paragraph's main point.

Since the paragraph's whole structure is built around reporting and reacting to what 'the author' said, it functions as a review rather than a definition, a framework, or a returns argument.

Let's summarize:

Repeated attribution to 'the author' signals that the paragraph is reporting someone else's work, not presenting original content.
A definition or a framework would be stated directly, not attributed each time.
Returns or performance are mentioned only in passing, never as the central theme.

So this paragraph is best read as an attempt at reviewing an article or book on Blue Ocean Strategy.

Answer 2

The trick in this question is to notice who is doing the talking. The paragraph never says 'Blue Ocean Strategy is...' in its own voice; it keeps saying 'the author reflects', 'the author explains', 'the author remarks'. That single clue about voice decides the answer, so go through the options with that in mind.

defining Blue Ocean Strategy: a definition would be stated directly by the passage itself, not credited each time to 'the author'. Since the paragraph keeps attributing the ideas to someone else, it is not offering its own definition.
developing the framework for Blue Ocean Strategy: developing a framework means building it up with new reasoning. Here the paragraph only reports a framework that already exists in someone else's work, it adds nothing new to it.
reviewing an article or a book on Blue Ocean Strategy: summarizing what 'the author' says, and then adding a remark about what the strategy is really about (a mix of attributes, not being 'the best'), is exactly what a book or article review does. This matches the paragraph's structure closely.
highlighting how Blue Ocean Strategy leads to better returns: returns or profit are never the focus here; 'uncontested market space' and 'high growth' are mentioned only while describing the author's own claims, not as the paragraph's main point.

Since the paragraph's whole structure is built around reporting and reacting to what 'the author' said, it functions as a review rather than a definition, a framework, or a returns argument.

Let's summarize:

Repeated attribution to 'the author' signals that the paragraph is reporting someone else's work, not presenting original content.
A definition or a framework would be stated directly, not attributed each time.
Returns or performance are mentioned only in passing, never as the central theme.

So this paragraph is best read as an attempt at reviewing an article or book on Blue Ocean Strategy.

Over Number	Run Rate
N-2	8.00
N	7.43
N+2	8.11
N+4	8.45
N+6	8.08

Show Hint

The Correct Option is C

Solution and Explanation

Top Questions on Reading Comprehension

Questions Asked in XAT exam