The Peculiarities of Perception – Third Aroma in The Aroma of Language

Yes you got that right again …I am talking about Perception in this Aroma.

Why Perception??

Don’t be in such a hurry let me explain. This has its roots in the online CAT/CSAT Class of www.mindworkzz.com that I was teaching.

The chapter was Fill in the blanks.. Aah apologies!!! In Sentence Completion[ I beg your pardon..I am old school and still prefer the Fill in the blanks name ?

Hmm ..so as I said , I was teaching this chapter and the students were getting confused between the options. There was a lot of randomness in their answers and that got me thinking ..WHY??

The answer was LACK OF PERCEPTION …!!!!

So what is perception and why is it so important that I have dragged you out of your cozy corners to read about it???

We commonly confuse perception with the power of sight, sound touch..etc.

Actually perception just begins in our senses but goes much deeper into realms that we don’t even think about.

Lets start with a phrase : Nouveau riche …[ so what are you thinking about it???]

The dictionary meaning is : A person who has suddenly risen to a higher economic status but has not gained social acceptance of others in that class .

Now I want to ask you…. Is it just this much or is there more to this phrase??…

What do you see when you visualize this phrase ?

What do you feel when you think about this phrase??

What kind of people with what kind of behaviour did you see in your mind’s eye when you thought about this phrase??

What were the actual people you thought about when you visualized this phrase???

Yes all that is PERCEPTION….and also more than that which you and I could not think because we have limited awareness, exposure and knowledge.

The more closely we perceive things the better is our understanding..again not just understanding but COMPREHENDING.

So let us look at an original question from CAT 2001which started to make me think about this perception thing.

But _____ are now regularly written not just for tools, but well-established practices,
organisations and institutions, not all of which seem to be _____ away.
A: reports, withering

B: stories, trading

C: books, dying

D: obituaries, fading

Now how would you perceive this statement??..what would you think after reading this??..Let me help you analyse this : The statement starts with a But which shows a contrast/ an objection, that something is different from what it should be. So if we think about options talking about reports, stories and books , which are options A,B and C there is nothing which should be out of the norm for which a BUT is written. Now look at option D which says Obituaries and here this is something not written for living things, so this could spark a question like a BUT .

So the correct perception of this sentence should have been to search for something different or out of the ordinary which was only mentioned in option D. This was also the correct option.

After seeing the different kinds and specially very rigid perceptions in the minds of my students I realized that they were not perceiving the author’s intent at all and thus missing the vital clue in the question , hence they would make an error.

Thus coming back to Perception , I want to say that when you read words, sentences, and paragraphs please keep your mind open and try to perceive things as the person who has written it perceives it, not as what you want to perceive. If you don’t do that then you will lose the essence of what is being said and make some major errors in the exam.

Feel, think, chew and analyse what you read together with an open mind..a mind which is open to admitting a wrong understanding…..a mind which can unlearn the Wrong and be comfortable about relearning the Right.

Perception is in our own hands ,in our own minds and in our own thinking, what we choose to make of it will segregate us from the rest. !!!

My parting message to all of you is : Delve into the sea of Perception and you will come out with the pearls of understanding !!!

Will come back with a new Aroma soon……till then Happy Perceiving !!!!

Take care