ACJC 2023 P2 Prelim Insert

ANGLO-CHINESE JUNIOR COLLEGE JC2 PRELIMINARY EXAMINATION 2023 GENERAL PAPER Paper 2 INSERT 8807/02 1 hour 30 minutes READ THESE INSTRUCTIONS FIRST This Insert contains the passage for Paper 2. This document consists of 3 printed pages. GP 8807_2 ACJC 2023 Anglo-Chinese Junior College General Paper Department [Turn over]

2 Karan Johnson discusses the role of rituals in our lives. 1 2 3 4 When the anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski visited the Trobriand Islands in Papua New Guinea in the early 20th Century, he noted the elaborate ceremonies and rituals fishermen would perform before venturing out onto the open sea. They would carefully paint their canoes with black, red and white paint, chanting spells as they did so. But when the fishermen went out into the nearby calm lagoon, they did not use these rites. Malinowski concluded that the ‘magic’ rituals performed by the islanders were a response to help them cope with the unpredictable might of the Pacific Ocean. Indeed, why do humans embrace rituals so fervently? At the start of every year, people around the world participate in one of humankind’s largest ritualised celebrations. To commemorate another trip around the sun, New Year activities include fireworks, kisses and resolutions – as well as some practices unique to specific cultures, such as eating a grape with each midnight clock strike in Spain or burning effigies that represent the previous year in Central and South America. Many social rituals originated when humans started living in ever bigger groups, particularly after agriculture enabled larger populations to live in the same place. That fateful decision has exposed humans to all kinds of violence and diseases, from conflicts within groups to wars between groups, to infectious diseases that can now spread swiftly across entire villages. To prevent such catastrophes from occurring, humans put their very nimble, whimsical minds to work. Because we are so socially oriented, we tend to interpret any bad luck as something that someone – a spirit, a demon, or a god – has done to us, perhaps because our behaviour has upset them. Therefore, we try to find a way to do things that will prevent such disasters from happening again. Research identifies three elements of a ritual. First, it consists of behaviours that occur in fixed succession – one after another – and are typified by formality and repetition. Secondly, the behaviours have symbolic meaning, and lastly, these ritualised behaviours generally have no obvious useful purpose. However, rituals occur surprisingly often within our everyday lives. It is believed that we form rituals based on our values. For instance, people with Christian values christen their babies as a sym