Read the given passage and answer the questions that follow.
The dictionary defines 'ego' as "your idea or opinion of yourself, especially your feelings of your self-importance and ability." In itself, nothing sounds problematic. In fact, this ability to know oneself is always an advantage — a reality check that is vital for our own contentment as well as for our relationships with others.
Then, only an ignorant person or a liar would claim to have no ego, for we all have one. It is a part of our psychological structure. The problem occurs when we allow this sense of self to start ballooning, into being an egotist — then it not only becomes a leadership derailer but also creates havoc in the personal and professional lives of those who have to work with such people. The more senior the leaders are, the more they are at the risk of stepping into the black hole area. The reason is that given our cultural deference (often fear) of hierarchy, employees further down the corporate ladder think it unsafe to tell their leaders what they need to be told — and prefer rather to tell them what they like to hear.
Leaders who take accountability for their success as well their team and organization's have to learn to manage this powerful asset well — a skill that can help them multiply their impact manifold.
This has to be done with special focus on areas where the leader is not competent enough and for specific situations that fuel the dark side of their ego and bring out the worst in them. The former calls for building a regular practice of seeking feedback — and not the ceremonial annual theatre most leaders do. The latter, on the other hand, calls for analysing our own interactions from an outside-in view to catch the emotional hijack points — flashes of temper, impatience, feelings of having outsmarted someone, etc., and setting goals to reduce those. Both these areas often call for professional help, blinded as we often are with our 'walls of denial'.
According to the passage, ego means
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 4
The correct answer is Option (4) → a balanced view of oneself.
The passage gives the dictionary meaning of ego as "your idea or opinion of yourself" and then says that, in itself, nothing about it is a problem: knowing oneself is "always an advantage", a reality check. Everyone has an ego. The trouble starts only when it begins ballooning into egotism. So ego in its normal sense is a balanced (fair, neither too high nor too low) view of oneself.
Why the Other Options are Incorrect?
Option 1: our view of the cognitive world. — Incorrect. Wrong focus: cognitive means connected with thinking, knowing and understanding. Ego is a view of oneself, not of the world of thought.
Example: Puzzles improve a child's cognitive skills.
Option 2: our view of the outside world. — Incorrect. Wrong focus: ego is an opinion of oneself. The passage does not define it as a view of the world outside.
Option 3: our view of others. — Incorrect. Wrong focus: the definition is about one's opinion of oneself. Others come in only as people affected by an inflated ego.
Note: In the original NTA paper, Option 2 read "an inflated view of ourselves". NTA accepted this option as a correct answer as well. To leave only one correct answer and avoid confusion for students, it has been changed here to "our view of the outside world".
Advice for the exam: In the real exam, mark the answer that is grammatically or factually correct. If NTA’s provisional answer key marks a different option, challenge it during the answer-key challenge window and give the reason in one or two lines.