Reading Comprehension


READING COMPREHENSION

Introduction:

Solving English Reading Comprehension has become an inevitable part of almost every competitive examination. The question that lingers in every aspirant’s mind is “How to improve Reading comprehension?”

Students are habituated to solve simple and direct passages in their school days, but when it comes to competitive exams, the task becomes difficult. Unable to understand the vocabulary (meaning of words) and concept of the passage, students become dull and uninterested in this section.

I may give you some tips and strategies to achieve success in the examination, but the ultimate solution lies not in shortcut solutions, but long term preparation and hard work, obviously. You need to have the courage to prepare and adhere to a systematic plan. So, here are some Reading Comprehension strategies to follow, to get more marks in Reading Comprehension.

1. Unable To Understand: A complaint which I hear often is that, the students are unable to understand the given reading comprehension. If you belong to this category, you need to understand that you don’t need to understand each and every word of the comprehension. At the same time, you should find the gist (summary) of it. Both these points above may appear contradictory but the crucial thing is, you need to eliminate the words, phrases, sentences from the Reading Comprehension that are not useful and need to focus on keywords.

2. Find your strengths first. To improve reading comprehension, first you need to find your strengths first. The conservative approach to solve a passage is, to read the passage first, and then go to the questions and solve them. But some students do not feel comfortable with this method. Probably they do not know which keywords to remember while going through the comprehension. Or, they may have to read the comprehension again, after reading the questions. This leads to the problem of Time Management.

Solution: you can choose the “bottom up” approach. That means, read the questions first, so that you have an idea what to look for, in the comprehension. But ultimately you are the better judge of which approach is the best. So, practice several reading comprehension in two different approaches and find out which method suits you.

3. Time Management: “I know all the answers, but I didn’t have enough time to solve” Have you ever heard these kinds of complaints? Competitive examinations not only test your knowledge and skills but your Time Management also. All the three aspects are important, Especially when there are Negative Marks for wrong answers

  • Knowledge
  • Skills (writing, reading)
  • Time Management

Solution: Divide the stipulated time of the examination; allot certain time to each section, based on your strengths and weaknesses. Practice numerous reading comprehension exercises with the help of a timer . After solving some, you definitely have an idea, about Time Management.

4. Practice a lot: “Normally, students who believe themselves weak in Reading Comprehension, are unwilling to practice. Most of them try to avoid solving at home. They make a lot of excuses. But remember excuses don’t bring you success. Success won’t be available unless you confront your fears and weaknesses. Remember, No one asks you “why didn’t you succeed in life?” They only ask you “Did you succeed or not?”

5. Improve Your Vocabulary: Why you need to improve your vocabulary? Vocabulary means knowledge of words (meaning of words). If you do not have a good vocabulary, you have to stop at every new word in the reading comprehension, and be puzzled what does it mean? So, when you don’t know the meaning of a word, it becomes very difficult to understand the gist of the Comprehension. Having a good vocabulary, makes you understand the reading Comprehension much easier.

How to improve your vocabulary?

  • Start reading in English, anything……. Newspapers, stories, comics, text books….anything, that keeps you immersed in English. New words gradually sink into your subconscious mind and become familiar.
  • Keep a notebook, Note down the new words you learned today and revise them periodically.
  • Keep a target and a schedule to learn a certain number of new words every day. You are the better person to decide the number,… I am not. Do not deviate from the schedule at any cost.

6. Use a pen while reading: Do not read the Reading Comprehension like a movie novel. While going through the passage, your three body organs should act in collaboration.

  • Eyes
  • Hand
  • Brain

Make a habit of finding valuable keywords quickly and underline those keywords with a pen (If the rules permit, otherwise use a dark pencil).

Or

If you want you can take the notes of keywords on a plain paper, if allowed by the authorities. So, if at all you have to read the Comprehension again you can go only through keywords, and not through all the junk.

7. Find out words that are useless: If you carefully examine any Reading Comprehension, you can easily find out that there are so many words, phrases in the comprehension that are useless. That means even if we delete those words, phrases, the meaning of the Comprehension remains the same. It is very tiresome and difficult, for me to make a list of those words and phrases and publish here. I just advise you to keep an eye on them and not to waste your precious time in analyzing them.

8. Comeback Later: When we don’t find an answer to a particular question, we usually tell ourselves “Okay, I will come back to it later”. This may be a good strategy to save time while leaving the difficult questions and solving the easier ones. But before going to another question just do one thing. Take your pencil and make a circle on your choice, which you feel correct at the present moment.

Why? Most of the instances when you come back to the question, you would have forgotten the Comprehension itself. So you have to read it again from the beginning. If the time permits, it’s won’t be a problem,…but if you don’t have enough time you can choose the earlier marked answer.

9. Do a mental math quickly:Often students feel they are not efficient in solving Reading Comprehension, because of these three factors.

  • Vocabulary in the comprehension.
  • Difficulty in understanding the meaning of the questions.
  • Time factor.

So, if there are 40 questions in the English part, do not try to attempt all the questions (If there is negative marking).

Just try to think how many marks you need in English, by calculating how many you are getting in other sections of the exam (Arithmetic, Reasoning Etc.). Based on that you can choose how many questions you have to solve in English.

This doesn’t take much time if you make a quick mental math.

10. Most Reading Comprehensions are complex: Usually, Reading Comprehensions are taken from scientific essays or well known fiction. Often the sentences are complex to understand. If you are not aware of this fact, you might be puzzled by those questions.

Solution:

  • Improve your Vocabulary
  • Read and solve comprehensions, as many as possible
  • Solve passages from different fields of knowledge, like Science, Arts, Literature, Politics, and Economics etc.

11. Focus: It is not unusual for any person to wander somewhere while reading something uninteresting. So, when you find the Comprehension dull, difficult and uninteresting, your eyes run through the sentences, but your mind wanders somewhere else.

The result….you complete reading, but you grasp nothing.

Solution:

Focus on the content. Don’t let your mind go away from there.

If it starts daydreaming….bring it back into reality. Tell yourself that you have plenty of time to dream after the exam.

12. Improve reading Speed: Do not move your lips while reading, it slows you down.

Go back to point 6 and practice the technique mentioned there.

13. Practice Online Reading Comprehension: Here are some links for you to practice Reading Comprehension online free.

14. Don’t try to find the meaning of each word: While solving Reading Comprehension at home, don’t try to find the meaning of each and every word you find there, with the dictionary.

Of course, Looking for meanings in a dictionary and taking notes is a good habit, but for each and every word……No..

Sometimes you need to make a wild guess about a new word, taking into account of the context (situation). By this, you will be able to understand the meaning of new words. If you feel necessary, you may check the meaning after reading the Comprehension.

15. Solve previous papers: By solving the previous papers you can understand and identify what kind of questions are appearing in the examination, so that you will be mentally prepared for those kind of questions.

  • Some questions are Simple
  • Some Draw Inferences
  • Some of the RC questions will ask you about a specific word from a paragraph
  • some are Parallel Reasoning Questions

16. Don’t draw on outside knowledge. Don’t make conclusions which are not in the comprehension. Though you are well aware of the topic mentioned in the Passage, You should not bring your own knowledge into the answers. Just stick to the Information given in the comprehension.

17. Overcome panic : While focusing on the passage, if you stare at the letters for a long time, your eyes feel uncomfortable. So, often close your eyes for a while, take a deep breath and start again.

Don’t get panicked by the difficulty of the questions. Be prepared for them.

18. Recommended books on Reading Comprehension:

19. Never lose confidence: By looking at the Comprehension, don’t let any thought of discouragement enter into your mind. Don’t feel depressed.

Always follow some tactics to motivate yourself

20. Learn what works best for you: Whatever strategies mentioned here are not hard and fast rules. They are flexible. If you feel they don’t work for you, then you can alter them to suit your needs. You are the judge.

21. All the best: Following the above mentioned Reading Comprehension tips certainly brings you good marks in your academic tests.

Passage-1

The economic transformation of India is one of the great business stories of our time. As stifling government regulations have been lifted, entrepreneurship has flourished, and the country has become a high-powered center for information technology and pharmaceuticals. Indian companies like Infosys and Wipro are powerful global players, while Western firms like G.E. and I.B.M. now have major research facilities in India employing thousands. India’s seemingly endless flow of young, motivated engineers, scientists, and managers offering developed-world skills at developing-world wages is held to be putting American jobs at risk, and the country is frequently heralded as “the next economic superpower.”

But India has run into a surprising hitch on its way to superpower status: its inexhaustible supply of workers is becoming exhausted. Although India has one of the youngest workforces on the planet, the head of Infosys said recently that there was an “acute shortage of skilled manpower,” and a study by Hewitt Associates projects that this year salaries for skilled workers will rise fourteen and a half per cent, a sure sign that demand for skilled labor is outstripping supply.

How is this possible in a country that every year produces two and a half million college graduates and four hundred thousand engineers? Start with the fact that just ten per cent of Indians get any kind of post-secondary education, compared with some fifty per cent who do in the U.S. Moreover, of that ten per cent, the vast majority go to one of India’s seventeen thousand colleges, many of which are closer to community colleges than to four-year institutions. India does have more than three hundred universities, but a recent survey by the London Times Higher Education Supplement put only two of them among the top hundred in the world. Many Indian graduates therefore enter the workforce with a low level of skills. A current study led by Vivek Wadhwa, of Duke University, has found that if you define “engineer” by U.S. standards, India produces just a hundred and seventy thousand engineers a year, not four hundred thousand. Infosys says that, of 1.3 million applicants for jobs last year, it found only two per cent acceptable.

There was a time when many economists believed that post-secondary education didn’t have much impact on economic growth. The really important educational gains, they thought, came from giving rudimentary skills to large numbers of people (which India still needs to do—at least thirty per cent of the population is illiterate). They believed that, in economic terms, society got a very low rate of return on its investment in higher education. But lately that assumption has been overturned, and the social rate of return on investment in university education in India has been calculated at an impressive nine or ten per cent. In other words, every dollar India puts into higher education creates value for the economy as a whole. Yet India spends roughly three and a half per cent of its G.D.P. on education, significantly below the percentage spent by the U.S., even though India’s population is much younger, and spending on education should be proportionately higher.

The irony of the current situation is that India was once considered to be overeducated. In the seventies, as its economy languished, it seemed to be a country with too many engineers and Ph.D.s working as clerks in government offices. Once the Indian business climate loosened up, though, that meant companies could tap a backlog of hundreds of thousands of eager, skilled workers at their disposal. Unfortunately, the educational system did not adjust to the new realities. Between 1985 and 1997, the number of teachers in India actually fell, while the percentage of students enrolled in high school or college rose more slowly than it did in the rest of the world. Even as the need for skilled workers was increasing, India was devoting relatively fewer resources to producing them.

Since the Second World War, the countries that have made successful leaps from developing to developed status have all poured money, public and private, into education. South Korea now spends a higher percentage of its national income on education than nearly any other country in the world. Taiwan had a system of universal primary education before its phase of hypergrowth began. And, more recently, Ireland’s economic boom was spurred, in part, by an opening up and expansion of primary and secondary schools and increased funding for universities. Education will be all the more important for India’s well-being; the earlier generation of so-called Asian Tigers depended heavily on manufacturing, but India’s focus on services and technology will require a more skilled and educated workforce.

India has taken tentative steps to remedy its skills famine—the current government has made noises about doubling spending on education, and a host of new colleges and universities have sprung up since the mid-nineties. But India’s impressive economic performance has made the problem seem less urgent than it actually is, and allowed the government to defer difficult choices. (In a country where more than three hundred million people live on a dollar a day, producing college graduates can seem like a low priority.) Ultimately, the Indian government has to pull off a very tough trick, making serious changes at a time when things seem to be going very well. It needs, in other words, a clear sense of everything that can still go wrong. The paradox of the Indian economy today is that the more certain its glowing future seems to be, the less likely that future becomes.

Questions:

1. Which of these could you infer according to the passage?

A. Wages in the Developing countries are less as compared to wages in the developed countries

B. Wages in the Developing countries are more as compared to wages in the developed countries

C. Wages in the Developing countries are same as wages in the developed countries

D. None of these

2. What does "American jobs" in the last line of the first paragraph of the passage imply?

A. Jobs provided by American companies B. Jobs held (or to be held) by American people

C. Jobs open to only American citizens D. Jobs provided by the American government

3. According to the passage, why India does not have enough skilled labour?

A. The total amount of young population is low

B. The total number of colleges are insufficient

C. Students do not want to study

D. Maximum universities and colleges do not match global standards.

4. What can you infer as the meaning of 'stifling' from the passage?

A. Democratic B. Liberal C. Impeding D. Undemocratic

5. What is an appropriate title to the passage?

A. Growing Indian Economy B. Higher education in India

C. India's Skill Shortage D. Entrepreneurship in India

6. In the third sentence of the third paragraph of the passage, the phrase "closer to community colleges " is used. What does it imply?

A. Near to community colleges B. Like community colleges

C. Close association to community colleges D. None of these

7. According to the passage, what is the paradox of the Indian economy today?

A.The economic progress is impressive, but the poor (earning one dollar per day) are not benefited.

B. The economic progress is impressive disallowing the government to take tough decisions.

C. There is not enough skilled workforce and the government does not realize this.

D. Government is not ready to invest in setting up new universities.

8. Why are salaries for skilled workers rising?

A. Companies are paying hire to lure skilled people to jobs.

B. American companies are ready to pay higher to skilled workers.

C. Entrepreneurship is growing in India.

D. There is not enough skilled workers, while the demand for them is high.

Passage-2

The Stratosphere—specifically, the lower stratosphere—has, it seems, been drying out. Water vapour is a greenhouse gas, and the cooling effect on the Earth's climate due to this desiccation may account for a fair bit of the slowdown in the rise of global temperatures seen over the past ten years.

The stratosphere sits on top of the troposphere, the lowest, densest layer of the atmosphere. The boundary between the two, the tropopause, is about 18km above your head, if you are in the tropics, and a few kilometres lower if you are at higher latitudes (or up a mountain). The tropopause separates a rowdy below from a sedate above. In the troposphere, the air at higher altitudes is in general cooler than the air below it, an unstable situation in which warm and often moist air below is endlessly buoying up into cooler air above. The resultant commotion creates clouds, storms and much of the rest of the world's weather. In the stratosphere, the air gets warmer at higher altitudes, which provides stability.

The stratosphere—which extends up to about 55km, where the mesosphere begins—is made even less weather-prone by the absence of water vapour, and thus of the clouds and precipitation to which it leads. This is because the top of the troposphere is normally very cold, causing ascending water vapour to freeze into ice crystals that drift and fall, rather than continuing up into the stratosphere.

A little water manages to get past this cold trap. But as Dr Solomon and her colleagues note, satellite measurements show that rather less has been doing so over the past ten years than was the case previously. Plugging the changes in water vapour into a climate model that looks at the way different substances absorb and emit infrared radiation, they conclude that between 2000 and 2009 a drop in stratospheric water vapour of less than one part per million slowed the rate of warming at the Earth's surface by about 25%.

Such a small change in stratospheric water vapour can have such a large effect precisely because the stratosphere is already dry. It is the relative change in the amount of a greenhouse gas, not its absolute level, which determines how much warming it can produce, and this change was about 10% of the total.

By comparison with the greenhouse effect caused by increases in carbon dioxide, the stratospheric drying is hardly massive. Dr Solomon and her colleagues peg the 2000-2009 cooling effect at about a third of the opposite effect they would expect from the carbon dioxide added over the same decade, and only a bit more than a twentieth of the warming expected from the rise in carbon dioxide since the industrial revolution. But it is surprising, nonetheless.

It is for the most part only in the tropics that tropospheric air can be drawn up into the stratosphere; it is also in the tropics that one finds the most spectacular thunderstorms, and these can reduce the temperature at the top of the troposphere, deepening the cold trap that ascending water vapour must pass through and thus impeding its rise. Over the past decade this stormy effect seems to have been pronounced, with the coldest parts of the tropical troposphere getting about a degree colder. But why this should be is not clear. Sea-surface temperatures, which drive the big tropical storms, have been high, and during the past few years have seemed to correlate with increased coldness aloft. At other times, though, they have seemed to predict a wetter stratosphere.

Dr Solomon cannot say what is driving the change she and her colleagues have studied, nor how long it will last. It may be one of many aspects of the climate that flop around, seemingly at random, over periods of years to decades. Or it might be something driven by a long-term change, such as the build-up of greenhouse gases (or, conceivably, layers of sooty smog). Dr Solomon suspects the former, because of the way the relationship between the stratosphere and the sea-surface temperature has changed. Patterns of sea-surface temperature which come and go, rather than absolute levels that continue to rise, may be the important thing.

That said, it is possible that the changes in the stratosphere are linked to the effects humans are having on the atmosphere at large, and that the drying may persist in providing a brake on warming. Or it may be, as others have suggested in the past, that the long-term trend, as the troposphere warms up, will be to a wetter, more warming lower stratosphere, too. Whether this is the case depends on physical subtleties that are currently undecided, but it is not implausible. If it were true, then the current drying would be more a blip than a trend.

A better understanding of matters as diverse as how water vapour actually gets across the tropopause and how the stratosphere circulates at the global scale might help sort the question out, and Dr Solomon's high profile contribution may help focus researchers on those problems. Meanwhile, the good news (if further research bears it out) that the world's warming has been slowed, at least for a few years, needs to be leavened with the realisation, yet again, that there are significant uncertainties in science's understanding of the climate — and thus unquantifiable risks ahead.

Questions:

1. What is the order of layers in the atmosphere, starting from the lowermost and going to the topmost?

A. Tropopause, Troposphere, Mesosphere, Stratosphere.

B. Troposphere, Tropopause, Stratosphere, Mesosphere.

C. Troposphere, Tropopause, Mesosphere, Stratosphere.

D. Troposhere, Stratosphere, Tropopause, Mesosphere.

2. What is the passage has been cited as the main reason affecting global temperatures?

A. Relative change in water vapour content in the Stratosphere.

B. Drop in Stratospheric water vapour of less than one part per million.

C. The extreme dropness in the Stratosphere.

D. Absorption and emission of infrared radiation by different substances.

3. Why is the situation in the troposphere defined as unstable?

A. Because, unlike the Stratosphere, there is too much water vapour in the Troposphere.

B. Because the Troposphere is not directly linked to the Stratosphere, but through the Tropopause which creates much of the world’s weather.

C. Because of the interaction between warm and cool air which is unpredictable in nature and can leads to storms.

D. Because this layer of the atmosphere is very cloudy and can lead to weather related disruptions.

4. What accounts for the absence of water vapour in Stratosphere?

A. The layer of Stratosphere is situated too far above the water vapour to reach.

B. Rising global temperatures, leading to reduced water vapour that get absorbed in the Troposphere.

C. The greenhouse gas gets absorbed by the cloudes in the Troposphere and comes down as rain.

D. Before the vapour can rise up, it has to pass through below freezing temperatures and turns into ice.

Passage-3

Sixty years ago, on the evening of August 14, 1947, a few hours before Britain’s Indian Empire was formally divided into the nation-states of India and Pakistan, Lord Louis Mountbatten and his wife, Edwina, sat down in the viceregal mansion in New Delhi to watch the latest Bob Hope movie, “My Favorite Brunette.” Large parts of the subcontinent were descending into chaos, as the implications of partitioning the Indian Empire along religious lines became clear to the millions of Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs caught on the wrong side of the border. In the next few months, some twelve million people would be uprooted and as many as a million murdered. But on that night in mid-August the bloodbath—and the fuller consequences of hasty imperial retreat—still lay in the future, and the Mountbattens probably felt they had earned their evening’s entertainment.

Mountbatten, the last viceroy of India, had arrived in New Delhi in March, 1947, charged with an almost impossible task. Irrevocably enfeebled by the Second World War, the British belatedly realized that they had to leave the subcontinent, which had spiralled out of their control through the nineteen-forties. But plans for brisk disengagement ignored messy realities on the ground. Mountbatten had a clear remit to transfer power to the Indians within fifteen months. Leaving India to God, or anarchy, as Mohandas Gandhi, the foremost Indian leader, exhorted, wasn’t a political option, however tempting. Mountbatten had to work hard to figure out how and to whom power was to be transferred.

The dominant political party, the Congress Party, took inspiration from Gandhi in claiming to be a secular organization, representing all four hundred million Indians. But many Muslim politicians saw it as a party of upper-caste Hindus and demanded a separate homeland for their hundred million co-religionists, who were intermingled with non-Muslim populations across the subcontinent’s villages, towns, and cities. Eventually, as in Palestine, the British saw partition along religious lines as the quickest way to the exit.

But sectarian riots in Punjab and Bengal dimmed hopes for a quick and dignified British withdrawal, and boded ill for India’s assumption of power. Not surprisingly, there were some notable absences at the Independence Day celebrations in New Delhi on August 15th. Gandhi, denouncing freedom from imperial rule as a “wooden loaf,” had remained in Calcutta, trying, with the force of his moral authority, to stop Hindus and Muslims from killing each other. His great rival Mohammed Ali Jinnah, who had fought bitterly for a separate homeland for Indian Muslims, was in Karachi, trying to hold together the precarious nation-state of Pakistan.

Nevertheless, the significance of the occasion was not lost on many. While the Mountbattens were sitting down to their Bob Hope movie, India’s constituent assembly was convening in New Delhi. The moment demanded grandiloquence, and Jawaharlal Nehru, Gandhi’s closest disciple and soon to be India’s first Prime Minister, provided it. “Long years ago, we made a tryst with destiny,” he said. “At the stroke of the midnight hour, while the world sleeps, India will awaken to life and freedom. A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends, and when the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance.”

Posterity has enshrined this speech, as Nehru clearly intended. But today his quaint phrase “tryst with destiny” resonates ominously, so enduring have been the political and psychological scars of partition. The souls of the two new nation-states immediately found utterance in brutal enmity. In Punjab, armed vigilante groups, organized along religious lines and incited by local politicians, murdered countless people, abducting and raping thousands of women. Soon, India and Pakistan were fighting a war—the first of three—over the disputed territory of Kashmir. Gandhi, reduced to despair by the seemingly endless cycle of retaliatory mass murders and displacement, was shot dead in January, 1948, by a Hindu extremist who believed that the father of the Indian nation was too soft on Muslims. Jinnah, racked with tuberculosis and overwork, died a few months later, his dream of a secular Pakistan apparently buried with him.

Many of the seeds of postcolonial disorder in South Asia were sown much earlier, in two centuries of direct and indirect British rule, but, as book after book has demonstrated, nothing in the complex tragedy of partition was inevitable. In “Indian Summer” (Henry Holt; $30), Alex von Tunzelmann pays particular attention to how negotiations were shaped by an interplay of personalities. Von Tunzelmann goes on a bit too much about the Mountbattens’ open marriage and their connections to various British royals, toffs, and fops, but her account, unlike those of some of her fellow British historians, isn’t filtered by nostalgia. She summarizes bluntly the economic record of the British overlords, who, though never as rapacious and destructive as the Belgians in the Congo, damaged agriculture and retarded industrial growth in India through a blind faith in the “invisible hand” that supposedly regulated markets. Von Tunzelmann echoes Edmund Burke’s denunciation of the East India Company when she terms the empire’s corporate forerunner a “beast” whose “only object was money”; and she reminds readers that, in 1877, the year that Queen Victoria officially became Empress of India, a famine in the south killed five million people even as the Queen’s viceroy remained adamant that famine relief was a misguided policy.

Politically, too, British rule in India was deeply conservative, limiting Indian access to higher education, industry, and the civil service. Writing in the New York Tribune in the mid-nineteenth century, Karl Marx predicted that British colonials would prove to be the “unconscious tool” of a “social revolution” in a subcontinent stagnating under “Oriental despotism.” As it turned out, the British, while restricting an educated middle class, empowered a multitude of petty Oriental despots. (In 1947, there were five hundred and sixty-five of these feudatories, often called maharajas, running states as large as Belgium and as small as Central Park.)

Questions:

1. In the view of author what is the phrase "tryst with destiny" symbolize today?

A. A celebration of indian independence B. An inspirational quote

C.A reminder of Gandhi's assassination D. A symbol of ills of partition

2. Why was Gandhi assassinated?

A.Because he was favouring muslims

B. His assassination thought he was partial to muslims

C. He got killed in the violence after partition

D. None of above.

3. What does the author imply about the future of Pakistan?

A. It becomes a secular country B. It becomes unsecular

C. It is unprosperous D. It becomes a rough state

4.The author persists on taking about the "Bob Hope movie" in the article. Why?

A. Because the movie was classic of 1947.

B. He thinks it caused the partition of sub-continent

C.He uses it to show the apathy of Britishers towards the sub-continent

D.It was Mountbatten's favourite movie.

5. What is the author likely to agree to as the reason for the chaos in the sub-continent in 1947?

A. Because Gandhiji was assassinated.

B. Because the British left the sub-continent in haste.

C. Because the hindus and Muslims could not live in peace.

D. Because Lord Mountbatten was watching a movie on 14th August, 1947.

6. What could possibly “grandiloquence” mean as inferred from the context in which it has been used in the passage?

A. Grand Party

B. Celebrations

C. Lofty Speech

D. Destiny

7. What is the author primarily talking about in the article?

A. Mountbatten’s association with India.

B. Nehru’s speech.

C. Gandhi’s assassination.

D. The aftermath of the partition.

8. From the passage, we can conclude about the view of the author about Lord Mountbatten?

A. Appreciative B. Sarcastic C. Neutral D. Speculative

Passage-4

The unique Iron Age Experimental Centre at Lejre, about 40 km west of Copenhagen, serves as a museum, a classroom and a place to get away from it all. How did people live during the Iron Age? How did they support themselves? What did they eat and how did they cultivate the land? These and a myriad of other questions prodded the pioneers of the Lejre experiment. Living in the open and working 10 hours a day, volunteers from all over Scandinavia led by 30 experts, built the first village in the ancient encampment in a matter of months. The house walls were of clay, the roofs of hay - all based on original designs. Then came the second stage - getting back to the basics of living. Families were invited to stay in the 'prehistoric village' for a week or two at a time and rough it Iron Age-style.

Initially, this experiment proved none too easy for modern Danes accustomed to central heating, but it convinced the centre that there was something to the Lejre project. Little by little, the modern Iron Agers learnt that their huts were, after all, habitable. The problems were numerous - smoke belching out from the rough-and-ready fireplaces into the rooms and so on. These problems, however, have led to some discoveries: domed smoke ovens made of clay, for example, give out more heat and consume less fuel than an open fire, and when correctly stoked, they are practically smokeless.

By contacting other museums, the Lejre team has been able to reconstruct ancient weaving looms and pottery kilns. Iron Age dyeing techniques, using local natural vegetation, have also been revived, as have ancient baking and cooking methods.


Questions:

1. What is the main purpose of building the Iron Age experimental center?

  1. Prehistoric village where people can stay for a week or two to get away from modern living
  2. Replicate the iron Age to get a better understanding of the time and people of that era
  3. To discover the differences between a doomed smoke oven and an open fire to identity the more efficient of the two
  4. Revive activities of ancient women such as weaving , pottery, dyeing, cooking and baking.

2. From the passage what can be inferred to be the centre’s initial outlook towards the Lejre project?

  1. It initiated the project
  2. It eagerly supported it
  3. It felt the project was very unique
  4. It was apprehensive about it

3. What is the meaning of the sentence “Initially, this experiment proved none to easy for modern Danes accustomed to central heating, but it convinced the centre that there was something to the Lejre project.”?

  1. Even though staying in the huts was not easy for the modern people, the centre saw merit in the simple living within huts compared to expensive apartments
  2. Staying in the huts was quite easy for the modern people and the centre also saw merit in the sample living within huts compared to expensive apartments.
  3. The way of living of the Iron Age proved difficult for the people of the modern age who are used to living in luxury
  4. The way of living of the Iron Age proved very easy for the people of the modern age since it was hot inside the huts, and they were anyway used to heated rooms.

4. What can be the title of the passage?

  1. Modern techniques find their way into pre-historic villages
  2. Co-existence of ancient and modern times
  3. Glad to be living in the 21st century
  4. Turning back time

Passage-5

Environmental toxins which can affect children are frighteningly commonplace. Besides lead, there are other heavy metals such as mercury, which is found frequently in fish, that are spewed into the air from coal-fired power plants, says Maureen Swanson, MPA, director of the Healthy Children Project at the Learning Disabilities Association of America.

Mercury exposure can impair children’s memory, attention, and language abilities and interfere with fine motor and visual spatial skills. A recent study of school districts in Texas showed significantly higher levels of autism in areas with elevated levels of mercury in the environment. “Researchers are finding harmful effects at lower and lower levels of exposure,” says Swanson. “They’re now telling us that they don’t know if there’s a level of mercury that’s safe.”

Unfortunately, some of these chemicals make good flame retardants and have been widely used in everything from upholstery to televisions to children’s clothing. Studies have found them in high levels in household dust, as well as in breast milk. Two categories of these flame retardants have been banned in Europe and are starting to be banned by different states in the United States.

The number of toxins in our environment that can affect children may seem overwhelming at times. On at least some fronts, however, there is progress in making the world a cleaner place for kids—and just possibly, reducing the number of learning disabilities and neurological problems.With a number of efforts to clean up the environment stalled at the federal level, many state governments are starting to lead the way.And rather than tackle one chemical at a time, at least eight states are considering plans for comprehensive chemical reform bills, which would take toxic chemicals off the market.

Questions:

1. “Besides lead, there are other heavy metals such as mercury, which are found frequently in fish, that are spewed into the air from coal-fired power plants”. How can this line be worded differently.

A. Besides lead, mercury is another heavy metal which is found frequently in discarded fish cooked in coal-fired power plants.

B. Besides lead, fish contains mercury which is a heavy metal ejected in the air from power plants using coal.

C. Fish, contains mercury which is released in the air as industrial waste and which is also a heavy metal like lead.

D. Mercury relaeased in the air as industrial waste is another heavy metal like lead, found in fish.

2.All these are harmful effect of mercury in the children EXEPT

A. Affect driving skill B. Causes attention deficits ordered

C. lead to nurological problems D. Impacts ability to learn language

3."Reasearcher are finding harmful effects at a lower level of exposer "How can this line be interpreted?

A. Lower level of exposure are harmful

B. Harmful effects from exposure are becoming less intense

C. Amount of clothing has an impact on harmful effect

D. Even little exposure, can cause harm

Passage-6

Fasting is an act of homage to the majesty of appetite. So I think we should arrange to give up our pleasures regularly-our food, our friends, our lovers- in order to preserve their intensity, and the moment of coming back to them. For this is the moment that renews and refreshes both oneself and the thing one loves. Sailors and travelers enjoyed this once, and so did hunters, I suppose. Part of the weariness of modern life may be that we live too much on top of each other, and are entertained and fed too regularly.

Once we were separated by hunger both from our food and families, and then we learned to value both. The men went off hunting, and the dogs went with them; the women and children waved goodbye. The cave was empty of men for days on end; nobody ate, or knew what to do. The women crouched by the fire, the wet smoke in their eyes; the children wailed; everybody was hungry. Then one night there were shouts and the barking of dogs from the hills, and the men came back loaded with meat.

This was the great reunion, and everybody gorged themselves silly, and appetite came into its own; the long-awaited meal became a feast to remember and an almost sacred celebration of life. Now we go off to the office and come home in the evenings to cheap chicken and frozen peas. Very nice, but too much of it, too easy and regular, served up without effort or wanting. We eat, we are lucky, our faces are shining with fat, but we don't know the pleasure of being hungry any more.

Too much of anything-too much music, entertainment, happy snacks, or time spent with one's friends- creates a kind of impotence of living by which one can no longer hear, or taste, or see, or love, or remember. Life is short and precious, and appetite is one of its guardians, and loss of appetite is a sort of death. So if we are to enjoy this short life we should respect the divinity of appetite, and keep it eager and not too much blunted.

Questions:

1. What is the author's main argument in the passage?

A.The olden times, when the roles of men and women were clearly divided, were far more enjoyable than the present time

B. There is not enough effort required anymore to obtain food and hence the pleasure derived is not the same

C. People who don't have enough to eat enjoy life much more than those who have plentiful

D.We should deny ourselves pleasures once in a while in order to whet our desires and feel more alive

2. What are the benefits of fasting?

A. It is an act against the drawbacks of appetite

B. It brings joy in eating, and one learns to appreciate food

C. It is the method to understand how civilization evolved

D. It is a punishment for the greedy and unkind

3. What commonality has been highlighted between the sailors and hunters?

A. Neither were fed nor entertained regularly

B. They renew and refresh themselves regularly

C. They were regularly separated from their loved ones and things they liked

D. The roles of men and women were clearly divided for both professions

4. 'The long-awaited meal became a feast to remember and an almost sacred celebration of life', what does this line imply?

A. After so many days of being hungry, the cave men and women felt alive once again after eating the food

B. People respected and were thankful for getting food after days of being hungry and also of being united with their loved ones

C. Cave men and women ate and celebrated together with the entire community making the feast really enjoyable

D. Cave men and women enjoyed themselves in the feast and performed a ceremony to thank the Gods for their safe return back home.

Passage-7

AT the end of the 19th century, India's maharajahs discovered a Parisian designer called Louis Vuitton and flooded his small factory with orders for custom-made Rolls-Royce interiors, leather picnic hampers and modish polo-club bags. But after independence, when India's princes lost much of their wealth, the orders dried up. Then in 2002 LVMH, the world's largest luxury-goods group, made a triumphant return to India, opening a boutique in Delhi and another in Mumbai in 2004. Its target was the new breed of maharajah produced by India's liberalised economy: flush, flash, and growing in number.

Other purveyors of opulence followed, from Chanel to Bulgari. In recent months a multitude of swanky brands have announced plans to set up shop in India, including Dolce & Gabbana, Hermès, Jimmy Choo and Gucci. And Indian women will soon be invited to spend over $100 on bras made by La Perla, an Italian lingerie firm. Only a tiny fraction, of course, will do so. But it is India's future prospects that have excited the luxury behemoths.

India has fewer than 100,000 dollar millionaires among its one billion-plus population, according to American Express, a financial-services firm. It predicts that this number will grow by 12.8% a year for the next three years. The longer-term ascendance of India's middle class, meanwhile, has been charted by the McKinsey Global Institute, which predicts that average incomes will have tripled by 2025, lifting nearly 300m Indians out of poverty and causing the middle class to grow more than tenfold, to 583m.

Demand for all kinds of consumer products is about to surge, in short. And although restrictions on foreign investment prevent retail giants such as Wal-Mart and Tesco from entering India directly, different rules apply to companies that sell their own products under a single brand, as luxury-goods firms tend to. Since January 2006 they have been allowed to take up to 51% in Indian joint ventures. India is also an attractive market for luxury goods because, unlike China, it does not have a flourishing counterfeit industry. Credit is becoming more easily available. And later this year Vogue, a fashion magazine, will launch an Indian edition.

Barriers to growth remain, however. High import duties make luxury goods expensive. Rich Indians tend to travel widely and may simply buy elsewhere. Finding suitable retail space is also proving a headache. So far most designer boutiques are situated in five star hotels.

But things are changing. Later this year Emporio, a new luxury-goods mall, will open in a prosperous neighbourhood in the south of Delhi. It is likely to be the first of many. Even so, India could remain a difficult market to crack. Last October the Luxury Marketing Council, an international organisation of 675 luxury-goods firms, opened its India chapter. Its boss, Devyani Raman, described India's luxury-goods market as “a cupboard full of beautiful clothes with a new outfit arriving every day—it could start to look messy without the right care”. This, she said, included everything from teaching shop assistants appropriate manners to instilling in the Indian public a proper understanding of the concept of luxury. “How do you educate them”, she asked, “about the difference between a designer bag that costs $400 and a much cheaper leather bag that functions perfectly well?”

Questions:

1. Who are the 'new breed of Maharajas' ?

A. Maharajas who recovered their wealth in 2004. B.The children of the older Maharajas.

C. The new class of rich people which emerged in India post liberalisation.

D. None of the above.

2. What is the author most likely to agree to as the reason for the inflow of luxury good groups in India?

A. The fast growth in Indian economy leading to bright future prospects.

B. To serve 'the new breed of maharajas'.

C. To serve the tiny fraction of high income groups in India.

D. All the above.

3. Why do different rules apply to Wal-Mart and luxury good firms?

A. India is encouraging luxury goods while it doesn’t encourage Wal-Mart.

B. India is an attractive market for luxury goods.

C. There are different rules for retail firms and those that sell their own product.

D. None of the above.

4. What does Devyani Raman's statement imply?

A. Beautiful clothes are an important luxury item and should be taken care of.

B. The luxury goods market is becoming disorganized.

C. The supply of beautiful clothes is very high.

D. None of the above.

5. What could be the meaning of the word modish, as can be inferred from the context it is used in first line of the passage?

A. Unattractive B. Stylish C. New D. Moderate

6. What is the author most likely to agree to?

A. The current number of dollar millionaires in India is very high.

B. The current number of dollar millionaires in India is low.

C. The current number of dollar millionaires in India match world average.

7. What is a good estimate of the middle class population in India today as inferred from the passage?

A. 583m B. 100,000 C. 3 : 58m D. 5.83 m

8. According to the author, which of these is not a problem for the luxury good firms in the Indian market?

A. High import duty. B. Difficulty in finding retail space.

C. Restriction on firms to enter Indian markets. D. None of the above

Passage-8

SINCE the late 1970s when the technology for sex determination first came into being, sex selective abortion has unleashed a saga of horror. Experts are calling it "sanitised barbarism". Demographic trends indicate the country is fast heading towards a million female foetuses aborted each year. Although foetal sex determination and sex selection is a criminal offence in India, the practice is rampant. Private clinics with ultrasound machines are doing brisk business. Everywhere, people are paying to know the sex of an unborn child. And paying more to abort the female child. The technology has even reached remote areas through mobile clinics. Dr. Puneet Bedi, obstetrician and specialist in foetal medicine, says these days he hardly sees a family with two daughters. People are getting sex determination done even for the first child, he says. Spreading like a virus

A recent media workshop on the issue of sex selection and female foeticide brought home the extent of the problem. Held in Agra in February, the workshop was organised by UNICEF, Business Community Foundation, and the Centre for Advocacy and Research. Doctors, social scientists, researchers, activists, bureaucrats, journalists told their stories of what they were doing to fight the problem.

If the 1991 Census showed that two districts had a child sex ratio (number of girls per thousand boys) less than 850; by 2001 it was 51 districts. Child rights activist Dr. Sabu George says foeticide is the most extreme form of violence against women. "Today a girl is several times more likely to be eliminated before birth than die of various causes in the first year. Nature intended the womb to be a safe space. Today, doctors have made it the most unsafe space for the female child," he says. He believes that doctors must be held responsible — "They have aggressively promoted the misuse of technology and legitimate foeticide.

Researchers and scholars use hard-hitting analogy to emphasise the extent of the problem. Dr. Satish Agnihotri, senior IAS officer and scholar who has done extensive research on the issue, calls the technology "a weapon of mass destruction". Dr. Bedi refers to it as genocide: "More than 6 million killed in 20 years.That's the number of Jews killed in the Holocaust." Related issues Foeticide is also one of the most common causes of maternal mortality. The sex of the foetus can be determined only around 14-16 weeks. This means most sex selective abortions are late. Abortion after 20 weeks is illegal in India. Donna Fernandes, Vimochana, a Bangalore-based NGO, says foeticide is related to a host of other social problems as varied as privatisation of medical education and dowry. Karnataka has the highest number of private medical colleges. Healthcare turning commodity has led to terrifying consequences. Adds Fernandes, "Wherever green revolution has happened foeticide has increased. With more landholdings and wealth inheritance dowry has increased. Daughters are considered an economic liability. Today, people don't want their daughters to study higher — a more well-educated groom will demand more dowry."

Ironically, as income levels increase, sex determination and sex selection is increasing. The most influential pockets have the worst sex ratios. Take Punjab for instance — 793 girls for every 1,000 boys against the national figure of 927. Or South Delhi — one of the most affluent localities of the Capital — 760. According to Satara-based advocate Varsha Deshpande, small families have come at the cost of the girl child.

In patriarchal States like Rajasthan where infanticide has existed for centuries, this new technology has many takers. Meena Sharma, 27, television journalist from Rajasthan, who did a series of sting operations across four States last year, says, "Today, people want to pretend they are modern and that they do not discriminate between a girl and a boy. Yet, they will not hesitate to quietly go to the next village and get an ultrasound done."

Sharma was determined to expose the widespread malpractice. She travelled with pregnant women as "decoys" across four States and more than 13,000 km to do a series of sting operations. She says more than 100 doctors of the 140 they met were ready to do a sex selective abortion, some as late as the seventh month. "We were shocked at the greed we saw — doctors did not even ask why we wanted to abort, far from dissuading us from doing so," she says.

What's the solution? Varsha Deshpande says the PCPNDT Act (Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques — Regulation and Prevention of Misuse) is very well conceived and easy to use. "We have done 17 sting operations across Maharashtra and got action taken against more than 25 doctors," says Varsha. She adds that other laws for violence against women such as dowry, domestic violence, rape, put the control in the hands of the police which is biased. Therefore, even though the law exists, offenders get away. This law preventing sex determination and sex selection is much easier to use techonology, she says regulating technology.

Akhila Sivadas, Centre for Advocacy and Research, Delhi, agrees that the law is very well conceived and the need of the hour is legal literacy to ensure the law is implemented. "The demand and supply debate has been going on for some time. Doctors say there is a social demand and they are only fulfilling it. They argue that social attitudes must change. However, in this case supply fuels demand. Technology will have to be regulated. Technology in the hands of greedy, vested interests, cannot be neutral. There is a law to prevent misuse and we must be able to use it," she says. CFAR is currently partnering with local NGOs in six districts of Rajasthan to help ensure implementation of the law.

On the "demand" side, experts such as Dr. Agnihotri argue that women's participation in workforce, having disposable incomes and making a contribution to larger society will make a difference to how women are seen. Youth icons and role models such as Sania Mirza are making an impact, he says. Others feel there needs to be widespread visible contempt and anger in society against this "genocide" — "the kind we saw against the Nithari killings," says Dr. Bedi. "Today nobody can say female foeticide is not their problem." Time we all did our bit to help save the girl child. Time's running out.

Questions:

1. Which of the following will Dr. George agree to?

A.The girl child is as safe in the mother’s womb as after birth.

B. The girl child is safe in the mother’s womb in comparison to after birth.

C. The girl child is safer after birth as compared to mother’s womb

D. None of these.

2. What is the solution to the problem of female foeticide as envisioned by Dr. Bedi?

A. Effective use of law B. Mass Public outrage.

C. Comparision with Nithari killing D. Contempt towards doctors.

3. What is the tone of the passage?

A. Factual B. Biased C. Aggressive D. Sad

4. What is Akhila Sivadas’s opinion on the PCPNDT Act?

A. The act is inconsistent B. The act needs reform

C. The act encourages demand for foeticide. D. The act is sound, but needs enforcement

5. What does the word “sanitized” imply in the first paragraph of the passage?

A. Unforgivable B. Legitimate C. Free from dirt D. None of these.

6. What is the doctor’s explanation for foeticide?

A. They think it is legitimate B. They do it because people demand it.

C. The technology is available and there is no harm using it D. None of these.

7. Which of the two people mentioned in the passage suggest similar solution to the problem?

A. Dr.Agnihotri and Dr.George B. Dr. Bedi and Dr.Agnihotri

C. Dr.George and Dr.Bedi D. Dr. Geroge and Miss Sivadas

8. Which “demand” does the author refer to, in paragraph 5?

A. Demand for principled doctors B. Demand for high income jobs for women.

C. Demand for youth icons. D. Demand for sex determination and abortion.

Passage-9

The word euthanasia is of Greek origin and literally means “a good death.” The American Heritage Dictionary defines it as “the act of killing a person painlessly for reasons of mercy.” Such killing can be done through active means, such as administering a lethal injection, or by passive means, such as withholding medical care or food and water.

In recent years in the United States, there have been numerous cases of active euthanasia in the news. They usually involve the deliberate killing of ill or incapacitated persons by relatives or friends who plead that they can no longer bear to see their loved ones suffer. Although such killings are a crime, the perpetrators are often dealt with leniently by our legal system, and the media usually portrays them as compassionate heroes who take personal risks to save another from unbearable suffering.

The seeming acceptance of active forms of euthanasia is alarming, but we face a bigger, more insidious threat from passive forms of euthanasia. Every year, in hospitals and nursing homes around the country, there are growing numbers of documented deaths caused by caregivers withholding life-sustaining care, including food and water, from vulnerable patients who cannot speak for themselves.

While it is illegal to kill someone directly, for example with a gun or knife, in many cases the law has put its stamp of approval on causing death by omitting needed care. Further, many states have “living will” laws designed to protect those who withhold treatment, and there have been numerous court rulings which have approved of patients being denied care and even starved and dehydrated to death.

Because such deaths occur quietly within the confines of hospitals and nursing homes, they can be kept hidden from the public. Most euthanasia victims are old or very ill, so their deaths might be attributed to a cause other than the denial of care that really killed them. Further, it is often relatives of the patient who request that care be withheld. In one court case, the court held that decisions to withhold life-sustaining care may be made not only by close family members but also by a number of third parties, and that such decisions need not be reviewed by the judicial system if there is no disagreement between decision makers and medical staff. The court went so far as to rule that a nursing home may not refuse to participate in the fatal withdrawal of food and water from an incompetent patient!

“Extraordinary” or “heroic” treatment need not be used when the chance for recovery is poor and medical intervention would serve only to prolong the dying process. But to deny customary and reasonable care or to deliberately starve or dehydrate someone because he or she is very old or very ill should not be permitted. Most of the cases coming before the courts do not involve withholding heroic measures from imminently dying people, but rather they seek approval for denying basic care, such as administration of food and water, to people who are not elderly or terminally ill, but who are permanently incapacitated. These people could be expected to live indefinitely, though in an impaired state, if they were given food and water and minimal treatment.

No one has the right to judge that another’s life is not worth living. The basic right to life should not be abridged because someone decides that someone else’s quality of life is too low. If we base the right to life on quality of life standards, there is no logical place to draw the line.

To protect vulnerable patients, we must foster more positive attitudes towards people with serious and incapacitating illnesses and conditions. Despite the ravages of their diseases, they are still our fellow human beings and deserve our care and respect. We must also enact positive legislation that will protect vulnerable people from those who consider their lives meaningless or too costly to maintain and who would cause their deaths by withholding life-sustaining care such as food and water.

Questions

1. The tone of the author can best be described as

A. pleading B. argumentative C. compassionate D. emphatic E. empathetic

2. In paragraph 3, the author finds starvation and dehydration induced euthanasia is to be “more insidious" because

A. euthanasia is legally considered to be a criminal act

B. the public’s attitude toward euthanasia is becoming more positive

C. it often involves those who cannot protest

D. the patient has asked to die with dignity

E. its perpetrators are viewed as kindly caregivers

3. As used in paragraph 3, what is the best synonym for insidious?

A. mischievous B. treacherous C. seductive D. apparent E. cumulative

4. The author maintains that death by withholding care is

A. largely confined to hospitals B. largely confined to the terminally ill

C. often requested by family members D. approved by living wills

E. difficult to prove if prosecuted

5. As used in paragraph 7, which is the best definition of abridged?

A. trimmed B. curtailed C. lengthened D. protracted E. compressed

6. Using the passage as a guide, it can be inferred that the author would find euthanasia less objectionable in cases in which

I. the patient’s death is imminent

II. the patient has left instructions in a living will not to provide care

III. the patient refuses to accept nourishment

A. I only B. II only C. I and II only

D. II and III only E. I, II and III

7. The main idea of paragraph 7 is that

A. lawyers will be unable to prosecute or defend caregivers

B. no comprehensive right or wrong definition of euthanasia will exist

C. using a subjective standard will make the decision to end an individual’s life arbitrary

D. no boundary will exist between euthanasia and care omission

E. ‘quality of life’ will no longer be able to be rigidly defined

8. In the final paragraph the author writes, "Despite the ravages of their diseases, they are still our fellow human beings and deserve our care and respect." The main purpose of this statement is to

A. prove a previous argument B. illustrate an example

C. gainsay a later statement D. object to a larger idea E. justify an earlier statement

Passage-10

My cell phone rings again. It is futile to ignore it anymore; Valerie is persistent. When Valerie wants something, she will continue to bedevil me until I acquiesce. “Hello,” I answer. “State Fair, Bobbie?” she asks in her singsong voice. “When are we heading out? Only two more days left!” I abhor the State Fair. The boisterous crowds, the insanely long lines and the impossibility of finding a clean restroom all combine to make this an event that I dread. For Valerie, my best friend since the angst of middle school, the State Fair is a sign that divine powers really do exist. “Really, Bobbie, where else can you pet a cow, ride a horse, fall ten stories, see the world’s smallest person and eat fried macaroni and cheese?” Valerie asks gleefully. “Hell?” I guess. The fried food at the State Fair is a gastronomical nightmare on its own. I once tried a fried pickle at the fair and was sick to my stomach for hours. And a fried donut hamburger with bacon, cheese AND a greasy egg? How could that not be deleterious? I have not seen Valerie for a good month; our schedules are both so hectic. My hatred of the State Fair becomes inconsequential compared to my desire to hang with Val. Alas, I ignore my anti-fair bias for the umpteenth year. “Pick me up at noon,” I say and hang up the phone.

Questions:

1. As used in paragraph 1, which is the best synonym for futile?

A. arduous B. enervating C. preposterous D. ineffective

2. As used at in paragraph 1, what does it mean to acquiesce?

A. to give in B. to speak kindly C. to pay attention D. to answer the phone

3. " I abhor the State Fair."

Which of the following is the best way to rewrite the above sentence (from paragraph 4) while keeping its original meaning as used in the story?

A. I really dislike the State Fair. B. I am bored by the State Fair.

C. I have no time for the State Fair. D. I am uncertain about the State Fair.

4. According the passage, Valerie regards the state fair with

A. ambivalence B. condescension C. jubilance D. nonchalance

5. Logically speaking, which of the following might otherwise be included in Bobbie’s description of foods to be found at the state fair?

I. fried candy bars

II. candy apples

III. ripe red tomatoes

A. I only B. I and III C. II and III D. I, II, and III

6. "And a fried donut hamburger with bacon, cheese AND a greasy egg?"

Technically speaking, which of the following grammatical errors are committed in the above sentence from paragraph 8?

I. There is no subject.

II. There is no predicate.

III. It is a sentence fragment.

A. I only B. II only C. II and III D. I, II, and III

7. Why might the author have chosen to capitalize all the letters in the word "AND" when writing about the donut hamburger in paragraph 8?

A. to make sure the reader understood it was a list

B. to show that a greasy egg was the last ingredient

C. to highlight that the sentence was intentionally written incorrectly

D. to emphasize how many ingredients were on the hamburger

8. As used in paragraph 8, which is the best antonym for deleterious?

A. amicable B. beneficial C. fortuitous D. pathetic

9. In paragraph 9, the word hang is used

A. as a hyperbole, meaning an exaggeration

B. as a slang expression, meaning informal language

C. as an analogy, meaning a comparison between two things

D. as a denotation, meaning the literal definition of a word

10. Near the end of the passage, what does the author's use of the word umpteenth suggest?

A. the fair has been around for a long time

B. this is the last time Bobbie will agree to go to the fair

C. Bobbie goes to the State Fair with Val frequently

D. this is the first time Bobbie has agreed to go with Val

Passage-11

Along with the obscurantist language, bribe-taking culture around the world often involves the avoidance of physically handing the money from one person to another. One obvious reason is to avoid detection, which is why bribes are known as “envelopes” in countries from China to Greece. But avoidance of a direct hand –over is common even where there is no chance of detection. There will always be some officials who will take money right from a bribe-player’s hands, but most seem to prefer to find some way to hide the money from view.

Rich Westerners may not think of their societies as plagued by corruption. But the definition of bribery clearly differs from person to person. A New Yorker might pity the third-world businessman who must pay bribes just to keep his shop open. But the same New Yorker would not think twice about slipping the $50 to sneak into a nice restaurant without a reservation. Poor people the world over are most infuriated by the casual corruption of the elites rather than by the underpaid, “tip”-seeking soldier or functionary. Thus there is no single cultural or social factor that inclines a society towards corruption, but economic factors play a big part. Most clearly, poverty and bribery go together.

Questions:

1. Which of the following the author does not identify as linguistic manifestation of corruption?

A) Asking for a favour B) Use of double meanings C) Use of quasi-official terminology D) Relate to food item.

2. In summary what does the passage primarily suggest and provide evidence for?

A. Corruption is always concealed in some way, both linguistically and in the process

B. Corruption exists only in developing economies

C. Corruption is an unethical practice

D. Corruption slows down GDP growth

3.What is the author likely to agree to in the following

A. Some cultures suffer corruptions while others do not.

B. Social factors incline a society towards corruption.

C. Bribery is not a cultural phenomenon.

D. None of these.

4. What is bribe generally called in China?

A. Hand-over B. Refresco C. Envelopes D. Baksheesh

5. What could be the meaning of the word “dissimulation, as can be inferred from the context it is used in the first line of the passage?

A. Hypocrisy B. Clarity C. Frankness D. Insult

6. What best represents the author’s attitude towards the rich people in the West?

A. Appreciative B. Mildly critical C. Heavy critical D. Mildly appreciative

7. What is the author most likely to agree to ?

A. People generally do not try to hide money taken as bribe

B. People hide money taken as bribe primarily to avoid detection.

C. People hide money taken as bribe from view even if detection possibility is low.

D. None of these.

8. What could be the meaning of the word “obscurantist” as inferred from the passage?

A.Clear B. Unclear C. Nasty D. Polite

Passage-12

This sue-for-anything philosophy was created in the 1960’s, when judges and legislators woke up to abuses of racism and other discrimination that had gone unchecked for centuries. When the bad values of judges and legislator were finally exposed, they decided to create a neutral system in which no one in authority would assert any values. Give people the right to sue for anything, they thought, and then they can’t blame us for imposing bad values. Pretty soon, every angry person or clever lawyer learned how to demand new “rights”. But these new rights ended up taking away others’ rights.

Trial lawyers justify ruinous claims like a $78,000,000 verdict in Arkansas against a nursing home for the neglect of a 93 years old resident on the basis that it will teach the defendant a lesson not to do it next time. The money, though, comes from you and me, through rapidly rising costs and health insurance premiums. The most important accountability, which the trial lawyers never propose, is to remove the licenses of inept doctors or nursing homes so that they can’t hurt someone else. Trial lawyers, of course, don’t make much money if the focus is on better health care, rather than huge verdicts. A society needs red lights and green lights. The legal system is badly broken. Yet, few efforts at reform have gotten very far.

Questions:

1. What can be a suitable title for the passage?

A. Positive outcome of law in America B. Misuse of law has shaken faith of Americans

C. Unlawful practice of lawsuits D. Society suffers with the ever-changing legal system.

Passage-13

Anjali could not begin to fathom what she was hearing.

Event the contractor appeared flabbergasted. His mouth stayed in a half-open position, like a guitar waiting for its strings to be tugged.

“Yes. Leave it”, Varun said again. He was speaking to the notion that someone in the room had asked him to clarify his words.

What were the chances that an Indian burial ground would be found on the bucolic site where Varun and Anjali had chosen to build their dream home? Why in the world would Varun not want to have the remains carted away, thought Anjali. The last thing they needed were Indian poltergeists meandering around their home while the two of them were trying to renovate their marriage.

Anjali, usually deferential to her husband, knew that now was the time to make her position heard.

She tried to cajole Varun from the direction he was heading, “sweetheart, we don’t want to build on a site with human remains, it would be irreverent to the dead”.

Immediately, she saw contempt in Varun’s eyes; it was a subtle reminder of how he often viewed her as superficial and self-absorbed.

“What would be irreverent”, said Varun, his voice dripping with condescension, “would be to desecrate these native graves and move them from their final resting place. Remember the culture.”

No, Anjali did not “remember the culture”. She could care less about the culture. However, varun, the history professor, was obviously enthralled by the contractor’s findings. He had an innate way of understanding other cultures and other people that amazed Anjali. He did not have that got with her.

But something inside Anjali said this was too much. She believed wholeheartedly in ghosts and could not imagine a life of them haunting her, rattling her cupboards, and shaking her floorboards. Anjali had an unnerving sensation that big problems were ahead.

Questions:

1. Why can’t Anjali fathom what her husband says at the beginning of the passage?

A. She could not hear what he said B. She could not believe what he said

C. She had not yet seen the remains D. She could not think of a retort to his comment

2. “She tried to cajole Varun from the direction he was heading” choose the best way to rewrite the above sentence.

A. She tried to compromise with Varun

B. She tried to force Varun from the direction he was heading

C. She tried to gently prod Varun from the direction he was heading

D. She tried to give Varun veiled threats about the direction he was heading

3) What is the term given to the comparison of the contractor to a guitar?

A. An allusion, meaning a figure of speech making casual reference to a literary figure

B. An analogy, meaning an extended comparison showing the similarities between two things

C. A denotation, meaning the literal definition of a word

D. A hyperbole, meaning a gross exaggeration

Passage-14

The Indian government’s intention of introducing caste based quotas for the “Other Backward Classes” in centrally funded institutions of higher learning and the prime minister’s suggestion to the private sector to ‘voluntarily go in for reservation’, has once again sparked off a debate on the merits and demerits of caste-based reservations. Unfortunately, the predictable divide between the votaries of “social justice” on one hand and those advocating “merit” on the other seems to have once again camouflaged the real issues. It is necessary to take a holistic and non-partisan view of the issues involved.

The hue and cry about “sacrificing merit” is untenable simply because merit is after all a social construct and it cannot be determined objectively in a historically unjust and unequal context. The idea of competitive merit will be worthy of serious attention only in a broadly egalitarian context. But then, caste is not the only obstacle in the way of an egalitarian order.

After all, economic conditions, educational opportunities and discrimination on the basis of gender also contribute to the denial of opportunity to express one’s true merit and worth. It is interesting to note that in the ongoing debate, one side refuses to see the socially constructed nature of the notion of merit, while the other side refuses to recognise the multiplicity of the mechanisms of exclusion with equal vehemence.

The idea of caste-based reservations is justified by the logic of social justice. This implies the conscious attempt to restructure a given social order in such a way that individuals belonging to the traditionally and structurally marginalised social groups get adequate opportunities to actualise their potential and realise their due share in the resources available.

In any society, particularly in one as diverse and complex as the Indian society, this is going to be a gigantic exercise and must not be reduced to just one aspect of state policy. Seen in this light, caste-based reservation has to work in tandem with other policies ensuring the elimination of the structures of social marginalisation and denial of access. It has to be seen as a means of achieving social justice and not an end in itself. By the same logic it must be assessed and audited from time to time like any other social policy and economic strategy.

Questions:

1. What is the phrase “Sacrificing merit” referring to?

A. Killing merit B. Selection on basis of merit C. Encouraging reservation D. None of these

2.What do you mean by the word “Egilitarian”?

A. Characterized by belief in the equality of all people.

B. Characterized by belief in the inequality of all people.

C. Another word for reservations.

D. Growth

3.What does the statement – and not to convert it into a fetish of “political correctness” in the passage imply?

A. Reservation issue should not be converted into a political propaganda.

B. Reservation issue should not be based on caste alone.

C. Reservation issue should be left to the ruling government.

D. None of these.

4.What is the author most likely to agree with?

A. Caste-based reservation is the answer to India’s problems.

B. Gender-based reservation is the answer to India’s problems.

C. There is solution to bridge the gap between privileged and underprivileged.

D. None of these.

5.What do you mean by the word “Votaries”?

A. Advocates B. Types C. Demerits D. People

6. What do you infer from the sentence “The idea of caste- based reservations is justified by the logic of social justice”?

A. Caste- based reservation will help in providing opportunities to the socially backward classes.

B. Caste-based reservation will lead to social equality amongst all classes.

C. Caste-based reservation will help backward classes actualize their potential.

D. All of the above.

7. Why does caste-bases reservation system needs to be assessed and audited from time to time?

A. To measure its economic advantage to the nation.

B. To make sure that it achieves social justice for all.

C. To do a cost analysis.

D. None of these.

Passage-15

The great event of the New York cultural season of 1882 was the visit of the sixty-two-year-old English philosopher and social commentator Herbert Spencer. Nowhere did Spencer have a larger or more enthusiastic following than in the United States, where such works as “Social Statics” and “The Data of Ethics” were celebrated as powerful justifications for laissez-faire capitalism. Competition was preordained; its result was progress; and any institution that stood in the way of individual liberties was violating the natural order. “Survival of the fittest”—a phrase that Charles Darwin took from Spencer—made free competition a social as well as a natural law.

Spencer was, arguably, the single most influential systematic thinker of the nineteenth century, but his influence, compared with that of Darwin, Marx, or Mill, was short-lived. In 1937, the Harvard sociologist Talcott Parsons asked, “Who now reads Spencer?” Seventy years later, the question remains pertinent, even if no one now reads Talcott Parsons, either. In his day, Spencer was the greatest of philosophical hedgehogs: his popularity stemmed from the fact that he had one big, easily grasped idea and a mass of more particular ideas that supposedly flowed from the big one. The big idea was evolution, but, while Darwin applied it to species change, speculating about society and culture only with reluctance, Spencer saw evolution working everywhere. “This law of organic progress is the law of all progress,” he wrote, “whether it be in the development of the Earth, in the development of Life upon its surface, in the development of Society, of Government, of Manufactures, of Commerce, of Language, Literature, Science, [or] Art.” Spencer has been tagged as a social Darwinist, but it would be more correct to think of Darwin as a biological Spencerian. Spencer was very well known as an evolutionist long before Darwin’s “On the Origin of Species” was published, in 1859, and people who had limited interest in the finches of the Galápagos had a great interest in whether the state should provide for the poor or whether it was right to colonize India.

Questions:

1. According to the author, why was Spencer so popular in the 19th century?

A. He supported capitalism.

B. He extended Darwin’s theory of evolution to a lot of things.

C. He had one broad and simple idea and many specific ideas followed from it.

D. He was a friend of Parsons.

2. Why did Spencer have a large enthusiastic following in the United States?

A. Because he believed in Darwin’s theory of evolution.

B. Because his work was perceived to justify capitalism.

C. Because he was a English Philosopher.

D. None of these.

3. Which of the following will the author agree to?

A. Mill, Marx and Darwin are more famous than Spencer as of today.

B. Spencer is more famous than Mill, Marx and Darwin as of today.

C. Mill, Darwin, Marx and of Spencer are equally famous.

D. Mill, Darwin, Marx and Parsons are very famous today.

4.What does Talcott Parson’s statement, “Who now reads Spencer”? imply?

A. No one read Spencer in 1937.

B. He is asking a question to his students.

C. Everyone should read Spencer.

D. None of these.

5. What could possibly “laissez-faire” mean as inferred from the context in which it has been used in the passage?

A. Restricted

B. Not interfered by the government

C. Unprincipled D. Uncompetitive

6. What is the author most likely to agree to in the following?

A. Darwin’s idea of evolution preceded that of Spencer.

B. Both Darwin and Spencer got the idea of the evolution at the same time.

C. Spencer’s idea of evolution preceded that of Darwin.

D. Darwin and Spencer worked on totally different models of evolution.

7. What must have been the most-likely responses / reaction of the New York audience to Spencer’s talk in 1882?

A. Vindication B. Surprise C. Happiness D. Depression

Passage-16

Class and money has always strongly affected how people do in life in Britain, with well-heeled family breeding affluent children just as the offspring of the desperately poor tend to be poor. All that supposed to have ceased by the end of the Second World War, with the birth of welfare state designed to meet basic needs and promote social mobility. But despite devoting much thought and more money to improve the lot of the poor, governments have failed to boost those at the bottom of the pile as much as those on top of the pile have boosted themselves.

Although the study found that some of the widest gaps between social groups have diminished over time (between men and women on pay, for example and between various ethnic minorities), deep-seated differences between haves and have-nots, persists blighting the life chances of less fortunate. Looking at earnings, income, education, employment or wealth, a similar pattern emerges.

By the age of three, a poor child is outperformed in verbal ability and behavior by a rich one. Much of the difference is explained by ethnicity: unsurprisingly, poor children who did not speak English at home know fewer words in what is their second or third language. A child’s ethnicity becomes less important as he grows: by the age of 16, but Chinese and Indian students are performing extremely very well at school. But throughout his classroom career how well a child does is dominated by how highly educated his parents are and how much money they bring home.

Politicians of all stripes talk about equality of opportunity, arguing that it makes for a fairer and more mobile society and a more prosperous one. The difficulty arises in putting these notions into practice, through severe tax increases for the middle-class and wealthy, or expanding government interventions.

Questions:

1. Which of the following is highlighted in the passage?

A. An insight into the economy of Britain and the failure of the government

B. The widening gap between the affluent and the poor

C. The problems of putting ideas into practice

D. The performance of children of various ethnic groups in school

2. What is the pattern noticed while studying the social groups?

A. The gap will only grow since implementing policies is difficult

B. The ethnicity of the child becomes less important as he grows

C. The gap is somewhat narrowing, but there is still a long way to go

D. The poor person always remains poor

3. Which of these can be inferred from the passage as one of the key solutions to reduce the gap between various social groups?

A. Encouraging ethnic social groups to converse in English even at home so as to develop their verbal ability

B. Implementing higher tax rates for the middle class and wealthy so that gap between the rich and poor can be reduced

C. By not disclosing the child’s ethnicity and background of parents at school so as to remove bias from coming in

D. Making the affluent people responsible for the poorer people, since they have been better at generating wealth than the government

Passage-17

The most avid users of social-networking websites may be exhibitionist teenagers, but when it comes to more grown-up use by business people, such sites have a surprisingly long pedigree. LinkedIn, an online network for professionals that signed up its ten-millionth user this week, was launched in 2003, a few months before MySpace, the biggest of the social sites. Consumer adoption of social networking has grabbed most attention since then. But interest in the business uses of the technology is rising.

Many companies are attracted by the marketing opportunities offered by community sites. But the results can be painful. Pizza Hut has a profile on MySpace devoted to a pizza-delivery driver called Ted, who helpfully lets friends in on the chain's latest promotional offers (“Dude, I just heard some scoop from the Hut,” ran one recent post). Wal-Mart started up and rapidly closed down a much-derided teenage site called The Hub last year. Reuters hopes to do better with its forthcoming site for those in the financial-services industry.

Social networking has proved to be of greatest value to companies in recruitment. Unlike a simple jobs board, social networks enable members to pass suitable vacancies on to people they know, and to refer potential candidates back to the recruiter. So employers reach not only active jobseekers but also a much larger pool of passive candidates through referrals. LinkedIn has over 350 corporate customers which pay up to $250,000 each to advertise jobs to its expanding network. Having lots of people in a network increases its value in a “super-linear” fashion, says Reid Hoffman, LinkedIn's founder. He says corporate use of his service is now spreading beyond recruiters: hedge funds use it to identify and contact experts, for example.

Jobster, a Seattle-based social-networking site, is entirely devoted to recruitment. Jobseekers can post their own profiles and tag their skills; these tags are then used to match candidates against jobs posted by employers. Unlike on LinkedIn, companies can set up private networks to ensure that the right kinds of people are alerted to openings and that the data they post remain under their control. Information needs to stay behind when a user leaves the company, argues Jason Goldberg, Jobster's founder.

Where LinkedIn emphasises scale and Jobster emphasises specialisation, Visible Path, a start-up based in New York, focuses on the strength of individual relationships. The firm analyses e-mail traffic, calendars and diary entries to identify the strongest relationships that exist inside and outside a company. An obvious application is to generate leads: a salesman can use the service to identify who within his network has the closest links to a prospect, and request an introduction.

Such techniques are also gathering momentum in “knowledge management”. IBM recently unveiled a social-software platform called Lotus Connections, due out in the next few weeks, that lets company employees post detailed profiles of themselves, team up on projects and share bookmarks. One manufacturer testing the software is using it to put inexperienced members of its customer-services team in touch with the right engineers. It can also be used to identify in-house experts. Software firms will probably start bundling social features of this kind into all sorts of business software.

To work well in the business world, social networking has to clear some big hurdles. Incentives to participate in a network have to be symmetrical, for one thing. The interests of MySpace members—and of jobseekers and employers—may be aligned, but it is not clear why commission-hungry salespeople would want to share their best leads with colleagues. Limiting the size of the network can reduce its value for companies, yet confidentiality is another obvious concern for companies that invite outsiders into their online communities. “Social networking sounds great in theory, but the business benefits are still unproven,” says Paul Jackson of Forrester, a consultancy. But if who you know really does matter more than what you know, it has obvious potential.

Questions:

1. What is the author of the passage most likely to agree to?

A. Social networking has benefited corporate sector to a large extent.

B. Social networking is not useful for corporate sector.

C. Social networking may benefit the corporate sector to some extent.

D. None of these.

2. According to the author, how does a social networking help recruitment?

A. By increasing the reach in a super linear fashion.

B. Making available a larger pool of passive candidates.

C. Since enthusiastic teenagers are also on the network.

D. None of these.

3. Which of the following is an appropriate title for the passage?

A. Social networking and business B. Social Networks.

C. Ethics of Social Networking in Business D. Social Networking : Pros and Cons

4. Which of the following statements is Reid Hoffman most likely to agree to?

A. Social network is only useful for recruiting.

B. Social networking has other uses apart from recruiting.

C. Social networking has not impacted business much.

D. The prime use of social networking is for Hedge funds.

5. What meaning of “avid” could you infer from the passage?

A. Dormant B. Unprincipled C. Unwanted D. Enthusiastic

6. What is the most probable context in which the author is talking about Pizza Hut?

A. Social Networking did not benefit it.

B. Social networking was a big success for it.

C. Social Networking created problems for it.

D. None of these.

7. Why does the author call Lotus Connections a social software platform?

A. Because it is used for knowledge management.

B. It has a feature to allow employees to interact and cooperate with each other.

C. Because IBM developed it.

D. Because the service team can get in touch with the right engineers using it.

8. What are the hurdles that social networking has to overcome in order to benefit the business world?

A. Issue of confidentiality B. Misalignment of interests.

C. Misalignment of interests and confidentiality D. None of these.

Passage-18

The impressive recent growth of certain sectors of the Indian economy is a necessary but insufficient condition for the elimination of extreme poverty.

In order to ensure that the poorest benefit from this growth, and also contribute to it, the expansion and improvement of the microfinance sector should be a national priority. Studies suggest that the impact of microfinance on the poorest is greater than on the poor, and yet another that non-participating members of communities where microfinance operates experience socio-economic gains — suggesting strong spillover effects. Moreover, well-managed microfinance institutions (MFIs) have shown a capacity to wean themselves off of subsidies and become sustainable within a few years.

Microfinance is powerful, but it is clearly no panacea. Microfinance does not directly address some structural problems facing Indian society and the economy, and it is not yet as efficient as it will be when economies of scale are realized and a more supportive policy environment is created.

Loan products are still too inflexible, and savings and insurance services that the poor also need are not widely available due to regulatory barriers. Still, microfinance is one of the few market-based, scalable anti-poverty solutions that is in place in India today, and the argument to scale it up to meet the overwhelming need is compelling. According to Sa-Dhan, the overall outreach is 6.5 million families and the sector-wide loan portfolio is Rs 2,500 crore.

However, this is meeting only 10% of the estimated demand. Importantly, new initiatives are expanding this success story to the some of the country's poorest regions, such as eastern and central Uttar Pradesh.

The local and national governments have an important role to play in ensuring the growth and improvement of microfinance. First and foremost, the market should be left to set interest rates, not the state. Ensuring transparency and full disclosure of rates including fees is something the government should ensure, and something that new technologies as well as reporting and data standards are already enabling.

Furthermore, government regulators should set clear criteria for allowing MFIs to mobilize savings for on-lending to the poor; this would allow for a large measure of financial independence amongst well-managed MFIs. Each Indian state could consider forming a multi party working group to meet with microfinance leaders and have a dialogue with them about how the policy environment could be made more supportive and to clear up misperceptions. There is an opportunity to make a real dent in hard-core poverty through microfinance. By unleashing the entrepreneurial talent of the poor, we will slowly but surely transform India in ways we can only begin to imagine today.

Questions

1. What could be the meaning of the word panacea in the passage?

a. Solution b. Problem c. Solution to all problems d. Sustainable solution

2. Why, according to the author, should microfinance be scaled up in India?

a. The demand for microfinance is high.

b. It is a market-based anti-poverty solution.

c. It is sustainable. D. Both 1 and 2. E. : 1, 2 and 3.

3. Why are saving products not available?

a. Due to inflexibility of loan products. B. Due to regulatory restrictions.

c. Since insurance services are not available. D. Saving products are not available.

4. Why does the author talk about the 'entrepreneurial talent of poor' in the concluding paragraph?

a. Entrepreneurship among poor is encouraged by microfinance.

b. Entrepreneurship among poor is an alternate to microfinance.

c. Entrepreneurship among poor is discouraged by microfinance. D. None of these

5. Which of the following is not a challenge faced by microfinance in India?

a. Does not help the poorest. B.Efficient when economy of scale is achieved.

c. Non-conducive policy environment. D. Structural problems of Indian society.

6. Which of the following is correct with regard to microfinance?

a. The supply is more than demand. B. The demand is more than supply.

c. The supply and demand are well balanced. d.None of these can be inferred from passage.

7. What is the author's view about interest rates?

a. The government should set them.

b.There should be transparency with regard to them.

c. The market forces should set them. d. Both 1 and 2. e. Both 2 and 3.

8. Which of the following will the author agree to?

a. Indian economy growth will solve the problem of poverty.

b. Indian economy growth is not enough to solve the problem of poverty.

c. Indian economy growth aggravates the problem of poverty. d. None of these

Passage-19

When it came to promoting its new video-game console, the Wii, in America, Nintendo recruited a handful of carefully chosen suburban mothers in the hope that they would spread the word among their friends that the Wii was a gaming console the whole family could enjoy together. Nintendo thus became the latest company to use “word-of-mouth” marketing. Nestlé, Sony and Philips have all launched similar campaigns in recent months to promote everything from bottled water to electric toothbrushes. As the power of traditional advertising declines, what was once an experimental marketing approach is becoming more popular.

After all, no form of advertising carries as much weight as an endorsement from a friend. “Amway and Tupperware know you can blend the social and economic to business advantage,” says Walter Carl, a marketing guru at Northeastern University. The difference now, he says, is that the internet can magnify the effect of such endorsements.

The difficulty for marketers is creating the right kind of buzz and learning to control it. Negative views spread just as quickly as positive ones, so if a product has flaws, people will soon find out. And Peter Kim of Forrester, a consultancy, points out that when Microsoft sent laptops loaded with its new Windows Vista software to influential bloggers in an effort to get them to write about it, the resulting online discussion ignored Vista and focused instead on the morality of accepting gifts and the ethics of word-of-mouth marketing. Bad buzz, in short.

BzzAgent, a controversial company based in Boston that is one of the leading exponents of word-of-mouth marketing, operates a network of volunteer “agents” who receive free samples of products in the post. They talk to their friends about them and send back their thoughts. In return, they receive rewards through a points program—an arrangement they are supposed to make clear. This allows a firm to create buzz around a product and to see what kind of word-of-mouth response it generates, which can be useful for subsequent product development and marketing. Last week BzzAgent launched its service in Britain. Dave Balter, BzzAgent's founder, thinks word-of-mouth marketing will become a multi-billion dollar industry. No doubt he tells that to everyone he meets.

Questions

1. What is the experimental approach being discussed in the first paragraph?

a. Word of mouth Marketing

b. Selling of video-game consoles, bottled water and electric toothbrushes

c. Traditional Advertising d. None of these

2. What is the tone of the passage?

a.Neutral b. Biased c. Celebratory d. Critical

3. What can we infer from Walter Carl's statement?

a. Amway and Tupperware are products where word of mouth marketing could be used.

b. Amway and Tupperware are consumers who appreciated word of mouth marketing.

c. Amway and Tupperware are companies who use word of mouth marketing.

d. None of these

4. What is the effect of internet on Word-of-mouth marketing?

a. It is impeded by the internet. B. It is encouraged by the internet.

c. Internet magnifies the moral issues of this marketing technique.

d.Internet has made it obsolete.

5. According to the passage, in what order did different companies use word of mouth marketing?

a. Nintendo before Sony, Nestle and Philips. b. Nintendo after Sony, Nestle and Philips.

c. Nintendo, Sony, Nestle and Philips: all at the same time. d. None of these

6. According to Peter Kim, what happened to Microsoft's marketing campaign for Vista?

a. It succeeded b. It succeeded with some hiccups

c.It failed d.None of these

7. Where does BzzAgent operate?

a. USA and India b.USA and UK c.USA only d. None of these

8. What is the author most likely to agree to in the following?

a. There is not enough evidence to state that word-of-mouth marketing is useful.

b. There is enough evidence to state that word-of-mouth marketing is useful.

c. Evidence shows that word of mouth marketing is a failed technique.

d. Word of mouth marketing is unethical.

Passage-20

GIVE people power and discretion, and whether they are grand viziers or border guards, some will use their position to enrich themselves. The problem can be big enough to hold back a country's development. One study has shown that bribes account for 8% of the total cost of running a business in Uganda. Another found that corruption boosted the price of hospital supplies in Buenos Aires by 15%. Paul Wolfowitz, the head of the World Bank, is devoting special efforts during his presidency there to a drive against corruption.

For most people in the world, though, the worry is not that corruption may slow down their country's GDP growth. It is that their daily lives are pervaded by endless hassles, big and small. And for all the evidence that some cultures suffer endemic corruption while others are relatively clean, attitudes towards corruption, and even the language describing bribery, is remarkably similar around the world.

In a testament to most people's basic decency, bribe-takers and bribe-payers have developed an elaborate theatre of dissimulation. This is not just to avoid detection. Even in countries where corruption is so common as to be unremarkable and unprosecutable—and even when the transaction happens far from snooping eyes—a bribe is almost always dressed up as some other kind of exchange. Though most of the world is plagued by corruption, even serial offenders try to conceal it.

One manifestation of this is linguistic. Surprisingly few people say: “You are going to have to pay me if you want to get that done.” Instead, they use a wide variety of euphemisms. One type is quasi-official terminology. The first bribe paid by your correspondent, in Ukraine in 1998, went to two policemen so they would let him board a train leaving the country. On the train into Ukraine, the customs officer had absconded with a form that is needed again later to leave the country. The policemen at the station kindly explained that there was a shtraf, a “fine” that could be paid instead of producing the document. The policemen let him off with the minimum shtraf of 50 hryvnia ($25).

Another term widely used at border crossings is “expediting fee”. For a euphemism it is surprisingly accurate: paying it will keep your bags, and perhaps your contraband, from being dumped onto a floor and sifted through at a leisurely pace. (A related term, used in India, is “speed money”: paying it can get essential business permits issued considerably faster.)

Paul Lewis, an analyst with the Economist Intelligence Unit (a sister company to The Economist), describes the quasi-business terminology typically used for bribery in the post-communist privatisations of eastern Europe. A mostly useless but well-connected insider at the company is hired as a “consultant”. The consultant is paid a large official “fee”, nominally for his industry expertise, on the understanding that he will cut in the minister and other decision-makers.

A second type of euphemism dresses up a dodgy payment as a friendly favour done by the bribe-payer. There is plenty of creative scope. Nigerian policemen are known to ask for “a little something for the weekend”. A North African term is “un petit cadeau”, a little gift. Mexican traffic police will suggest that you buy them a refresco, a soft drink, as will Angolan and Mozambican petty officials, who call it a gazoso in Portuguese. A businessman in Iraq told Reuters that although corruption there is quite overt, officials still insist on being given a “good coffee”.

Double meaning can help soothe the awkwardness of bribe-paying. Baksheesh, originally a Persian word now found in many countries of the Middle East, can mean “tip”, “alms” and “bribe”. Swahili-speakers can take advantage of another ambiguous term. In Kenya a machine-gun-wielding guard suggested to a terrified Canadian aid worker: “Perhaps you would like to discuss this over tea?” The young Canadian was relieved: the difficulty could be resolved with some chai, which means both “tea” and “bribe”.

India lives in several centuries at the same time. Somehow we manage to progress and regress simultaneously. As a nation we age by pushing outward from the middle–adding a few centuries on either end of the extraordinary CV. We greaten like the maturing head of a hammerhead shark with eyes looking in diametrically opposite directions.

I don’t mean to put a simplistic value judgment on this peculiar form of “progress” by suggesting that Modern is Good and Traditional is Bad–or vice versa. What’s hard to reconcile oneself to, both personally and politically, is the schizophrenic nature of it. That applies not just to the ancient/modern conundrum but to the utter illogic of what appears to be the current national enterprise. In the lane behind my house, every night I walk past road gangs of emaciated laborers digging a trench to lay fiber-optic cables to speed up our digital revolution. In the bitter winter cold, they work by the light of a few candles.

It’s as though the people of India have been rounded up and loaded onto two convoys of trucks (a huge big one and a tiny little one) that have set off resolutely in opposite directions. The tiny convoy is on its way to a glittering destination somewhere near the top of the world. The other convoy just melts into the darkness and disappears. A cursory survey that tallies the caste, class and religion of who gets to be on which convoy would make a good Lazy Person’s concise Guide to it .

Questions

1. Why does the author calls 'progress' as peculiar?

a. Because Modern is good and traditional is bad.

b. Because of its unbalanced nature.

c. Because it differs politically and personally. D. None of these.

2. What do you infer from the sentence -'For some of us, life in …...but emotionally and intellectually'?

a. A person has one leg in one truck and the other in the second truck.

b. A person meets with an accident.

c. The nation is moving in two different directions.

d. The nation is suffering from many road accidents

3. How does the author feel about 'Globalisation' in India?

a. Curious b.Hopeless c.Enthusiastic d. Speculative

4. What does the sentence "We greaten like the maturing head of a hammerhead shark with eyes looking in diametrically opposite directions.' implies?

a. Indian people are barbaric in nature.

b. We are progressing in some areas and regressing in the others.

c. India has a diverse culture.

d. Some people are modern while the others are traditional in approach.

5. What do you infer from the sentence in context of the passage-'India lives in several centuries at the same time.'?

a. We are progressing in some areas and regressing in the others.

b. People from different countries are living in India.

c. India has a diverse culture.

d. Some people are modern while the others are traditional in approach.

6. What do you infer from the following lines-'In the lane behind my house, every night I walk past road gangs of emaciated labourers digging a trench to lay fiber-optic cables to speed up our digital revolution? In the bitter winter cold, they work by the light of a few candles.’?

a. India has a balanced mixture of both traditional and modern people.

b. Progress is unbalanced.

c. Digital revolution is very important for our economic growth.

d. There is shortage of electricity in India.

7. What does the phrase "cultural insult" imply?

a. People from one culture do not respect people from the other cultures.

b. Disrespect of British towards Indian Culture.

c. White people's definition for us. d. Ill-treatment at hands of British

8. Why does the response towards 'Globalisation in India' differs in different parts of India?

a. Due to different literacy levels. b. Due to religious diversity in India.

c. It will not benefit all sections of the society.

d. It may not have all the answers to India's current problems.

Passage-21

China's massive subsidization of its steel industry is having consequences that are truly global. By expanding its steel industry by Government fiat, rather than in response to the demands of the market, China has skewed the entire world market in steel and in the inputs used to make steel. In doing so, it has directly injured both foreign steel producers and steel consuming industries in other countries.

China's explosive growth between 2000 and the present required massive amounts of steel, and indeed, during much of this period China was the world's leading steel importer. By building up its steel industry to artificial levels, though, China deprived steel producers in other countries of valuable sales. This is significant, because steel is a highly cyclical industry.

Not surprisingly, the rapid expansion of steel making capacity in China led first to the replacement of imports, and then to a boom in exports. In product line after product line, Chinese exports have flooded world markets, driving down prices.

The world in many ways constitutes an integrated market for steel. Through a dramatic expansion in capacity fueled largely by subsidies and Government-directed lending, the Chinese steel industry is destabilizing that market. Foreign steel producers are not the only ones harmed by the subsidized expansion of the Chinese steel industry. Foreign steel consumers have also been injured. The expansion of the steel industry is only part of the Chinese Government's plan for the development of the Chinese economy. The Chinese Government is also encouraging the development of manufacturing industries that use steel.

Manufacturers of products that are steel-intensive, such as automotive parts and appliances, are seeing increasing competition from Chinese producers who have access to subsidized domestic steel. Subsidized steel is going to manufacture components in China that ultimately end up in the United States and replace American steel. Indeed, American consumers report that they can import finished parts cheaper from China than they can buy the steel here. At the same time that U.S. steel producers are seeing increased imports caused, directly and indirectly, by increased Chinese production, we are also seeing many of our domestic customers move production to China, or go out of business altogether.

Questions

1) Which of the options most closely describes 'by Government fiat'?

a) In response to Government order b) Before the Chinese Government ordered

c) With the help of Chinese owned fiat company d) In keeping with Government intuition

2) How have US steel consumers gotten affected as a result of Chinese steel?

a) Import from China has become very easy and hence there is no need to manufacture the finished product in the US

b) Subsidized Chinese steel which is not of very high quality is affecting quality of finished product

c) Demand for steel is less than supply from China, leading smaller US steel consumers to shut down business

d) Raw material in America costs more than the finished product in China and hence production is unfeasible

3) What does "dramatic expansion" indicate?

a) Artificial expansion b) Noticeable expansion

c) Unstable expansion d) Unreal expansion

4) What is the main motive behind expansion of steel industry in China?

a) Increased returns as a result of higher market share globally b) Replacing imports and growth of Chinese economy

c) Driving out foreign producers and consumers from the world market of steel

d) Make a global impact in all industries, beginning with steel industry

Passage-22

In response to recent rise in gas prices, we are once again hearing calls for the government to "do something" to force prices lower. But no matter what the price of gasoline is, such calls are wrong. All market fluctuations in the price of gasoline, up or down, are a good thing and none of the government's business.

In the realm of business, a higher price means that firms will only purchase oil or gasoline to the extent that they can make profitable use of it at those prices. An efficient airline will still be able to offer low prices while using high-priced jet fuel; a less efficient airline may not be able to. A company in China or India that uses oil to run highly efficient factories can make profitable use of oil at $70 a barrel; their laggard competitors may not be able to.

There is no moral or economic justification for any politician or consumer to declare market prices "too high," and to use the government to force lower prices. Doing so violates both the rights of gasoline producers and their productive customers to set voluntary prices and thus causes destructive shortages.

The government is right in taking action if an oil company provably threatens or harms a person's property. But to impose huge costs on oil companies and their customers in the name of preserving untouched nature is unconscionable. What should the government do about gasoline prices? Get its hands out of the market and keep them off.

Questions:

1)How do high oil prices affect companies?

a) Efficient companies can make profitable use of these prices

b) Inefficient factories are provided subsidies by the government

c) It provides stability for the fluctuating market

d) There is a marginal effect on profits

2) What is the meaning of 'laggard'?

a) Complicate situations for one's benefit

b) Move or respond slowly

c) Respond fast in crucial circumstances

d) Increase efficiency in short period of time

3) What is the conflict regarding market fluctuation in prices?

a) Oil prices are being lowered forcefully by companies

b) Companies are making no effort to stabilize prices

c) Importance of government intervention is negligible, contrary to popular belief

d) Market is suffering with government's future plans of control

4) Why should the government not intervene in lowering prices?

a) Market prices are governed by monopolistic competition

b) Rights of producers will be violated with the intervention

c) Massive costs to companies are not advisable during financial crisis

d) Preserving oil for future generations should be in the hands of organizations

Passage-23

Personal development is the pursuit of developing, honing and mastering the skills that help us become the best that we can, with all that we have. It is the reaching for, and the realizing of, our full potential as human beings. We all want to live full, productive lives but, sometimes we just don't know where to begin. There is so much information 'out there' that it can be overwhelming and hard to sort. Depending on the problem, what seems to work for one person, may not necessarily work for everyone. There are so many different programs, strategies and techniques that it is hard to choose the right one.

One thing, however, is certain. If we want to accomplish anything in life and realize our full potential, we must have some skills - in this case, life skills. You begin by establishing a firm foundation. That foundation is "you". You must know who you are, what you want, and what you are capable of. You must then determine which values, goals and principles you will set up to guide your actions.

Often, the hardest part in any endeavor is getting started, however once you do, there is a surprising snowball effect. You will begin to feel good about what you're doing and you'll want to continue. You will want to keep improving yourself and you'll want to become the best that you can be. As you continue on the journey of personal development you will become aware that there is so much knowledge and information to be discovered and uncovered than you ever thought possible; knowledge about yourself, knowledge about others, knowledge about life and the world around you.

The good news is that acquiring Essential Life Skills will not only contribute to your personal growth and development, it will make you a more interesting and dynamic individual. What good is all the financial success in the world if you don't have self-confidence or high self-esteem, know who you really are, what you want, or what you're doing here? We've all witnessed many outwardly successful and famous people who have not been able to find personal happiness. No amount of fame or fortune could fill the void they felt inside.

Questions:

1) Why are life skills essential for personal growth?

a) It is important to acquire skills that help one fit into the society

b) Growth of an individual is incomplete without proper skills and manners

c) One can be happy by acquiring life skills, not by measuring success

d) These skills highlight the negative aspects of our personality

2) What can you infer from the term 'snowball effect'?

a) Downward trends such as feeling low about oneself are observed in people

b) to pursue knowledge, and improve oneself

c) Excess of knowledge can confuse a person

d) Improving life skills requires tremendous effort and determination

3) Which of the following best describes the 'foundation'?

a) Be clear about life and occurrence of circumstances

b) Be free and explore unseen dimensions of living life

c) Discover yourself and your qualities

d) Master the skills that will help you achieve your goals

4) What problems can we face in the beginning of personality development?

a) Abundance of problems makes it difficult to deal with them

b) Personality has various sides which are difficult to comprehend

c) There is no proper channel through which one can learn about personality

d) Different methods available to help us may not work effectively for all

Passage-24

The Kingdom of Spain was created in 1492 with the unification of the Kingdom of Castile and the Kingdom of Aragon. For the next three centuries Spain was the most important colonial power in the world. It was the most powerful state in Europe and the foremost global power during the 16th century and the greater part of the 17th century. Spain established a vast empire in the Americas, stretching from California to Patagonia, and colonies in the western Pacific.

Spain's European wars, however, led to economic damage, and the latter part of the 17th century saw a gradual decline of power under an increasingly neglectful and inept Habsburg regime. The decline culminated in the War of the Spanish Succession, where Spain's decline from the position of a leading Western power, to that of a secondary one, was confirmed, although it remained the leading colonial power.

The eighteenth century saw a new dynasty, the Bourbons, which directed considerable effort towards the institutional renewal of the state, with some success, peaking in a successful involvement in the American War of Independence. The end of the eighteenth and the start of the nineteenth centuries saw turmoil unleashed throughout Europe by the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, which finally led to a French occupation of much of the continent, including Spain. This triggered a successful but devastating war of independence that shattered the country and created an opening for what would ultimately be the successful independence of Spain's mainland American colonies.

Following a period of growing political instability in the early twentieth century, in 1936 Spain was plunged into a bloody civil war. The war ended in a nationalist dictatorship, led by Francisco Franco which controlled the Spanish government until 1975.

Questions:

1) What was the result of Napoleanic wars?

a) A small part of the continent was occupied by French people

b) Spain was occupied by the French

c) War of independence was unable to yield any positive result

d) American colonies were destroyed after the war

2) What is the meaning of the term 'culminated'?

a) Follow a particular path b) Guide or transform

c) Reach the highest point d) Introduce on a grand scale

3) What is the summary of the passage?

a) The rise and fall of a national empire b) The downfall of successive regimes in Spain

c) The history of Spain d) Spain in eighteenth century

4) What occurred in the latter part of 17th century?

a) War of succession confirmed the leading position of Spain

b) Spain was no longer regarded as the ruling colonial power

c) A vast empire was established in Europe

d) Power steadily declined under Habsburg regime

Passage-25

Times. As the train rolled out of the station, he lifted his head from the newspaper and stared at the man directly across from him.

A tsunami - of antipathy came over him. Rohit knew this man, knew him all too well.

Their eyes locked.

As the train reached full speed, the ruckus of speeding wheels against the winding

rails and a wildly gyrating subway car filled Rohit's ears. To this frenetic beat, Rohit effortlessly listed in his head all the reasons this man, whose eyes he stared coldly into, was an anathema to him.

He had climbed the upper echelons of his firm using an imperious manner with his subordinates, always making sure everyone knew he was the boss.

Despite his impoverished upbringing, he had become ostentatious. Flush with cash from the lucrative deals he had made, he had purchased a yacht and a home in Mumbai. He used neither. But, oh, how he liked to say he had them.

Meanwhile, Rohit knew, this man's parents were on the verge of being evicted from their rundown tenement apartment in Allahabad.

What bothered Rohit most about this man was that he never even attempted to make amends for his evil ways.

Could this man change? Rohit did not know. He could try though.

The train screeched to Rohit's stop. He gave the man one last hard look. "See you

around," he mumbled to himself. And he knew he would, because Rohit had been

glaring at his own reflection in the glass in the metro.

It would take years of hard work and therapy, but Rohit would one day notice this

man again on the train and marvel at what a kinder person he had become.

Questions:

1) Why did a tsunami of antipathy come over Rohit?

a) Because he was angry at himself and unable to stand looking at himself

b) Because the man sitting across him was his former boss who treated him badly

c) Because he wanted to read his newspaper and not be disturbed, especially by someone he disliked d) Because the guy sitting across him was financially better off than Rohit

2)Which statement makes most sense from what is said in the paragraph?

a) Rohit has few friends b) Rohit knows himself well

c) Rohit has had a difficult life d) Rohit is incapable of change

3) What was the biggest reason (stated or implied) for Rohit disliking the man in the metro?

a) The man was known to be extremely rude and domineering especially with his subordinates

b) The man was remorseless and had not made any effort to reform himself for the better

c) The man did not bother to take care of his parents who were on the verge of being evicted from their humble dwelling

d) The man did not have respect for things or money and while people did not have a place to stay, he had bought a flat which he did not even use

4) What does it mean to have an imperious manner with underlings?

a)To ignore them b)To be stoic around them

c)To openly humiliate them d)To not be affected by them e)To be domineering towards them

Passage-26

For its new fridge, Whirlpool Corp. spent months inventing a shelf with microscopic etching so it can hold a can of spilled soda.

The technology is just one weapon against a dirty kitchen secret: Most Americans clean their fridges only once or twice a year.

Now, appliance makers like Whirlpool, Viking Range Corp. and Sub-Zero Inc. are tackling the messy fridge problem with a host of new features including souped-up shelves, bacteria-killing devices and better lighting. General Electric Co., for example, says it is rolling out new refrigerators in May with 10 lighting sources inside instead of its usual three—so food that might be forgotten in a corner and spoil will be easier to spot. The new GE models sell for $1,599 or $1,799 for stainless steel.

In Whirlpool's 2005 refrigerator habits survey of 2,571 consumers, 33% said they don't spend any time cleaning the refrigerator before grocery shopping. In order to make room for items just purchased, 27% reported shoving everything in and not worrying about organization.

Whirlpool hopes that increasing the amount of storage space might help. The company's new shelves—to be released later this year—are 25% roomier than previous models. And the microscopic etching creates surface tension, causing liquids to bubble up around the perimeter instead of spilling over, it says. Currently, shelves in Whirlpool's refrigerators have a plastic rim to help contain spills. Unfortunately, the rims have "the side effect of crud getting stuck in there," says Carolyn Kelley, brand manager of Whirlpool refrigeration. The new shelves—available on new Whirlpool models that cost from $1,199 to $1,499—would eliminate that problem because they don't require Sub-Zero decided education was the next step. The company started including with its latest built-in models an instructional card that shows the various regions of the refrigerator, from "coldest" to "cool," and gives tips on how long certain foods should be stored. It also indicates which foods should be allowed to ripen on the counter before being placed into the refrigerator (pears and avocados are examples).a rim to stop leaks.

But having more room wont necesaarily limit clutter.People often don’t store things properly anyway.While the doorshelves seem to be a perfect fit for a cartoon of milk.Subzero says the area is the worst place to store dairy products because of its warmest part of fridge.

Subzero decided that education was the nextstep.The company started including with models an instructrional card that shows the various regions of refrigerators ,from coldest to cool and gives tips on how long certain foods should be stored.Indeed,when consumers are told how to organize their fridges,they tend to tidy up.

But the hassle factor can override even the strongest good intentions.It’s a pain to clean the refrigerator and the task is to easy to avoid since once the door is closed the mess is easy out of sight and out of mind .

A dirty fridge is nont justanaesthetic problem.Spills and food residue can carry health risks too says Pennstates Ms.Cutter.Atleast one manufacturer is rolling out bacteria killing technology.Last year Viking Range relewased a built –in-model priced from $6,600 to $8,800 that contains sharp electroniccorps plasma cluster ion air purifier.In a test conducted by outside firm hired by Viking range ,the plasma cluster killed 99% of bacteria in fridge.

Questions:

1.Which of these have not been highlighted as one the ways of solving problem of messy refrigerators?

A) Advance Technology More spacious shelves B) Increased lighting C) Cleaning-up more often

2. What can be inferred as the main reason for consumers not cleaning their refrigerators?

A)since refrigerators do not have light ,it is difficult to spot food that is getting spoiled.

B)the clutter in fridge is less intruisive and hence tends not to be important.

C)It is easy to simply shove more items in the reference than bothering cleaning it up.

D)They lack the right education with regards to storage and cleaning of refrigerator.

3.What is primary intention behind the refrigerator manufactures introducing various changes as described in passage?

A)drive consumers to clean their refrigeraotor more often and reduce health risk.

B)Using consumers insight to enhance convenience and compact the problem of cleaning .

C)Using consumers insight to develop more advanced technology which would lead to higher revenues.

D)Educate customers on how to maximize storage efficiency and ensure food last long

4)“Appliance makers are tackling the messy fridge problem with a host of new features”.What does host of new features mean?

A)improvised

B)significant

C)Multitude

D)Recipient