Directions (1-5): Which of the words/phrases (a), (b), (c) and (d) given below should replace the words/phrases given in bold in the following sentences to make it meaningful and grammatically correct. If the sentence is correct as it is and ‘No correction is required’, mark (e) as the answer.
Q1. The water crisis has its origin in extensive deforestation, a proliferation of bore wells, violent urbanisation, and unplanned development, which has vented havoc with the hydrological cycle, leading to the erosion of many rivers.
(a) Bases, limited, unleashed, affliction
(b) Roots, rampant, wreaked, deterioration
(c) Center, widespread, perpetrate, contamination
(d) Cause, robust, produced, spoilage
(e) No correction required
S1. Ans. (b)
Sol. Wreak means cause (a large amount of damage or harm).
Rampant means (especially of something unwelcome) flourishing or spreading unchecked.
Vent means the release or expression of strong emotion, energy, etc.
Q2. The fact that cases pile up in the courts of law has emboldened the terrorists. Some of the offences for which military courts can try civilians are: attacking military officers or installations; kidnapping for ransom; possessing and storing explosives and firearms, creating terror and insecurity in Pakistan and waging war against the State.
(a) Dissuaded, coronations, compensation, engaging
(b) Kindled, deputations, deliverance, ceasing
(c) Incited, induction, tamper, enduring
(d) Fortified, devolution, money, executing
(e) No correction required.
S2. Ans. (e)
Sol. Embolden means to give (someone) the courage or confidence to do something.
Installation means military or industrial establishment.
Waging means carry on (a war or campaign).
Tamper means a machine or tool for tamping down earth or ballast.
Q3. Suffice it to certify that the patron-client relationship has benefited Trinamul, as it once did the CPI-M through the panchayati raj and Operation Barga. For now, the dominion of the BJP, if on a limited scale, advance a new scope to West Bengal politics.
(a) File, reign, conceals, extent
(b) Report, sovereignty, withhold, purview
(c) Record, jurisdiction, presents, territory
(d) Register, ascendancy, lends, dimension
(e) No correction required.
S3. Ans. (d)
Sol. Ascendancy means occupation of a position of dominant power or influence.
Purview means the scope of the influence or concerns of something.
Q4. In the roman novel Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, the protagonist tells the tale of his steamboat cruise up the Congo River to a destination of plausible danger. Having to choose between unavoidable evils on his journey, he tries to assist the lesser one, recognising that he has to be “loyal to the nightmare of (his) choice”.
(a)Classic, voyage, unimaginable, pursue
(b)Typical, excursion, doubtful, plague
(c)Majestic, journey, customary, shun
(d)Latin, navigation, remarkable, eschew
(e)No correction required
S4. Ans. (a)
Sol. Voyage means a long journey involving travel by sea or in space.
Plausible means (of an argument or statement) seeming reasonable or probable.
Eschew means deliberately avoid using; abstain from.
Q5. There have been claims by various media that North Korea has not yet created nuclear shield small enough to fit in a missile. But there have been other expert-based reports suggesting that North Korea already has abbreviated warheads, with some estimates introducing this number at around 20.
(a)Diverse, barrier, diminished, eclipsing
(b)Several, weapon, stretched, concluding
(c)Numerous, warheads, miniaturized, capping
(d)Populous, missile, abridged, oppressing
(e)No correction required
S5. Ans. (c)
Sol. Warhead means the explosive head of a missile, torpedo, or similar weapon.
Miniaturize means make on a smaller or miniature scale.
Abridge means shorten (a book, film, speech, etc.) without losing the sense.
Directions (6-10): Each of the following questions has a paragraph from which one sentence has been deleted. From the given options, choose the one that completes the paragraph in the most appropriate way.
Q6. In a recent study about criminal politicians in north India, the anthropologists Anastasia Piliavsky and Tommaso Sbriccoli document that these figures are often seen as ‘doers’. In fact, they are often not necessarily seen as ‘criminals’ but as ‘toughs’ who protect society and provide public goods, stepping in when the state machinery creaks to a halt. In a way, this motif of a local hero who steps out of convention to cater to immediate social needs reminds one of localised divinities who abound across India. These ‘small’ divinities — from Aiyyanaar in Tamil Nadu, Jhunjharji Maharaj in Rajasthan, Kail Bisht in Uttarakhand, Jasma Odan in Gujarat — who are often removed from the ‘high’ philosophical traditions also accrue their worth in the social imagination as prolific ‘doers’ who defend the social order. ___________________________________
(a) This is in contrast to the practice of politics that maximises ‘goods of effectiveness’, such as money, prestige, power — goods whose possession may allow for greater efficacy of action but not end in themselves.
(b)This compartmentalisation of ethical frameworks is neither uniquely Indian nor modern.
(c) These localised divinities stand often in contrast to the larger, homogenising, and transcendental categories of belief that the state calls ‘religion’.
(d)Our tolerance for goondas in politics is directly tied to our collective imaginary that thinks efficacy of action — of getting things done — is a virtue in itself.
(e)Our intellectual class views politics as a collective practice to produce citizens who value goods of internal excellence.
View AnswerS6. Ans. (c)
Sol. The paragraph is about the existence of criminal figures in politics and its subsequent prospects. Read the last two sentences of the paragraph carefully, it can be easily inferred from there that option (c) makes the most appropriate conclusion to the paragraph as it talks about those localized divinities whose names are mentioned in the penultimate sentence of the paragraph. Other options are irrelevant in context of the paragraph.
Q7. First of all, given that all corrupt politicians are humans and cows are incorruptible, it would, in one stroke, reduce corruption by 33%. Second, ______________________________. Third, it would lower the human capital costs of keeping the democratic machinery running. The cost to the country (CTC) of one bovine Member of Parliament is estimated to be one-thousandth the CTC of a human MP. Multiply that by 180 (33% of 545) and you get an idea of the astronomical savings that would accrue to the exchequer from the Lok Sabha alone. Do this calculation for the Rajya Sabha and all the State Assemblies, and you’re looking at thousands of crores in savings.
(a) since cows are typically female, it is a big step towards gender equality.
(b)all cows are vegetarian by birth.
(c)no cow would ever try to make a point by rushing to the Well of the House — not unless you fill it with water and add hay.
(d)cows, by contrast, are known for simple living and high thinking.
(e) India is on the verge of reclaiming its rightful global status as the mother of human civilisation and the gau mata of any advanced alien civilisation that inter-galactic probes may discover in times to come.
View AnswerS7. Ans. (a)
Sol. The paragraph is about the issue of cow which is politically motivated in India. The author has nicely combined the probable facts with sarcasm. He has pointed three important advantages, each being unique and in the positive interest of the socio-political environment. Among the given options, all the options look seemingly possible to fill the gap. However, if one goes by either of the other two points, it can be inferred from there that option (a) is the most apt choice as it provides the social advantage along with it. Other options fail to connect to a suitable reason required with the point mentioned in the paragraph.
Q8. However, it does not do to put all the blame on our colonial inheritance or its neocolonial cultural ramifications. The main reason why such prejudices predominate in Indian caste circles has to do with internal reasons. ___________________________________ Before the British brought us stories of ‘African’ cannibalism, we had our own stories of cannibalism — associated, from classical texts down to some current Chitra comics, with dark-skinned, non-‘Aryan’-looking creatures. Similarly, the way we have often treated aboriginal women in India — partly because their dress codes and social mores differ from mainstream Hindustani (Hindu, as well as Muslim) ones — is simply shocking.
(a) Because I know from having travelled with black Europeans and spoken to Africans in India, and from overhearing some of my fellow Indians, that we Indians can have more prejudices about Africans than most white Europeans today.
(b) As a nation, we are yet to face up to the racism and sexism that runs through many caste narratives.
(c)There is an argument that the English worked out their initial theories of racism on the Irish before, in tandem with other Europeans, applying them on dark-skinned people, like many Africans.
(d)Of course, many of us who have African, black British, or African-American friends and acquaintances cannot understand this blindness on the part of such politicians.
(e)This is exacerbated by the tendency in many conservative circles, so surprising given our proclaimed spirituality, to consider the material covering a woman’s body to be an indication of her soul and morality!
View AnswerS8. Ans. (b)
Sol. The given paragraph is about the social evils that get highlighted with every new incident in the society. Read the sentence just before the blank space, it talks about the prejudices existing in Indian caste circles which can be connected with sentence mentioned in the option (b). Hence (b) is the correct choice to fill the gap which fits perfectly to the meaning of the paragraph.
Q9. India did not support the treaty in 1996 — and still does not — but it had been very supportive during negotiations. The roots of that exuberance can be traced to Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru’s famous initiative in 1954 for a “standstill agreement” on nuclear testing. His intervention came at a time when the U.S. and the Soviet Union were detonating powerful nuclear weapons with increasing frequency. Nehru played an important role in building international momentum for the 1963 Limited Test Ban Treaty, which India joined. This treaty significantly reduced global levels of fallout, but did little to constrain the nuclear arms race. ___________________________________
(a) India is currently unable to derive either the political or the technical benefits from it.
(b)The IMS has also facilitated a rich international exchange of data and expertise and boosted technological advancements pertaining to infrasound and noble gas monitoring.
(c)This could eventually lead to India participating in the international exchange of data from the monitoring stations and would be an important first step to establishing familiarity and trust.
(d)India’s future with the CTBT is still unwritten.
(e) The CTBT was created as a result.
View AnswerS9. Ans. (e)
Sol. The given paragraph is about the nuclear testing treaty i.e. Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) and the role of India towards it. The penultimate sentence of the paragraph clearly points out to the concluding sentence which is option (e) i.e. CTBT came into being after the rare failure of 1963 Limited Test Ban Treaty. Other options, though the part of the article, fail to give conclusive evidence to be the part of this particular paragraph.
Q10. Journalists try to explain political dynamics during elections through electoral arithmetic and electoral chemistry. While they rely on a range of statistics for the former, they try to gauge the popular mood of the people through field reporting to discern the latter. However, over the last two decades, opinion polls seem to have replaced conventional journalistic wisdom. __________________________________
(a)Barring exceptions, most polls have got their numbers wrong.
(b)The electoral outcome is an organic manifestation of the people’s will.
(c)I tend to agree with sociologist Herbert Gans: “Polls are not the best representative of the popular will, for people’s answers to pollster questions are not quite the same as their opinions — or, for that matter, public opinion.”
(d) Media houses, especially television channels, began giving primacy to surveys — both pre-poll and post-poll — to capture the political trend.
(e)The problem with journalism, which is akin to the social sciences, is that it wants to mimic the fundamental sciences.
View AnswerS10. Ans. (d)
Sol. The given paragraph is about the new media trend in the form of pre-meditated opinion polls which often are misguiding and superfluous. Read the paragraph carefully especially the second last sentence, it talks about the craze of new opinion polls which now replace the conventional methods. Hence among the given options, option (d) makes the most appropriate conclusion to this paragraph as it clearly mentions the need of capturing political trend. Other options are irrelevant in the context of the paragraph.
Directions (11-15): In each of the following questions, five options are given and you have to choose the one which has some or any grammatical error in it. In the questions where the fifth option is “all are correct” and all the given four options are correct choose option (e) as your choice.
Q11.
(a) The inconvenient truth is that the underlying fundamentals have not changed.
(b) The boy asked his father why he was cutting down the tree.
(c) He has a scheme of his own which he thinks preferable than that of any other person.
(d) I began to tremble when I saw a sharp long knife in my enemy’s hand.
(e) A large number of patients in the country are illiterate and even many literate patients are not well-versed with medical terms.
View AnswerS11. Ans. (c)
Sol. Use ‘to’ in place of ‘than’ as after ‘preferable’, preposition ‘to’ is used.
Q12.
(a) Hardly did she went out of her house when the postman came with the telegram.
(b) There were only two soldiers but each soldier was equal to five policemen.
(c) He wanted certain boys to make entry into the Principal’s chamber.(d) But for your help, no boys would have succeeded in an All India competition like this.
(e) Once, we dwelt by the seaside but now we have settled ourselves in Mumbai.
View AnswerS12. Ans. (a)
Sol. Use ‘go’ in place of ‘went’ because after ‘do, does, did’, first form of verb is used.
Q13.
(a) This photograph was comparatively good than that which he had kept in his purse.
(b) He has not only built this big theatre but he also built a few bungalows in this city.
(c) He felt happy to learn that his younger brother had got a prestigious job in his bank.
(d) Since they were not aware of the consequences, they might have asked you to transgress this social decorum.
(e) Having reached the station, you may buy your ticket and wait for the train for New Delhi.
View AnswerS13. Ans. (b)
Sol. Use ‘has’ after ‘he’ i.e. “…but he has also built a few bungalows in this city.”
Q14.
(a) All his relatives expect his daughter to go on a month’s vacation tour.
(b) Every animal in the zoo is fed regularly and attended on very promptly.
(c) The unskilled class of workers is the most exploited class under the present labour contract system.
(d) He was hard down for money and was being harassed by his creditor.
(e) No sooner did Minati reach the station than it started raining.
View AnswerS14. Ans. (d)
Sol. Use ‘hard up’ in place of ‘hard down’ as ‘be hard up’ is an idiom that means ‘be short of money’. E.g. He is hard up these days.
Q15.
(a) Every leaf and every flower proclaim the glory of God.
(b) These kinds of shoes seem to be expensive but they are relatively easy to care for.
(c) In the absence of clear instructions one cannot be expected to function effectively.
(d) How you eat is as important as what you eat.
(e) The short boy has seven rupees and the fat boy has only a rupee.
View AnswerS15. Ans. (e)
Sol. Use ‘one’ in place of ‘a’; ‘seven’ is numeral adjective in ‘seven rupees’, therefore with ‘rupee’, numeral adjective ‘one’ will be used, not the article ‘a’.
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