Practice Section 1 question answer - general english mcq Online Quiz (set-1) For All Competitive Exams
DIRECTIONS:
Read the fol lowing passages carefully and answer the questions given below them. Certain words are given in bold to help you to locate them while answering some of the questions.
PASSAGE
India is a country of villages. Rural population still dominates the urban population as far as the number is considered. This is despite the fact that there is rampant migration of rural families to urban centres. Generally, the gains of being a unit of the urban population are less than the disadvantages and risks that are in-built in the urban life. Crime, riots, etc are some of the examples of such risks of urban life. The forces that generate conditions conducive to crime and riots are stronger in urban communities than in rural areas. Urban living is more anonymous living. It often releases the individual from community restraints more common in tradition-oriented societies. But more freedom from constraints and controls also provides greater freedom to deviate. And living in the more impersonalized, formally controlled urban society means that regulatory orders of conduct are often directed by distant bureaucrats. The police are strangers executing these prescriptions on an anonymous set of subjects. Minor offences in small town or village are often handled without resort to official police action. As disputable as such action may seem to be, it results in fewer recorded violations of the law compared to those in the big cities. Although perhaps causing some decision difficulties for the police in small town, formal and objective law enforcement is not always acceptable to the villagers. Urban area with mass population, greater wealth, more commercial establishments and more products of our technology also provide more frequent opportunities for theft. Victims are impersonalized, property is insured, consumer goods in more abundance are vividly displayed and are more portable. The crime rate increases despite formal moral education given in schools.
Q-1) Choose the word which is most nearly the SAME in meaning to the word given in bold as used in the passage.
SUBJECTS
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
(e)
DIRECTIONS:
Read the fol lowing passages carefully and answer the questions given below them. Certain words are given in bold to help you to locate them while answering some of the questions.
PASSAGE
India is a country of villages. Rural population still dominates the urban population as far as the number is considered. This is despite the fact that there is rampant migration of rural families to urban centres. Generally, the gains of being a unit of the urban population are less than the disadvantages and risks that are in-built in the urban life. Crime, riots, etc are some of the examples of such risks of urban life. The forces that generate conditions conducive to crime and riots are stronger in urban communities than in rural areas. Urban living is more anonymous living. It often releases the individual from community restraints more common in tradition-oriented societies. But more freedom from constraints and controls also provides greater freedom to deviate. And living in the more impersonalized, formally controlled urban society means that regulatory orders of conduct are often directed by distant bureaucrats. The police are strangers executing these prescriptions on an anonymous set of subjects. Minor offences in small town or village are often handled without resort to official police action. As disputable as such action may seem to be, it results in fewer recorded violations of the law compared to those in the big cities. Although perhaps causing some decision difficulties for the police in small town, formal and objective law enforcement is not always acceptable to the villagers. Urban area with mass population, greater wealth, more commercial establishments and more products of our technology also provide more frequent opportunities for theft. Victims are impersonalized, property is insured, consumer goods in more abundance are vividly displayed and are more portable. The crime rate increases despite formal moral education given in schools.
Q-2) Choose the word which is most nearly the SAME in meaning to the word given in bold as used in the passage.
DISPLAYED
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
(e)
DIRECTIONS:
Read the fol lowing passages carefully and answer the questions given below them. Certain words are given in bold to help you to locate them while answering some of the questions.
PASSAGE
India is a country of villages. Rural population still dominates the urban population as far as the number is considered. This is despite the fact that there is rampant migration of rural families to urban centres. Generally, the gains of being a unit of the urban population are less than the disadvantages and risks that are in-built in the urban life. Crime, riots, etc are some of the examples of such risks of urban life. The forces that generate conditions conducive to crime and riots are stronger in urban communities than in rural areas. Urban living is more anonymous living. It often releases the individual from community restraints more common in tradition-oriented societies. But more freedom from constraints and controls also provides greater freedom to deviate. And living in the more impersonalized, formally controlled urban society means that regulatory orders of conduct are often directed by distant bureaucrats. The police are strangers executing these prescriptions on an anonymous set of subjects. Minor offences in small town or village are often handled without resort to official police action. As disputable as such action may seem to be, it results in fewer recorded violations of the law compared to those in the big cities. Although perhaps causing some decision difficulties for the police in small town, formal and objective law enforcement is not always acceptable to the villagers. Urban area with mass population, greater wealth, more commercial establishments and more products of our technology also provide more frequent opportunities for theft. Victims are impersonalized, property is insured, consumer goods in more abundance are vividly displayed and are more portable. The crime rate increases despite formal moral education given in schools.
Q-3) Choose the word which is most OPPOSITE in meaning to the word given in bold as used in the passage.
DEVIATE
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
(e)
DIRECTIONS:
Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions given below. Certain words/phrases are printed in bold to help you to locate them while answering some of the questions.
PASSAGE
In February 2010 the Medical Council of India announced a major change in the regulation governing the establishment of medical colleges. With this change, corporate entities were permitted to open medical colleges. The new regulation also carried the following warning : "permission shall be withdrawn if the colleges resort to commercialisation". Since the regulation does not elaborate on what constitutes "resorting to commercialisation", this will presumably be a matter left to the discretion of the Government.
A basic requirement for a new medical college is a pre-existing hospital that will serve as a teaching hospital. Corporate entities have hospitals in the major metros and that is where they will have to locate medical colleges. The earlier mandated land requirement for a medical college campus, a minimum of 25 acres of contiguous land, cannot be fulfilled in the metros. Not surprisingly, yet another tweak has been made in the regulation, prescribing 10 acres as the new minimum campus size for 9 cities including the main metros. With this, the stage is set for corporate entities to enter the medical education market.
Until now, medical education in India has been projected as a not-forprofit activity to be organised for the public good. While private bodies can run medical colleges, these can only be societies or trusts, legally non-profit organisations. In opening the door to corporate colleges, thus, a major policy change has been effected without changing the law or even a discussion in Parliament, but by simply getting a compliant MCI to change the regulation on establishment of medical colleges. This and other changes have been justified in the name of addressing the shortage of doctors. At the same time, over 50 existing medical colleges, including 15 run by the government, have been prohibited from admitting students in 2010 for having failed to meet the basic standards prescribed. Ninety per cent of these colleges have come up in the last 5 years. Particularly shocking is the phenomenon of government colleges falling short of standards approved by the Government. Why are state government institutions not able to meet the requirements that have been approved by the central government? A severe problem faced by government-run institutions is attracting and retaining teaching faculty, and this is likely to be among the major reasons for these colleges failing to satisfy the MCI norms. The crisis building up on the faculty front has been flagged by various commissions looking into problems of medical education over the years.
An indicator of the crisis is the attempt to conjure up faculty when MCI carries out inspections of new colleges, one of its regulatory functions. Judging by news reports, the practice of presenting fake faculty – students or private medical practitioners hired for the day – during MCI inspections in private colleges is common. What is interesting is that even government colleges are adopting unscrupulous methods. Another indicator is the extraordinary scheme, verging on the ridiculous that is being put in place by the MCI to make inspections 'foolproof'. Faculty in all medical colleges are to be issued an RFID-based smart card by the MCI with a unique Faculty Number. The card, it is argued, will eliminate the possibility of a teacher being shown on the faculty of more than one college and establish if the qualifications of a teacher are genuine. In the future, it is projected that biometric RFID readers will be installed in the colleges that will enable a Faculty Identification, Tracking and Monitoring System to monitor faculty from within the college and even remotely from MCI headquarters.
The picture above does not even start to reveal the true and pathetic situation of medical care especially in rural India. Only a fraction of the doctors and nursing professionals serve rural areas where 70 per cent of our population lives. The Health Ministry, with the help of the MCI, has been active in proposing yet another 'innovative' solution to the problem of lack of doctors in the rural areas. The proposal is for a three-and-a-half year course to obtain the degree of Bachelor of Rural Medicine and Surgery (BRMS). Only rural candidates would be able to join this course. The study and training would happen at two different levels – Community Health Centers for 18 months, and sub-divisional hospitals for a further period of 2 years – and be conducted by retired professors. After completion of training, they would only be able to serve in their own state in district hospitals, community health centres, and primary health centres.
The BRMS proposal has invited sharp criticism from some doctors' organisations on the grounds that it is discriminatory to have two different standards of health care – one for urban and the other for rural areas, and that the health care provided by such graduates will be compromised. At the other end is the opinion expressed by some that "something is better than nothing", that since doctors do not want to serve in rural areas, the government may as well create a new cadre of medics who will be obliged to serve there. The debate will surely pick up after the government formally lays out its plans. What is apparent is that neither this proposal nor the various stopgap measures adopted so far address the root of the problem of health care.
The far larger issue is government policy, the low priority attached by the government to the social sector as a whole and the health sector in particular, evidenced in the paltry allocations for maintaining and upgrading medical infrastructure and medical education and for looking after precious human resources.
Q-4) Choose the word/group of words which is most similar in meaning to the word/group of words printed in bold as used in the passage.
FLAGGED
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
DIRECTIONS:
Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions given below. Certain words/phrases are printed in bold to help you to locate them while answering some of the questions.
PASSAGE
In February 2010 the Medical Council of India announced a major change in the regulation governing the establishment of medical colleges. With this change, corporate entities were permitted to open medical colleges. The new regulation also carried the following warning : "permission shall be withdrawn if the colleges resort to commercialisation". Since the regulation does not elaborate on what constitutes "resorting to commercialisation", this will presumably be a matter left to the discretion of the Government.
A basic requirement for a new medical college is a pre-existing hospital that will serve as a teaching hospital. Corporate entities have hospitals in the major metros and that is where they will have to locate medical colleges. The earlier mandated land requirement for a medical college campus, a minimum of 25 acres of contiguous land, cannot be fulfilled in the metros. Not surprisingly, yet another tweak has been made in the regulation, prescribing 10 acres as the new minimum campus size for 9 cities including the main metros. With this, the stage is set for corporate entities to enter the medical education market.
Until now, medical education in India has been projected as a not-forprofit activity to be organised for the public good. While private bodies can run medical colleges, these can only be societies or trusts, legally non-profit organisations. In opening the door to corporate colleges, thus, a major policy change has been effected without changing the law or even a discussion in Parliament, but by simply getting a compliant MCI to change the regulation on establishment of medical colleges. This and other changes have been justified in the name of addressing the shortage of doctors. At the same time, over 50 existing medical colleges, including 15 run by the government, have been prohibited from admitting students in 2010 for having failed to meet the basic standards prescribed. Ninety per cent of these colleges have come up in the last 5 years. Particularly shocking is the phenomenon of government colleges falling short of standards approved by the Government. Why are state government institutions not able to meet the requirements that have been approved by the central government? A severe problem faced by government-run institutions is attracting and retaining teaching faculty, and this is likely to be among the major reasons for these colleges failing to satisfy the MCI norms. The crisis building up on the faculty front has been flagged by various commissions looking into problems of medical education over the years.
An indicator of the crisis is the attempt to conjure up faculty when MCI carries out inspections of new colleges, one of its regulatory functions. Judging by news reports, the practice of presenting fake faculty – students or private medical practitioners hired for the day – during MCI inspections in private colleges is common. What is interesting is that even government colleges are adopting unscrupulous methods. Another indicator is the extraordinary scheme, verging on the ridiculous that is being put in place by the MCI to make inspections 'foolproof'. Faculty in all medical colleges are to be issued an RFID-based smart card by the MCI with a unique Faculty Number. The card, it is argued, will eliminate the possibility of a teacher being shown on the faculty of more than one college and establish if the qualifications of a teacher are genuine. In the future, it is projected that biometric RFID readers will be installed in the colleges that will enable a Faculty Identification, Tracking and Monitoring System to monitor faculty from within the college and even remotely from MCI headquarters.
The picture above does not even start to reveal the true and pathetic situation of medical care especially in rural India. Only a fraction of the doctors and nursing professionals serve rural areas where 70 per cent of our population lives. The Health Ministry, with the help of the MCI, has been active in proposing yet another 'innovative' solution to the problem of lack of doctors in the rural areas. The proposal is for a three-and-a-half year course to obtain the degree of Bachelor of Rural Medicine and Surgery (BRMS). Only rural candidates would be able to join this course. The study and training would happen at two different levels – Community Health Centers for 18 months, and sub-divisional hospitals for a further period of 2 years – and be conducted by retired professors. After completion of training, they would only be able to serve in their own state in district hospitals, community health centres, and primary health centres.
The BRMS proposal has invited sharp criticism from some doctors' organisations on the grounds that it is discriminatory to have two different standards of health care – one for urban and the other for rural areas, and that the health care provided by such graduates will be compromised. At the other end is the opinion expressed by some that "something is better than nothing", that since doctors do not want to serve in rural areas, the government may as well create a new cadre of medics who will be obliged to serve there. The debate will surely pick up after the government formally lays out its plans. What is apparent is that neither this proposal nor the various stopgap measures adopted so far address the root of the problem of health care.
The far larger issue is government policy, the low priority attached by the government to the social sector as a whole and the health sector in particular, evidenced in the paltry allocations for maintaining and upgrading medical infrastructure and medical education and for looking after precious human resources.
Q-5) Choose the word/group of words which is most opposite in meaning to the word/ group of words printed in bold as used in the passage.
UNSCRUPULOUS
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
DIRECTIONS:
Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions given below. Certain words/phrases are printed in bold to help you to locate them while answering some of the questions.
PASSAGE
In February 2010 the Medical Council of India announced a major change in the regulation governing the establishment of medical colleges. With this change, corporate entities were permitted to open medical colleges. The new regulation also carried the following warning : "permission shall be withdrawn if the colleges resort to commercialisation". Since the regulation does not elaborate on what constitutes "resorting to commercialisation", this will presumably be a matter left to the discretion of the Government.
A basic requirement for a new medical college is a pre-existing hospital that will serve as a teaching hospital. Corporate entities have hospitals in the major metros and that is where they will have to locate medical colleges. The earlier mandated land requirement for a medical college campus, a minimum of 25 acres of contiguous land, cannot be fulfilled in the metros. Not surprisingly, yet another tweak has been made in the regulation, prescribing 10 acres as the new minimum campus size for 9 cities including the main metros. With this, the stage is set for corporate entities to enter the medical education market.
Until now, medical education in India has been projected as a not-forprofit activity to be organised for the public good. While private bodies can run medical colleges, these can only be societies or trusts, legally non-profit organisations. In opening the door to corporate colleges, thus, a major policy change has been effected without changing the law or even a discussion in Parliament, but by simply getting a compliant MCI to change the regulation on establishment of medical colleges. This and other changes have been justified in the name of addressing the shortage of doctors. At the same time, over 50 existing medical colleges, including 15 run by the government, have been prohibited from admitting students in 2010 for having failed to meet the basic standards prescribed. Ninety per cent of these colleges have come up in the last 5 years. Particularly shocking is the phenomenon of government colleges falling short of standards approved by the Government. Why are state government institutions not able to meet the requirements that have been approved by the central government? A severe problem faced by government-run institutions is attracting and retaining teaching faculty, and this is likely to be among the major reasons for these colleges failing to satisfy the MCI norms. The crisis building up on the faculty front has been flagged by various commissions looking into problems of medical education over the years.
An indicator of the crisis is the attempt to conjure up faculty when MCI carries out inspections of new colleges, one of its regulatory functions. Judging by news reports, the practice of presenting fake faculty – students or private medical practitioners hired for the day – during MCI inspections in private colleges is common. What is interesting is that even government colleges are adopting unscrupulous methods. Another indicator is the extraordinary scheme, verging on the ridiculous that is being put in place by the MCI to make inspections 'foolproof'. Faculty in all medical colleges are to be issued an RFID-based smart card by the MCI with a unique Faculty Number. The card, it is argued, will eliminate the possibility of a teacher being shown on the faculty of more than one college and establish if the qualifications of a teacher are genuine. In the future, it is projected that biometric RFID readers will be installed in the colleges that will enable a Faculty Identification, Tracking and Monitoring System to monitor faculty from within the college and even remotely from MCI headquarters.
The picture above does not even start to reveal the true and pathetic situation of medical care especially in rural India. Only a fraction of the doctors and nursing professionals serve rural areas where 70 per cent of our population lives. The Health Ministry, with the help of the MCI, has been active in proposing yet another 'innovative' solution to the problem of lack of doctors in the rural areas. The proposal is for a three-and-a-half year course to obtain the degree of Bachelor of Rural Medicine and Surgery (BRMS). Only rural candidates would be able to join this course. The study and training would happen at two different levels – Community Health Centers for 18 months, and sub-divisional hospitals for a further period of 2 years – and be conducted by retired professors. After completion of training, they would only be able to serve in their own state in district hospitals, community health centres, and primary health centres.
The BRMS proposal has invited sharp criticism from some doctors' organisations on the grounds that it is discriminatory to have two different standards of health care – one for urban and the other for rural areas, and that the health care provided by such graduates will be compromised. At the other end is the opinion expressed by some that "something is better than nothing", that since doctors do not want to serve in rural areas, the government may as well create a new cadre of medics who will be obliged to serve there. The debate will surely pick up after the government formally lays out its plans. What is apparent is that neither this proposal nor the various stopgap measures adopted so far address the root of the problem of health care.
The far larger issue is government policy, the low priority attached by the government to the social sector as a whole and the health sector in particular, evidenced in the paltry allocations for maintaining and upgrading medical infrastructure and medical education and for looking after precious human resources.
Q-6) Choose the word/group of words which is most opposite in meaning to the word/ group of words printed in bold as used in the passage.
SHARP
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
DIRECTIONS:
Read the fol lowing passages carefully and answer the questions given below them. Certain words are given in bold to help you to locate them while answering some of the questions.
PASSAGE
India is a country of villages. Rural population still dominates the urban population as far as the number is considered. This is despite the fact that there is rampant migration of rural families to urban centres. Generally, the gains of being a unit of the urban population are less than the disadvantages and risks that are in-built in the urban life. Crime, riots, etc are some of the examples of such risks of urban life. The forces that generate conditions conducive to crime and riots are stronger in urban communities than in rural areas. Urban living is more anonymous living. It often releases the individual from community restraints more common in tradition-oriented societies. But more freedom from constraints and controls also provides greater freedom to deviate. And living in the more impersonalized, formally controlled urban society means that regulatory orders of conduct are often directed by distant bureaucrats. The police are strangers executing these prescriptions on an anonymous set of subjects. Minor offences in small town or village are often handled without resort to official police action. As disputable as such action may seem to be, it results in fewer recorded violations of the law compared to those in the big cities. Although perhaps causing some decision difficulties for the police in small town, formal and objective law enforcement is not always acceptable to the villagers. Urban area with mass population, greater wealth, more commercial establishments and more products of our technology also provide more frequent opportunities for theft. Victims are impersonalized, property is insured, consumer goods in more abundance are vividly displayed and are more portable. The crime rate increases despite formal moral education given in schools.
Q-7) Choose the word which is most OPPOSITE in meaning to the word given in bold as used in the passage.
RELEASES
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
(e)
DIRECTIONS:
Read the fol lowing passages carefully and answer the questions given below them. Certain words are given in bold to help you to locate them while answering some of the questions.
PASSAGE
India is a country of villages. Rural population still dominates the urban population as far as the number is considered. This is despite the fact that there is rampant migration of rural families to urban centres. Generally, the gains of being a unit of the urban population are less than the disadvantages and risks that are in-built in the urban life. Crime, riots, etc are some of the examples of such risks of urban life. The forces that generate conditions conducive to crime and riots are stronger in urban communities than in rural areas. Urban living is more anonymous living. It often releases the individual from community restraints more common in tradition-oriented societies. But more freedom from constraints and controls also provides greater freedom to deviate. And living in the more impersonalized, formally controlled urban society means that regulatory orders of conduct are often directed by distant bureaucrats. The police are strangers executing these prescriptions on an anonymous set of subjects. Minor offences in small town or village are often handled without resort to official police action. As disputable as such action may seem to be, it results in fewer recorded violations of the law compared to those in the big cities. Although perhaps causing some decision difficulties for the police in small town, formal and objective law enforcement is not always acceptable to the villagers. Urban area with mass population, greater wealth, more commercial establishments and more products of our technology also provide more frequent opportunities for theft. Victims are impersonalized, property is insured, consumer goods in more abundance are vividly displayed and are more portable. The crime rate increases despite formal moral education given in schools.
Q-8) Choose the word which is most nearly the SAME in meaning to the word given in bold as used in the passage.
HANDLED
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
(e)
DIRECTIONS:
Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions given below. Certain words/phrases are printed in bold to help you to locate them while answering some of the questions.
PASSAGE
In February 2010 the Medical Council of India announced a major change in the regulation governing the establishment of medical colleges. With this change, corporate entities were permitted to open medical colleges. The new regulation also carried the following warning : "permission shall be withdrawn if the colleges resort to commercialisation". Since the regulation does not elaborate on what constitutes "resorting to commercialisation", this will presumably be a matter left to the discretion of the Government.
A basic requirement for a new medical college is a pre-existing hospital that will serve as a teaching hospital. Corporate entities have hospitals in the major metros and that is where they will have to locate medical colleges. The earlier mandated land requirement for a medical college campus, a minimum of 25 acres of contiguous land, cannot be fulfilled in the metros. Not surprisingly, yet another tweak has been made in the regulation, prescribing 10 acres as the new minimum campus size for 9 cities including the main metros. With this, the stage is set for corporate entities to enter the medical education market.
Until now, medical education in India has been projected as a not-forprofit activity to be organised for the public good. While private bodies can run medical colleges, these can only be societies or trusts, legally non-profit organisations. In opening the door to corporate colleges, thus, a major policy change has been effected without changing the law or even a discussion in Parliament, but by simply getting a compliant MCI to change the regulation on establishment of medical colleges. This and other changes have been justified in the name of addressing the shortage of doctors. At the same time, over 50 existing medical colleges, including 15 run by the government, have been prohibited from admitting students in 2010 for having failed to meet the basic standards prescribed. Ninety per cent of these colleges have come up in the last 5 years. Particularly shocking is the phenomenon of government colleges falling short of standards approved by the Government. Why are state government institutions not able to meet the requirements that have been approved by the central government? A severe problem faced by government-run institutions is attracting and retaining teaching faculty, and this is likely to be among the major reasons for these colleges failing to satisfy the MCI norms. The crisis building up on the faculty front has been flagged by various commissions looking into problems of medical education over the years.
An indicator of the crisis is the attempt to conjure up faculty when MCI carries out inspections of new colleges, one of its regulatory functions. Judging by news reports, the practice of presenting fake faculty – students or private medical practitioners hired for the day – during MCI inspections in private colleges is common. What is interesting is that even government colleges are adopting unscrupulous methods. Another indicator is the extraordinary scheme, verging on the ridiculous that is being put in place by the MCI to make inspections 'foolproof'. Faculty in all medical colleges are to be issued an RFID-based smart card by the MCI with a unique Faculty Number. The card, it is argued, will eliminate the possibility of a teacher being shown on the faculty of more than one college and establish if the qualifications of a teacher are genuine. In the future, it is projected that biometric RFID readers will be installed in the colleges that will enable a Faculty Identification, Tracking and Monitoring System to monitor faculty from within the college and even remotely from MCI headquarters.
The picture above does not even start to reveal the true and pathetic situation of medical care especially in rural India. Only a fraction of the doctors and nursing professionals serve rural areas where 70 per cent of our population lives. The Health Ministry, with the help of the MCI, has been active in proposing yet another 'innovative' solution to the problem of lack of doctors in the rural areas. The proposal is for a three-and-a-half year course to obtain the degree of Bachelor of Rural Medicine and Surgery (BRMS). Only rural candidates would be able to join this course. The study and training would happen at two different levels – Community Health Centers for 18 months, and sub-divisional hospitals for a further period of 2 years – and be conducted by retired professors. After completion of training, they would only be able to serve in their own state in district hospitals, community health centres, and primary health centres.
The BRMS proposal has invited sharp criticism from some doctors' organisations on the grounds that it is discriminatory to have two different standards of health care – one for urban and the other for rural areas, and that the health care provided by such graduates will be compromised. At the other end is the opinion expressed by some that "something is better than nothing", that since doctors do not want to serve in rural areas, the government may as well create a new cadre of medics who will be obliged to serve there. The debate will surely pick up after the government formally lays out its plans. What is apparent is that neither this proposal nor the various stopgap measures adopted so far address the root of the problem of health care.
The far larger issue is government policy, the low priority attached by the government to the social sector as a whole and the health sector in particular, evidenced in the paltry allocations for maintaining and upgrading medical infrastructure and medical education and for looking after precious human resources.
Q-9) Which of the following are the different opinions regarding the BRMS proposal?
- At least a small step has been taken to improve the healthcare facilities in the rural areas through this proposal.
- There should be uniform healthcare facilities available for people living in both rural and urban area.
- The healthcare providers through this proposal would not be up to the mark.
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
DIRECTIONS:
Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions given below it. Certain words in the passage are printed in bold to help you to locate them easily while answering some of the questions.
PASSAGE
Rural India faces serious shortages power, water, health facilities, roads, etc. these are known and recognised. However, the role of technology in solving these and other problems is barely acknowledged and the actual availability of technology in rural areas is marginal. The backbone of the rural economy is agriculture which also provides sustenance to over half the country's population. The green revolution of the 1970s was, in fact, powered by the scientific work in various agricultural research Institutions. While some fault the green revolution for excessive exploitation of water and land resources through overuse of fertilizers, it did bring about a wheat surplus and prosperity in certain pockets of the country. In rural India today, there is a dire inadequacy of both science (i.e. knowledge) and technology (which derives from science and manifests itself In physical form). The scope to apply technology to both farm and nonfarm activities in rural areas is huge, as are the potential benefits.
In fact, crop yields are far lower than what they are In demonstration farms, where science and technology are more fully applied. Technologies that reduce power consumption of pumps are vital unfortunately, their use is minimal, since agricultural power is free or largely subsidized. Similarly, there is little incentive to optimize through technology or otherwise water use, especially in irrigated areas (a third of total arable land), given the water rates. Postharvest technologies for processing and adding value could greatly enhance rural employment and incomes, but at present deployment of technology is marginal. Cold storage and cold chains for transportation to market is of great importance for many agricultural products particularly, fruits and vegetables but are nonexistent. These are clearly technologies with an immediate return on investment, and benefits for all the farmer, the end consumer, the technology provider. However, regulatory and structural barriers are holding back investments. Power is a key requirement in rural areas, for agricultural as well as domestic uses. Technology can provide reliable power at comparatively low cost . ln a decentralized manner. However this needs to be upgraded and scaled in a big way, with emphasis on renewable and nonpolluting technologies.
Reliable and low cost means of transporting goods and people is an essential need for rural areas. The bullock cart and the tractor-trailer are present vehicles of choice. Surely, technology can provide a better, cheaper and more efficient solution? Information related to commodity prices, agricultural practices, weather etc. are crucial for the farmer. Technology can provide these through mobile phones, which is a proven technology however the challenge to ensure connectivity remains. Thus there is a pressing need for technology as currently economic growth though skewed and iniquitous has created an economically attractive market in rural India.
Q-10) According to the author, which of the following is are the problem(s) facing India’s rural population?
- Unavailability of healthcare facilities.
- The technological advancements which have been borrowed from abroad have not been suitably adapted to the Indian scenario.
- Lack of awareness about the importance of utilising technology in the agricultural sector.
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
(e)