Practice Section 10 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
The development of nationalism in the third world countries, as is well known, followed a very different trajectory from that in the advanced capitalist countries. In the latter it was a part of the process of the emergence of the bourgeois order in opposition to feudalism, while in the former it was a part of the anti-colonial struggle. The impact of colonialism, though it differed across countries, had on the whole been in the direction of transcending localism and unifying supra-local economic structures through the introduction of market relations. The struggle against colonialism, consequently, took the form of a national struggle in each instance in which people belonging to different tribes or linguistic communities participated. And the colonial power in each instance attempted to break this emerging national unity by splitting people.
The modus operandi of this splitting was not just through political manipulation as happened for instance in Angola, South Africa and a host of other countries; an important part of this modus operandi was through the nurturing of a historiograpy that just denied the existence of any overarching national consciousness. The national struggle, the national movement were given a tribal or religious character, they were portrayed as being no more than the movement of the dominant tribe or the dominant religious group for the achievement of narrow sectional ends. But the important point in this colonialism, while, on the one hand, it objectively created the condition for the coming into being of a national consciousness at a supra-tribal, supra-local and suprareligious level, on the other hand it sought deliberately to subvert this very consciousness by using the same forces which it had objectively undermined.
Q-1) Choose the word which is most nearly the SAME in meaning to the word given in bold as used in the passage.
TRAJECTORY
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
(e)
The meaning of the word ‘trajectory’ as mentioned in the passage is ‘the curved path of something that has been fired, hit, thrown into the air, eg a missile’. Hence the words ‘trajectory’ and ‘path’ are synonymous.
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
Agriculture dominates change in India through its causal links with factor and product markets. It employs 60 per cent of the labour force and contributes 26 per cent of the gross domestic product. In the poorer states, its contribution to the domestic product is close to 40 per cent. Low productivity in agriculture has led to the concentration of the poor in this sector. Due to the sheer size of the agricultural economy and the importance of its major products (cereals) in the diets of the poor, gains in agricultural productivity have significant potential impact on poverty. Theoretically, it is possible to reduce poverty as well as expand the domestic market for industry by raising labour productivity in agriculture and spreading its gains among the low-income groups. Modelling of the linkages between agricultural and industrial growth has shown that a 10 per cent increase in agricultural output would increase industrial output by 5 per cent and urban workers would benefit by both increased industrial employment and price deflation. However, there is an asymmetry of adjustments in the demand and supply of agricultural goods. An increase in nonagricultural production would lead to an immediate increase in demand for intermediate and final agricultural goods, whereas supply-side adjustments involving reallocation of resources and net additional investment for capacity expansion take a much longer period. There is a widely held view that in a large country like India, the demand stimulus for industrialisation would come mainly from agriculture with less social and economic costs.
Interdependencies in food and labour market are important for the development process. An upward shift in the food supply curve would simultaneously result in an upward shift in the labour demand curve.
The magnitude of the interdependence depends on the technique of production causing the shifts in the food supply curve. Similarly, an upward shift in the labour supply curve shifts up the food demand curve. The extent of interdependence between the forces of labour supply and food demand depends on the employment-output elasticity and the income elasticity of demand for food. The recent estimate of the employment output elasticity in agriculture is around 0.5, income elasticity of food is in the range of 0.55-0.50 and that for cereals is 0.25-0.30. The other important interdependency which plays a crucial role in inducing indirect employment, is that between food and other sectors through demand linkages. Since food accounts for a major share in the budget of the poor and any reduction in the food price leaves a significant proportion of income for other items, a lower food price stimulates employment in industrial and service sectors. On the other hand, an increase in the food price would increase the wage costs of industrial products and hence the prices of industrial products. In the absence of adjustments through exports, it would result in demand deficiency. Clearly, the most favourable situation in India is one in which labour demand outpaces its supply and food supply outpaces its demand.
Wage rates cannot fall below a certain minimum determined by the costs of subsistence living and the labour supply curve turns elastic at the subsistence wage rate. Demographic pressure cannot push the wage rate below the subsistence level. People would be willing to starve rather than work unless the energy expended in physical work is compensated by the energy provided by food. Foodgrain price usually determines the subsistence wage rate in agricultural as well as in the urban informal sector since foodgrains account for about four-fifths of the calorie intake of the poor.
Q-2) Which of the following has the same meaning as the word ‘sheer’ as used in the passage?
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
(e)
DIRECTIONS:
A passage is given with 5 questions following it. Read the passage carefully and choose the best answer to each question out of the four alternatives.
PASSAGE
Manja, or the glass-coated string used for flying kites, not only poses threat to humans, animals and birds but also to trees. A study by the country's oldest botanical garden has revealed that it poses a great threat to trees. But how can a snapped string struck in a tree kill the tree? Apparently, it does so by allying with the creepers in the garden.
A research paper by three scientists of the Acharya Jagdish Chandra Bose Indian Botanic Garden, located in West Bengal's Howrah district, illustrates in detail how the manja, in collusion with climbers, does the damage. "The abandoned, torn kite strings act as an excellent primary supporting platform for the tender climbers, giving easy passage to reach the top of the trees. Lateral branches from the top of the climber and other accessory branches from the ground reaches the top taking support of the first climber, completely covers the treetop, thus inhibiting the penetration of sunlight," says the research paper.
Q-3) How many scientists contributed to a study by country's oldest botanical gardens on how manja can kill a tree?
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
“A research paper by three…..”.thus, three scientists contributed to a study by country’s oldest botanical gardens on how manja can kill a tree. Hence, option B is correct.
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
The development of nationalism in the third world countries, as is well known, followed a very different trajectory from that in the advanced capitalist countries. In the latter it was a part of the process of the emergence of the bourgeois order in opposition to feudalism, while in the former it was a part of the anti-colonial struggle. The impact of colonialism, though it differed across countries, had on the whole been in the direction of transcending localism and unifying supra-local economic structures through the introduction of market relations. The struggle against colonialism, consequently, took the form of a national struggle in each instance in which people belonging to different tribes or linguistic communities participated. And the colonial power in each instance attempted to break this emerging national unity by splitting people.
The modus operandi of this splitting was not just through political manipulation as happened for instance in Angola, South Africa and a host of other countries; an important part of this modus operandi was through the nurturing of a historiograpy that just denied the existence of any overarching national consciousness. The national struggle, the national movement were given a tribal or religious character, they were portrayed as being no more than the movement of the dominant tribe or the dominant religious group for the achievement of narrow sectional ends. But the important point in this colonialism, while, on the one hand, it objectively created the condition for the coming into being of a national consciousness at a supra-tribal, supra-local and suprareligious level, on the other hand it sought deliberately to subvert this very consciousness by using the same forces which it had objectively undermined.
Q-4) Choose the word which is most OPPOSITE in meaning of the word given in bold as used in the passage.
SPLITTING
(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
The development of nationalism in the third world countries, as is well known, followed a very different trajectory from that in the advanced capitalist countries. In the latter it was a part of the process of the emergence of the bourgeois order in opposition to feudalism, while in the former it was a part of the anti-colonial struggle. The impact of colonialism, though it differed across countries, had on the whole been in the direction of transcending localism and unifying supra-local economic structures through the introduction of market relations. The struggle against colonialism, consequently, took the form of a national struggle in each instance in which people belonging to different tribes or linguistic communities participated. And the colonial power in each instance attempted to break this emerging national unity by splitting people.
The modus operandi of this splitting was not just through political manipulation as happened for instance in Angola, South Africa and a host of other countries; an important part of this modus operandi was through the nurturing of a historiograpy that just denied the existence of any overarching national consciousness. The national struggle, the national movement were given a tribal or religious character, they were portrayed as being no more than the movement of the dominant tribe or the dominant religious group for the achievement of narrow sectional ends. But the important point in this colonialism, while, on the one hand, it objectively created the condition for the coming into being of a national consciousness at a supra-tribal, supra-local and suprareligious level, on the other hand it sought deliberately to subvert this very consciousness by using the same forces which it had objectively undermined.
Q-5) Choose the word which is most OPPOSITE in meaning of the word given in bold as used in the passage.
SUBVERT
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
(e)
The meaning of the word ‘subvert’ as mentioned in the passage is ‘to destroy the authority of a political system, religion etc’. Hence the words ‘subvert’ and ‘strengthen’ are antonymous. Meaning of the given word ‘emanate’ is ‘to come or flow from something/ somebody or from a place’.
DIRECTIONS:
Read the following passage and answer the questions that follow. Some words / phrases are printed in bold in the passage in order to help you locate them while answering some of the questions asked.
PASSAGE
Currently showing at the National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA) is a remarkable exhibition with aprovenance that dates back to 1925. That was the year the exhibition's subject, the legendary Ebrahim Alkazi, was born in Pune into the family of an Arab spice merchant.
Titled 'The Theatre of E. Alkazi — A Modernist Approach to Indian Theatre', the showcase is a retrospective of the life and works of Alkazi. The driving forces behind it have been his daughter, Amal Allana, a theatre doyenne in her own right, and her husband, the stage designer Nissar Allana. The exhibition continues till later this month, when Alkazi will turn 91. And in a sidelight of curated talks, Allana provides us rare insight into the man single-handedly credited with overhauling the National School of Drama into a legitimate national institution during his long tenure as its director from 1962 to 1977. Of course, before that, Alkazi had an eventful innings in Bombay. Under the aegis of the Theatre Group and the Theatre Unit, he galvanized the English theatre scene in the city.
The exhibition had its first airing in January at Delhi's Triveni Kala Sangam, where the Alkazi family founded the Art Heritage Gallery in 1977. In this Mumbai outing, the archival material is distributed to the semicircular galleries arranged around the central stairwell at the NGMA. Mock-ups of posters of Alkazi's celebrated productions adorn the walls of the entrance hall. If cinema hadn't swamped popular culture with its excesses, and theatre had been much less niche, some of these imprints could have well been the iconic images of their times. For instance, the stricken countenance of Usha Amin on a poster for Medea (1961), or a fetching Alaknanda Samarth pinned to the floor as a man looms ominously over her in Miss Julie (1960), or Rohini Hattangady conferring with Naseeruddin Shah in pitch-dark make-up in Sultan Razia (1974). The original photographs were, of course, in black and white. In these reconstructions, they are overlaid with anachronistic colors and typefaces that could perhaps warrant a rethink. As with any institutional display, the occasional tackiness doesn't really detract from the substance. Peering closer, the initials of Alkazi's Theatre Unit, arranged into a pitchfork, become an unmistakable monogram of quality.
Panels emblazoned 'The Alkazi Times' present the signposts of Alkazi's life as news clippings, interspersed with actual microfiche footage — ascensions of kings and Prime Ministers, declarations of war and independence, and even snapshots from theatre history. It is certainly monumental in scale, full of information about Alkazi's genealogy, childhood, education and illustrious career. While there is the slightest whiff of propaganda, it is whittled down by Allana's skills as a self-effacing raconteur during the talks. Her accounts are peppered with heart-warming personal anecdotes that give us a measure of the real person behind the bronzed persona.
We learn of how Alkazi came to take up the reins of Theatre Group after the untimely passing of Sultan 'Bobby' Padamsee, the young genius who was one of his formative influences. One of their earliest collaborations was Padamsee's version of Oscar Wilde's Salomé. The play was barred from performance at their alma mater, St Xavier's College, because of its risqué material and Wilde's festering notoriety as a gay felon even in India. It was ultimately performed at the very venue that is now housing the exhibition. Allana is thus able to touchingly fashion the showcase as a homecoming soirée. Later, there is a piquant episode at England's Dartington Hall. As a student at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, Alkazi had requested Dartington founder Leonard Elmhirst the princely sum of £4 so to return to India by ship. Elmhirst graciously complied. The letters exchanged still exist, and have been preserved (though they are not part of this exhibit).
The galleries themselves, chock-a-block with photographs, come across more like a feat of collation than curation. Yet, within this preponderance of imagery, there are stories that can be pieced together. The clarion call of Dharamvir Bharati's Andha Yug (directed by Alkazi in 1962) sounded off from the ramparts of Feroze Shah Kotla changed the manner in which Hindi theatre was presented. Its political echoes found resonance in a country undergoing massive blood-letting. Nehru and his mandarins all attended one of the earliest stagings, and the play placed Alkazi firmly on the national stage. His earlier work, though innovative, appeared to cater to the bourgeoisie.
In the NSD years, we see a coalescing of a strident western approach to drama with the 'theatre of roots' in India — traditions lying on the cusp of an imminent decrepitude. This amalgamation may have led to the derivative mongrelisation we observe so frequently in today's contemporary theatre. Yet at that time, it must have provided an active ferment for experimentation.
The photographic stills, it must be said, are mostly posed publicity shots. They capture the calculated repose of a burnished generation of actors, many recognizable faces among them. Some, grainier in texture, but with more character, appear to have been taken mid-performance. The living breathing form, theatre's raison d'être, is almost always absent, raising questions about the kind of archiving that would best serve theatre. In an upstairs gallery, video clips of a Hindi adaptation of Lorca's The House of Bernarda Alba, featuring Zohra Sehgal, are looped in perpetuity. They do provide insight into his working, but are woefully inadequate as a show reel for a man whose career spanned decades. Film, in any case, can never capture the truthfulness of a live form.
Such a display of theatre royalty comes inextricably linked with the idea of privilege, that of wealth, class or language perhaps, but primarily of pioneer-ship. Being the first off the stumbling blocks with his revolutionary ideas for theatre, Alkazi forged new ground at every step. Certainly, the politics of language added lustre to this glory. The power of English as an aspirational tongue has dimmed somewhat in recent times. Its colonial baggage has hopefully been obliterated. One can only speculate about how much these notions were amplified in the late 40s and 50s in a country just delivered from British rule.
Yet, the imprimatur of excellence that Alkazi brought to his works does not need to be rationalized to be made sense of. In order to recreate history, it is important to bring together all the elements that went in the making of an epoch. Nissar Allana has recreated miniature facsimiles of sets from Alkazi's plays and of the venues he nurtured himself, like the Meghdoot terrace. These are reproduced assiduously from photographs. In one reconstruction, Macbeth's scope is enhanced in an outdoor set that exudes both Greek grandeur and an artistic sparseness. That those were heady days is an idea one cannot escape from, when we look at how close to penury theatre practitioners operate in these days.
Q-6) The exhibition discussed in the passage is being held in –
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
(e)
According to the passage, the exhibition is going on at National Gallery of Modern Art and it is about a person who was born way back in 1925 but single-handedly changed the landscape of modern art especially drama and theatre in India. The exhibition had its first outing in Delhi.
DIRECTIONS:
A passage is given with 5 questions following it. Read the passage carefully and choose the best answer to each question out of the four alternatives.
PASSAGE
Manja, or the glass-coated string used for flying kites, not only poses threat to humans, animals and birds but also to trees. A study by the country's oldest botanical garden has revealed that it poses a great threat to trees. But how can a snapped string struck in a tree kill the tree? Apparently, it does so by allying with the creepers in the garden.
A research paper by three scientists of the Acharya Jagdish Chandra Bose Indian Botanic Garden, located in West Bengal's Howrah district, illustrates in detail how the manja, in collusion with climbers, does the damage. "The abandoned, torn kite strings act as an excellent primary supporting platform for the tender climbers, giving easy passage to reach the top of the trees. Lateral branches from the top of the climber and other accessory branches from the ground reaches the top taking support of the first climber, completely covers the treetop, thus inhibiting the penetration of sunlight," says the research paper.
Q-7) What would be the acronym for India's oldest botanical garden?
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
AcharyaJagdish Chandra Bose Indian Garden-AJCBIBG.
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
The development of nationalism in the third world countries, as is well known, followed a very different trajectory from that in the advanced capitalist countries. In the latter it was a part of the process of the emergence of the bourgeois order in opposition to feudalism, while in the former it was a part of the anti-colonial struggle. The impact of colonialism, though it differed across countries, had on the whole been in the direction of transcending localism and unifying supra-local economic structures through the introduction of market relations. The struggle against colonialism, consequently, took the form of a national struggle in each instance in which people belonging to different tribes or linguistic communities participated. And the colonial power in each instance attempted to break this emerging national unity by splitting people.
The modus operandi of this splitting was not just through political manipulation as happened for instance in Angola, South Africa and a host of other countries; an important part of this modus operandi was through the nurturing of a historiograpy that just denied the existence of any overarching national consciousness. The national struggle, the national movement were given a tribal or religious character, they were portrayed as being no more than the movement of the dominant tribe or the dominant religious group for the achievement of narrow sectional ends. But the important point in this colonialism, while, on the one hand, it objectively created the condition for the coming into being of a national consciousness at a supra-tribal, supra-local and suprareligious level, on the other hand it sought deliberately to subvert this very consciousness by using the same forces which it had objectively undermined.
Q-8) Which of the following statements is definitely true in the context of the passage?
- Colonialism internally helped awakening nationalism among people of different tribes, religions, etc.
- Advanced capitalist countries had nurtured nationalism as opposition to feudalism.
- The national struggle was not successful because the colonial powers succeeded in dividing the people.
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
(e)
Colonialism was the cause behind the awakening of the spirit of nationalism among the masses of a country.
DIRECTIONS:
A passage is given with 5 questions following it. Read the passage carefully and choose the best answer to each question out of the four alternatives.
PASSAGE
Manja, or the glass-coated string used for flying kites, not only poses threat to humans, animals and birds but also to trees. A study by the country's oldest botanical garden has revealed that it poses a great threat to trees. But how can a snapped string struck in a tree kill the tree? Apparently, it does so by allying with the creepers in the garden.
A research paper by three scientists of the Acharya Jagdish Chandra Bose Indian Botanic Garden, located in West Bengal's Howrah district, illustrates in detail how the manja, in collusion with climbers, does the damage. "The abandoned, torn kite strings act as an excellent primary supporting platform for the tender climbers, giving easy passage to reach the top of the trees. Lateral branches from the top of the climber and other accessory branches from the ground reaches the top taking support of the first climber, completely covers the treetop, thus inhibiting the penetration of sunlight," says the research paper.
Q-9) Abandoned, torn kite strings stuck in trees benefits whom?
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
The abandoned, torn kite strings act as an excellent primary supporting platform for the tender climbers, giving easy passage to reach the top of the trees. This line implies that creepers benefit from torn strings. Thus, creepers is the correct answer.
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
Agriculture dominates change in India through its causal links with factor and product markets. It employs 60 per cent of the labour force and contributes 26 per cent of the gross domestic product. In the poorer states, its contribution to the domestic product is close to 40 per cent. Low productivity in agriculture has led to the concentration of the poor in this sector. Due to the sheer size of the agricultural economy and the importance of its major products (cereals) in the diets of the poor, gains in agricultural productivity have significant potential impact on poverty. Theoretically, it is possible to reduce poverty as well as expand the domestic market for industry by raising labour productivity in agriculture and spreading its gains among the low-income groups. Modelling of the linkages between agricultural and industrial growth has shown that a 10 per cent increase in agricultural output would increase industrial output by 5 per cent and urban workers would benefit by both increased industrial employment and price deflation. However, there is an asymmetry of adjustments in the demand and supply of agricultural goods. An increase in nonagricultural production would lead to an immediate increase in demand for intermediate and final agricultural goods, whereas supply-side adjustments involving reallocation of resources and net additional investment for capacity expansion take a much longer period. There is a widely held view that in a large country like India, the demand stimulus for industrialisation would come mainly from agriculture with less social and economic costs.
Interdependencies in food and labour market are important for the development process. An upward shift in the food supply curve would simultaneously result in an upward shift in the labour demand curve.
The magnitude of the interdependence depends on the technique of production causing the shifts in the food supply curve. Similarly, an upward shift in the labour supply curve shifts up the food demand curve. The extent of interdependence between the forces of labour supply and food demand depends on the employment-output elasticity and the income elasticity of demand for food. The recent estimate of the employment output elasticity in agriculture is around 0.5, income elasticity of food is in the range of 0.55-0.50 and that for cereals is 0.25-0.30. The other important interdependency which plays a crucial role in inducing indirect employment, is that between food and other sectors through demand linkages. Since food accounts for a major share in the budget of the poor and any reduction in the food price leaves a significant proportion of income for other items, a lower food price stimulates employment in industrial and service sectors. On the other hand, an increase in the food price would increase the wage costs of industrial products and hence the prices of industrial products. In the absence of adjustments through exports, it would result in demand deficiency. Clearly, the most favourable situation in India is one in which labour demand outpaces its supply and food supply outpaces its demand.
Wage rates cannot fall below a certain minimum determined by the costs of subsistence living and the labour supply curve turns elastic at the subsistence wage rate. Demographic pressure cannot push the wage rate below the subsistence level. People would be willing to starve rather than work unless the energy expended in physical work is compensated by the energy provided by food. Foodgrain price usually determines the subsistence wage rate in agricultural as well as in the urban informal sector since foodgrains account for about four-fifths of the calorie intake of the poor.
Q-10) Which of the following is most opposite in meaning of the word ‘elasticity’ as used in the passage?
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
(e)