PYQ Vault

CDS (I) 2023, English question paper

120 questions · 100 marks · 120 minutes · +0.83 per correct answer, -0.28 per wrong one

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  1. Directions: identify the word class of the underlined word
    1
    I like that boy.

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  2. 2
    Without health there is no happiness.

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  3. 3
    You have no sense.

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  4. 4
    None of these cars is in use.

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  5. 5
    We shall now begin to work.

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  6. 6
    Owing to his ill health, he retired from business.

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  7. 7
    My sister is just sixteen and therefore not eligible to vote.

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  8. 8
    They tried to find fault with us.

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  9. 9
    Which way shall we go?

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  10. 10
    Alas! He is dead.

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  11. Directions: choose the most appropriate word for the blank
    11
    He was _______ speaker that I had ever heard.

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  12. 12
    What was the name of the person to _______ you spoke on the phone?

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  13. 13
    Have you seen Mohan _______?

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  14. 14
    We live in _______ an old house.

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  15. 15
    I'm playing tennis tomorrow unless _______.

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  16. 16
    The _______ of the car is unknown.

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  17. 17
    He paid his debts _______ to the last penny.

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  18. 18
    Developing _______ in a diverse country requires detailed planning.

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  19. 19
    _______ provisions have been made to support agriculture.

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  20. 20
    The _______ growth in the Indian financial markets can be attributed to a number of reforms.

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  21. Directions: reorder the chunks P/Q/R/S into a sentence
    21
    Rearrange the following parts to form a coherent sentence. P: India has become Q: with time R: accounting for 25 per cent of the total available water S: the world's largest extractor of groundwater

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  22. 22
    Rearrange the following parts to form a coherent sentence. P: present existential perils Q: all over the world R: the extremes S: of climate change

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  23. 23
    Rearrange the following parts to form a coherent sentence. P: the company forecasts Q: aviation market amongst R: the G20 countries S: that India will be the fastest growing

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  24. 24
    Rearrange the following parts to form a coherent sentence. P: near villages or herder camps Q: shangdongs are traditional R: stonewalls, usually built S: trapping pits with inverted funnel-shaped

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  25. 25
    Rearrange the following parts to form a coherent sentence. P: several antiquities from other Q: nations over the years R: India has S: brought back

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  26. 26
    Rearrange the following parts to form a coherent sentence. P: the Aravalli hill ranges Q: of the Yamuna river and R: are spread out over the natural landscapes S: the biodiversity parks

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  27. 27
    Rearrange the following parts to form a coherent sentence. P: the family found out Q: their mother's friends were going to R: that some of S: Poland in a car

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  28. 28
    Rearrange the following parts to form a coherent sentence. P: earth may seem immense Q: from the perspective of humans R: and almost limitless S: living on its surface

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  29. 29
    Rearrange the following parts to form a coherent sentence. P: in terms of trading volumes, Q: have grown substantially R: market capitalization and turnover S: the Indian financial markets

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  30. 30
    Rearrange the following parts to form a coherent sentence. P: emerge at last into a Q: those who passed through R: country of unearthly beauty S: that valley of darkness

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  31. Directions: choose the most appropriate meaning of the idiom
    31
    Have an axe to grind

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  32. 32
    Bite the bullet

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  33. 33
    Laughing stock

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  34. 34
    Pay over the odds

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  35. 35
    Play to the gallery

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  36. 36
    Be in the soup

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  37. 37
    A turn of the screw

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  38. 38
    A white elephant

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  39. 39
    A hot potato

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  40. 40
    Apples and oranges

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  41. Directions: find the error in the underlined parts or no error
    41
    Guest is unwelcome when he stays too long.

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  42. 42
    My friend and benefactor has come.

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  43. 43
    Either he or I am mistaken.

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  44. 44
    Each of these substances are found in India.

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  45. 45
    Who do you wish to see?

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  46. 46
    It was one of the best speeches that has ever been made in the Parliament.

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  47. 47
    I played with same bat that you used.

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  48. 48
    His written statement defers in several important respects from his oral statement.

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  49. 49
    I have ordered for three cups of coffee.

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  50. 50
    One must not boast of one's own success.

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  51. Directions: nearest in meaning to the underlined word
    51
    There are plenty of graduates anxious for work.

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  52. 52
    The power of the monarchy was circumscribed by the new law.

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  53. 53
    We caught him eavesdropping outside the window.

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  54. 54
    The party leader exhorted his members to start preparing for the formation of their government.

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  55. 55
    The local people are hospitable to strangers.

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  56. 56
    Such traditional methods seem incongruous in our technical age.

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  57. 57
    Mohan has mercurial temperament.

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  58. 58
    It is obligatory for all employees to wear protective clothing.

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  59. 59
    She has a genetic predisposition to liver disease.

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  60. 60
    She wore a sardonic smile on her face.

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  61. Directions: order the six sentences into a passage
    61
    S1: Like many of its tropical counterparts, India was a colony of Britain, which ruled out any move to adjust the exchange rate. S6: Banks were left with unrecoverable assets. P: Indebted business failed. Q: With devaluation made politically impossible, fall in export demand led to sustained and deep deflation. R: Indebted households liquidated a variety of assets to repay loans when they could. S: Real interest rates rose.

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  62. 62
    S1: Consider the potential effect of just a small increase in the earth's atmospheric temperature. S6: If the sea level rose only a few feet, dozens of coastal cities would be destroyed and life would change utterly. P: Some deserts might anyway bloom. Q: But lands now fertile might turn to deserts, and many hot climates could become uninhabitable. R: A rise of only a few degrees could melt the polar ice caps and submerge the planet in a short time. S: Rainfall patterns would change.

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  63. 63
    S1: In the ancient times, the kings and the royal families had their own banner and seal. S6: So the high officials commanded great respect because of the descent, ability and character. P: All the members of the royal family shared in the administration as far as possible. Q: The royal palace was maintained in a great state. R: The king was in theory an autocrat. S: There were opportunities to influence the king in the formulation of policies.

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  64. 64
    S1: The rise of East Asia in the late twentieth century may ultimately prove to be a more important world-historical event than the collapse of communism. S6: Translated into political terms, this means that industrial capitalism is always accompanied by liberal democracy. P: In the final two decades of the twentieth century, economic growth rates on the western rim of the Pacific Basin were between two and four times higher than those in the 'developed' economies of Europe and North America. Q: The widespread assumption has been that modernization means westernization. R: Certainly, the balance of the world's economy shifted markedly from the West to the East in this period. S: However, the notion that there is distinctively East Asian political form is less familiar one.

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  65. 65
    S1: Manipur has a long and glorious history from before the beginning of the Christian Era. S6: Manipur regained its independence in 1947 and merged into Indian Union in 1949. P: Then, Manipur came under the British rule in 1891. Q: The independence and sovereignty remained uninterrupted until the Burmese invasion and occupation for around seven years in the first quarter of the 19th century (1819-1826). R: The political history of Manipur could be traced back to 33 AD with the coronation of Nongda Lairen Pakhangba. S: After Pakhangba, a number of kings ruled over the Kingdom of Manipur.

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  66. 66
    S1: In agriculture, water is mainly used for irrigation. S6: Hence, it is difficult to practice agriculture without assured irrigation during dry seasons. P: The large tracts of the country are deficient in rainfall and are drought prone. Q: Winter and summer seasons are more or less dry in most part of the country. R: Irrigation is needed because of spatio-temporal variability in rainfall in the country. S: North-Western India and Deccan Plateau constitute such areas.

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  67. 67
    S1: Vijayanagara or 'city of victory' was the name of both a city and an empire. S6: They remembered it as Hampi, a name derived from that of the local Mother Goddess, Pampadevi. P: In its heyday, it stretched from the river Krishna in the North to the extreme South of the peninsula. Q: The empire was founded in the fourteenth century. R: In 1565, the city was destroyed and subsequently deserted. S: Although it fell into ruin in the seventeenth-eighteenth centuries, it lived on in the memories of people living in the Krishna-Tungabhadra Doab.

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  68. 68
    S1: During the past two decades, many organizations in both the manufacturing and service sectors have faced dramatic changes in their business environment. S6: These changes have had a significant influence on management accounting systems. P: To succeed in today's highly competitive environment, companies have made customer satisfaction an overriding priority. Q: They have also adopted new management approaches and manufacturing companies have changed their manufacturing systems and invested in new technologies. R: Deregulation and extensive competition from overseas companies in domestic markets have resulted in a situation in which most companies now operate in a highly competitive global market. S: At the same time there has been a significant reduction in product life cycles arising from technological innovations and the need to meet increasingly discriminating customer demands.

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  69. 69
    S1: Gregor Johann Mendel was born on July 22, 1822 in Austria. S6: Based on his experiments on a total of seven characteristics in garden pea, he established Law of Segregation and Law of Independent Assortment. P: His pioneering work laid the foundation of science of genetics and therefore, he is known as the 'Father of Genetics'. Q: There he was exposed to the lab facilities and got interested in research and teaching. R: In 1843, Mendel began studying even while being a monk at St. Thomas Monastery in Brno. S: His experiments focussed on cross-breeding of pea plants and gathering data on the variations of several generations.

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  70. 70
    S1: Mahatma Gandhi found in salt a powerful symbol that could unite the nation. S6: The tax on salt and the government monopoly over its production, Mahatma Gandhi declared, revealed the most oppressive face of the British rule. P: On 31 January, 1930, he sent a letter to Viceroy Irwin stating eleven demands. Q: The idea was to make the demands wide-ranging, so that all classes within Indian society could identify with them and everyone could be brought together in a united campaign. R: Salt was something consumed by the rich and the poor alike, and it was one of the most essential items of food. S: The most stirring of all was the demand to abolish the salt tax.

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  71. Directions: opposite in meaning to the underlined word
    71
    Brevity is the soul of wit.

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  72. 72
    Blend the grains to make a smooth paste.

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  73. 73
    The project wasted a considerable amount of time and money.

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  74. 74
    She has always been disdainful of people who haven't been to college.

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  75. 75
    He had a frugal lunch.

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  76. 76
    He is forced to lead an itinerant life.

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  77. 77
    His malicious intentions were aborted.

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  78. 78
    Comics tend to perpetuate several myths.

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  79. 79
    Krishna is a redoubtable person.

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  80. 80
    The movie is about fusion of old and contemporary ideas.

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  81. Directions: In this section, there is a passage having some blank spaces with four words or groups of words given. Select whichever word or group of words you consider the most appropriate for the blank space and indicate your response on the Answer Sheet accordingly. Passage It is necessary, ___(81)___ any war, to consider, not its proper justification in past agreements, ___(82)___ its real justification in the balance of good which it is to bring to mankind. At the beginning of a war, each nation, under the influence of what is called ___(83)___ believes that its own victory is ___(84)___ certain and of great importance to mankind. The praiseworthiness of this belief has become an accepted maxim of common sense : even when war is actually in progress it ___(85)___ to be natural and right that a citizen of an enemy country should regard the victory of his side as assured and highly ___(86)___ By concentrating attention upon the supposed advantages of the victory of our own side, we ___(87)___ more or less blind to the evils inseparable from war and equally certain whichever side may ultimately prove ___(88)___ Yet so long as these are not fully realized, it is impossible ___(89)___ justly ___(90)___ a war is or is not likely to be beneficial to the human race. Although the theme is trite, it is necessary therefore briefly to remind ourselves what the evils of war really are.
    81
    It is necessary, _______ any war, to consider, not its proper justification in past agreements ...

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  82. 82
    ... to consider, not its proper justification in past agreements, _______ its real justification in the balance of good ...

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  83. 83
    ... each nation, under the influence of what is called _______, believes that its own victory is ...

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  84. 84
    ... believes that its own victory is _______ certain and of great importance to mankind.

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  85. 85
    ... even when war is actually in progress it _______ to be natural and right that a citizen of an enemy country should regard the victory of his side as assured ...

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  86. 86
    ... should regard the victory of his side as assured and highly _______ ...

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  87. 87
    By concentrating attention upon the supposed advantages of the victory of our own side, we _______ more or less blind to the evils inseparable from war ...

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  88. 88
    ... blind to the evils inseparable from war and equally certain whichever side may ultimately prove _______ ...

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  89. 89
    Yet so long as these are not fully realized, it is impossible _______ justly ...

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  90. 90
    Yet so long as these are not fully realized, it is impossible to judge justly _______ a war is or is not likely to be beneficial to the human race.

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  91. Directions: choose the most appropriate preposition or determiner
    91
    Steve has gone away. He will be away _______ Monday.

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  92. 92
    I'll see you _______ Friday morning.

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  93. 93
    Write your name _______ the top of the page.

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  94. 94
    Sohan is studying _______ the university.

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  95. 95
    He is indebted _______ his friend.

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  96. 96
    Can I be held responsible _______ my spouse's debts?

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  97. 97
    It was fun to hang out _______ the pier.

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  98. 98
    Can you pass _______ sugar, please?

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  99. 99
    Our train leaves from _______ platform number 5.

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  100. 100
    _______ children learn very quickly.

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  101. Directions: complete the sentence with the correct alternative
    101
    They were informed that the inaugural version of the scheme

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  102. 102
    What would you do

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  103. 103
    If it stopped raining

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  104. 104
    Let me know

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  105. 105
    We stayed

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  106. 106
    Julia got married

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  107. 107
    What time

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  108. 108
    How are you

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  109. 109
    I am trying to

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  110. 110
    Many accidents

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  111. Directions: In this section, you have two short passages. After each passage, you will find some items based on the passage. First, read a passage and answer the items based on it. You are required to select your answers based on the contents of the passage and the opinion of the author only. Passage—I The third great defect of our civilization is that it does not know what to do with its knowledge. Science has given us powers fit for the gods, yet we use them as small children. For example, we do not know how to manage our machines. Machines were made to be humanity’s servants, yet man has grown so dependent on them that they are in a fair way to become his masters. Already most people spend most of their lives looking after and waiting upon machines. And the machines are very stern masters. They must be kept at the right temperature. And if they do not get their meals when they expect them, they grow sulky and refuse to work or burst with rage and blow up and spread ruin and destruction all around. So we have to wait upon them very attentively and do all that we can to keep them in a good temper. Already we find it difficult either to work or play without the machines, and a time may come when they will rule us altogether, just as we rule the animals. And this brings me to the point at which I asked, “What do we do with all the time which the machines have saved for us, and the new energy they have given us?” On the whole, it must be admitted, we do very little. For the most part, we use our time and energy to make more and better machines which will give us still more time and still more energy, and what are we to do with them? The answer, I think, is that we should try to become more civilized. For the machines themselves, and the power which the machines have given us, are not civilization but aids to civilization. But you will remember that we agreed at the beginning that being civilized meant making and linking beautiful things, thinking freely and living rightly and maintaining justice equally among people. A person has a better chance today to do these things than he/she ever had before; he/she has more time, more energy, less to fear and less to fight against. If he/she will give his/her time and energy which his/her machines have won for him/her to make more beautiful things, to find out more and more about the universe, to remove the cause of quarrels between nations, to discover how to prevent poverty, then I think our civilization would undoubtedly be the greater as it would be more lasting than it has ever been.
    111
    The general tone of the passage is

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  112. 112
    The use of machines has failed to bring us

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  113. 113
    According to the passage, our civilization would be made greater

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  114. 114
    According to the passage, which one of the following descriptions about machines is true?

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  115. 115
    According to the passage, how do we use the powers bestowed upon us by science?

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  116. Directions: In this section, you have two short passages. After each passage, you will find some items based on the passage. First, read a passage and answer the items based on it. You are required to select your answers based on the contents of the passage and the opinion of the author only. Passage—II Plastic is an essential commodity with multiple uses based on its key qualities of malleability, flexibility, and durability. Plastics are omnipresent in agriculture, fisheries, renewable energy, transport, technology, retail, textiles, personal care products, and all the other sectors and industries that directly or indirectly affect our daily life. Plastic has indeed made our lives more convenient, but it has come at a higher price than we imagined. The plastic pollution overflowing our landfills, clogging waterways, and infiltrating the ocean is primarily made of discarded items and packaging. Plastic lasts for hundreds of years, slowly disintegrating into smaller and smaller pieces, but never fully degrading. Indeed, one of the key perks of plastic is its longevity. And yet, the plastic packaging of nearly every product we purchase and many plastic products themselves are intended to be discarded after a single use. Throwaway plastic is an oxymoron, but it has become our sad, increasingly dangerous reality. Plastic pollution should make everyone angry. This is a crisis we can see with the naked eye, day in and day out. Plastic has been found on even the most remote, uninhabited islands, and in the deepest parts of the ocean. Because we can see it, we are more keenly aware of it, unlike some other forms of pollution. In 2019, the World Health Organization (WHO) called for further studies on the impacts of microplastics on human health. An initial study, hampered by a lack of adequate data, concluded microplastics pose no danger at current levels (WHO, 2019). Although the WHO report was inconclusive about the effects of plastic on human health, other studies have linked the chemicals in plastic to negative health outcomes including endocrine disruption (Dabre 2020). Plastic particles have been detected in drinking water and in the food we eat, with a 2019 study commissioned by WWF estimating humans consume about five grams (or one credit card in weight) of plastic every week. We have seen the devastating effects plastic has on marine life. For instance, unable to process ingested plastic waste pieces, seabirds and other sea creatures starve to death. We have seen sea turtles and other animals tangled in fishing nets or trapped in plastic pack rings. Plastic pollution also wreaks havoc on land, clogging drains and preventing rainwater from soaking into the soil, which leads to flooding. Terrestrial creatures also suffer the effects of plastic waste, with some getting trapped in discarded plastic bags and suffocating to death.
    116
    Plastic has distressing effects on

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  117. 117
    Plastic and plastic particles can be found

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  118. 118
    Plastic pollution appears to be

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  119. 119
    Plastic is considered an essential commodity because

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  120. 120
    The word 'clogging' in the passage means

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