Reading Comprehension
288 CDS English past-year questions from 20 papers, 2017 to 2026, with answers and worked solutions.
About this chapter
- Difficulty: 65 easy · 170 moderate · 53 hard.
- Most-asked subtopics: Main Idea, Author's View and Tone (32), Word Meaning in Context (31), Sentence Pairs: Premise, Extension, Degree and Word Use (30).
- Updated 20 September 2026.
- Set · 1 questionDirections: PASSAGE II. Direction: Read the passage carefully and answer the questions given below: Passage Christopher Columbus of Spain set foot in the New World in 1492. Six years later, Vasco da Gama of Portugal reached India. During the next two centuries the Spaniards and the Portuguese actively transferred, not only to Europe but to many parts of Asia as well, a number of plant species which they encountered in South and central America, in expectation of their potential either as food or as medicine. These plants had been developed to a high degree by the Maya and Inca civilizations of these regions. Of these, the potato (Solanum tuberosum) is believed to have been domesticated in terraced slopes on the high plateau of Bolivia-Peru in South America, sometime between 5000 and 2000 BC. Europeans first saw potatoes in South America in 1537, and around 1570 a Spanish ship brought the first potatoes to Europe. Though termed papa in South America, they were incorrectly called batata (the name for the sweet potato) when John Gerard first described them in English in 1597, and this name stuck. An 1860 report states that by 1780, potatoes, peas and beans were in high repute as foods in Calcutta, and that the Dutch are said to have been the first to introduce the culture of potatoes, which was received from their settlement of the Cape of Good Hope. From there the British received annually the seeds of every kind of vegetable useful at the table, as well as several plants of which there appears to be much need, especially various kinds of pot herbs.
#1Locating the Answer Line
- Set · 1 questionDirections: In this section you have few 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 opinion of the author only. Passage For many years, ship captains navigating the waters of Antarctica have been intrigued by sightings of emerald icebergs. Scientists have now explained their mystery. There icebergs are turned upside down. Icebergs are blocks of ice that have broken off huge slabs of frozen snow called ice shelves. Their green appearance results from sea water that has frozen at the bottom over hundreds of years. The frozen sea water has dissolved organic matter which gives it a yellow tone and the fresh water ‘ice shelf’ above has a blue tinge. When the iceberg turns upside down, it appears green through the visual mix of yellow with the blue from below.
#2Locating the Answer Line
- Set · 1 questionDirections: In this section you have few 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 opinion of the author only. Passage In its simple form, science has helped man to protect himself from Nature and to overcome natural obstacles to movement. But with the advance of science, a situation has arisen in which Nature need to be protected from man. He has used Nature’s own gifts, not only of metal but even the human brain, to attack Nature. Forests are being destroyed not only to satisfy need but to provide luxuries. The evil effects of deforestation are already making themselves clearly felt in climatic changes and soil erosion. Man has at last begun to learn that he has to protect if he wants Nature to protect him.
#3Locating the Answer Line
- Set · 1 questionDirections: In this section you have few 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 opinion of the author only. Passage According to the civil laws of most countries obedience is no longer the duty of a wife; every woman has the political right to vote; but these liberties remain theoretical as long as she does not have economic freedom. A woman supported by a man is not liberated from the male. It is through gainful employment that woman has travelled most of the distance that separated her from the male; and nothing else can guarantee her liberty in practice. I once heard a maidservant declare, while cleaning the stone floor of a hotel lobby, “I never asked anybody for anything; I succeeded all by myself.” She was as proud of her self-sufficiency as a Rockefeller, Ford or Birla. However, the mere combination of the right to vote and a job does not mean complete liberation : working, today, is not a liberty. A recent study of women workers in a car factory shows that they would prefer to stay in the home rather than work in the factory. The majority of women do not escape from the traditional feminine world. Their jobs at the factory do not relieve them of housekeeping burdens; they get from neither society nor their husbands, the assistance they need to become in concrete fact the equals of men.
#4Locating the Answer Line
- Set · 1 questionDirections: In this section you have few 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 opinion of the author only. Passage Over-population is the most pressing of India’s numerous and multi-faceted problems. In fact it has caused equally complex problems such as poverty, under-nourishment, unemployment and excessive fragmentation of land. Indisputably, this country has been facing a population explosion of crisis dimensions. It has largely diluted the fruits of the remarkable economic progress that the nation has made during the last four decades or so. The entire battle against poverty is thwarted by the rapid increase in the population. The tragedy is that while over-population accentuates poverty, the country’s stark poverty itself is in many areas a major cause of over-population.
#5Locating the Answer Line
Done a few? Here’s your next move
- Set · 2 questionsDirections: In this section you have few 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 opinion of the author only. Passage To eat and not be eaten – that’s the imperative of a caterpillar’s existence. The leaf roller reduces its risks of being picked off by predators by silking together a temporary shelter in which to feed and rest. Adopting a different line of defense, the jelly slug extrudes a sticky translucent coating that may foul the mouth-parts of marauding ants. For its part, the aquatic larva, by its watery element, fashions a portable hideout from fragments of aquatic leaves. Cutting a serpentine trail as it feeds on tender young leaves, the minute citrus leaf miner spends its entire larval life inside its host plant, thus keeping its appetizing body safely under wraps.
#6Locating the Answer Line
#7Locating the Answer Line
- Set · 2 questionsDirections: In this section you have few 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 opinion of the author only. Passage In Delhi, it was forbidden by the law, at one time, to take a Dog into a public vehicle. One day a lady, accompanied by a pet dog, entered a bus. Wishing to evade the law, she placed her tiny dog in her dress pocket. It so happened that the person next to this lady was a pick-pocket; and during the journey he carefully placed his hand into her pocket in search of her purse. Great was the horror to find instead a pair of sharp teeth inserted into his fingers. His exclamation of pain and surprise drew the attention of other passengers to him.
#8Locating the Answer Line
#9Locating the Answer Line
- Set · 1 questionDirections: In this section, you have few 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 opinion of the author only. Passage—I Mankind’s experience of various evolutionary changes from primitive times to the present day has been extensive and varied. However, man’s problems were never before as complicated as they seem to be today. Man’s economic activity centres primarily around production. Labour is said to be the primary factor of production; its role, therefore, has been given a lot of importance. It should be useful to have an overall view of the economic history of man—from the nomadic times to the modern factory system—and study its relevance to the various labour problems of today. Initially, man passed through ‘the hunting and fishing stage’. During this period, his basic needs were adequately met by Nature. Wild animals, birds and fruits satisfied his hunger, and his thirst was quenched by the waters of springs and rivers. Caves gave him shelter and barks of trees were used as clothing. During this stage of man’s progress, labour problems did not exist because of the absence of any economic, political and social systems. Then came ‘the pastoral stage’, which was marked by a certain amount of economic activity. The nomadic and migratory nature of man persisted, and, together with his goats and cattle, he moved on to fresh pastures and meadows. Some conflicts would sometimes take place among herd-owners, for, during this period, the institution of nominal private property ownership was not known. This stage paves the way for ‘the agricultural stage’, during which the class system began to develop. There was a small artisan class mostly self-employed; and there were also landed proprietors or Zamindars as well as slaves. Thus, arose the feudal system. During the fourth stage of these developments, ‘the handicrafts stage’, a number of social and economic changes took place which marked the beginning of the labour problem in the world. The self-sufficient economy of the village underwent a drastic change. The community of traders and merchants emerged. (Item 108 is based on Passage—I; items 109-114 are based on Passage—II.) Passage—II Ever since independence, land reforms have been a major instrument of State policy to promote both equity and agricultural investment. Unfortunately, progress on land reforms has been slow, reflecting the resilience of structures of power that gave rise to the problem in the first place. The main instrument for realizing more equitable distribution of land is the land ceiling laws. These laws were enacted by several States during the late 1950s and 1960s, and the early 1970s saw more stringent amendments in the laws to plug loopholes in the earlier laws. But the record of implementation has not been satisfactory. Around 3 million hectares of land has been declared surplus so far, which is hardly 2 percent of net sown area in India. About 30 percent of this land has not yet been distributed as it is caught up in the litigations. Besides, a number of Benami and clandestine transactions have resulted in illegal possession of significant amounts of land above ceiling limits. There are widespread reports of allotment of inferior, unproductive, barren and wasteland to landless household, many of whom have been forced to sell it off, in the absence of resources to make it productive. In many instances, lands allotted to the rural poor under the ceiling laws are not in their possession. In some cases, Pattas were issued to the beneficiaries, but possession of land shown in the Pattas was not given, or corresponding changes were not made in the records of right. The balance of power in rural India is so heavily weighed against the landless and the poor that implementing land ceiling laws is difficult. It is clear that without massive mobilization of the rural poor and depending on democratic governance in rural India, very little can be achieved in this direction. Although half of India’s population continues to depend on agriculture as its primary source of livelihood, 83 percent of farmers operate holdings of less than 2 hectares in size, and the average holding size is only 1·23 hectares. This is often in fragments and unirrigated. There are also those who are entirely landless, although agriculture is their main source of livelihood. They have inadequate financial resources to purchase and often depend on leasing in small plots, on insecure terms, for short periods, sometimes only for one season. Hence, many face insecurity of tenure and the growing threat of land alienation and pressure from urbanization, industrialization and powerful interest.
#10Locating the Answer Line
- Set · 2 questionsDirections: In this section you have few 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 opinion of the author only. Passage – II Zimbabwe’s prolonged political crisis reached the boiling point earlier this month when President Robert Mugabe dismissed the Vice-President, Emmerson Mnangagwa. A battle to succeed the 93-year-old liberation hero-turned President had already been brewing within the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (Zanu-PF), with the old guard backing Mr. Mnangagwa, himself a freedom fighter, and ‘Generation 40’, a grouping of younger leaders supporting Mr. Mugabe’s 52-year-old wife, Grace. Ms. Mugabe, known for her extravagant lifestyle and interfering ways, has been vocal in recent months about her political ambitions. Mr. Mugabe was seen to have endorsed her when on November 6 he dismissed Mr. Mnangagwa. But Mr. Mugabe, who has ruled Zimbabwe since its independence in 1980, erred on two counts : he underestimated the deep connections Mr. Mnangagwa has within the establishment and overestimated his own power in a system he has helped shape. In the good old days, Mr. Mugabe was able to rule with an iron grip. But those days are gone. Age and health problems have weakened his hold on power, while there is a groundswell of anger among the public over economic mismanagement. So when he turned against a man long seen by the establishment as his successor, Mr. Mugabe left little doubt that he was acting from a position of political weakness. This gave the security forces the confidence to turn against him and make it clear they didn’t want a Mugabe dynasty. The military doesn’t want to call its action a coup d’etat, for obvious reasons. A coup would attract international condemnation, even sanctions. But it is certain that the army chief, Gen. Constantino Chiwenga, is in charge. His plan, as it emerges, is to force Mr. Mugabe to resign and install a transitional government, perhaps under Mr. Mnangagwa, until elections are held.
#11Locating the Answer Line
#12Locating the Answer Line
- Set · 1 questionDirections: In this section you have few 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 opinion of the author only. Passage – III Over-eating is one of the most wonderful practices among those who think that they can afford it. In fact, authorities say that nearly all who can get as much as they desire, over-eat to their disadvantage. This class of people could save a great more food than they can save by missing one meal per week and at the same time they could improve their health. A heavy meal at night, the so-called “dinner”, is the fashion with many and often is taken shortly before retiring. It is unnecessary and could be forgone, not only once a week but daily without loss of strength. From three to five hours are needed to digest food. While sleeping, this food not being required to give energy for work, is in many cases converted into excess fat, giving rise to over-weight. The evening meal should be light, taken three or four hours before retiring. This prevents over-eating, conserves energy and reduces the cost of food.
#13Locating the Answer Line
- Set · 1 questionDirections: In this section you have few 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 opinion of the author only. Passage – IV Much has been said of the common ground of religious unity. I am not going just now to venture my own theory. But if anyone here hopes that this unity will come by the triumph of any one of the religions and the destruction of the others, to him I say, “Brother, yours is an impossible hope.” Do I wish that the Christian would become Hindu ? God forbid. Do I wish that the Hindu or Buddhist would become Christian ? God forbid. The seed is put in the ground, and earth and air and water are placed around it. Does the seed become the earth, or the air, or the water ? No. It becomes a plant. It develops after the law of its own growth, assimilates the air, the earth, and the water, converts them into plant substance, and grows into a plant. Similar is the case with religion. The Christian is not to become a Hindu or a Buddhist, nor a Hindu or a Buddhist to become a Christian. But each must assimilate the spirit of the others and yet preserve his individuality and grow according to his own law of growth. If the Parliament of Religions has shown anything to the world, it is this : it has proved to the world that holiness, purity and charity are not the exclusive possessions of any church in the world, and that every system has produced men and women of the most exalted character. In the face of this evidence, if anybody dreams of the exclusive survival of his own religion and the destruction of the others, I pity him from the bottom of my heart, and point out to him that upon the banner of every religion will soon be written in spite of resistance : “Help and not fight,” “Assimilation and not Destruction,” “Harmony and Peace and not Dissension.”
#14Locating the Answer Line
- Set · 1 questionDirections: In this section you have a few 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 opinion of the author only. Passage – I Not all agricultural societies become civilizations, but no civilization can become one without passing through the stage of agriculture. This is because at some stage in the development of agriculture, as productivity improves, not all people would need to be engaged in producing or procuring food. A significant number of people could be freed up to pursue other activities such as building walls or monuments for new cities; making new tools, weapons and jewellery; organizing long-distance trade; creating new artistic masterpieces; coming up with new inventions; keeping accounts; and perhaps constructing new public infrastructure such as irrigation canals that further improve the productivity of agriculture, thus realizing even more people to do new things. This can happen, of course, only if a society that has transitioned to high-productivity agriculture has also, at some stage in its evolution, found a way to channel the bonanza of free time into other work fruitfully. In the ancient world, this often involved creating new ideologies and new hierarchies or power structures to coerce or otherwise convince large groups of people to devote their time to the new tasks for very little reward. Passage – II When we pick up a newspaper, a book, or an article, we come to our task with certain preconceptions and predispositions. We expect to find a specific piece of information or be presented with an argument or an analysis of something, say, the likelihood of recession in the next six months or the reasons why children can’t read. We probably know a little about the book or article we are reading even before we start. There was, after all, some reason why we chose to read one piece of writing rather than another. Our expectations and predispositions may, however, blind us to what the article and its author is actually saying. If, for example, we are used to disagreeing with the author, we may see only what we expect to see and not what is actually there. Day after day in our routine pattern of life we expose ourselves to the same newspaper, the same magazine, even books by authors with the same perspectives. In order to reflect on our reading habits and improve our skills we need to break out of this routine, step back and look at what we are doing when we read.
#15Locating the Answer Line
- Set · 2 questionsDirections: In this section you have two short passages. After each passage, you will find some items based on the passage. Read the passages and answer the items based on them. You are required to select your answers based on the content of the passage and opinion of the author only. Passage – II Noise is a common problem in both urban and rural areas, traffic noise in particular. Trees and shrubs are not only visually attractive but also can make effective noise barriers. Therefore when space permits we have to plant more trees and shrubs in areas where there is noise problem. By doing this noise can be reduced by six decibels over a distance of 30 metres. The only thing we have to keep in mind is that the planting should be particularly dense; the trees which have dense foliage and relatively vertical orientation of arrangements should be planted. It will completely screen the source of noise. If there is any gap in barrier it will still allow noise to penetrate. Single layer of trees is worthless as a noise barrier. Due to inter-reflection, multi-rows of trees are more effective. The planted trees must be taller. We can reduce noise level by 1·5 decibels with each additional 3 feet of tree height. When the opportunity to use trees is restricted a combination of shrubs and tall grass can be used. Instead of tarmac or gravel surfaces soft grass ground cover is preferable. It will absorb noise rather than reflect it. Rows of trees, shrubs, crotons, ground covering plants, climbers and their flowers not only reduce noise and provide a beautiful backyard they also help block wind, provide shade, and absorb traffic pollution.
#16Locating the Answer Line
#17Locating the Answer Line
- Set · 1 questionDirections: In this section you have three short passages. After each passage, you will find some items based on the passage. Read the passage carefully and answer the items based on it. Passage – II Among the major objectives of the Glasgow Summit was to frame the foundation of an international carbon trading system listed in the Paris Agreement to achieve the target of net zero emissions by 2050. It would enable nations to transfer credits to each other and offset their emission targets. Critics of the trading system, and there are many, say it would give leeway to developed countries and companies that are highly polluting to stave off making deeper cuts in their low emissions by buying credits from poorer countries at exploitative prices. There are also major differences over whether the new trading system will recognize historical emissions permitted under earlier protocols. Others want rules that permit double credits for the nation funding a particular carbon reducing project, such as the regeneration of forests to act as a carbon sink, and for the country implementing it. A third issue is whether a share of the revenue from such a bilateral trading agreement will go toward the UN's Adaptation Fund. There have also been concerns about the integrity of the accounting system for such credits.
#18Locating the Answer Line
- Set · 1 questionDirections: answer from the passage Passage – I What is truth ? said jesting Pilate, and would not stay for an answer. Certainly there be, that delight in giddiness, and count it a bondage to fix a belief; affecting free-will in thinking, as well as in acting. And though the sects of philosophers of that kind be gone, yet there remain certain discoursing wits, which are of the same veins, though there be not so much blood in them, as was in those of the ancients. But it is not only the difficulty and labour, which men take in finding out of truth, nor again, that when it is found, it imposeth upon man’s thoughts, that doth bring lies in favour; but a natural though corrupt love of the lie itself. One of the later school of the Grecians, examineth matter, and is at a stand to think what should be in it, that men should love lies; where neither they make for pleasure as with poets, nor for advantage, as with the merchants; but for the lie’s sake. But I cannot tell; this same truth, is a naked, and open day-light, that doth not show the masks, and mummeries, and triumphs, of the world, half so stately and daintily as candle-lights. Truth may perhaps come to the price of a pearl, that showeth best by day; but it will not rise to the price of a diamond, or carbuncle, that showeth best in varied lights. A mixture of a lie doth ever add pleasure. Doth any man doubt, that if there were taken out of men’s minds, vain opinions, flattering hopes, false valuations, imaginations as one would, and the like, but it would leave the minds, of a number of men, poor shrunken things, full of melancholy and indisposition, and unpleasing to themselves ?
#19Locating the Answer Line
- Set · 1 questionDirections: answer items based on two short passages Passage—I Our tragedy today is a general and universal physical fear so long sustained by now that we can even bear it. There are no longer problems of the spirit. There is only the question : When will I be blown up? Because of this, the young man or woman writing today has forgotten the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself which alone can make good writing because only that is worth writing about, worth the agony and the sweat. He must learn them again. He must teach himself that the basest of all things is to be afraid; and, teaching himself that, forget it forever, leaving no room in his workshop for anything but the old verities and truths of the heart, the old universal truths lacking which any story is ephemeral and doomed—love and honour and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice. Until he does so, he labours under a curse. He writes not of love but of lust, of defeats in which nobody loses anything of value, of victories without hope and, worst of all, without pity or compassion. His griefs grieve on no universal bones, leaving no scars. He writes not of the heart but of the glands. Until he relearns these things, he will write as though he stood among and watched the end of man. I decline to accept the end of man. It is easy enough to say that man is immortal simply because he will endure : that when the last dingdong of doom has clanged and faded from the last worthless rock hanging tideless in the last red and dying evening, that even then there will still be one more sound : that of his puny inexhaustible voice, still talking. I refuse to accept this. I believe man will not merely endure : he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice.
#20Locating the Answer Line
- Set · 2 questionsDirections: In this section you have few 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 opinion of the author only. Passage For many years, ship captains navigating the waters of Antarctica have been intrigued by sightings of emerald icebergs. Scientists have now explained their mystery. There icebergs are turned upside down. Icebergs are blocks of ice that have broken off huge slabs of frozen snow called ice shelves. Their green appearance results from sea water that has frozen at the bottom over hundreds of years. The frozen sea water has dissolved organic matter which gives it a yellow tone and the fresh water ‘ice shelf’ above has a blue tinge. When the iceberg turns upside down, it appears green through the visual mix of yellow with the blue from below.
#21Definition and Reason Questions
#22Definition and Reason Questions
- Set · 1 questionDirections: In this section you have few 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 opinion of the author only. Passage In its simple form, science has helped man to protect himself from Nature and to overcome natural obstacles to movement. But with the advance of science, a situation has arisen in which Nature need to be protected from man. He has used Nature’s own gifts, not only of metal but even the human brain, to attack Nature. Forests are being destroyed not only to satisfy need but to provide luxuries. The evil effects of deforestation are already making themselves clearly felt in climatic changes and soil erosion. Man has at last begun to learn that he has to protect if he wants Nature to protect him.
#23Definition and Reason Questions
- Set · 1 questionDirections: In this section, you have six short passages. After each passage, you will find some questions based on the passage. First, read a passage and answer the questions based on it. You are required to select your answers based on the contents of the passage and opinion of the author only. Passage – 3 I was lying down in a dark, lonely compartment of the speeding train, trying to sleep. But, quite unusually, sleep eluded me. A vague uneasiness gripped me. It was pitch dark outside. A few points of light flashed by as we sped through a small station and in the dim light I thought I saw a hand gripping the bars of my window. Once again the train was swallowed up by the impenetrable darkness. My heart pounded. My mouth was parched. I could not get up. I do not know how long I remained thus before the train began to slow down. The reassuring bright lights of the station we were entering revealed no intruder. I breathed again.
#24Definition and Reason Questions
- Set · 1 questionDirections: In this section, you have six short passages. After each passage, you will find some questions based on the passage. First, read a passage and answer the questions based on it. You are required to select your answers based on the contents of the passage and opinion of the author only. Passage – 5 Urbanization and industrialization have often resulted in whole areas of forests being cleared to gain new land and to obtain timber for the various building projects. Large areas of fields and forests have disappeared to make way for concrete jungles many of which are fitted with huge plants and chimney stacks. Industrial growth has necessitated the increased demand for fuel oil to run the machines and in doing so produces industrial gases and fumes which belch through the chimney and pollute the atmosphere. The most evident elements in the contamination of the atmosphere are dust, sulphur dioxide, carbon monoxide and nitrous oxide.
#25Definition and Reason Questions
- Set · 1 questionDirections: In this section, you have six short passages. After each passage, you will find some questions based on the passage. First, read a passage and answer the questions based on it. You are required to select your answers based on the contents of the passage and opinion of the author only. Passage – 6 I must say a word about the Eiffel Tower. I do not know what purpose it serves today. But I then heard it greatly disparaged as well as praised. I remember that Tolstoy was the chief among those who disparaged it. He said that the Eiffel Tower was a monument of man’s folly, not of his wisdom. Tobacco, he argued, was the worst of all intoxicants, inasmuch as a man addicted to it was tempted to commit crimes which a drunkard never dared to do; liquor made a man mad, but tobacco clouded his intellect and made him build castles in the air. The Eiffel Tower was one of the creations of a man under such influence. There is no art about the Eiffel Tower. In no way can it be said to have contributed to the real beauty of the Exhibition. Men flocked to see it and ascended it as it was a novelty and of unique dimensions. It was the toy of the Exhibition. So long as we are children we are attracted by toys, and the Tower was a good demonstration of the fact that we are children attracted by trinkets. That may be claimed to be the purpose served by the Eiffel Tower.
#26Definition and Reason Questions
- Set · 1 questionDirections: In this section you have few 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 answer based on the contents of the passage and opinion of the author only. Passage 2 Mr. Rowland Hill, when a young man, was walking through the Lake district, when he one day saw the postman deliver a letter to a woman at a cottage door. The woman turned it over and examined it, and then returned it, saying she could not pay the postage, which was a shilling. Hearing that the letter was from her brother, Mr. Hill paid the postage, in spite of the manifest unwillingness of the woman. As soon as the postman was out of sight, she showed Mr. Hill how his money had been wasted, as far as she was concerned. The sheet was blank. There was an agreement between her brother and herself that as long as all went well with him, he should send a blank sheet in this way once a quarter, and she thus had tidings of him without expense of postage.
#27Definition and Reason Questions
- Set · 1 questionDirections: In this section you have few 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 opinion of the author only. Passage Over-population is the most pressing of India’s numerous and multi-faceted problems. In fact it has caused equally complex problems such as poverty, under-nourishment, unemployment and excessive fragmentation of land. Indisputably, this country has been facing a population explosion of crisis dimensions. It has largely diluted the fruits of the remarkable economic progress that the nation has made during the last four decades or so. The entire battle against poverty is thwarted by the rapid increase in the population. The tragedy is that while over-population accentuates poverty, the country’s stark poverty itself is in many areas a major cause of over-population.
#28Definition and Reason Questions
- Set · 1 questionDirections: In this section you have few 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 opinion of the author only. Passage I have always opposed the idea of dividing the world into the Orient and the Occident. It is, however, the tremendous industrial growth that has made the West what it is. I think the difference, say, between India and Europe in the 12th or 13th century would not have been very great. Differences have been intensified by this process of industrialization which has promoted material well-being tremendously and which is destroying the life of the mind, which is in a process of deterioration, chiefly because the environment that has been created by it does not give time or opportunity to individuals to think. If the life of the mind is not encouraged, then inevitably civilization collapses.
#29Definition and Reason Questions
- Set · 1 questionDirections: In this section, you have few 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 opinion of the author only. Passage—I Mankind’s experience of various evolutionary changes from primitive times to the present day has been extensive and varied. However, man’s problems were never before as complicated as they seem to be today. Man’s economic activity centres primarily around production. Labour is said to be the primary factor of production; its role, therefore, has been given a lot of importance. It should be useful to have an overall view of the economic history of man—from the nomadic times to the modern factory system—and study its relevance to the various labour problems of today. Initially, man passed through ‘the hunting and fishing stage’. During this period, his basic needs were adequately met by Nature. Wild animals, birds and fruits satisfied his hunger, and his thirst was quenched by the waters of springs and rivers. Caves gave him shelter and barks of trees were used as clothing. During this stage of man’s progress, labour problems did not exist because of the absence of any economic, political and social systems. Then came ‘the pastoral stage’, which was marked by a certain amount of economic activity. The nomadic and migratory nature of man persisted, and, together with his goats and cattle, he moved on to fresh pastures and meadows. Some conflicts would sometimes take place among herd-owners, for, during this period, the institution of nominal private property ownership was not known. This stage paves the way for ‘the agricultural stage’, during which the class system began to develop. There was a small artisan class mostly self-employed; and there were also landed proprietors or Zamindars as well as slaves. Thus, arose the feudal system. During the fourth stage of these developments, ‘the handicrafts stage’, a number of social and economic changes took place which marked the beginning of the labour problem in the world. The self-sufficient economy of the village underwent a drastic change. The community of traders and merchants emerged.
#30Definition and Reason Questions
- Set · 1 questionDirections: In this section, you have few 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 opinion of the author only. Passage—I Mankind’s experience of various evolutionary changes from primitive times to the present day has been extensive and varied. However, man’s problems were never before as complicated as they seem to be today. Man’s economic activity centres primarily around production. Labour is said to be the primary factor of production; its role, therefore, has been given a lot of importance. It should be useful to have an overall view of the economic history of man—from the nomadic times to the modern factory system—and study its relevance to the various labour problems of today. Initially, man passed through ‘the hunting and fishing stage’. During this period, his basic needs were adequately met by Nature. Wild animals, birds and fruits satisfied his hunger, and his thirst was quenched by the waters of springs and rivers. Caves gave him shelter and barks of trees were used as clothing. During this stage of man’s progress, labour problems did not exist because of the absence of any economic, political and social systems. Then came ‘the pastoral stage’, which was marked by a certain amount of economic activity. The nomadic and migratory nature of man persisted, and, together with his goats and cattle, he moved on to fresh pastures and meadows. Some conflicts would sometimes take place among herd-owners, for, during this period, the institution of nominal private property ownership was not known. This stage paves the way for ‘the agricultural stage’, during which the class system began to develop. There was a small artisan class mostly self-employed; and there were also landed proprietors or Zamindars as well as slaves. Thus, arose the feudal system. During the fourth stage of these developments, ‘the handicrafts stage’, a number of social and economic changes took place which marked the beginning of the labour problem in the world. The self-sufficient economy of the village underwent a drastic change. The community of traders and merchants emerged. (Item 108 is based on Passage—I; items 109-114 are based on Passage—II.) Passage—II Ever since independence, land reforms have been a major instrument of State policy to promote both equity and agricultural investment. Unfortunately, progress on land reforms has been slow, reflecting the resilience of structures of power that gave rise to the problem in the first place. The main instrument for realizing more equitable distribution of land is the land ceiling laws. These laws were enacted by several States during the late 1950s and 1960s, and the early 1970s saw more stringent amendments in the laws to plug loopholes in the earlier laws. But the record of implementation has not been satisfactory. Around 3 million hectares of land has been declared surplus so far, which is hardly 2 percent of net sown area in India. About 30 percent of this land has not yet been distributed as it is caught up in the litigations. Besides, a number of Benami and clandestine transactions have resulted in illegal possession of significant amounts of land above ceiling limits. There are widespread reports of allotment of inferior, unproductive, barren and wasteland to landless household, many of whom have been forced to sell it off, in the absence of resources to make it productive. In many instances, lands allotted to the rural poor under the ceiling laws are not in their possession. In some cases, Pattas were issued to the beneficiaries, but possession of land shown in the Pattas was not given, or corresponding changes were not made in the records of right. The balance of power in rural India is so heavily weighed against the landless and the poor that implementing land ceiling laws is difficult. It is clear that without massive mobilization of the rural poor and depending on democratic governance in rural India, very little can be achieved in this direction. Although half of India’s population continues to depend on agriculture as its primary source of livelihood, 83 percent of farmers operate holdings of less than 2 hectares in size, and the average holding size is only 1·23 hectares. This is often in fragments and unirrigated. There are also those who are entirely landless, although agriculture is their main source of livelihood. They have inadequate financial resources to purchase and often depend on leasing in small plots, on insecure terms, for short periods, sometimes only for one season. Hence, many face insecurity of tenure and the growing threat of land alienation and pressure from urbanization, industrialization and powerful interest.
#31Definition and Reason Questions
- Set · 1 questionDirections: In this section you have few 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 opinion of the author only. Passage – I From 1600 to 1757 the East India Company’s role in India was that of a trading corporation which brought goods or precious metals into India and exchanged them for Indian goods like textiles and spices, which it sold abroad. Its profits came primarily from the sale of Indian goods abroad. Naturally, it tried constantly to open new markets for Indian goods in Britain and other countries. Thereby, it increased the export of Indian manufacturers, and thus encouraged their production. This is the reason why Indian rulers tolerated and even encouraged the establishment of the Company’s factories in India. But, from the very beginning, the British manufacturers were jealous of the popularity that India textiles enjoyed in Britain. All of a sudden, dress fashions changed and light cotton textiles began to replace the coarse woolens of the English. Before, the author of the famous novel, Robinson Crusoe, complained that Indian cloth had “crept into our houses, our closets and bed chambers; curtains, cushions, chairs, and at last beds themselves were nothing but calicos or India stuffs”. The British manufacturers put pressure on their government to restrict and prohibit the sale of Indian goods in England. By 1720, laws had been passed forbidding the wear or use of printed or dyed cotton cloth. In 1760 a lady had to pay a fine of 200 for possessing an imported handkerchief ! Moreover, heavy duties were imposed on the import of plain cloth. Other European countries, except Holland, also either prohibited the import of Indian cloth or imposed heavy import duties. In spite of these laws, however, Indian silk and cotton textiles still held their own in foreign markets, until the middle of the eighteenth century when the English textile industry began to develop on the basis of new and advanced technology.
#32Definition and Reason Questions
- Set · 1 questionDirections: In this section you have few 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 opinion of the author only. Passage – II Zimbabwe’s prolonged political crisis reached the boiling point earlier this month when President Robert Mugabe dismissed the Vice-President, Emmerson Mnangagwa. A battle to succeed the 93-year-old liberation hero-turned President had already been brewing within the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (Zanu-PF), with the old guard backing Mr. Mnangagwa, himself a freedom fighter, and ‘Generation 40’, a grouping of younger leaders supporting Mr. Mugabe’s 52-year-old wife, Grace. Ms. Mugabe, known for her extravagant lifestyle and interfering ways, has been vocal in recent months about her political ambitions. Mr. Mugabe was seen to have endorsed her when on November 6 he dismissed Mr. Mnangagwa. But Mr. Mugabe, who has ruled Zimbabwe since its independence in 1980, erred on two counts : he underestimated the deep connections Mr. Mnangagwa has within the establishment and overestimated his own power in a system he has helped shape. In the good old days, Mr. Mugabe was able to rule with an iron grip. But those days are gone. Age and health problems have weakened his hold on power, while there is a groundswell of anger among the public over economic mismanagement. So when he turned against a man long seen by the establishment as his successor, Mr. Mugabe left little doubt that he was acting from a position of political weakness. This gave the security forces the confidence to turn against him and make it clear they didn’t want a Mugabe dynasty. The military doesn’t want to call its action a coup d’etat, for obvious reasons. A coup would attract international condemnation, even sanctions. But it is certain that the army chief, Gen. Constantino Chiwenga, is in charge. His plan, as it emerges, is to force Mr. Mugabe to resign and install a transitional government, perhaps under Mr. Mnangagwa, until elections are held.
#33Definition and Reason Questions
- Set · 1 questionDirections: In this section you have few 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 opinion of the author only. Passage – III Over-eating is one of the most wonderful practices among those who think that they can afford it. In fact, authorities say that nearly all who can get as much as they desire, over-eat to their disadvantage. This class of people could save a great more food than they can save by missing one meal per week and at the same time they could improve their health. A heavy meal at night, the so-called “dinner”, is the fashion with many and often is taken shortly before retiring. It is unnecessary and could be forgone, not only once a week but daily without loss of strength. From three to five hours are needed to digest food. While sleeping, this food not being required to give energy for work, is in many cases converted into excess fat, giving rise to over-weight. The evening meal should be light, taken three or four hours before retiring. This prevents over-eating, conserves energy and reduces the cost of food.
#34Definition and Reason Questions
- Set · 2 questionsDirections: answer the items based on the two passages Passage – I Post colonial cultural analysis has been concerned with the elaboration of theoretical structures that contest the previous dominant western ways of seeing things. A simple analogy would be with feminism, which has involved a comparable kind of project : there was a time when any book you might read, any speech you might hear, any film that you saw, was always told from the point of view of male. The woman was there, but she was always an object, never a subject. From what you would read, or the films you would see, the woman was always the one who was looked at. She was never the observing eye. For centuries it was assumed that women were less intelligent than men and that they did not merit the same degree of education. They were not allowed a vote in the political system. By the same token, any kind of knowledge developed by women was regarded as non-serious, trivial, gossip or alternatively as knowledge that had been discredited by science, such as superstition or traditional practices of childbirth or healing. All these attitudes were part of a larger system in which women were dominated, exploited, and physically abused by men. Slowly, but increasingly, from the end of 18th century, feminists began to contest this situation. The more they contested it, the more it became increasingly obvious that these attitudes extended into the whole of the culture; social relations, politics, law, medicine, the arts, popular and academic knowledge. Passage – II How wonderful is the living world ! The wide range of the living types is amazing. The extraordinary habitats in which we find living organisms, be it cold mountains, deciduous forests, oceans, fresh water lakes, deserts or hot springs, leave us speechless. The beauty of a galloping horse, or a migrating bird, the valley of flowers or the attacking shark evokes awe and a deep sense of wonder. The ecological conflict and cooperation among members of a population and among populations of a community or even a molecular traffic inside a cell make us deeply reflect on – what indeed is life ? This question has two implicit questions within it. The first is a technical one and seeks answer to what living is as opposed to the non-living, and the second is the philosophical one, and seeks answer to what the purpose of life is. What is living ? When we try to define ‘living’, we conventionally look for distinctive characteristics exhibited by living organisms. Growth, reproduction, ability to sense environment and mount a suitable response come to our mind immediately as unique features of living organisms. One can add a few more features like metabolism, ability to self-replicate, self-organize, interact and emergence to this list.
#35Definition and Reason Questions
#36Definition and Reason Questions
- Set · 2 questionsDirections: In this section you have a few 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 opinion of the author only. Passage – I Not all agricultural societies become civilizations, but no civilization can become one without passing through the stage of agriculture. This is because at some stage in the development of agriculture, as productivity improves, not all people would need to be engaged in producing or procuring food. A significant number of people could be freed up to pursue other activities such as building walls or monuments for new cities; making new tools, weapons and jewellery; organizing long-distance trade; creating new artistic masterpieces; coming up with new inventions; keeping accounts; and perhaps constructing new public infrastructure such as irrigation canals that further improve the productivity of agriculture, thus realizing even more people to do new things. This can happen, of course, only if a society that has transitioned to high-productivity agriculture has also, at some stage in its evolution, found a way to channel the bonanza of free time into other work fruitfully. In the ancient world, this often involved creating new ideologies and new hierarchies or power structures to coerce or otherwise convince large groups of people to devote their time to the new tasks for very little reward. Passage – II When we pick up a newspaper, a book, or an article, we come to our task with certain preconceptions and predispositions. We expect to find a specific piece of information or be presented with an argument or an analysis of something, say, the likelihood of recession in the next six months or the reasons why children can’t read. We probably know a little about the book or article we are reading even before we start. There was, after all, some reason why we chose to read one piece of writing rather than another. Our expectations and predispositions may, however, blind us to what the article and its author is actually saying. If, for example, we are used to disagreeing with the author, we may see only what we expect to see and not what is actually there. Day after day in our routine pattern of life we expose ourselves to the same newspaper, the same magazine, even books by authors with the same perspectives. In order to reflect on our reading habits and improve our skills we need to break out of this routine, step back and look at what we are doing when we read.
#37Definition and Reason Questions
#38Definition and Reason Questions
- Set · 1 questionDirections: In this section you have two short passages. After each passage, you will find some items based on the passage. Read the passages and answer the items based on them. You are required to select your answers based on the content of the passage and opinion of the author only. Passage – I Conventional education makes independent thinking extremely difficult. Conformity leads to mediocrity. To be different from the group or to resist environment is not easy and is often risky as long as we worship success. The urge to be successful, which is the pursuit of reward whether in the materials or in the so-called spiritual sphere, the search for inward or outward security, the desire for comfort – this whole process smothers discontent, put an end to spontaneity and breed fear; and fear blocks the intelligent understanding of life. With increasing age, dullness of mind and heart sets in. In seeking comfort, we generally find a quiet corner in life where there is a minimum of conflict, and then we are afraid to step out of that seclusion. This fear of life, this fear of struggle and of a new experience, kills in us the spirit of adventure; our whole upbringing and education have made us afraid to be different from our neighbour, afraid to think contrary to the established pattern of society, falsely respectful of authority and tradition. Fortunately, there are a few who are in earnest, who are willing to examine our human problems without the prejudice of the right or of the left; but in the vast majority of us, there is no real spirit of discontent, or revolt. When we yield uncomprehendingly to environment, any spirit of revolt that may have had died down, and our responsibilities soon put an end to it.
#39Definition and Reason Questions
- Set · 1 questionDirections: In this section you have three short passages. After each passage, you will find some items based on the passage. Read the passage carefully and answer the items based on it. Passage – II Among the major objectives of the Glasgow Summit was to frame the foundation of an international carbon trading system listed in the Paris Agreement to achieve the target of net zero emissions by 2050. It would enable nations to transfer credits to each other and offset their emission targets. Critics of the trading system, and there are many, say it would give leeway to developed countries and companies that are highly polluting to stave off making deeper cuts in their low emissions by buying credits from poorer countries at exploitative prices. There are also major differences over whether the new trading system will recognize historical emissions permitted under earlier protocols. Others want rules that permit double credits for the nation funding a particular carbon reducing project, such as the regeneration of forests to act as a carbon sink, and for the country implementing it. A third issue is whether a share of the revenue from such a bilateral trading agreement will go toward the UN's Adaptation Fund. There have also been concerns about the integrity of the accounting system for such credits.
#40Definition and Reason Questions
- Set · 1 questionDirections: In this section you have three short passages. After each passage, you will find some items based on the passage. Read the passage carefully and answer the items based on it. Passage – III The RBI expects inflation at 6·7 percent in 2022 – 23. Recent government data also suggests that inflation has become more broad-based. Excluding the volatile components such as food and fuel, core retail inflation was around 7 percent in April with almost all subgroups in the index witnessing elevated inflation. And considering the inflation in the pipeline — the wholesale price index continues to be in double digits — price pressures are unlikely to dissipate in the immediate term. According to analysts, while manufacturing firms have been passing on the rise in input costs, it remains incomplete in the case of the services sector. However, as demand firms up, the pass through is likely to gather traction. This combination of factors suggests that inflation may not fall dramatically as and when commodity prices fall — prices may prove to be a tad sticky on the downside. The RBI's revised quarterly forecasts for inflation also seem to suggest so — inflation has now been projected at 7·5 percent in the first quarter, and 7·4 percent in the second quarter, trending downwards thereafter to 6·2 percent in the third quarter, and 5·8 percent in the fourth quarter. Implicit in these quarterly inflation forecasts is also the acknowledgment that inflation will likely exceed the upper threshold of the central bank's inflation targeting framework for three consecutive quarters. Considering the risks that the 'unanchoring' of inflation and inflation expectations pose to macroeconomic stability, and the country's growth prospects, the central bank must look beyond its quotidian responsibilities and continue to focus on maintaining price stability, attaching primacy to inflation management.
#41Definition and Reason Questions
- Set · 2 questionsDirections: 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 opinion of the author only. Passage – I All organisms such as plants, animals, microorganisms and human beings as well as the physical surroundings interact with each other and maintain a balance in nature. All the interacting organisms in an area together with the non-living constituents of the environment form an ecosystem. Thus, an ecosystem consists of biotic components comprising living organisms and abiotic components comprising physical factors like temperature, rainfall, wind, soil and minerals. For example, if you visit a garden you will find different plants, such as grasses, trees; flower-bearing plants like rose, jasmine, sunflower; and animals like frogs, insects and birds. All these living organisms interact with each other and their growth, reproduction and other activities are affected by the abiotic components of the ecosystem. So a garden is an ecosystem. Other types of ecosystems are forests, ponds and lakes. These are natural ecosystems while gardens and crop-fields are human-made ecosystems.
#42Definition and Reason Questions
#43Definition and Reason Questions
- Set · 1 questionDirections: answer from the passage Passage – I What is truth ? said jesting Pilate, and would not stay for an answer. Certainly there be, that delight in giddiness, and count it a bondage to fix a belief; affecting free-will in thinking, as well as in acting. And though the sects of philosophers of that kind be gone, yet there remain certain discoursing wits, which are of the same veins, though there be not so much blood in them, as was in those of the ancients. But it is not only the difficulty and labour, which men take in finding out of truth, nor again, that when it is found, it imposeth upon man’s thoughts, that doth bring lies in favour; but a natural though corrupt love of the lie itself. One of the later school of the Grecians, examineth matter, and is at a stand to think what should be in it, that men should love lies; where neither they make for pleasure as with poets, nor for advantage, as with the merchants; but for the lie’s sake. But I cannot tell; this same truth, is a naked, and open day-light, that doth not show the masks, and mummeries, and triumphs, of the world, half so stately and daintily as candle-lights. Truth may perhaps come to the price of a pearl, that showeth best by day; but it will not rise to the price of a diamond, or carbuncle, that showeth best in varied lights. A mixture of a lie doth ever add pleasure. Doth any man doubt, that if there were taken out of men’s minds, vain opinions, flattering hopes, false valuations, imaginations as one would, and the like, but it would leave the minds, of a number of men, poor shrunken things, full of melancholy and indisposition, and unpleasing to themselves ?
#44Definition and Reason Questions
- Set · 1 questionDirections: 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.
#45Definition and Reason Questions
- Set · 1 questionDirections: 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.
#46Definition and Reason Questions
- Set · 1 questionDirections: In this section, you have two short passages. After each passage, you will find some items based on the passage. Read the passage carefully 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 It must not be imagined that a walking tour, as some would have us fancy, is merely a better or worse way of seeing the country. There are many ways of seeing landscape quite as good; and none more vivid, in spite of canting dilettantes, than from a railway train. But landscape on a walking tour is quite an accessory. He who is indeed of the brotherhood does not voyage in quest of the picturesque, but of certain jolly humours — of the hope and spirit with which the march begins at morning, and the peace and spiritual repletion of the evening's rest. He cannot tell whether he puts his knapsack on, or takes it off, with more delight. The excitement of the departure puts him in key for that of the arrival. Whatever he does is not only a reward in itself, but will be further rewarded in the sequel; and so pleasure leads on to pleasure in an endless chain. It is this that so few can understand; they will either be always lounging or always at five miles an hour; they do not play off the one against the other, prepare all day for the evening, and all evening for the next day. Now, to be properly enjoyed, a walking tour should be gone upon alone. If you go in a company, or even in pairs, it is no longer a walking tour in anything but name; it is something else and more in the nature of a picnic. A walking tour should be gone upon alone, because freedom is of the essence; because you should be able to stop and go on, and follow this way or that, as the freak takes you; and because you must have your own pace, and neither trot alongside a champion walker, nor mince in time with a girl. And then you must be open to all impressions and let your thoughts take colour from what you see. You should be as a pipe for any wind to play upon. "I cannot see the wit," says Hazlitt, "of walking and talking at the same time. When I am in the country I wish to vegetate like the country" — which is the gist of all that can be said upon the matter. There should be no cackle of voices at your elbow, to jar on the meditative silence of the morning. And so long as a man is reasoning he cannot surrender himself to that fine intoxication that comes of much motion in the open air, that begins in a sort of dazzle and sluggishness of the brain, and ends in a peace that passes comprehension. Passage – II Historical analysis combines several levels of thinking and study, posing a question about the past, setting up the problem in a form intended to facilitate its solution, solving the problem, and verifying the solution or interpretation. Academic history relies on formal analysis, based on rational and systematic apprehension of relevant evidence. Yet such formal analysis can be seen as a subset of the broader category of interpretation, including responses to evidence that are impressionistic and informal rather than formal and logically structured. Indeed, the many genres of academic and popular history run the full gamut from logically systematic to impressionistic. Historians come from a widely varying range of philosophical traditions, and the varying philosophies lead to quite different ways of posing questions and answers. The distinctions among philosophical principles sketched here help to show how it is that different analytical priorities arise on the main topics proposed for analysis; they also show how historians can rely on similar data yet come to different or conflicting conclusions. Nineteenth century philosophical outlooks remain central to the world-historical analysis: most notably the dialectics of G.W.F. Hegel and the materialism of Karl Marx. Another great nineteenth-century current of thought was positivism, elaborated by Auguste Comte and focusing on study through breaking large problems into small ones, seeking deterministic relationship within the smaller problems. Philosophies of structuralism and post modernism have developed in more recent times, rejecting the positivist separation of problems into discrete sub-problems and emphasizing interaction among aspects of a problem.
#47Definition and Reason Questions
- Set · 1 questionDirections: answer items based on two short passages Passage—I Our tragedy today is a general and universal physical fear so long sustained by now that we can even bear it. There are no longer problems of the spirit. There is only the question : When will I be blown up? Because of this, the young man or woman writing today has forgotten the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself which alone can make good writing because only that is worth writing about, worth the agony and the sweat. He must learn them again. He must teach himself that the basest of all things is to be afraid; and, teaching himself that, forget it forever, leaving no room in his workshop for anything but the old verities and truths of the heart, the old universal truths lacking which any story is ephemeral and doomed—love and honour and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice. Until he does so, he labours under a curse. He writes not of love but of lust, of defeats in which nobody loses anything of value, of victories without hope and, worst of all, without pity or compassion. His griefs grieve on no universal bones, leaving no scars. He writes not of the heart but of the glands. Until he relearns these things, he will write as though he stood among and watched the end of man. I decline to accept the end of man. It is easy enough to say that man is immortal simply because he will endure : that when the last dingdong of doom has clanged and faded from the last worthless rock hanging tideless in the last red and dying evening, that even then there will still be one more sound : that of his puny inexhaustible voice, still talking. I refuse to accept this. I believe man will not merely endure : he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice.
#48Definition and Reason Questions
- Set · 1 questionDirections: answer items based on two short passages Passage—II People do not understand the nature or ramifications of most educational changes. They become involved in change voluntarily or involuntarily and in either case experience ambivalence about its meanings, form, and consequences. I have implied that there are a number of things at stake—changes in goals, skills, philosophy or beliefs, behaviour, etc. Subjectively these different aspects are experienced in a diffuse, incoherent manner. Change often is not conceived of as being multidimensional. Objectively, it is possible to clarify the meaning of an educational change by identifying and describing its separate dimensions. Ignorance of these dimensions explains a number of interesting phenomena in the field of educational changes: for example, why some people accept an innovation they do not understand; why some aspects of a change are implemented and others not; why strategies for change neglect certain essential components. The concept of objective reality is tricky. Reality is always defined by individuals and groups. But individuals and groups interact to produce social phenomena (constitutions, laws, policies, educational change programmes), which exist outside any given individual. There is also the danger that the objective reality is only the reflection of the producers of change and thus simply a glorified version of their subjective conceptions. We can reduce this problem by following the practice of posing double questions: “What is the existing conception of reality on a given issue?” Followed quickly by “says who?”
#49Definition and Reason Questions
- Set · 1 questionDirections: Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions that follow the passage. Your answers to these questions should be based on the passage only. Passage As the new century begins, it is becoming evident to urban dwellers, whether in industrial or developing countries, that there is an immanent conflict between the automobile and the city. Urban air pollution, often from automobiles, claims millions of lives. Congestion also takes a direct economic toll in rising costs in time and the use of petrol. Another cost of cities that are devoted to cars is a psychological one, a deprivation of contact with the natural world — an "asphalt complex". There is a growing body of evidence that there is an innate human need for contact with nature. Both ecologists and psychologists have been aware of this for some time. Ecologists, led by Harvard University biologist E.O. Wilson, have formulated the "biophilia hypothesis", which argues that those who are deprived of contact with nature suffer psychologically and that this deprivation leads to a measurable decline in well-being. Meanwhile psychologists have coined their own term — ecopsychology — in which they make the same argument. Theodore Roszak, a leader in this field, cites a study that documents humans' dependence on nature by looking at the rate of recovery of patients in a hospital in Pennsylvania. Those whose rooms overlooked gardens with grass, trees, flowers, and birds recovered from illnesses more quickly than those who were in rooms overlooking the parking lot.
#50Definition and Reason Questions
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