English Practice Questions For IBPS SO Prelims 2017

English Section is a topic that is feared by most of the candidates appearing in the IBPS SO and IBPS Clerk Mains Exam. Though the sheer number of concepts and rules may seem intimidating at first, with discipline and the right approach, it is not difficult to master these concepts and their application to questions. Through such English Quizzes for IBPS Clerk, IBPS SO and other upcoming exams, we will provide you with all types of high-level questions to ace the questions based on new pattern English for IBPS SO and IBPS Clerk Mains.

Directions (1-3): Five statements are given below, labelled a, b, c, d and e. Among these, four statements form a coherent paragraph. From the given options, choose the option that does not fit into the theme of the paragraph.

Q1.
(a) China’s statement that it is “gravely concerned” over the government’s decision to allow the Dalai Lama to visit Arunachal Pradesh’s Tawang monastery in early April, and that it would “seriously damage” bilateral ties, is unwarranted.
(b) The controversy over the Tawang area goes back to the Shimla meet of 1914, when the Chinese representatives just initialed, and didn’t sign, a trilateral agreement with British India and Tibet.
(c) It is also an unacceptable escalation of rhetoric over an issue that India and China have engaged with each other on, including during the visit by Foreign Secretary S. Jaishankar to Beijing.
(d) At the same time, New Delhi must calibrate its moves to avoid misperceptions that it is indulging in political power-play.
(e) Later, in 1959, when the current Dalai Lama fled Tibet, he came into India through Tawang.

 Q2.
(a) After the discovery, the scientists placed the genes into yeast and bacteria, which then developed the similar properties as the tardigrades.
(b) Boil them at temperatures up to 150 degrees, but these tiny, Muppet-like creatures just won’t die.
(c) Tardigrades, also known as moss piglets or water bears are the toughest animals in the world.
(d) They can live just anywhere, from deep oceans to a high mountain.
(e) Freeze them to absolute zero temperature, they will still survive.

Q3.
(a) As a result, there should be little to comment in the normal course when India accepts Pakistan’s invitation to the next round of talks, as it has for the Permanent Indus Commission in Lahore later this month.
(b) Under the treaty, India has full use of the three “eastern” rivers (Beas, Ravi, Sutlej), while Pakistan has control over the three “western” rivers (Indus, Chenab, Jhelum), although India is given rights to use these partially as well for certain purposes.
(c) In September last year, doubts had been raised over India’s commitment after the terrorist attack on an army camp in Uri, killing 19 soldiers.
(d) The commission has experts who look into issues and disputes on the ground over the utilisation of the waters of six rivers of the Indus system.
(e) Even in the fraught and volatile framework of India-Pakistan ties, the Permanent Indus Commission mandated to implement the 1960 Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) has met like clockwork, 112 times in 56 years, annually in each country.

Direction (4-5): Select the phrase/connector (STARTERS) from the given three options which can be used to form a single sentence from the two sentences given below, implying the same meaning as expressed in the statement sentences.

Q4. (1) The outcome of the Dutch parliamentary elections comes at a critical juncture for Europe. 
(2) It is amidst the increasingly distressing tendency to blend populism with nationalism.

(i)Amidst the increasingly…
(ii) As the outcome of…
(iii)Though the outcome…

(a)Only (i) is correct
(b)Only (ii) is correct
(c)Only (iii) is correct
(d)Both (i) and (iii) are correct
(e)All are correct

Q5. (1) Modernisation of the armed forces has been proceeding at a slow pace.
(2) It is due to the inadequacy of funds, rigid procurement procedures, frequent changes in the qualitative requirements, the black-listing of several defence manufacturers and bureaucratic red tape.

(i)Proceeding at a slow…
(ii)Despite the inadequacy…
(iii)Owing to the inadequacy…

(a)Only (i) is correct
(b)Only (iii) is correct
(c)Both (i) and (ii) are correct
(d)Both (ii) and (iii) are correct
(e)None is correct

Directions (6-8): In each of the following questions a short passage is given with one of the lines in the passage missing and represented by a blank. Select the best out of the five answer choices given, to make the passage complete and coherent (coherent means logically complete and sound).

Q6. However, it does not do to put all the blame on our colonial inheritance or its neocolonial cultural ramifications. The main reason why such prejudices predominate in Indian caste circles has to do with internal reasons. ___________________________________ Before the British brought us stories of ‘African’ cannibalism, we had our own stories of cannibalism — associated, from classical texts down to some current Chitra comics, with dark-skinned, non-‘Aryan’-looking creatures. Similarly, the way we have often treated aboriginal women in India — partly because their dress codes and social mores differ from mainstream Hindustani (Hindu, as well as Muslim) ones — is simply shocking.

(a) Because I know from having travelled with black Europeans and spoken to Africans in India, and from overhearing some of my fellow Indians, that we Indians can have more prejudices about Africans than most white Europeans today.
(b) As a nation, we are yet to face up to the racism and sexism that runs through many caste narratives.
(c) There is an argument that the English worked out their initial theories of racism on the Irish before, in tandem with other Europeans, applying them on dark-skinned people, like many Africans.
(d) Of course, many of us who have African, black British, or African-American friends and acquaintances cannot understand this blindness on the part of such politicians.
(e) This is exacerbated by the tendency in many conservative circles, so surprising given our proclaimed spirituality, to consider the material covering a woman’s body to be an indication of her soul and morality!

Q7. India did not support the treaty in 1996 — and still does not — but it had been very supportive during negotiations. The roots of that exuberance can be traced to Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru’s famous initiative in 1954 for a “standstill agreement” on nuclear testing. His intervention came at a time when the U.S. and the Soviet Union were detonating powerful nuclear weapons with increasing frequency. Nehru played an important role in building international momentum for the 1963 Limited Test Ban Treaty, which India joined. This treaty significantly reduced global levels of fallout, but did little to constrain the nuclear arms race. ___________________________________

(a) India is currently unable to derive either the political or the technical benefits from it.
(b) The IMS has also facilitated a rich international exchange of data and expertise and boosted technological advancements pertaining to infrasound and noble gas monitoring.
(c) This could eventually lead to India participating in the international exchange of data from the monitoring stations and would be an important first step to establishing familiarity and trust.
(d) India’s future with the CTBT is still unwritten.
(e)  The CTBT was created as a result.

Q8. Journalists try to explain political dynamics during elections through electoral arithmetic and electoral chemistry. While they rely on a range of statistics for the former, they try to gauge the popular mood of the people through field reporting to discern the latter. However, over the last two decades, opinion polls seem to have replaced conventional journalistic wisdom. __________________________________

(a) Barring exceptions, most polls have got their numbers wrong.
(b) The electoral outcome is an organic manifestation of the people’s will.
(c) I tend to agree with sociologist Herbert Gans: “Polls are not the best representative of the popular will, for people’s answers to pollster questions are not quite the same as their opinions — or, for that matter, public opinion.”
(d) Media houses, especially television channels, began giving primacy to surveys — both pre-poll and post-poll — to capture the political trend.
(e) The problem with journalism, which is akin to the social sciences, is that it wants to mimic the fundamental sciences.

Directions (9-11): In each of the following questions, five options are given and you have to choose the one which has some or any grammatical error in it. In the questions where the fifth option is “all are correct” and all the given four options are correct choose option (e) as your choice.

Q9. (a) The inconvenient truth is that the underlying fundamentals have not changed.
(b) The boy asked his father why he was cutting down the tree.
(c) He has a scheme of his own which he thinks preferable than that of any other person.
(d) I began to tremble when I saw a sharp long knife in my enemy’s hand.
(e) A large number of patients in the country are illiterate and even many literate patients are not well-versed with medical terms.

Q10. (a) Hardly did she went out of her house when the postman came with the telegram.
(b) There were only two soldiers but each soldier was equal to five policemen.
(c) He wanted certain boys to make entry into the Principal’s chamber.
(d) But for your help, no boys would have succeeded in an All India competition like this.
(e) Once, we dwelt by the seaside but now we have settled ourselves in Mumbai.

Q11. (a) This photograph was comparatively good than that which he had kept in his purse.
(b) He has not only built this big theatre but he also built a few bungalows in this city.
(c) He felt happy to learn that his younger brother had got a prestigious job in his bank.
(d) Since they were not aware of the consequences, they might have asked you to transgress this social decorum.
(e) Having reached the station, you may buy your ticket and wait for the train for New Delhi.

Directions (12-13): The sentences given in each of the following questions, when properly sequenced, form a coherent paragraph. Each sentence is labeled with a letter. From among the five choices given below each question, choose the most logical order of sentences that construct a coherent paragraph.

Q12. (A)This would take many days.
(B)The whole monastery was involved.
(C)It is created out of so much of care and wiping it off within few moments is a practice which symbolically represents that one should not be attached to anything.
(D)There was a complex calculation that went in to create this yantra.
(E)In ancient Tibet a festival was celebrated by creating a Yantra, a mystical symbol in a temple.
(F)Everything undergoes a change, so have the attitude of letting go.
(G)After creating the yantra and offering prayers, immediately the yantra would be wiped off.

(a)EBDAGCF
(b)ECDBGAF
(c)EBACDGF
(d)EADCGBF
(e)EDBCEGF

Q13. (A)But when we finally reach that platitude or goal, the same factor that was driving us, motivating us or that which we thought without which we cannot survive, does not hold any significance for us anymore.
(B)That is why we tend to constantly feel miserable about events going on in our lives.
(C)The paradox is we so completely dedicate ourselves with tenacity and determination to reach the space that we are in at the moment.
(D)We are back at base camp, the Crib Spot.
(E)As human beings, we have the tendency to complain about the state of things or about someone – essentially, we just crib a lot.

(a)EDABC
(b)ECDAB
(c)EDBCA
(d)EABDC
(e)EBCAD

Directions (14–15): Which of the words/phrases (a), (b), (c) and (d) given below should replace the words/phrases given in bold in the following sentences to make it meaningful and grammatically correct. If the sentence is correct as it is and ‘No correction is required’, mark (e) as the answer.

Q14. India has rarely witnessed a campaign conformation of the order witnessed in the last two phases of the poll. Mr.Modi spent three days in and around Varanasi alone, endeavoring to both retain the votes that amassed to him in his Lok Sabha constituency in 2014, and throw his voice longer in the election’s home empire.

(a) Onslaught, opting, emanated, demesne
(b) Endeavour, eschewing, implored, territory
(c) exertion, aspiring, beseeched, domain
(d) blitz, seeking, accrued, stretch
(e)No improvement

Q15. A reassuring explanation could be that with rising incomes, women have the opportunity to escape harsh labour in farms and on construction sites, and focus on their families. But a more pessimistic and comprehensible realistic explanation might be that with declining farm sizes, rising mechanisation, and consequently inflating labour demands in agriculture, women are being forced out of the venture.

(a) invigorating, conceivable, aggravating, industries
(b) pragmatic, perhaps,  diminishing, camaraderie
(c)heartening, possibly, dwindling, workforce
(d) rational, plausible, plummeting, profession
(e) No improvement