English Practice Questions For IBPS Clerk Mains 2017

Q1. The Ministry of Home Affairs is set to launch a web portal where people who have faced online abuse and victims of cybercrimes like financial frauds can register complaints on a real-time basis. The Centre also plans to give access rights to banks on the portal to address __________________ .

(I)cases of fraudulent transactions online.
(II)If money been fraudulent withdrawn through someone’s credit or debit card, the person can log into the portal and register a complaint
(III)The Supreme Court gave the order after NGO Prajwala moved a plea highlighting the availability of child porn and rape videos online.

Select the most appropriate option
(a)Only III
(b)Only I
(c)Only II
(d)Both (II),(I)
(e)Both (I),(III)


Q2. _______________  and private entities. India does not have a legal definition of what constitutes personal information and lacks a robust and comprehensive data protection law. We need to have both quickly in place if the Supreme Court’s judgment according to privacy the status of a fundamental right is to have any meaning.

(I)In this digital age, a growing pool of personal information that can be easily shared has become available to government
(II)So it would have been a travesty of justice if The Tribune and the reporter who broke the story were treated as accused in the case where the charges include cheating under impersonation.
(III)The investigation was written up in the best journalistic tradition — it focussed on how the data were being mined for money,

Select the most appropriate option
(a)Only III
(b)Only II
(c)Only I
(d)Both (II),(I)
(e)Both (I),(III)

Q3.The manufacturing and the purchase of warships and submarines is just one step in a complex process. ___________  important as the first stage as such equipment has to always be in a fit and ready condition for deployment at short notice. One can only call it sheer carelessness in being unable to look after such an important submarine.
 (I)How can we forget that the neighbourhood around India is increasingly becoming threatening?
(II)Simple stage is over now and purchase of warships is left and
(III)Proper maintenance by technically trained staff is as, if not more,

Select the most appropriate option
(a)Only III
(b)Only I
(c)Only II
(d)Both (II),(I)
(e)Both (I),(III)

Q4.Latest figures show that the amount of people seeking help for their mental health is rising, while funding for the sector continues to be cut. The most common treatments are talking therapies and psychiatric medication. __________________ , while medication can have many unpleasant side effects.Psychological problems tend to stem from a chemical imbalance in the brain. Neurochemicals such as serotonin and dopamine regulate the body and transmit signals between nerve cells. The former is responsible for managing emotions and overall physical health, while the latter regulates eating habits and contributes to learning. If a person’s neurotransmitters are hindered in any way, however, problems can arise.
(I) “The symptoms of mental ‘diseases’ show signs of nervous disorders, not actual illnesses,” he says.
(II) Stress at work, however, eventually led to him having daily panic attacks, sometimes even two a day.
(III)However, both options take a considerable amount of time before they become effective

Select the most appropriate option
(a)Only III
(b)Only I
(c)Only II
(d)Both (II),(I)
(e)Both (I),(III)

Q5.  Knowingly inflicting severe harm on human beings for the purpose of research is one of the most serious human rights abuses possible. Cases of exploitation in research have been used to illustrate unacceptable practices since the mid-20th century. Medical students all over the world have learned how not to conduct research by discussing the horrendous Nazi experiments and the more recent US Tuskegee trials.
In both cases, highly vulnerable populations were exploited: German medical doctors undertook their experiments on concentration camp detainees, while _______________________ .
(I) the indigenous and important platform within India’s nuclear triad
(II)US medical doctors exploited Black US citizens by studying the natural progression of syphilis without providing available cures.
(III) they would enable the portal for victims of online abuse, cyber frauds and other financial frauds.

Select the most appropriate option
(a)Only III
(b)Only I
(c)Only II
(d)Both (II),(I)
(e)Both (I),(III)

Q6. The insolvency Ordinance will not be an optimal solution if its implementation doesn’t recognize three crucial factors. First, all efforts must be made to allow well-intentioned promoters to bid for their companies that are in the insolvency row. Keeping them out through a maze of rules doesn’t conform to best global practices. It will likely result in lower bids, as banks fear, and it makes policy seem more moralising than logical. So, it’s important that there’s complete clarity that if a promoter is willing to pay 100% of the final sale price in cash upfront, he should be allowed to bid. ____________________________
(I) Also, since the bad loan problem has been building up over a few years, allowing only businesses with less than year-old NPA accounts seems unrealistic.
(II) To be sure, conditions like strict personal guarantees, hypothecation of tangible assets that are, say, twice the value of the loan can be incorporated.
(III) and related, the rule that keeps out those whose loan accounts have been classified as non-performing assets (NPA) for more than a year, needs to be relaxed.

Select the most appropriate option
(a)Only I
(b)Both I and II
(c)Only II
(d)Only III
(e)All I, II and III

Q7. The World Inequality Report 2018 released by the World Inequality Lab last week says that income inequality in India has increased since economic liberalisation. This, it notes, is in contrast to the earlier decades when inequality dropped under socialist policies. As expected, the finding has been used by many to argue that the rich should be taxed more to help the poor. _________________
(I) More people will be attracted towards professions and businesses that offer higher returns, which in turn will drive up the incomes of the new entrants while driving down the returns of incumbents.
(II) They enjoy higher incomes from better jobs and investments, which allows them to outbid the poor to purchase various goods.
 (III) The logic is that the rich get richer at the expense of the poor, so taxes that redistribute wealth are only a rational response to inequality.

Select the most appropriate option
(a)Only I
(b)Both I and II
(c)Only II
(d)Only III
(e)All I, II and III

Q8. For nations to progress in the 21st century and become part of the fourth industrial revolution, they need to link their development policies to the central theme of establishing a strong knowledge-based economy. This requires diversion of national resources to education, science, technology and innovation (ESTI) ___________________________.
(I) It is also vitally important that appropriate funding should be made available in our national development plans
(II) so that an ecosystem is created where new ideas can be quickly translated into commercial products and processes.
(III) In order to develop a knowledge economy, a core element is that of institutional reforms.

Select the most appropriate option
(a)Only I
(b)Both I and II
(c)Only II
(d)Only III
(e)All I, II and III

Q9. Facebook has more active monthly users than China has people. It also has one of the most advanced facial recognition technologies, first deployed in 2010, and honed consistently since then. Now, the social media behemoth is offering its users security, through surveillance. It will notify people if their photographs are uploaded by a third party — even if they haven’t been “tagged” — and gives them the option to remove or report the picture. The new feature will undoubtedly help in preventing fake profiles and allow users greater control over how their image is used online. On the other hand, _____________________________.
(I) But there is a trade-off here, one which has often been made before — between privacy and security.
(II) In the past, however, as with the Patriot Act in the aftermath of 9/11 in the US, it was with the state and government that the social contract was struck.
(III) giving Facebook control over one’s image requires a high degree of faith in a system, whose primary commitment is, like all profit-making enterprises, towards fiduciary accountability rather than ethical concerns over the privacy and security of its users.

Select the most appropriate option
(a)Only I
(b)Both I and II
(c)Only II
(d)Only III
(e)All I, II and III

Q10. The engineering profession in the country is riddled with paradoxes. India produces more engineers than China and the US combined. But in the past seven years, several reports have pointed out that India’s engineering institutes do not provide state-of-art skills. A NASSCOM survey of 2011, for example, pointed out that only 17 per cent of the engineering graduates in the country are employable. ___________________________________________________
(I) This signalled a mismatch between the demands of industry and the technical education system.
(II) That affiliated universities use as a base to prepare their own syllabus.
(III)Its affiliated institutes will have to pull up their socks in order to ensuring the competitiveness of Indian industry.

Select the most appropriate option
(a)Only I
(b)Both I and II
(c)Only II
(d)Only III
(e)All I, II and III

Directions (11-15): Each of the following questions has a paragraph from which a sentence has been deleted. From the given options, choose the sentence that completes the paragraph in the most appropriate way.

Q11. The appeal of the insurgents’ model is partly a result of the growing dissatisfaction with the public company. True, the best public companies are remarkable organizations. They strike a balance between quarterly results (which keep them sharp) and long-term investments (which keep them growing). They produce a stream of talented managers and innovative products. They can mobilize talent and capital. (____________). One reason is that managers tend to put their own interests first. The shareholder-value revolution of the 1980s was supposed to solve this by incentivizing managers to think like owners, but it backfired. Loaded up with stock options, managers acted like hired guns instead, massaging the share price so as to boost their incomes.

A) Basically even after such a long time, the public company continues its dominance in the arena.
B) The rise of big financial institutions has further weakened the link between the people who nominally own companies and the companies themselves.
C) Conflicting interests, short-termism and regulation all impose costs.
D) But, after a century of utter dominance, the public company is showing signs of wear.
E) But the most interesting alternative to public companies is a new breed of high-potential startups.

Q12. Trading with China is doubly beneficial: both for the British economy and by binding China into the Western system of international rules.(________). If they return to China with a better understanding that stability and prosperity—China’s oft-stated goals—do not require omnipresent police, thugs and spies, that is all for the good. So it makes sense to facilitate visas and to help train Chinese judges.

A) China’s intentions towards the rest of the world are hard to fathom.
B) More than 150,000 Chinese are studying in Britain; a similar number come annually as tourists.
C) A lot of Chinese people have migrated to Britain illegally and live there for illegal business expansion
D) With increasing globalization, China has expanded its business to Britain.
E) For Britain, and all Western democracies, the dilemma is over how to deal cordially and profitably with China.

Q13.Mental illness is often stigmatised. (_____________________). It is not as obviously fatal as many physical illnesses. But it still takes a heavy human and economic toll. That is why it is important that politicians make good on their promises—and that ordinary people dig deep, too.

A) Though the brain is extraordinarily complex, further scientific breakthroughs can be expected.
B) Post-traumatic stress disorder was only defined in 1980; understanding of that condition has jumped forward in the past few years, as have the treatments for it.
C) Past investigations into early interventions in psychosis have since repaid themselves many times over.
D) Many illnesses afflict the old disproportionately, but mental illness tends to strike the young, undermining productivity.
E) It lacks an effective lobby to match the groups that represent victims of cancer and heart disease.

Q14. A decade ago a group of alarmed authors sued Google, claiming the service cut into their copyrights. (____________). The plaintiffs appealed to the Second Circuit Court in New York. On October 16th, they were rebuffed again. How can a company get away with digitizing millions of books without the authors’ consent and showing them to the world? In his ruling, Judge Pierre Leval explained that copyright law gives “potential creators” the exclusive right to copy their own work in order to expand everybody’s “access to knowledge”. It is not all about enriching authors. The “ultimate, primary intended beneficiary”, he wrote, “is the public.”

A) After years of legal machinations, a federal district court ruled in favour of the internet giant in 2013.
B) Besides, if the work is put to a “transformative purpose”, it counts as permissible “fair use” under the Copyright Act of 1976.
C) The “purpose of Google’s copying of the original copyrighted books”, the ruling reads, “is to make available significant information about those books, permitting a searcher to identify those that contain a word or term of interest.”
D) Google was issued a notice to remove all the books and to upload them after taking consent from the respective author.
E) Google has teamed up with libraries to scan over 20m titles—many of them out of print—and put them on the web for all to view.

Q15.(___________). After all, most want to make a profit. They work in a well-oiled, thriving criminal industry. Their operations involve partnerships, specializations, and supply chains. These criminal enterprises often share information with each other when it is mutually beneficial, but at other times compete to attack the most profitable targets. Rather than thinking of a clandestine hacker working out of a basement, you will be better served to picture a sophisticated, professional operation working out of an office tower. To strengthen your digital resilience, adopt a competitor’s mindset.

A) Protecting yourself from a breach can be daunting, given how many emails pass through your organization each week. But if you think of cyber criminals as a business, you can keep up with them more effectively.
B) These broad phishing attacks are not targeted. It’s a volume play, as any strategist would recognize, and it preys on our shared human weaknesses.
C) Before you can mitigate your organization’s security risks, it’s important to understand how email gets companies in trouble.
D) Impersonation attacks are even more specialized spear-phishing attacks, ones that occur when attackers pose as an individual you know and trust.
E) To gain this trust, a cyber criminal will mine information so they can credibly assume that person’s identity.