Directions (1-5): 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 constructs a coherent paragraph.
Q1. (A)The shift in approach in relation to Beijing is quite telling — Mr. Trump had called Beijing a currency manipulator until the other day.
(B)Washington’s recent trade dialogue with Beijing, and its decision not to walk away from the North Atlantic Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) indicate a stunning about-turn of Mr. Trump’s stance on specific bilateral agreements.
(C)However, it should be seen as signalling a welcome caution to eschew conflict after the shrill pre-election rhetoric and the string of executive orders after the inauguration.
(D)Conversely, his administration struck an agreement with the Chinese last week on market access in specific areas, even though there is, according to commentators, no guarantee of a reversal of the trade imbalance.(a)BDAC
(b)BCAD
(c)ABDC
(d)ADBC
(e)BADC
Q2. (A)Its objective is to reduce hunger to zero by 2030.
(B)Released every year by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), Concern Worldwide and Welthungerhilfe, GHI highlights the successes and failures in reduction of hunger and provides insights into the sociological and economic reasons for the blight.
(C)It is designed to calibrate and track hunger on the basis of global, national, and regional parameters.
(D)The Global Hunger Index (GHI) is an extremely important tool for the measurement of hunger in 118 countries.
(E)By bringing forth the multifarious nuances of hunger into public discourse, GHI strives to raise awareness and understanding of regional and national differences.
(a)DAEBC
(b)DBCAE
(c)DABCE
(d)DBCAE
(e)DCBEA
Q3. (A)Cantillon effect explains how changes in the supply of money in an economy can affect the prices of different goods in different proportions.
(B)Cantillon proposed the idea to argue that the differential effect of changes in the money supply on prices leads to booms and busts in the economy.
(C)This is because the real purchasing power of individuals is not affected uniformly by the changes in money supply.
(D)The theory was proposed by Richard Cantillon, an Irish-French economist, as a counter to John Locke’s crude quantity theory of money — which saw prices of all goods being affected proportionately by changes in money supply.
(a)ACDB
(b)ABCD
(c)BDAC
(d)ADBC
(e)ACBD
Q4. (A)Because of its salty taste, we cannot drink it or otherwise make use of it.
(B)This entire process, known as the hydrological cycle, takes place on a global scale.
(C)Nature has gathered this water in the seas and the oceans, at least 3.5 per cent of this seawater contains salt, which acts as a preservative.
(D)But by the workings of the laws of nature, the water in the oceans and seas rises up into the atmosphere as water vapour, being separated in this way from the salt content.
(E)Two elements which are individually gaseous in nature,combine to produce liquid water.
(F)This water vapour then collects together to form clouds, which bring rain.
(G)Rainwater is fresh water that we can put to use for our various daily needs.
(a)CDGBAFE
(b)GEADCFB
(c)ECADFGB
(d)EDCAGFB
(e)GBDFECA
Q5. (A)The election in the United Kingdom is primarily a trick of Theresa May to get a massive mandate to keep the extreme Eurosceptics in her party in check and to be assured of support of her countrymen during her difficult Brexit negotiations with the other 27 members of the European Union.
(B)Last year Europe was shocked by the Brexit vote and the election of Donald Trump in the United States.
(C)The German election is turning out to be the standard contest between the centre-right Christian Democrats and the centre-left Socialists, with the neo-fascist xenophobic AfD (Alternative for Germany) in total disarray.
(D)It is the uncertainty of the Brexit negotiations that is the talking point there.
(E)The forthcoming election in Britain caused barely a ripple in Europe.
(a)ABDEC
(b)CABED
(c)CADEB
(d)ADBEC
(e)ACEDB
Directions (6-10): In each of the following sentence there are three blank spaces. Below each sentence there are five options and each option consists of three words which can be filled up in the blanks in the sentence to make the sentence meaningful and grammatically correct.
Q6. As Prime Minister Narendra Modi travels through Sri Lanka for the UN Vesak Day celebrations, he will speak and hear much about the teachings of the world’s greatest ____________, Gautama Buddha. He is also certain to be mindful of Sri Lanka’s _______________with war, victory, militarism, the challenges of conflict resolution, and getting to peace and______________.
(a) peaceful, ignorance, settlement
(b) antagonistic, undergo, agreement
(c) nonviolent, encounter, estrangement
(d) pacifist, experience, reconciliation
(e) conciliatory, unfamiliarity, harmony
Q7. Most Tamil parents wanted their children to study and become civil servants, and even in the worst of times, _____________many difficulties to ensure that their sons and daughters attended school. ___________Tamil parents sat on dharna outside militant camps where their children had been________________.
(a) undergo, Ecstatic, recruited
(b) underwent, wailing, conscripted
(c) ignored, lamenting, levied
(d) experienced, mourning, discharged
(e) abided by, cheering, allocated
Q8. Rivers, it seems, have gone out of the lives of large numbers of people in India, in cities surely. They do become part of public_________________, but only as items of disputes between riparian states, or as beneficiaries — or victims — of large projects or when they go into _______________and cause havoc, sometimes even when they run dry. But the river as a part of people’s day-to-day experiences is________________ a matter of public conversation.
(a) ignorance, deluge, hardly
(b) speech, shortage, seldom
(c) discourse, spate, rarely
(d) sermon, paucity, scracely
(e) talk, inundation, frequently
Q9. The Ganga is one such sorry ____________ of garbage. Over the three decades, much money has gone into cleaning this cesspool: More than Rs 1,800 crore under the Ganga Action Plan in its various avatars. The current government ________________ to spend more than 10 times this amount: Rs 20,000 crore over five years on the Namami Gange Project. But the project that took off last year is ________________on its predecessor in very few respects.
(a) holder, aspires, weakening
(b) receptacle, intends, improvement
(c) container, expects, deterioration
(d) chest, ignore, progress
(e) repository, neglect, enhancement
Q10. The policy to implement legislation for the ______________of generic drugs by doctors is a good move, no doubt. But the _______________shown by the government in bringing this measure is odd and populist. It is extremely important to reduce the ________________of health-related costs on common people.
(a) prescription, haste, burden
(b) medication, delay, load
(c) recipe, hurry, comfort
(d) interdiction, bustle, strain
(e) avoidance, alacrity, trouble
Directions (11-15): In each of the following questions, there are two phrases/group of words marked in bold which are either grammatically incorrect or not in formation with the correct sentence structure. Choose the best alternative among the four options given below each question to replace these two phrases to make the sentence meaningful and grammatically correct. In case both the phrases are correct, choose (e) i.e. ‘No correction required’ as your answer.
Q11. The challenge will likely be more stubborn over the circumstances in the ongoing Fourth Industrial Revolution that has already fundamentally changed the way people live, work and connect to each other by eliminating physical boundaries and overcoming technology limitations.
(a)given the circumstances, which has already changed fundamentally
(b)after the circumstances like, which is changing fundamentally
(c)under the circumstances of, that is already fundamentally changing
(d)considering circumstance of, that has been fundamentally changing
(e) No correction required.
Q12. One might argue that the figures of job loss in ASEAN, which comprises only ten Asian countries, are not sufficiently persuasive and representative to prove that developing Asian countries would probably be more negatively affected by Revolution 4.0.
(a)comprising of, will probably be more
(b)consisting, could be probably more
(c)which comprised of, may probably be more
(d)that consist of, are probably more
(e) No correction required.
Q13. The unhealthy “development” is actually a realistic reflection on how society is dividing so that everyone’s bona fides are now suspect, and members of minority communities are constantly in requirement of re-prove their national credentials.
(a)how society has been divided, required to
(b)how society has divided, requiring to
(c)how society could be divided, require to
(d)how society is being divided, required of
(e) No correction required.
Q14. In a remarkable give-and-take, that has hitherto been in short supply, international creditors could agree to disburse Euro 7.5 billion in emergency loans to enable the country honour matured debt repayments.
(a)are agreed to disburse, honouring matured
(b)have agreed to disburse, to honour maturing
(c)had agreed in disbursing, of honouring matured
(d)agreed to disburse, to honour matured
(e) No correction required
Q15. We have been sufficiently alerted about what the future may hold, but thus far we have been unable to step out from the path to disaster that has been mapped out for us.
(a)might hold, that had been mapped out
(b)can hold, what is being mapped out
(c)will hold, which have been mapped out
(d)would hold, that is mapped out
(e) No correction required.
Solutions
S1. Ans. (b)
Sol. B must be the first sentence and it should be followed by C as both the sentences can well be connected with each other. A-D makes a combination. Hence BCAD is the correct sequence to form a meaningful paragraph
S2. Ans. (e)
Sol. D, being the first sentence of the paragraph must be followed by C as it further explains the motto of GHI (Global Hunger Index). B-E forms a combination and A makes the perfect conclusion citing the main objective. Hence DCBEA is the correct sequence to form a meaningful paragraph.
S3. Ans. (a)
Sol. A must be the first sentence as it explains the meaning of Cantillon effect. It is to be followed by C as it brings out the reason for the explanation of sentence A. D-B forms a combination. Hence ACDB is the correct sequence to form a meaningful paragraph.
S4. Ans. (c)
Sol. E must be the first sentence as it starts the process of hydrological cycle. C-A-D forms a combination describing the presence of seawater and its importance in the complete process. B sums up the paragraph quite evidently. Hence ECADFGB is the correct sequence to form a meaningful paragraph.
S5. Ans. (b)
Sol. C must be the first sentence of the paragraph as it talks about the German election. It should be followed by A. B should A as A-B forms a combination as both talk about the relevance of Brexit negotiations in the UK election. E-D makes another combination forming the last two sentences of the paragraph so formed. Hence CABED is the correct sequence to form a meaningful paragraph.
S6. Ans. (d)
Sol. Antagonistic means unsympathetic.
Estrangement means disaffection.
Conciliatory means pacific or peaceful.
S7. Ans. (b)
Sol. Conscripted means recruited.
S8. Ans. (c)
Sol. Spate means a sudden flood in a river.
Paucity means present in small amount.
S9. Ans. (b)
Sol. Receptacle means container that is used to put or keep the things in.
S10. Ans. (a)
Sol. Interdiction means action of prohibiting something.
Alacrity means eagerness.
Haste means excessive speed or urgency of movement or action; hurry.
S11. Ans. (c)
Sol. “under the circumstances of, that is already fundamentally changing” makes the sentence grammatically correct. The phrase “under the circumstances” means “given the difficult nature of the situation”.
S12. Ans. (e)
Sol. The given sentence does not require any correction. It is grammatically correct.
S13. Ans. (a)
Sol. “how society has been divided, required to” is the correct usage to make the sentence grammatically correct. It is to be noted that the sentence is in passive form, that’s why “has been divided” is the correct usage.
S14. Ans. (b)
Sol. “have agreed to disburse, to honour maturing” is the correct usage as the sentence is in Present tense. Also, “to honour maturing debt repayments” makes the sentence meaningful.
S15. Ans. (e)
Sol. The given sentence is grammatically correct.