Directions (1- 7): Read the following passage carefully
and answer the questions given below them. Certain words/phrases have been
printed in bold to help you locate them while answering some of the questions.
Last year the idea took hold that Mark
Zuckerberg might run for president in 2020 and seek to lead the world’s most
powerful country. Today, Facebook’s founder is fighting to show that he is
capable of leading the World’s eighth-biggest listed company or that any of its
2.1bn users should trust it. News that Cambridge Analytica (CA), a firm linked
to President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign, got data on 50m Facebook users in
dubious, possibly illegal, ways has lit a firestorm. Mr. Zuckerberg took five
days to reply and, when he did, he conceded that Facebook had let its users
down in the past but seemed not to have grasped that its business faces a wider
crisis of confidence. After months of talk about propaganda and fake news,
politicians in Europe and, increasingly, America see Facebook as out of control
and in denial. Congress wants him to
testify. Expect a roasting.
Since the news, spooked investors have
wiped 9% off Facebook’s shares. Consumers are belatedly waking up to the
dangers of handing over data to tech giants that are run like black boxes.
Already, according to the Pew Research Centre, a think tank, a majority of
Americans say they distrust social-media firms. Mr. Zuckerberg and his industry
need to change, fast.
The addiction game
Facebook’s business relies on three
elements: keeping users glued to their screens, collecting data about their
behavior and convincing advertisers to pay billions of dollars to reach them
with targeted ads. The firm has an incentive to promote material that grabs
attention and to sell ads to anyone. Its culture melds a ruthless pursuit of
profit with a Panglossian and narcissistic belief in its own virtue. Mr.
Zuckerberg controls the firm’s voting rights. Clearly, he gets too little
criticism.
In the latest fiasco, it emerged that in 2013 an academic in Britain
built a questionnaire app for Facebook users, which 270,000 people answered.
They in turn had 50m Facebook friends. Data on all these people then ended up
with CA. Facebook says that it could not happen again and that the academic and
CA broke its rules; both deny doing anything wrong. Regulators in Europe and
America are investigating. Facebook knew of the problem in 2015, but it did not
alert individual users. Although nobody knows how much CA benefited Mr. Trump’s
campaign, the fuss has been
amplified by the left’s disbelief that he could have won the election fairly.
But that does not give Facebook a defense. The episode fits an established
pattern of sloppiness towards privacy, tolerance of inaccuracy and reluctance to admit mistakes. In early
2017 Mr. Zuckerberg dismissed the idea that fake news had influenced the
election as “pretty crazy”. In September Facebook said Kremlin-linked firms had
spent a mere $100,000 to buy 3,000 adverts on its platform, failing at first to
mention that 150m users had seen free posts by Russian operatives. It has also
repeatedly misled advertisers about its user statistics.
Q1. What is Cambridge Analytica(CA)?
(a) A virus that multiplies the files and folders in the system.
(b) A program that manipulates the data transferred on the various
networks.
(c) A firm linked to the President Donald Trump that handles all the
presidential affairs of the State.
(d) A firm linked to the President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign got data
on 50m users in dubious and illegal manner.
(e) Both (A)&(B)
Q2. Which of the following given statements is correct in the context
with the passage?
(a) Mark Zuckerberg will be the president in 2020 and seek to lead the
world’s most powerful country US.
(b) Facebook’s founder showed that he is capable of leading the
world’s 8th largest company.
(c) After months of talks about propaganda, America sees Facebook as out
of control and in denial.
(d) Investors have invested 9% more in the company after the campaign
Cambridge Analytica.
(e) Mark Zuckerberg took 5 days to reply and when he did, he proved
that Facebook had never let down the confidence of its users.
Q3. What is/are the element(s) on which the business of Facebook
relies?
(a) keeping users glued to their screens
(b) collecting data about their users’ behaviour
(c) convincing advertisers to pay billions of dollars to reach them
with targeted ads
(d) All of the above
(e) None of the above
Q4. What are the incentives of the firm Facebook?
(a) To promote sites that can attract various people to connect
through it
(b) To promote stuff that attracts and grabs attention
(c) To sell ads to anyone through its stuff advertised
(d) To control firm’s voting rights
(e) Both (B)&(C)
Q5. How academic and Cambridge
Analytica(CA) broke its rules?
(a) By emerging as the President’s
campaign of 2016
(b) By connecting with Facebook and
selling ads to everyone
(c) By controlling voting rights of Mark
Zuckerberg’s company
(d) By collecting data of 270,000 people
via questionnaire app which in turn ended up the data of 50m users with CA
(e) By not apologizing the 50m users who
have accessed their data to Britains’s academic and Cambridge Analytica
Q6. What conclusion you can draw from the
whole episode?
(a) that none of the firms likes to admit
its mistake
(b) that the whole scenario admits
sloppiness towards privacy, tolerance of inaccuracy and reluctance to admit
mistakes
(c) that the
(d) fake news had influenced the election
as “pretty crazy”
(e) None of the above
Q7. Which of the following statements is
incorrect in context with the passage?
(a) Facebook has repeatedly misled
advertisers about its user statistics.
(b) Facebook says that it could not
happen again and that the academic and CA broke its rules
(c) The episode fits an established
pattern of sloppiness towards privacy, tolerance of inaccuracy and reluctance
to admit mistakes
(d) Facebook knew of the problem in 2015,
and it did alert its individual users
(e) It emerged that in 2013 an academic
in Britain built a questionnaire app for Facebook users
Directions (8-15): In the questions given below
a sentence is given with two blanks in each. Corresponding to each question two
columns are given with three words in each column. Which combination of words
from the two columns will perfectly fit into the blanks to make the sentence
contextually correct and meaningful.
Q8. The __________ loss of an estimated
153 billion hours of labour during 2017 due to rising temperatures around the
globe is a reminder to governments that they are not doing enough to
___________ curb greenhouse gas emissions.
Column I Column
II
(A) unrelenting (D)
gloriously
(B) staggering (E) conversely
(C) combating (F) dramatically
(a) C-E
(b) B-D and C-F
(c) B-F
(d) A-D
(e) B-D
Q9. There has been little appreciation
of the ________ for Moscow from NATO’s continued expansion into the former
Eastern Europe and the erstwhile USSR. The geopolitical ____________ of greater
engagement with Moscow has never been more urgent, as hawks in the U.S.
administration make no secret of their preference for confrontation over
dialogue.
Column I Column
II
(A) provocation (D) stemming
(B) aberration (E) imperative
(C) veneration (F) venality
(a) A-F
(b) B-D
(c) B-F
(d) A-E
(e) C-D
Q10. India has suffered from a major
burden of malaria for decades, with high levels of ___________ and death. But
the declining trend of the __________ shows that sustained public health action
can achieve good results.
Column I Column
II
(A) egregious (D) scourge
(B) morbidity (E) galvanize
(C) ambiguity (F) aberration
(a) A-E
(b) B-D
(c) C-F
(d) A-F
(e) C-D
Q11. One issue that requires monitoring
in India is _________ to combination therapy using artemisinin. Recent reports
indicate that some patients in West Bengal became resistant to the treatment
protocol used for the falciparum parasite, which causes _________ cerebral
malaria and leads to a high number of deaths.
Column I Column
II
(A) prevaricated (D) debilitating
(B) acrimonious (E) perplexing
(C) resistance (F) weaning
(a) B-D
(b) C-F
(c) C-D
(d) B-E
(e) A-E
Q12. To understand what this clash of
the global economic titans ___________ for the world trading system, it is
instructive to examine the path of their mutual conflict thus far. The troubles
began over the summer when US and China started taxing $50 billion worth of the
other’s imports, followed by the U.S. slapping $200 billion of Chinese exports
with a 10% tariff, to be ___________ up to 25% by the year-end.
Column I Column
II
(A) chastises (D) castigated
(B) enervates (E) demurred
(C) portends (F) ratcheted
(a) A-F
(b) C-F
(c) C-D
(d) B-D
(e) A-E
Directions (13-15): In the following questions
a sentence is given, some words are given in bold which may have grammatical or
spelling error or they may be contextually incorrect. Two columns (I) and (II)
are given, column (I) consists of bold words of the sentence and column (II)
consists of the appropriate replacement for the bold words. Match the correct
replacements. If the sentence is correct mark no error as your answer.
Q13. For its part, the IT department
fears that start-ups may be used as convenient tools to launder illegally acquired money, so a tax on investments beyond a
certain threshold is necessary to entrench
such shady operations. But while the intent of such an angel tax may be justifiable, the arbitrary nature of it
means the cost of unintended consequences could be larger than the supposed
benefits.
COLUMN I COLUMN
II
(A) launder (D)chortle
(B) entrench (E) deter
(C)
justifiable (F) preclude
(a) (A)-(D)
(b) (B)-(E) &(C)-(F)
(c) (A)-(D) & (B)-(E)
(d) (B)-(E)
(e) No error
Q14. Popular deposit schemes such as
chit funds and gold schemes, usually do not come under the purview of government regulators. But these unregulated schemes
have also been misused by some miscreants to culminate the money of depositors with the promise of unbelievably
high returns in a short period of time. The Saradha chit fund scam in West
Bengal is just one example of such a hienous
financial crime against depositors.
COLUMN I COLUMN
II
(A) purview (D) gainsay
(B) culminate (E) swindle
(C) hienous (F) heinous
(a) (A)-(D)
(b) (C)-(F)
(c) (B)-(E) & (C)-(F)
(d) (B)-(E)
(e) No error
Q15. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley engenders that revenues will not be hit
by the rate cut. The implicit assumption is that higher sales volumes will
compensate the rustic. Developers
may be forced to raise base prices as critical inputs, particularly cement (taxed
at 28%), eschew high levies that can
no longer be offset.
COLUMN I COLUMN
II
(A) engenders (D) reckons
(B) rustic (E) exchequer
(C) eschew (F)
entail
(a) (A)-(D) & (B)-(E)
(b) (A)-(D) & (C)-(F)
(c) (B)-(E) & (C)-(F)
(d) (A)-(D), (B)-(E), (C)-(F)
(e) No error
SOLUTIONS:
S1. Ans.(d)
Sol. refer paragraph 1(5th
line)
S2. Ans.(c)
Sol. refer paragraph 1(last three lines)
S3. Ans.(d)
Sol. refer paragraph 3(1st
three lines)
S4. Ans.(e)
Sol. refer paragraph 3(3rd
line)
S5. Ans.(d)
Sol. refer paragraph 4(1st
three lines)
S6. Ans.(b)
Sol. ‘The episode fits an
established pattern of sloppiness towards privacy, tolerance of inaccuracy and
reluctance to admit mistakes’……refer paragraph 4(8th line)
S7. Ans.(d)
Sol. ‘Facebook
knew of the problem in 2015, but it did not alert individual users’…… refer
paragraph 4(5th line)
S8. Ans. (c)
Sol. Here, the given sentence has discussed the consequences of the failure of
government’s part for controlling the rising global temperatures. Here, in the
first blank, “staggering” which
means “deeply shocking; astonishing”
and “dramatically” in second blank
which means “by a strikingly large amount
or to a strikingly large extent; greatly”, perfectly fits in to make a
contextually meaningful and grammatically correct statement.
Unrelenting: not yielding in strength,
severity, or determination
Combating: take action to reduce or
prevent (something bad or undesirable)
Conversely: introducing a statement or
idea which reverses one that has just been made or referred to.
S9. Ans. (d)
Sol. The given statement discusses the limited reaction on the part of Moscow
towards the continued expansion of NATO in Eastern Europe and USSR. Here, in
the first blank, “provocation” which
means “action or speech that makes
someone angry, especially deliberately” and in second blank “imperative” which means “of vital importance; crucial” fits
perfectly in the given blanks to make a contextually meaningful and
grammatically correct statement.
Aberration: a departure from what is normal, usual, or expected, typically an
unwelcome one
Veneration: great respect; reverence
Stemming: originate in or be caused by
Venality: quality of being open to
bribery or overly motivated by money
S10. Ans. (b)
Sol. The satement has mentioned the high number of malaria cases in India which
have led to high death rates. It further states the improved condition due to
sustained public health actions. Here, in the first blank, “morbidity” which means “the condition of being diseased” and in
the second blank “scourge” which
means “a person or thing that causes
great trouble or suffering”, fits perfectly to form a contextually
meaningful and grammatically correct statement.
Egregious: outstandingly bad; shocking
Ambiguity: the quality of being open to
more than one interpretation; inexactness
Galvanize: shock or excite (someone)
into taking action
Aberration: a departure from what is
normal, usual, or expected, typically an unwelcome one
S11. Ans. (c)
Sol. Here, the given statement discusses the need to monitor a therapy which
has been adopted to a severe disease, cerebral malaria. Most patients, affected
by the disease have been resistant to treatment. Here, in the first blank, “resistance” which means “the refusal to accept or comply with
something” and in second blank, “debilitating”
which means “(of a disease or condition)
making someone very weak and infirm” perfectly fits to make the statement
grammatically and contextually meaningful. Hence, option (c) is the most
suitable answer choice.
Prevaricated: speak or act in an evasive
way.
Acrimonious: (typically of speech or
discussion) angry and bitter
Perplexing: completely baffling; very
puzzling
Weaning: be strongly influenced by
(something), especially from an early age
S12. Ans. (b)
Sol. The paragraph given here discusses the US- China trade war where, “portends” which means “be a sign or warning that (something,
especially something momentous or calamitous) is likely to happen”, fits
perfectly in the first blank and “ratcheted”
which means “cause something to rise (or
fall) as a step in what is perceived as an irreversible process”, fits
perfectly in the second blank. Hence, option (b) is the most suitable answer
choice.
Chastises: rebuke or reprimand severely
Enervates: make (someone) feel drained
of energy or vitality
Castigated: reprimand (someone)
severely.
Demurred: raise objections or show
reluctance
S13. Ans. (d)
Sol. Here, the given paragraph mentions
how start-ups may use the tax exemptions available for them as a tool of money
laundering. Here, “entrench” makes
the statement grammatically incorrect which will thus be replaced with “deter”. Hence, option (d) is the most
suitable answer choice.
Launder: conceal the origins of (money
obtained illegally), typically by transfers involving foreign banks or
legitimate businesses.
Chortle: laugh in a noisy, gleeful way.
Entrench: establish (an attitude, habit,
or belief) so firmly that change is very difficult or unlikely
Deter: discourage (someone) from doing
something by instilling doubt or fear of the consequences
Justifiable: able to be shown to be
right or reasonable; defensible
Preclude: prevent from happening; make
impossible.
S14. Ans. (c)
Sol. The paragraph given above mentions
the gold schemes and cit funds which are not under the regulation of government
regulators and therefore have been used by miscreants for fraudulent activies.
Here, “culminate” will be replaced with “swindle”, which will make the
statement contextually correct. Also, “hienous” will be replaced with “heinous”
as the given spelling is incorrect. Hence, option (c) is the most suitable
answer choice.
Purview: the scope of the influence or
concerns of something
Gainsay: deny or contradict
Culminate: reach a climax or point of
highest development
Swindle: use deception to deprive
(someone) of money or possessions
S15. Ans. (d)
Sol. The paragraph given above mentions
the statement by FM Arun Jaitley who has assured that there won’t be revenue
hits sue to the rate cut. He has further stated that the higher sales volumes
would compensate the national income growth which may force the developers to
raise base prices as an inevitable consequence of rate cuts. Here, all the
three highlighted words have been incorrectly placed and will therefore require
improvement. Hence, option (d) is the most suitable answer choice.
Engender: cause or give rise to
Reckon: be of the opinion
Rustic: made in a plain and simple
fashion
Exchequer: a royal or national treasury.
Eschew: deliberately avoid using;
abstain from
Entail: involve (something) as a
necessary or inevitable part or consequence
English Quizzes For SBI PO Mains 2023 - ...
