NICL AO मैन्स परीक्षा 2017 के लिए अंग्रेजी की प्रश्नोतरी: 30th June

Directions (1-8): Each of the following questions has a paragraph from which the last sentence has been deleted. From the given options, choose the one that completes the paragraph in the most appropriate way.  

Q1. The life of a drug addict is tough. And an addict in India is usually from a poor and broken home. It is, therefore, pointless to victimize him or her by jailing, as is done in India. Had incarceration reduced addiction, this penal system could have been tolerated. But, year after year drug addiction has only increased, and so has drug trafficking.

(a) Drug addiction has to be treated as an illness and not punished as a crime.

(b) It is time for India to revise its policy of heaping indignity on an already defeated person.

(c) Drug addiction, when treated as an illness and not as a crime, can be controlled effectively.

(d) Rehabilitation centers ought to create an atmosphere of friendliness without condescension.

(e) None of these 

Q2. Free software is often perceived as the hippie or counterculture movement of the technological world. Worse still, in India it has for long remained an obscure concept confined to the world of academics and specialists. But advocates of free software believe that software freedom is most relevant—if not critical—today, particularly at a time when we stand on the threshold of large-scale information and communication technology (ICT) deployment and innovation. The freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software used in public services is imperative.

(a) Otherwise, the costs of ICT deployment and innovation will be huge.

(b) Otherwise, the free software movement will be rendered useless.

(c) Otherwise, proprietary firms will continue monopolizing this space.

(d) Otherwise, the move towards breaking free of existing proprietary chains will be defeated.

(e) None of these 

Q3. The statesman’s duty is precisely the reverse of that of the press. The statesman cautiously guards from the public eye the information by which his actions and opinions are regulated; he reserves his judgment of passing events till the latest moment, and then he records it is obscure or conventional language; he strictly confines himself, if he be wise, to the practical interests of his own country, or to those turning immediately upon it; he hazards no rash surmises as to the future; and he concentrates in his own transactions all that power which the Press seeks to diffuse over the world. The duty of the one is to speak; of the other to be silent. The one explains itself in discussion; the other tends to action. The one deals mainly with rights and interests; the other with opinions and sentiments

(a) the former is necessarily reserved, the latter essentially free.

(b) the responsibilities of the two powers are as much at variance as their duties.

(c) the purposes and duties of the two powers are constantly separate, generally independent, and sometimes diametrically opposite.

(d) the responsibilities we acknowledge have therefore little in common.

(e) None of these 

Q4. ‘Brain training’, or the goal of improved cognitive function through the regular use of computerized tests, is a multimillion-pound industry, yet in our view scientific evidence to support its efficacy is lacking. Modest effects have been reported in some studies of older individuals and preschool children, and video-game players outperform non-players on some tests of visual attention. It is a widely held belief that commercially available computerized brain-training programs improve general cognitive function in the wider population.

(a) However, whether those benefits transfer to other untrained tasks or lead to any general improvement in the level of cognitive functioning is not known.

(b) However, results provide no evidence for any generalized improvements in cognitive function following brain training in a large sample of healthy adults.

(c) However, the industry has established itself credibly in the market.

(d) However, improving cognitive function through brain training may have its results.

(e) However, the belief lacks concrete empirical support.

Q5. It would be more accurate to say not that Mark Twain hated art, but that he never let it—or anything else—stand in the way of a good joke. He often complained that he was dismissed by the literati as merely a “phunny phellow,” but like all good humorists his work was fundamentally serious, poking fun as it did at a universe in which, as his biographer writes, “the relationship of God to man is no more that of a town drunk to one of his microbes.” And his reputation was hardly as slight as he liked to pretend.

(a) “All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called ‘Huckleberry Finn,” wrote Ernest Hemingway about him.

(b) He wrote when American letters were dominated by the starchy, pious and insipid group known as the Schoolroom Poets.

(c) He was everything his contemporaries were not: vital, irreverent, meandering and funny.

(d) In London he and Charles Darwin were both embarrassed when introduced to each other as “great men”.

(e) He was a man who never let anything stand in the way of a joke.

Q6. In January 2010, the IMF estimated that the world economy would grow by 3.9% this year. Now it has revised that estimate up to 4.2%, saying that the recovery from the deepest post-war recession has “evolved better than expected”. The fund expects the marked difference between economic performance in the rich and emerging world to persist. In 2011, it expects GDP in industrialized countries to grow by 2.4%, compared with 6.5% growth in emerging countries led by booming China and India. Within the rich world, however, the divergence between America and Europe is striking. The IMF reckons that the American economy will expand by 3.1% this year, whereas the economies of the euro area will grow by an anaemic 1%.

(a) In short, IMF is not very optimistic about the rich world economies.

(b) In short, the recession is set to continue for another decade r so.

(c) In short, the IMF is more optimistic about GDP growth this year and next.

(d) In short, Europe will still have a difficult time ahead.

(e) In short, China and India will drive the growth graphs across the world.

Q7. Gendercide is often seen as an unintended consequence of China’s one-child policy, or as a product of poverty or ignorance. But that cannot be the whole story. The surplus of bachelors seems to have accelerated between 1990 and 2005, in ways not obviously linked to the one-child policy, which was introduced in 1979. And, as is becoming clear, the war against baby girls is not confined to China. Parts of India have sex ratios as skewed as anything in its northern neighbour. South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan have peculiarly high numbers of male births. So, have former communist countries in the Caucasus and the western Balkans. Even subsets of America’s population are following suit, though not the population as a whole.

(a) The real cause is not any country’s particular policy but the overweening son preference.

(b) The real cause is the use of rapidly spreading prenatal sex-determination technology and declining fertility.

(c) These are global trends; and the selective destruction of body girls is global, too.

(d) The ratio has been so stable over time that it appears to be the natural order of things.

(e) Only one region, Tibet, has a sex ratio within the bounds of nature.

Q8. The government of India allows corruption. How else could it have become the scourge that it has today? The Prime Minister may be thinking of removing a happy clause in the law, happy for the thieves that is. A clause supposedly put there to protect public servants from wrongful harassment which blatantly helps crooks. Government departments and ministries have been misusing a constitutional provision (Article 311) in which the CVC—Central Vigilance Commission—has to seek prosecution sanction from the government before beginning a formal probe against allegedly corrupt officials.

(a) The clause has opened a floodgate for the corrupt with scores of officials escaping prosecution because of it.

(b) No one wants seems to have the will to get rid of it, at least not our elected representatives.

(c) The clause is a seed planted by our law makers during the drafting of the anti-corruption act.

(d) In other words the government has laid out a red carpet for the thieves.

(e) All in all, our corrupt government officials are looting the country or the public, and the government is giving them its blessings.

Directions (9-15): In the following questions, five alternate summaries are given below the text. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the text.

Q9. Newspapers are dying; the music industry is still yelping about iTunes; book publishers think they are next. Yet one bit of old media seems to be doing rather well. In the final quarter of 2009 the average American spent almost 37 hours a week watching television. Earlier this year 116m of them saw the Super Bowl – a record for a single programme. Far from being cowed by new media, TV is colonizing it. Shows like “American Idol” and “Britain’s Got Talent” draw huge audiences partly because people are constantly messaging and tweeting about them, and discussing them on Facebook.

(a) Though newspapers, the music and publishing industries are dying, American TV has been able to draw large audiences and being discussed on the internet.

(b) Though newspapers, the music and publishing industries are dying, American TV is colonizing the media with the average American spending 37 hours per week watching television.

(c) Though newspaper, the music and publishing industries are dying, TV is colonizing the media and has huge audiences.

(d) Newspapers, music industry, and book publishers have been cowed by the new media whereas TV has coped well and still draws large audiences, as American TV proves.

(e) Newspapers, music and book publishers have not been able to cope with the emergence of new media but American TV has coped well and still draws large audiences.

Q10. The tragedy about data collection in India is that by the time primary data is converted into useable information, it may be too late to aid policy intervention. This is true to data collected by not just government agencies such as the National Sample Survey Organization but also think-tanks such as National Council for Applied Economic Research (NCAER). One of the criticisms of Human Development in India: Challenges for a Society in Transition – a report put together by NCAER and Institute of Maryland, US – is that it is based on data collected in 2004 – 05, and it does not capture the impact of the changes of the past four years when the economy grew at more than 8% on an average every year.

(a) Data collected by government agencies and other research organizations in India is generally useless as no reports based on the primary data is available for years-NCAER report on human development report is an example.

(b) The problem with data collection in India is that reports based on the data are not available in time for use – an NCAER report based on 2004-05 data was released four years later.

(c) The data collection in India is generally useless because reports to guide policy decisions are not made in time – an NCAER report based on 2004-05 data was released four years later.

(d) Data collected by government agencies and other research organizations in India is generally useless; an NCAER report on human development report was released four years after the data was gathered.

(e) Data collected by government agencies and other research organizations in India generally delayed and do not guide policy decisions – NCAER is an example.

Q11. Equating war with individual evil has become ubiquitous – if not universal – in contemporary international politics. Wars are fights against evil tyrants and the illegitimate governments they control. Such rhetoric makes wars easier to justify, easier to wage, and easier to support, especially for elected leaders who must respond directly to swings in public opinion. Such language works equally well for any society in today’s media-obsessed age.

(a) In international politics, wars are equated with individuals and not government because it is easier for elected government to justify war and publicize it.

(b) In international politics, wars are now directed at a personification of evil rather than against tyrants or regimes and are justified by governments in response to public opinion.

(c) In international politics, wars are equated with individual evil and not illegitimate governments because it is easier for elected governments to justify war and propagate it. 

(d) In international politics, wars are now justified, waged and supported by elected governments to swing public opinion in a media-obsessed world.

(e) In the media obsessed current age, wars are fought in order swing public opinion rather than against evil tyrants or illegitimate governments.

Q12. The CEOs owe at least some of their success to others, given that the society provides public goods like universities and health care. This calls for more modesty and restraint in determining the highest salaries, not for moral reasons but for the sustainability of the system. Also the most privileged classes which have benefited the most from the solidarity of others, notably the poor, can no longer deny the latter’s contributions.

(a) As both the CEOs and the poor are products of the same system, these two classes need to acknowledge the system for its sustainability.

(b) The CEOs have a moral responsibly to exercise restraint in their highest salaries and the poor must acknowledge the contribution of the CEOs.

(c) For the sustainability of the system the CEOs need to be modest in their highest salaries, and the poor need to acknowledge the contribution of the CEOs towards their welfare.

(d) The CEOs must reduce their highest salaries and the poor must acknowledge the contribution of the CEOs for the sustainability of the system.

(e) The CEOs must acknowledge the role of public goods in their success and the poor must recognize the contribution of the CEOs for their welfare.

Q13. After reading literature by some of the world’s leading experts on innovation – Clayton Christensen, Henry Chesbrough, John Kao, James Andrew, and Harold Sirkin – I was fascinated, but, alas, also frustrated. Innovation is the production of new knowledge that generates value. It is about fresh ideas that give rise to novel products, services, and processes, new management methods, and original designs and inventions that generate greater profits for firms, regions and countries. These are great ideas, but as I went through these texts I found them to be rather familiar sounding – I had the feeling that somehow and somewhere I had already studied them.

(a) The writer after reading several experts on innovation felt disappointed as the experts themselves were merely repeating what the writer already knew.

(b) Though the writer was fascinated by what several experts in the field had to say on innovation, he felt disappointed that the experts had nothing new to say.

(c) Reading the experts on innovation, the writer was fascinated by their great ideas but felt discouraged that those experts were repeating what he already knew.

(d) After reading the world’s best writers on innovation, though I felt fascinated by their great ideas but found nothing new in them.

(e) Innovation is about fresh ideas. I found the world’s leading experts on innovation lacking in innovation in their works.

Q14. Once a plausible hypothesis is formulated, it must be tested against all existing theories and against all available experience and information. It has to be subject to open criticism from all directions, and only if it survives these tests and criticisms may it be adopted as tentative and conjectural new knowledge. Science and knowledge are made up not of winners, but of survivors of continuous and systematic efforts to refute. Theories are never certain and must always be prepared for an uncertain future.

(a) Science and knowledge have an uncertain future as these are hypotheses that have survived the systematic efforts to refute them.

(b) Science and knowledge are made up not of winners, but of survivors that must be prepared for an uncertain future.

(c) Conjectural new knowledge it that which is subject to criticism from all directions, but have survived the efforts to refute.

(d) Science and knowledge are not made up of definitive truths but of hypotheses that have survived the systematic efforts to disprove them.

(e) Science formulates plausible hypotheses, tests them against existing theories and they are adopted as conjectural new knowledge later.

Q15. Laljipada’s residents are largely entrepreneurs running cottage industries from their homes that are as small as 100 square feet. Primarily migrants from North India, they contradict the popular perception that migrants take away jobs from the local population. The 20,000 families here are self-employed; they make products that feed into larger businesses such as imitation jewellery, recycled plastic and paper waste, or operate small tailoring or bakery units. With each family contributing in some way or the other to the final finished product, all the families here are dependent on each other for their livelihood.

(a) Laljipada’s residents run cottage industries from their homes contributing to other finished products and are interdependent on each other for livelihood.

(b) The 20,000 families of Laljipada depend on each other for their livelihood as each family runs some cottage industry producing parts for some other products.

(c) Laljipada’s 20,000 families have a well knit system of cottage industries each one dependent on the other for its livelihood.

(d) Laljipada’s 20,000 families are a well knit system of north Indian entrepreneurs dependent on each other without taking away the jobs form the locals.

(e) Laljipada’s 20,000 families are a well knit system of entrepreneurs making products that feed into larger businesses and each dependent on the other for its livelihood.

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