English Language and Comprehension 53 The question below consists of a set of labelled sentences. These sentences, when properly sequenced form a coherent paragraph. Select the most logical order of sentences from among the options. P: World War I began in 1914, after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, and lasted until 1918. Q: Thanks to new military technologies and the horrors of trench warfare, World War I saw unprecedented levels of carnage and destruction. R: During the conflict, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire (the Central Powers) fought against Great Britain, France, Russia, Italy, Romania, Japan and the United States (the Allied Powers). S: By the time the war was over and the Allied Powers claimed victory, more than 16 million people – soldiers and civilians alike – were dead.
A SPQR B SQPR C PRQS D PSQR
Clear
Passage For questions 57–61 In the following passage, some of the words have been left out. Read the passage carefully and select the correct answer for the given blank out of the four alternatives. We all experience and understand that the current times are not very safe in general. One has to be on a ______ guard against unfriendly elements. As we move towards the Golden Age on the planet, a ______ of negative forces have surfaced. It is by bringing them to the surface that the divine forces can put them to an end. It is like the ______ that surfaces when we boil sugar in water, which is ready to be removed from the top so that what we get is sugar solution ______ of all the impurities. This process of cleansing our planet by the universal forces, however, will take some time. Till then, we have to ______ these negativities around us.
Passage For questions 62–66 In the following passage, some of the words have been left out. Read the passage carefully and select the correct answer for the given blank out of the four alternatives. If fantasies could be real, everyone might have wanted an ______ cut-off point at which they could instantly block out all stress. But, a ______ restless mind and an ego that cannot take defeat make sure that we keep worrying about all kinds of difficulties, including the significant, ______ and even imaginary ones. No wonder, most of us are suffering from chronic stress. For a majority, there is no escape from stressful circumstances. We can’t always shift cities, terminate relationships, resign from jobs, restrict social ______ and wait for ideal, stress-free conditions to come our way. But, we can change the way we ______ and deal with stress.
Passage For questions 67–71 In the following passage, some of the words have been left out. Read the passage carefully and select the correct answer for the given blank out of the four alternatives. Silence is much more than the absence of sound; it is the ______ pre-existing entity in which God creates. It is the source to which all words return to ______ true meaning. Silence is the womb of the tangible world. In the Christian Biblical version of Creation, God ‘spoke’ and the world came into being. With the pronouncing of the Word, speech became primary, but silence remained ______. The heart of Christian meditation is to return to this primordial state of being. It is a journey from words into the creative word of God; this word is ______ by silence. By its very nature, silence is ______, often purposeless and for that reason very frightening.
Passage For questions 114–118 A passage is given with five questions following it. Read the passage carefully and select the best answer to each question out of the given four alternatives. Vibrant salads, wholesome bites, vegan baking, all vegetarian!” Thus proclaimed a billboard on a stand placed just outside The Lighthouse Cafe. Well, well, well, I thought to myself, another one of those places designed to attract tourists; can’t be genuine, can it? I couldn’t have been more wrong. I’d embarked on a walking tour of Galway, a city facing the Atlantic, in the Republic of Ireland, and my guide was Billy Murray who told me at the outset that I would be the solitary walker – others had stayed away because of the dismal weather. The weather had indeed been unfriendly, with beating rain, thunder, poor visibility and of course, gray and cold, especially on the Wild Atlantic Way where I had braved the weather and carried on with a coach tour I’d booked earlier, after having spent the previous day driving down to Galway from Dublin. But today the rains had stopped and the sky was clear but still gray and yet, I found the ambience rather romantic and full of promise. “Of course, we’ll go on that walking tour,” I said to a surprised Billy who led me out of the Tourist Centre in downtown Galway and on to the rain-washed street. At the end of the rather comprehensive tour I asked Billy for advice – where should I eat my lunch? And he’d recommended the Lighthouse Cafe near Lynch’s Castle (now a bank) when I specified that I was vegetarian. It seems there are quite a few local residents who are vegetarian and more are exploring this choice, mainly because of health and environmental reasons. But the decor inside the restaurant suggested that the owner turned to this choice due to compassion. I remembered then that Billy did mention that Kerry Legh and her spouse, who run the place, practise Sahaj Marga meditation. The lotus flower was a dominant feature of the restaurant’s interior. Be that as it may, my lunch turned out to be one of the best vegetarian ones I’ve ever had anywhere in the world. When I’d entered the restaurant, a large dog that answers to the name of ‘Chieftain’ was seated beside his owner, intently watching him eat, without begging even once. Maybe they too practise some kind of meditation, I figured.
Passage For questions 119–123 Read the passage carefully and select the best answer to each question out of the given four alternatives. The Russian doping scandal continues to cast a long shadow over international sport as the 2018 Winter Olympics begin in Pyeong Chang, South Korea, on February 9. In December, the International Olympic Committee banned Russia from competing in the Games following investigation into an alleged state-sponsored doping programme at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia. The decision to ban Russia came after the IOC’s Disciplinary Commission, headed by former president of the Swiss Confederation Samuel Schmid, confirmed “systemic manipulation of the anti-doping rules and system in Russia”. The IOC had stated, however, that clean Russian athletes would be allowed to compete as neutrals and last month invited 169 of them – each to be known as Olympic Athlete from Russia (OAR) – to participate in the Pyeong Chang Games. The announcement did not go down well outside Russia, even though the IOC declared that “more than 80%” of those athletes had not competed in Sochi and had been carefully vetted. That the OAR will form one of the largest contingents at the Games, although there will be no place for the Russian flag and anthem, makes the ‘ban’ seem a bit of a farce. Further, Russian athletes could be allowed to march under their own flag at the closing ceremony if they comply with the IOC’s conditions during the Games. There is a sense that the IOC is not able to punish a sporting superpower like Russia.
Passage For questions 124–128 Read the passage carefully and select the best answer to each question out of the given four alternatives. Religious architecture forms a major portion of India’s built heritage. These structures are not only unwritten documents of history, they are also stamps of the might of the rulers who built them and articulations of grand visions. Secular and religious structures are products of their location – the material used to build them depended on what was available to the kings and workers at that time. They were also a reflection of the piety of the artisans and workers, for nothing else can explain the hard work that went into cutting through solid natural rock to carve out temples and spectacular sculptures. Rock-cut architecture never fails to awe me with all its majesty, precision, and intricate detail. The earliest rock-cut architecture is from the Mauryan dynasty, but the Ajanta caves, which I had visited a few decades ago and which left me awestruck, are among the earliest rock-cut temples. The Udayagiri caves, in Vidisha, Madhya Pradesh, are not as popular but they are worth a visit, for they contain some of the oldest Hindu temples and iconography. They were built during the Gupta period (350-550 CE). These caves were not just an expression of religious piety but also a political statement. They lie on two low sandstone hills between the rivers Betwa and Beas. It is possible that when these caves were carved out, they fell directly on the Tropic of Cancer and thus the name translates to Mount of Sunrise. On the day of summer solstice, the sun would have been directly overhead, making this a place of worship.
Passage For questions 129–133 Read the passage carefully and select the best answer to each question out of the given four alternatives. Malnutrition affects millions of people worldwide and is responsible for one-fifth of deaths in children under the age of five. Children can also experience impaired cognitive development and stunted growth. According to Finlay and UBC PhD student Eric Brown, malnutrition can be difficult to treat because it affects the good bacteria that live in the gut. People suffering from malnutrition often show signs of a disease known as environmental enteropathy, which is an inflammatory disorder of the small intestine and is likely caused by ingesting pathogenic fecal bacteria early in life from a contaminated environment. This shifts the balance of the original healthy bacteria in the gut and leads to poor absorption of nutrients. The study, published in Nature Communications, explains how the research team developed a mouse model to reproduce the symptoms of environmental enteropathy and malnourishment. “We were able to see how a malnourished diet has a strong, measurable impact on the microbes in the small intestine,” said Brown. “This new model gives us the opportunity to examine the impact of malnutrition on gut microbiology and assess the role of infections.” Pathogenic bacterial infections like salmonella and E. coli are huge problems in developing countries because they are much more harmful to people suffering from malnutrition, leading to chronic diarrhea and inflammation. “Treatments and vaccines created in developed nations and tested on healthy people often don't work in malnourished populations,” said Finlay, distinguished professor at UBC's Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies. “People suffering from malnutrition respond differently.” With an animal model, Finlay said researchers will be better able to test treatments and understand how malnutrition impacts a child's development.
Passage For questions 134–138 In the following passage, some of the words have been left out. Read the passage carefully and select the correct answer for the given blank out of the four alternatives. India handled the problem of the cat preying on goats, sheep, donkeys and other animals by roping ________ communities in conservation, and compensating them for any losses. An insurance programme in _________ residents of a part of Spiti Valley in Himachal Pradesh ________________ also worked well. New research _____________ that even when wild prey is available, the attacks on livestock by snow leopards have ________________ been on the rise.
Passage For questions 139–143 In the following passage, some of the words have been left out. Read the passage carefully and select the correct answer for the given blank out of the four alternatives. But more often than not, especially in a crowded metropolis, _________ you come across are wandering pedlars and small hawking stands, ________ something makeshift, easy to take ________ if need be, selling bananas, directing your attention towards a pile of chequered towels, a woman _________ weaving a pile of fragrant mogras into a string, ______________ brewing hot tea and quickly frying a pile of hot bhajiyas for office commuters.
Passage For questions 144–148 Read the passage carefully and choose the best answer to each question out of the four alternatives. The elusive and charismatic snow leopard has lost its endangered status in the Red List of the International Union for Conservation of Nature, causing genuine worry among wildlife biologists, who believe this sends out the wrong signal to those working to protect it. If the argument for a downgrade to vulnerable status from endangered is that conservation actions have reduced the threat to the cat, there is an equally persuasive response on how little scientists know about its population health, given its remote habitat in the alpine zones of the Himalayas and trans-Himalayas. As a major range country, India has worked to protect these animals, and even launched a programme on the lines of Project Tiger for its conservation, covering 128,757 sq. km of habitat in Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh. There is also an upcoming international collaborative effort, the Global Snow Leopard and Ecosystem Protection Program, involving the countries that make up the range of this graceful animal. It is vital that this momentum should not be lost merely on account of the technicality that the estimated numbers have crossed the threshold for an 'endangered' classification, which is 2,500. If anything, studies on its vulnerability have to be intensified, and the task of monitoring its entire habitat of high mountains speeded up.
Passage For questions 149–153 Read the passage carefully and choose the best answer to each question out of the four alternatives. As the 23rd conference of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in Bonn shifts into high gear, developing countries including India are focussing on the imperatives of ensuring adequate financing for mitigation and adaptation. They are moving ahead with specific instruments for loss and damage they suffer due to destructive climate-linked events. India's progress in reducing the intensity of its greenhouse gas emissions per unit of GDP by 20-25% from 2005 levels by 2020, based on the commitment made in Copenhagen in 2009, has been positive. Early studies also suggest that it is on track to achieve the national pledge under the 2015 Paris Agreement for a 33-35% cut in emissions intensity per unit of growth from the same base year (2015) by 2030, and thus heed the 2°C global warming goal. Since this performance is predicated on a growth rate of just over 7%, and the parallel target for 40% share of renewable energy by that year (2030), the national road map is clear. What is not, however, is the impact of extreme weather events such as droughts and floods that would have a bearing on economic growth. It is in this context that the rich countries must give up their rigid approach towards the demands of low and middle income countries, and come to an early resolution on the question of financing of mitigation, adaptation and compensation. Of course, India could further raise its ambition in the use of green technologies and emissions cuts, which would give it the mantle of global climate leadership.