English Language and Comprehension Passage For questions 20–24 In the following passage some words have been deleted. Fill in the blanks with the help of the alternatives given. Select the most appropriate option for each number.
The other day there was a heavy downpour in our town. The roads looked (1) ______ small rivulets. There was a house (2) ______ our locality which was in a (3)______ condition. All of a sudden it collapsed. (4) ______ news spread in the whole (5) ______ like wild fire.
Passage For questions 47–56 Read the following passage and answer the questions given after it.
LAST WEEK, scientists from all corners of India descended on Ahmedabad to remember the architect of India’s space programme, a man whom the late president, APJ Abdul Kalam, had famously termed “Mahatma Gandhi of Indian Science”. They were there to launch celebrations on the birth centenary of Vikram Sarabhai, 47 years after his death at the age of 52, by when he had founded 38 institutions that are now leaders in space research, physics, management and performing arts. Former director of the Space Applications Centre Pramod Kale was a 19-year old science graduate from MS University of Baroda, besotted by space technology, when he first met Sarabhai. “In May 1960, I went to Ahmedabad to meet Dr. Sarabhai. “I met him and ended up talking for two hours,” Kale says. By June that year, Kale had done exactly as Sarabhai had advised him and taken up a master’s course at Gujarat University. In 1962, when Sarabhai was looking at studying the magnetic equator, Kale went on to be among the first few to go to NASA to learn radar tracking. The room resounded with many such memories. Former ISRO chairman K Kasturirangan remembered how they ran into some trouble at the Physical Research Laboratory (PRL), founded in 1947 by Sarabhai, in their attempts to fly a balloon at 4 am, when in sailed Sarabhai. “He told us had the flight been successful, you would not have learnt even half of what you learnt because of that initial problem,” said Kasturirangan. Many of those who had collected in Ahmedabad in Sarabhai’s memory were teenagers when they first met him. Gandhinagar-based entrepreneur K Subramanian was 19 and a student of National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirappalli, working on a summer project at PRL, when a man in a kurta-pyjama walked in and began turning all the wastepaper bins upside down, inspecting their contents and putting them back again. “I asked a colleague who that was and was told it is Dr Vikram Sarabhai. He had come to check how much waste the lab was generating,” laughs Subramanian. Born to Ambalal and Sarla Devi, Ahmedabad’s leading textile-mill owners, Vikram Sarabhai showed creative promise early. He was 15 when he built a working model of a train engine with the help of two engineers, which is now housed at the Community Science Centre (CSC) in Ahmedabad. The CSC was Vikram’s way of providing other children the privileges he had, of experimental research, says his son Kartikeya, 71, adding how his father wished to work with children at the science centre after he retired. “He was essentially a researcher, and believed that people, especially children, should be allowed to think freely and come up with solutions on their own,” recalls Kartikeya, who founded the Centre for Environment Education in 1984. Kartikeya is carefully piecing together all the dog-eared notes he is discovering in the recesses of their three grand homes — Shanti Sadan, The Retreat and Chidambaram. To inspire the young to dream like Sarabhai, Kartikeya is building a permanent exhibition gallery on the Sabarmati Riverfront, expected to open this November.
Passage For questions 89–98 Read the following passage and answer the questions given after it.
Nothing, not even the angry, red eruptions on her face and body, will stop Sneha from aiming for her “dream job”. “I love the Indian Army,” says the 18-year-old, as she sits by herself under one of the canopies at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Stadium of the Maratha Light Infantry Regimental Centre in Belagavi, Karnataka. Outside the enclosure, around 35 women run on the 400-m track. A day earlier, Sneha had cleared her ground tests — a 1.6-km race that had to be completed in eight minutes or less, high jump and long jump — and physical fitness tests, when she was diagnosed with chickenpox. Now on medication for the pox, she is back at the stadium for a medical examination as part of the recruitment process. As she waits for her turn, isolated from the other women, Sneha, says, “I had no fever when I left home in Kerala. Even when I reached Belagavi and got these pimples, I did not think much of it. So I came for my physical and ground tests.” Accompanied by her mother and uncle, Sneha, who is pursuing a computer course in her hometown Iritty, about 41 km from Kannur, made the 611-km journey from home to Belagavi spending eight hours in a bus and three hours on a train. She is among the 850-odd women, many of whom have travelled several hundred kilometers, to turn up at the first-ever recruitment rally for women to the Indian Army’s Corps of Military Police. The recruitment of women as Soldier General Duty (Women Military Police) marks the first time that women will be taken in not only as officers, but as soldiers, giving them an opportunity to be involved in active military duties. As personnel of the military police, the women soldiers will be responsible for investigating offences such as molestation, theft, and rape; “assisting in the maintenance of good order and discipline”; and in custody and handling of prisoners of war — essentially combat-support operations. The move is part of a slow opening up of avenues for women in the armed forces. In his Independence Day speech last year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had said women officers recruited into the armed forces under the Short Service Commission would be given the option of taking up permanent commission — a “gift” to India’s “brave daughters”. Following a notification issued by the Army on April 25, around 15,000 women registered for the recruitment rally at Belagavi, the first of five such to be held across India to fill 100 positions in the Military Police. The Belagavi centre catered to candidates from the southern states of Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana and the Union Territories of Lakshadweep, Andaman and Nicobar and Puducherry. Of the 15,000 aspirants, about 3,000 were short-listed on the basis of their Class 10 marks, with the cut-off set at 86 per cent. Of the shortlisted candidates, only about one-third turned up at the Belagavi centre between August 1 and 5 at the date and time assigned to them. Just then, outside the enclosure where Sneha is sitting, a shrill whistle pierces the air and another batch of girls takes off — feet on the wet ground, mostly bare, making a dash for their place in history. “Does everybody understand English?” asks Major Chaudhry and the group of 30 women, sitting on red carpets on the ground, bellows: “Yes”.
Passage For questions 104–113 In the following passage some words have been deleted. Fill in the blanks with the help of the alternatives given. Select the most appropriate option for each number.
Hunter-gatherer culture was the way of life for early humans until around 11,000 to 12,000 years ago. The lifestyle of hunter-gatherers was (1) ______ on hunting animals and foraging for food. Anthropologists (2)______ discovered evidence for the practice of hunter-gatherer culture (3)______ modern humans (Homo sapiens) and their distant ancestors dating as (4)______ back as two million years ago. Before the (5)______ of hunter-gatherer culture, earlier groups relied on (6)______practice of scavenging animal remains that predators left (7)______. Because hunter-gatherers did not rely on agriculture, (8)______ used mobility as a survival strategy. Indeed, (9)______ lifestyle required access to large areas of (10)______ to find the food they needed for survival.
117 Select the most appropriate indirect form of the given sentence. Addressing a public meeting, Rajnath Singh said, “Whatever talks take place they will be on the issue of Pakistan occupied Kashmir.”
A Addressing a public meeting, Rajnath Singh said that if there were talks, that had to be on the issue of Pakistan occupied Kashmir. B Addressing a public meeting, Rajnath Singh said that whatever talks take place, they will be on the issue of Pakistan occupied Kashmir. C Addressing a public meeting, Rajnath Singh announced that whatever talks took place, they would be on the issue of Pakistan occupied Kashmir. D Addressing a public meeting, Rajnath Singh asked whatever talks took place, why they were not on the issue of Pakistan occupied Kashmir.
Clear
119 Select the correct passive form of the given sentence. India and Bhutan signed ten MOUs in the field of space research, aviation, power and education.
A Ten MOUs in the field of space research, aviation, power and education have been signed by India and Bhutan. B Ten MOUs in the field of space research, aviation, power and education are being signed by India and Bhutan. C Ten MOUs in the field of space research, aviation, power and education will be signed by India and Bhutan. D Ten MOUs in the field of space research, aviation, power and education were signed by India and Bhutan.
Clear
Passage For questions 124–133 In the following passage some words have been deleted. Fill in the blanks with the help of the alternatives given. Select the most appropriate option for each number.
In a rare show of honesty, a gardener of the irrigation department has handed (1)______ to the police 57 tolas of gold (2)______ by him while working in the (3)______ of the superintending engineer’s bungalow in Raipur. The (4)______in turn has handed over the (5)______ to the Central Excise and Customs Department (6)______investigation. It was in June this year (7)______ Ramdayal found a tiny plastic box, meticulously (8)______ with polythene, buried six inches (9)______ under a Banyan tree, while digging the garden. He (10)______ the box and took it to his house behind the bungalow and was dazzled to find that it contained biscuits, bangles and coins all of gold.
Passage For questions 156–160 Read the following passage and answer the questions given after it.
A great water scarcity looms over India; by 2025 Indians will get just over half the water they get today. This grave problem has a simple solution. Catch the rain as it falls, and the water crisis will disappear. However, about 80 per cent of India’s rainfall buckets down during the three months of the monsoons. As yet, no government programmer has discovered how to store this water. ‘Dying Wisdom’, a seven-year countryside study by Delhi’s Centre for Science and Environment, reveals that ruins of amazing ancient technologies survive in every corner of India. Drip-irrigation systems of bamboo pipes in Meghalaya; ‘kunds’, underground tanks in Rajasthan; ‘pynes’, water channels built by tribals in Bihar; and thousands of open-water bodies down south are all superb examples of rain water harvesting systems. Even today, tanks called ‘eris’ in Tamil Nadu water one-third of the state’s irrigated area. Unfortunately, governmental planners mostly refuse to acknowledge the potential of these low-cost systems, concentrating on costly dams and canals. Few cities have lost touch with their ecological traditions as fast–and with as damaging results–as Bangalore. Only 17 of its water bodies struggle to survive in a city where once 200 lakes, ponds and wetlands cooled the city and recharged its ground water. The threats continue unabated as the relentless march of urbanization shows no sign of stopping.
Passage For questions 179–183 Read the following passage and answer the questions given after it.
At a number of places in the Kashmir Valley, security forces have put coils of razor wire on roads to enforce restrictions on movement. Concertina wire or razor wire fences are used along territorial borders and in areas of conflict around the world, to keep out combatants, terrorists, or refugees. The expandable spools of barbed or razor wire get their name from concertina, a hand-held musical instrument similar to the accordion, with bellows that expand and contract. Concertina wire coils were an improvisation on the barbed wire obstacles used during World War I. The flat, collapsible coils with intermittent barbs or blades were designed to be carried along by infantry, and deployed on battlefields to prevent or slow down enemy movement.
The Englishman Richard Newton is credited with creating the first barbed wire around 1845; the first patent for “a double wire clipped with diamond shaped barbs” was given to Louis François Janin of France. In the United States, the first patent was registered by Lucien B Smith on June 25, 1867, for a prairie fence made of fireproof iron wire. Michael Kelly twisted razor wires together to form a cable of wires. The American businessman Joseph F Glidden is considered to be the father of the modern barbed wire. He designed the wire with two intertwined strands held by sharp prongs at regular intervals.
Barbed wire was initially an agrarian fencing invention intended to confine cattle and sheep, which unlike lumber, was largely resistant to fire and bad weather. An advertorial published in the US in 1885 under the title ‘Why Barb Fencing Is Better Than Any Other’, argued that “it does not decay; boys cannot crawl through or over it; nor dogs; nor cats; nor any other animal; it watches with Argus eyes the inside and outside, up, down and lengthwise; it prevents the ‘ins’ from being ‘outs’, and the ‘outs’ from being ‘ins’, watches at day-break, at noontide, at sunset and all night long…” Barbed wire was put to military use in the Siege of Santiago in 1898 during the SpanishAmerican War, and by the British in the Second Boer War of 1899-1902 to confine the families of the Afrikaans-speaking Boer fighters.
World War I saw extensive use of barbed wire — and German military engineers are credited with improvising the earliest concertina coils on the battlefield. They spun the barbed wire into circles and simply spread it on the battlefield. Without using any support infrastructure like poles etc. this was more effective against the infantry charge by Allied soldiers.
The fence erected by India along the Line of Control to keep out terrorist infiltrators consists of rows of concertina wire coils held by iron angles. They are now commonly seen and are used to secure private properties as well.