English Language and Comprehension Passage For questions 28–37 Read the following passage and fill in each blank with words chosen from options given.
Packing is one of those chores that seems ______ (1) simple but it’s a skill that most of humanity ______ (2).Even seasoned travellers end up carrying a ______ (3) array of stuff they don’t use.Heavy bags ______ (4) be back-breaking and frustrating. Packing ______ (5) is a test of planning skills and is indicative of one’s ability to ______ (6) one’s life. The simplest way to pack smart is to ______ (7) a medium- sized bag so you’re not tempted to ______ (8)more stuff at the last minute.The smart packer doesn’t ______ (9)what –if –I –need it-category of stuff, the singular reason junk lands in ______ (10) suitcase.
Passage For questions 41–45 Read the following passage and answer the questions that follow-
Brain training is big business. From online websites to video games to mobile apps, it seems like there are plenty of ways to give your brain a bit of a boost. But does all this brain training really work? Can it increase your cognitive abilities or your IQ? According to a few recent studies, while these brain training tools might help sharpen your abilities to retain information, they won't necessarily increase your intelligence or improve your ability to reason and think abstractly.
The parent company of one of the most prominent "brain training" websites was recently fined for deceptive advertising. According to the complainant, the company suggested its games could reduce or delay cognitive impairment such as one might find in Alzheimer's patients, which is false.
So while there may be some benefits to brain training, don't expect miraculous results. Earlier studies have found no link between increased intelligence and brain training exercises.
Same is the case with standardized tests. Students today take a wide variety of standardized tests, from assessments throughout elementary school to evaluations required for college admission. While test preparation for such assessments can increase factual knowledge, one study suggests that this preparation does little to increase overall IQ.
Why is it so? While test preparation increases what psychologists refer to as crystallized intelligence, it does not increase what is known as fluid intelligence. Crystallized intelligence includes facts and information, while fluid intelligence involves the ability to think abstractly or logically.
In a study published in the journal Psychological Science, researchers looked at the IQ scores and test scores of approximately 1,400 eighth-grade students. While schoolwork helped increase the students' test scores, it had no effect on measures of fluid intelligence. The authors suggest that fluid intelligence is a much better indicator of abilities such as problemsolving ability, abstract thinking skills, memory capacity, and processing speed.
While the study found no indicator that test preparation improved IQ, that does not mean that this preparation has no value. Research clearly shows that having high scores on standardized tests is linked to having high scores on other important tests including Advanced Placement tests, the SAT etc.
Passage For questions 90–99 Read the following passage and answer the questions that follow-
Mount Everest, the world’s highest peak at 8,848 metres, draws adventurers from all over. But the mountain on the Nepal-China border is fast becoming a dangerous place to visit even for the hardened mountaineer. The inherent risks were highlighted with a photograph by Nirmal Purja, a Gorkha ex-soldier. The image, which went viral and altered the manner in which people worldwide imagine what it is to scale Mt. Everest, showed a long queue awaiting a final tilt at the summit, with all the dangers such a wait holds. In the 2019 season, at least 11 climbers have died or gone missing, including four Indians. Experts have been calling for Nepal to restrict the number of permits. It awarded a record 381 for this spring each fetching $11,000 (climbing from the Tibet side is more expensive). On 22nd May, 200 climbers ascended the summit, a new record for a single day. Last year, 807 managed to reach the summit. In 2012, the United Nations estimated that there were more than 26,000 visitors to the Everest region, and this figure has grown manifold since then. Nepal officials argue that permits are not issued recklessly, and that jams such as this year’s near the summit are on account of spells of bad weather, which result in mountaineers being compelled to reach the summit within a narrow time frame. Waiting in sub-zero temperatures at rarefied altitude can be fatal--- this season’s deaths were mostly due to frostbite, exhaustion, dehydration and lack of oxygen.
This year’s drama has caught public imagination, as happened in 1996 when eight persons died in a single day amid an unexpected storm - events of and around that day were the subject of Jon Krakauer’s bestselling book ‘Into Thin Air’. The adventure industry that is built around the human desire to scale the peak has meant many amateurs take up the challenge, confident that support teams and specialized equipment will make up for their lack of adequate mountaineering experience. The fallout is that in case of a disaster not only are some of them unable to manage but they also hold up others, putting them in harm’s way. The commercial operations have led to the Everest being called the world’s highest garbage dump as many climbers discard non-critical gear, used oxygen cylinders, plastic bottles, cans, batteries, food wrappings, fecal matter and kitchen waste on the mountains. It is unlikely, however, that this season’s tragedies will deter future summiteers, as the hypnotic lure remains intact. But the authorities must learn from this year’s tragedies and work out an optimum number of climbers and strengthen safety measures.
Passage For questions 130–139 Read the following passage and answer the questions that follow-
Parents all over Iceland’s capital Reykjavik embark on a two-hour evening walk around their neighbourhood every weekend, checking on youth hangouts as a 10 pm curfew approaches. The walk in Reykjavik is one step toward Iceland’s success into turning around a crisis in teenage drinking.
Focusing on local participation and promoting more music and sports options for students, the island nation in the North Atlantic has dried up a teenage culture of drinking and smoking. Icelandic teenagers now have one of the lowest rates of substance abuse in Europe.
The Icelandic Centre for Social Research and Analysis, the institute pioneering the project for the past two decades, says it currently advises 100 communities in 23 countries, from Finland to Chile, on cutting teenage substance abuse. “The key to success is to create healthy communities and by that get healthy individuals, ” said Inga Dora Sigfusdottir, a sociology professor who founded t he Youth of Iceland programme, which now has rebranded as Planet Youth.
The secret, she says, is to keep young people busy and parents engaged without talking much about drugs or alcohol. That stands in sharp contrast to other anti-abuse programmes, which try to sway teenagers with school lectures and scary, disgusting ads showing smokers’ rotten lungs or eggs in a frying pan to represent an intoxicated brain.
“Telling teenagers not to use drugs can backlash and actually get them curious to try them,” Ms Sigfusdottir said. In 1999, when thousands of teenagers would gather in Reykjavik every weekend, surveys showed 56% of Icelandic 16-year-olds drank alcohol and about as many had tried smoking.
Years later, Iceland has the lowest rates for drinking and smoking among the 35 countries measured in the 2015 European School Survey Project on Alcohol and Other Drugs.
On average, 80% of European 16-year-olds have tasted alcohol at least once, compared with 35% in Iceland, the only country where more than half of those students completely abstains from alcohol.
Denmark, another wealthy Nordic country, has the highest rates of teenage drinking, along with Greece, Hungary and the Czech Republic, where 92% to 96% have consumed alcohol.
In the US, teen drinking is a significant health concern, because many US teenagers are driving cars and do not have access to good public transport like teenagers in Europe.
Reykjavik mayor Dagur B. Eggertsson said the Icelandic plan “is all about society giving better options” for teens than substance abuse. He believes the wide variety of opportunities that now keep students busy and inspired has dramatically altered the country’s youth culture.
Local municipalities like Reykjavik have invested in sport halls, music schools and youth centres.To make the programmes widely available, parents are offered a 500 US dollar annual voucher toward sports or music programmes for their children.
Researchers say the Planet Youth prevention model is evolving constantly because it is based on annual surveys to detect trends and measure policy effectiveness. By law, introduced when Icelandic police routinely dealt with alcohol-fuelled street gatherings, children under 12 are not allowed to be outside after 8pm without parents and those 13 to 16 not past 10pm.
“We tell the kids if they are out too late, polite and nice, and then they go home,” said Heidar Atlason, a veteran member of the patrol. Over Iceland’s harsh winter, one parent admits, evenings sometimes pass without running into any students.
Passage For questions 152–156 Read the following passage and answer the questions that follow-
Dust storms of May 2018, in Northern India, contributed to the deteriorating air quality in the region and the capital city of Delhi, with implications for human health, a study found. The high death toll from the severe dust storms that lashed the region was mainly attributed to the intense winds, which surprised even scientists and meteorologists. But apart from the immediate damage to life and property, drastic changes in air quality from the dust engulfing the region affected far more people with potential implications for human health, stated a team of researchers who analysed the impact of the spell of dust storms that struck the region that month. They reported increases in particulate matter, mainly in Delhi and urged for an early warning system.
Dust storms commonly occur in the Indo-Gangetic Plains – the fertile plains in northern India that stretch all the way to the East – from March to May, the pre-monsoon season. Westerly winds typically bring loose sand and soil particles, picked up from the Arabian Peninsula or the Thar Desert in North Western India, to the Indo-Gangetic Plains. The dust tends to worsen air quality over the Indo-Gangetic Plains, home to around 900 million people, which can have far-reaching effects on human health. While dust storms are a regular feature in the region, the May 2018 dust storms specifically had a death toll of about 100 people, with around 200 people injured.
“We are concerned that the dust impacts the health of people who get exposed,” said a senior professor. However, he also observed that scattered rains occurring soon after the dust storms tend to clean up the dust, improving air quality. During October-November, densely populated cities like Delhi and Kanpur in the Indo-Gangetic Plains are vulnerable to windborne long-range air pollution from crop residue burning in the North, and now this study “shows the effect of dust storms during the March-May time frame,” Sarkar pointed out. “This really puts the Indo-Gangetic valley in a unique spot in terms of it being targeted by these different hazardous conditions which are mostly outsourced from other areas.”
Passage For questions 158–162 Read the following passage and fill in each blank with words chosen from options given.
Uncertainty looms over the revival of Naini Lake, a waterbody in the middle of Model Town in North Delhi, due to ______ (1) in the opinions of residents and local bodies regarding its desilting and ______ (2). While the Corporation claimed that the lake ______ (3) for years and several attempts by them to initiate a drive to desilt it were halted because of lack of funds or ______ (4) from locals, residents alleged that it is ______ (5) fresh water lake and is free from silt, and only a water treatment plant will be enough to resolve the problem.
Passage For questions 164–173 Read the following passage and fill in each blank with words chosen from options given.
It’s a magical sight: Just as the light begins to vanish, thousands of tiny penguins waddle ______ (1) the surf on an island in south-eastern Australia, then ______ (2) the beach and along well-worn paths toward ______ (3) burrows. The “Penguin Parade” has been a major attraction since the 1920s, when tourists ______ (4) by torchlight to view the nightly ______ (5) the birds — the world’s smallest penguin breed, with adults ______ (6) 13 inches tall. For much of that time, the penguins lived ______ (7) the residents of a housing development, in tight proximity to cars and pets. The penguins’ numbers fell ______(8) But in 1985, the state government decided to buy ______ (9) piece of property on the Peninsula and return the land to the penguins. Today there are about 31,000 penguins ______ (10) on the peninsula, up from 12,000 in the 1980s.