ENGLISH - Online Test
Q1. Direction: Rearrange the following six sentences A, B, C, D, E and F in the proper sequence to form a meaningful paragraph, then answer the questions given below them.
A. While the reference point for the former is the state, for the latter it’s society.
B. India’s strategic community’ comprises two distinct circles with little overlap.
C. Consequently, mainstream strategists have an external orientation to their discourse, concentrating on high politics; the latter is more internal oriented.
D. Their prescriptions too are understandably poles apart and thus, the state, to which both their commentary is directed, has to play balancer, and ends up being at the receiving end of criticism from both sides.
E. Out of the two, one can be termed the ‘mainstream’ and the other ‘alternate’.
F. To further elaborate on the external and internal concept−while one is enamored of India’s rise and place in the global order, the other is more sensitive to its vulnerabilities and inadequacies.
Which of the following should be the THIRD sentence after rearrangement?
Answer : Option A
Explaination / Solution:
While arranging sentences in a sequence, it is important to understand the main theme first so that the subthemes can be arranged accordingly. First should be statement B which introduces the topic. It should be followed by statement E, which gives information about the two circles mentioned in statement B. Next should be statement A, which further describes the context with reference to the former and the latter. It should be followed by statement C which explains the former and the latter furthermore(indicated by the terms used in the statement). Next should be statement F which explains the concept of external and internal in detail. It should be followed by statement D which states, 'their prescriptions too', which indicates they should act as a continuing statement to some or other related statement which in this case is F.
Hence, the correct sequence is BEACFD.
Q2. Direction: Read the sentence to find out whether there is any error in it. The error, if any, will be in one part of the sentence. The number of that part is the answer. If the given sentence is correct, the answer is 'No error'. Ignore the errors of punctuation, if any.
Officials confirmed that Bridget, 27, who was born in Pakistan but brought up (1) / in the UK, was known to police and had been investigated in (2) / 2015 and had been appeared in a Channel 4 documentary, The Jihadis Next Door, (3) / and had been reported to the anti-terrorism hotline for extremism. (4)
Answer : Option C
Explaination / Solution:
The error lies in part 3 of the sentence in which the verb ‘had been appeared’ in the past perfect progressive tense is incorrect and needs to be replaced with the verb in the past perfect tense ‘had appeared’ to make the sentence correct. It should read as:’..and had appeared in a..’
Q3.
Directions: Below is given a passage followed by several possible inferences which can be drawn from the facts stated in the passage. You have to examine each inference separately in the context of the passage and decide upon its degree of truth or falsity.
Between 2002-03 and 2006-07, Indian economy grew annually at 8.7% led by the services sector at 9% per year. In 1990, India's share of services, at 40% of GDP was consistent with its per capita income for low-income country. By 2001, its share of one-half of the GDP was higher by five per cent age points, compared to the average for low-income countries. Economic reforms that energized the private corporate sector and technological changes that opened up new vistas in telecommunications, IT and outsourcing are believed to be responsible for the impressive performance. However, the services led growth remains a puzzle at a low per capita income, with 55% of the work force still engaged in agriculture, and when agriculture decelerated and industry stagnated-3defying a styled fact in economics.
India has now emerged as a high per capita income country.
Answer : Option E
Explaination / Solution:
Inference is definitely false because it cannot possible be drawn from the given facts.
Q4.
Direction: Read the given passage carefully and answer the questions that follow.
As bitcoin launched in 2009, most early adopters saw its disruptive potential. While bitcoin has stalled for some time approaching a valid use of the term “stagnation”, cryptocurrency in a larger context is still just as disruptive. In 2011, I stated that bitcoin (cryptocurrency) will do to banks what e-mail did to the postal services. This is not just true, but it will be even more brutal to governments, and by extension, governmental services.
Now, governments love anything that smells like innovation, because it means jobs, this magic word that smells of magic unicorns to anybody in government. Therefore, people who like innovation are nurturing this bitcoin thing, this cryptocurrency thing, this ethereum thing (as if governments made a difference, but still). Lots of startups in tip-of-the-spear financial technology means that their government may get a head start over other governments. They have no idea that cryptocurrency will radically scale back the power of government, not just their own one, but also all those other governments over which it seeks a competitive edge.
Individual people in government can also love bitcoin because it gives them something to do. More specifically, it gives them something to regulate. Fortunately, other people in government see that this gives them something to do, which is to hold those government regulators with an overdeveloped sense of order somewhat in check. You’ll hear no shortage of wannabe regulators saying that “bitcoin is bad because it’s being used in crime and contraband trade!”, to which I usually respond, “well, bitcoin is a currency, so I mean you put it in relation to the US Dollar, which then… is not used in crime and contraband trade, is this the argument you’re using to support your position?”, at which point the discussion generally changes topic.
This completely disregards the observation that bitcoin and cryptocurrency were designed to not submit to regulation in the first place. Well, at least not governmental regulation. It is heavily regulated – but by its source code, and by its source code alone.
The reason this will cripple today’s governments — today’s idea of what a government is and does — is because today’s economy is built on one layer doing actual work and three layers of abstraction on top.
At the first and bottom layer of our economy are the individual people doing all the actual work.
The second layer on top of the first is the abstraction we call corporations, which is a way to organize our economy and optimize transaction costs.
The third layer on top of the second would be banks, which handle money for corporations and individual people in a middleman gatekeeper position.
Finally, the fourth layer is the government, which takes advantage of the banks’ gatekeeper position to siphon off taxes from money flows in order to fund itself and governmental services. In other words, layer four completely depends on layer three for its operations – or at least for the relative simplicity of funding its operations.
Now, what bitcoin and cryptocurrency do is make away with the banks – cutting them out of the loop entirely, making them redundant, obsolete, dinosaurified. This resulting absence of anything where banks used to be creates an air gap between the functional part of the economy – people and corporations – and governments who want funding.
The way governments want to tap all money flows in order to fund itself is not entirely unlike how the surveillance agencies want to tap all information flows in order to have an information advantage. In this way, the deployment of cryptocurrency is to tax collection what deployment of end-to-end encryption is to mass surveillance. The government can no longer reach into money flows and grab what it wants, but will be dependent on people actively sending it money. The government can’t point a gun at a computer and have it give up its money; you can only make a computer operator feel very sorry for not voluntarily producing the keys to that money. So the government is no longer able to collect taxes without the consent – even if coerced and forced consent – of the people being thus collected.
The deployment of cryptocurrency is to tax collection what deployment of end-to-end encryption is to mass surveillance.
Governments, and individual people in government, have no idea about this bigger picture. They’re far too wrapped up in things-as-usual to notice. They won’t see it coming until it’s already happened.
When this happens, there will be no shortage of people in government who suddenly want to regulate cryptocurrency – only to find out it will be as effective as regulating gravity. When this happens, it will be redefined from a coercive Colossus able to take what it wants and do what it wants into a construct that actually depends on people wanting to fund it. This will be a very interesting time to live in. While today’s governments will see themselves as getting crippled, I suspect most citizens will regard it as unquestionably healthy that governments will actually begin to depend on the approval of the people at large.
We’re just beginning to see the changes to society that the Internet brings. This is one of them.
The author believes that once cryptocurrency gains momentum it will-
(i) gain control of the financial system
(ii) be impossible to regulate
(iii) weaken the government and make it dependent on the public
(i) gain control of the financial system
(ii) be impossible to regulate
(iii) weaken the government and make it dependent on the public
Answer : Option D
Explaination / Solution:
Statement (ii) and (iii) can be interpreted from these lines, “When this happens, there will be no shortage of people in government who suddenly want to regulate cryptocurrency – only to find out it will be as effective as regulating gravity. When this happens, government as we know it will be redefined from a coercive Colossus able to take what it wants and do what it wants into a construct that actually depends on people wanting to fund it.” The regulation of cryptocurrency has been compared to the regulation of gravity. Further, the eventual effect of this loss of control will be the dependence of the government on the public to voluntarily fund it.
Q5. Directions: Rearrange the following six sentences A., B., C., D., E. and F. in a proper sequence to form a meaningful paragraph; then answer the questions that follow.
A. So, the Sun retired behind a cloud and the Wind began to blow hard upon the traveller.
B. The Sun and the Wind were disputing who was stronger between them.
C. But the harder he blew the more closely the traveller wrapped his coat around him.
D. Then the Sun came out and shone in all his glory upon the traveller, who soon found it too hot to walk with his coat on.
E. Suddenly they saw a traveller walking down the road, and the Sun said, “I see a way to settle our dispute.”
F. Whichever of us can cause the traveller below to take off his coat shall be regarded as the stronger one.
Which of the following should be the SIXTH (LAST) sentence after rearrangement?
Answer : Option C
Explaination / Solution:
No Explaination.
Q6. Direction: Read the sentence to find out whether there is any error in it. The error, if any, will be in one part of the sentence. The number of that part is the answer. If the given sentence is correct, the answer is 'No error'. Ignore the errors of punctuation, if any.
This was a barbaric act, a heinous crime, and there’s no place for (1) / that in this religion and if you look at the meaning of Islam, it means peace, so for (2) / Islam to be associated with these types of crimes, these murderous (3) / acts, it has really shook the whole community. (4)
Answer : Option D
Explaination / Solution:
The error lies in part 4 of the sentence in which the verb ‘shook’ in the past tense is incorrect and needs to be replaced with the verb in the past participle form ‘shaken’ to make the sentence correct. It should read as:’..it has really shaken the whole community’.
Q7.
Directions: Below is given a passage followed by several possible inferences which can be drawn from the facts stated in the passage. You have to examine each inference separately in the context of the passage and decide upon its degree of truth or falsity.
Between 2002-03 and 2006-07, Indian economy grew annually at 8.7% led by the services sector at 9% per year. In 1990, India's share of services, at 40% of GDP was consistent with its per capita income for low-income country. By 2001, its share of one-half of the GDP was higher by five per cent age points, compared to the average for low-income countries. Economic reforms that energized the private corporate sector and technological changes that opened up new vistas in telecommunications, IT and outsourcing are believed to be responsible for the impressive performance. However, the services led growth remains a puzzle at a low per capita income, with 55% of the work force still engaged in agriculture, and when agriculture decelerated and industry stagnated-3defying a styled fact in economics.
Growth in India's services sector in the year following 2005 is more than 9 per cent.
Answer : Option A
Explaination / Solution:
Inference is true given in the first line of the passage.
i.e. “Between 2002-03 and 2006-07, Indian economy grew annually at 8.7% led by the services sector at 9% per year”.
Q8.
Direction: Read the given passage carefully and answer the questions that follow.
As bitcoin launched in 2009, most early adopters saw its disruptive potential. While bitcoin has stalled for some time approaching a valid use of the term “stagnation”, cryptocurrency in a larger context is still just as disruptive. In 2011, I stated that bitcoin (cryptocurrency) will do to banks what e-mail did to the postal services. This is not just true, but it will be even more brutal to governments, and by extension, governmental services.
Now, governments love anything that smells like innovation, because it means jobs, this magic word that smells of magic unicorns to anybody in government. Therefore, people who like innovation are nurturing this bitcoin thing, this cryptocurrency thing, this ethereum thing (as if governments made a difference, but still). Lots of startups in tip-of-the-spear financial technology means that their government may get a head start over other governments. They have no idea that cryptocurrency will radically scale back the power of government, not just their own one, but also all those other governments over which it seeks a competitive edge.
Individual people in government can also love bitcoin because it gives them something to do. More specifically, it gives them something to regulate. Fortunately, other people in government see that this gives them something to do, which is to hold those government regulators with an overdeveloped sense of order somewhat in check. You’ll hear no shortage of wannabe regulators saying that “bitcoin is bad because it’s being used in crime and contraband trade!”, to which I usually respond, “well, bitcoin is a currency, so I mean you put it in relation to the US Dollar, which then… is not used in crime and contraband trade, is this the argument you’re using to support your position?”, at which point the discussion generally changes topic.
This completely disregards the observation that bitcoin and cryptocurrency were designed to not submit to regulation in the first place. Well, at least not governmental regulation. It is heavily regulated – but by its source code, and by its source code alone.
The reason this will cripple today’s governments — today’s idea of what a government is and does — is because today’s economy is built on one layer doing actual work and three layers of abstraction on top.
At the first and bottom layer of our economy are the individual people doing all the actual work.
The second layer on top of the first is the abstraction we call corporations, which is a way to organize our economy and optimize transaction costs.
The third layer on top of the second would be banks, which handle money for corporations and individual people in a middleman gatekeeper position.
Finally, the fourth layer is the government, which takes advantage of the banks’ gatekeeper position to siphon off taxes from money flows in order to fund itself and governmental services. In other words, layer four completely depends on layer three for its operations – or at least for the relative simplicity of funding its operations.
Now, what bitcoin and cryptocurrency do is make away with the banks – cutting them out of the loop entirely, making them redundant, obsolete, dinosaurified. This resulting absence of anything where banks used to be creates an air gap between the functional part of the economy – people and corporations – and governments who want funding.
The way governments want to tap all money flows in order to fund itself is not entirely unlike how the surveillance agencies want to tap all information flows in order to have an information advantage. In this way, the deployment of cryptocurrency is to tax collection what deployment of end-to-end encryption is to mass surveillance. The government can no longer reach into money flows and grab what it wants, but will be dependent on people actively sending it money. The government can’t point a gun at a computer and have it give up its money; you can only make a computer operator feel very sorry for not voluntarily producing the keys to that money. So the government is no longer able to collect taxes without the consent – even if coerced and forced consent – of the people being thus collected.
The deployment of cryptocurrency is to tax collection what deployment of end-to-end encryption is to mass surveillance.
Governments, and individual people in government, have no idea about this bigger picture. They’re far too wrapped up in things-as-usual to notice. They won’t see it coming until it’s already happened.
When this happens, there will be no shortage of people in government who suddenly want to regulate cryptocurrency – only to find out it will be as effective as regulating gravity. When this happens, it will be redefined from a coercive Colossus able to take what it wants and do what it wants into a construct that actually depends on people wanting to fund it. This will be a very interesting time to live in. While today’s governments will see themselves as getting crippled, I suspect most citizens will regard it as unquestionably healthy that governments will actually begin to depend on the approval of the people at large.
We’re just beginning to see the changes to society that the Internet brings. This is one of them.
The reason behind the government’s support for innovation is that it-
Answer : Option C
Explaination / Solution:
This can be interpreted from these lines, “Now, governments love anything that smells like innovation, because it means jobs, this magic word that smells of magic unicorns to anybody in government.”
Q9. Directions: Rearrange the following six sentences A., B., C., D., E. and F. in a proper sequence to form a meaningful paragraph; then answer the questions that follow.
A. So, the Sun retired behind a cloud and the Wind began to blow hard upon the traveller.
B. The Sun and the Wind were disputing who was stronger between them.
C. But the harder he blew the more closely the traveller wrapped his coat around him.
D. Then the Sun came out and shone in all his glory upon the traveller, who soon found it too hot to walk with his coat on.
E. Suddenly they saw a traveller walking down the road, and the Sun said, “I see a way to settle our dispute.”
F. Whichever of us can cause the traveller below to take off his coat shall be regarded as the stronger one.
Which of the following should be the FOURTH sentence after rearrangement?
Answer : Option E
Explaination / Solution:
No Explaination.
Q10. Direction: Read the sentence to find out whether there is any error in it. The error, if any, will be in one part of the sentence. The number of that part is the answer. If the given sentence is correct, the answer is 'No error'. Ignore the errors of punctuation, if any.
The Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV Mk III) will function mainly (1) / as a delivery system of heavier satellites, but the (2) / Indian Space Research Organization hopes that it can one day carry a (3) / manned mission - the country's first - beyond Earth's atmosphere. (4)
Answer : Option B
Explaination / Solution:
The error lies in part 2 of the sentence in which the preposition ‘of’ is incorrect and needs to be replaced with ‘for’ to make the sentence correct. Delivery systems are ‘for’ some things and not ‘of’ anything. It should read as:’..system for heavier satellites, but the..’
