ENGLISH - Online Test
Q1. 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 SECOND sentence after rearrangement?
Answer : Option D
Explaination / Solution:
B should be the opening statement because it introduces the main theme of the nrrative, which is the fight between the sun annd wind.
E is the next statement as it talks about the next step in any dispute i.e. attempt to sort the dispute.
F follows E as it tells about the condition that is set for sorting the dispute.
A is the next statement as it tells the action that follows the deal between the two parties in dispute.
C follows A as it talks about the effect of the action done in A.
D is the final statement as it talks about the counter action by the other party in dispute.
Q2. Direction:Read each part of the sentence to find out if 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 there is no error, mark your answer as (5).
Up-to-date Microsoft customers are safe in (1)/the purported National Security Agency (NSA) spying tools dumped online (2)/, the software company said Saturday, tamping down fears that (3)/the digital arsenal was poised to wreak havoc across the internet (4).
Answer : Option A
Explaination / Solution:
“In” should be replaced by “from”. Purported means something that is said to be true or real but not definitely true or real therefore, up-to-date Microsoft customers are safe from false National Security Agency (NSA) spying tools.
Q3. Directions: In each question below is given a statement followed by two courses of action numbered I and II. A course of action is a step or administrative decision to be taken for improvement, follow-up or further action in regard to the problem, policy etc. On the basis of the information given in the statement, you have to assume everything in the statement to be true, then decide which of the suggested courses of action logically follows(s) for pursuing.
Statement: Drinking water supply to many parts of the town has been disrupted due to loss of water because of leakage in pipes supplying water.
Courses of action
I. The government should order an enquiry into the matter.
II. The civic body should set up a fact-finding team to assess the damage and take effective steps.
Courses of action
I. The government should order an enquiry into the matter.
II. The civic body should set up a fact-finding team to assess the damage and take effective steps.
Answer : Option D
Explaination / Solution:
Considering the nature of problem:
Courses of action I is not necessary.
Courses of actions II is also not required since it is mentioned in the statement that water supply is disrupted due to loss of water owing to leakage in pipes supplying water. Thus, reason for disruption of water supply is already known. Therefore there is no need of setting up of fact- finding team.
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.
Which of the following would be the impact of the prevalence of cyrptocurrencies on banking system in the long run?
(i) Banking system may lose the confidence of the customers
(ii) It will make banks redundant
(iii) It will remove the mediation of banks and thus create micro markets
(i) Banking system may lose the confidence of the customers
(ii) It will make banks redundant
(iii) It will remove the mediation of banks and thus create micro markets
Answer : Option B
Explaination / Solution:
This can be interpreted from these lines, “Now, what bitcoin and cryptocurrency do is make away with the banks – cutting them out of the loop entirely, making them redundant, obsolete, dinosaurified.” Hence, option B is the correct answer.
Q5. Direction: Five statements, out of which only one is grammatically incorrect, are given. Identify the incorrect statement.
I. Most examiners have perfected their skills in making it a veritable nightmare for the majority of the students.
II. Quite unwittingly we have increased the enrollment in schools alarmingly.
III. The students who have an excellent report with the teacher manage to score high.
IV. She sings well, isn't she?
V. The cultivation of crops depends upon the proper supply of water throughout the year.
Answer : Option B
Explaination / Solution:
In sentence III, rapport should be used instead of report. Rapport means close and harmonious relationship. In sentence IV the auxiliary verb that should be used with she is doesn't.
Q6.
Direction: Read the passage carefully and answer the questions that follow.
State Bank of India (or SBI) is India’s largest public sector bank, and a Fortune 500 company. It has now branched into various financial services, and is a government-owned corporation headquartered out of Mumbai. As of 2014-15, SBI had assets worth Rs. 20,480 billion and was ranked 232rd on the Fortune Global 500 list of the world’s biggest corporations as of 2016.SBI traces its roots back to 1806, making it the oldest commercial bank in the Indian subcontinent. The State Bank of India as it is today has been in existence since 1956. As on date, it has a market share of over a whopping 20 percent in deposits and loans among Indian commercial banks.SBI offers a range of banking products and services through its extensive branch network, which includes products targeted at resident Indians as well as non-resident Indians (or NRIs).In addition to its five associate banks, the SBI also operates in the non-banking sphere which includes credit cards, life and general insurance, funds management and capital markets among others.
What sets them apart from competition is the sheer reach that SBI offers, reaching out to potential home owners in semi-urban and rural areas in addition to metropolitan cities. Further, in keeping with the rapid technological development in the banking and financial services (BFSI) sector, the SBI has expanded its reach by offering services at the click of a button.SBI has a wide reach that is not spread only domestically but as well as in the overseas market. There are 14 regional hubs and over 57 zonal offices located in India. The number of bank branches has crossed 18,354 in India itself, and as of 2014-15, the Bank had 191 offices spread across 36 countries worldwide. It also operates several foreign subsidies or affiliates.When it comes to home loans, SBI offers various products, and all of these product offerings can be categorised as under:Home loans, which include options for new homes, resale (or pre-owned) homes, as well as construction of a house. It provides Loan for Earnest Money Deposit, which is to help individuals finance their requirements towards earnest money to book residential plots/ built-up housing uses, properties being sold by government housing agencies an urban development authorities and housing boards. Further, this loan can be repaid through the proceeds of the housing loan availed of from SBI.Takeover of home loans, which is a balance transfer facility to shift your existing home loan from scheduled commercial banks, or private and foreign banks and even housing finance companies (registered with the National Housing Bank) to SBI.Tribal Plus Scheme, which is a special housing finance scheme for the hill/ tribal areas of North East India and areas around Chandigarh, Bhopal, Lucknow, Patna and Bhubaneswar.HerGhar, loans exclusively for women home owners, offered at a concessional interest rate. FlexiPay Home Loan Scheme, which is targeted at young working professionals to ease the financial burden by offering attractive repayment options.In addition the SBI also caters to the NRI audience with a selection of housing loan product offerings.In keeping with the tradition of employing the latest technological advances, you can apply for a housing loan both at a SBI branch and online as well. SBI also has digital branches known as SBI InTouch, which offer an instant loan facility for home loans, among other products and services. Rewarding individuals for availing of a home loan, SBI has an attractive rewards programme called the State Bank Rewardz, which offers reward points as part of its Group Loyalty Programme. These points can then be redeemed upon accrual for various products and services, both offline as well as online.
What makes SBI the largest public sector bank in India?
Answer : Option E
Explaination / Solution:
What makes a bank the best are not the small factors like its age or its shares but what policies it brings for its customers and how it retains them increasing its market share. So, option E is the most suitable response.
Q7. Direction: Read each sentence to find out whether there is an error in it. The error, if any, will be in one part of the sentence. If there is no error, the answer will be “No Error”.
There has been an increase of 584 percent (0.3 to 4.5 million)(1)/ in digital transactions done through (2)/the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) for demonetization (3) / in November last year, said an official release (4).
Answer : Option C
Explaination / Solution:
In C part, use of ‘for’ after UPI is incorrect . ‘Since' will be used in place of ‘for’. For is used before an exact or inexact quantity of time. For is used for a ‘period of time’. Since is used before a specific time or date that is definite. Since is used before a ‘point of time’. Therefore, since should be used in place of ‘for’.
Hence C is the correct choice.
Q8. Directions: In each question below is given a statement followed by two courses of action numbered I and II. A course of action is a step or administrative decision to be taken for improvement, follow-up or further action in regard to the problem, policy etc. On the basis of the information given in the statement, you have to assume everything in the statement to be true, then decide which of the suggested courses of action logically follows(s) for pursuing.
Statement: There is an alarming increase in the number of people suffering from malaria in many parts of the city.
Courses of action
I. The municipal corporation has advised all the govt. hospitals to store adequate supply of malaria drugs.
II. The municipal corporation has urged people to use mosquito repellents and keep their premises clean.
Courses of action
I. The municipal corporation has advised all the govt. hospitals to store adequate supply of malaria drugs.
II. The municipal corporation has urged people to use mosquito repellents and keep their premises clean.
Answer : Option E
Explaination / Solution:
Both courses of action I and II follow as I will help in cure while II will help in prevention in case of outbreak of Malaria.
Q9.
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.
“Coercive colossus” used in the passage refers to-
Answer : Option D
Explaination / Solution:
This can easily be interpreted from these lines of the passage, “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.” Hence, option D is the correct answer.
Q10. Direction: Five statements are given below out of which one or more maybe grammatically incorrect. Identify the incorrect statement(s).
I. We were assured that nobody would ever breathe a word about the matter.
II. Many countries were suffering by financial crisis.
III. Nobody knows where could he have gone so early in the morning.
IV. There were many food items that were introduced in India by foreigners.
V. You must reach the office as early as possible.
II. Many countries were suffering by financial crisis.
III. Nobody knows where could he have gone so early in the morning.
IV. There were many food items that were introduced in India by foreigners.
V. You must reach the office as early as possible.
Answer : Option B
Explaination / Solution:
After suffering, the preposition “from" should be used in sentence II.
In sentence III, could should be used after he because the sentence is an assertive sentence written in indirect speech.
