Directions for questions 44 to 46:
The passage given below is followed by a set of questions. Choose the most appropriate answer to each question. In a stadium in Prague, 20 years ago today, a hundred thousand people, including my father and me, saw something we were not supposed to see. For decades it had been forbidden. The music, we were told, would poison our minds with filthy images. We would be infected by the West's capitalist propaganda. It was a cool August night in 1990; the Communist regime had officially collapsed eight months earlier, when Vaclav Havel, the longtime dissident, was elected president. And now the Rolling Stones had come to Prague. I was 16 then, and to this day I recall the posters promoting the concert, which lined the streets and the walls of the stadium: "The Rolling Stones roll in, Soviet army rolls out." Soviet soldiers had been stationed in Czechoslovakia since 1968, when their tanks brutally crushed the so-called Prague Spring. My father was 21 at that time, dreaming of freedom and listening to bootlegged copies of "Let's Spend the Night Together." But it would be more than two decades before he would get to see the band live. During those years, you had to tune into foreign stations to hear the Stones. Communists called the band members "rotten junkies," and said no decent socialist citizen would listen to them.
I only knew one Stones song, "Satisfaction" — but I knew it by heart. I had heard it for the first time on a pirated tape my father had bought on the black market in Hungary and smuggled into the country. It put an immediate spell on me. I was hugely impressed by the rough, loud guitar riff, so unlike the mellow sound of Czechoslovakian music. (The Communists frowned on the bass and the electric guitar, but they severely disapproved of the saxophone because they said it was invented by a Belgian imperialist.) Czechoslovakians had been urged for four decades to sacrifice their inner dreams to the collective happiness of the masses. People who went their own way — rebels — often ended up in jail. That night in August, waiting for the Rolling Stones to come on stage, we felt like rebels. The concert was held in the same stadium where the Communist government used to hold rallies and organize parades. My classmates and I had spent endless hours in that stadium, marching in formations that, seen from the stands above, were supposed to symbolize health, joy and the discipline of the masses. Now, instead of marching as one, we were ready to get loose. "We gotta get closer," my father whispered into my ear as we tried to make our way through the crowd. I sensed that everyone was nervous. They were accustomed to being lied to, to having promises broken. They didn't quite believe that the Stones were really coming to play live. I could see that my father didn't either. "We might see their photographs or a movie instead," I heard some people saying, pointing to huge video screens installed inside the stadium. I started to have doubts myself. We had been waiting for five hours. Suddenly, the lights dimmed. Drums started to pound, and the screens turned on as if by magic. "Oh my God, it is really happening," whispered a woman standing close to me. She was expressing something more than just the thrill of a concert. She was saying that the Communists were truly gone. That we were finally free to do as we pleased.
44. Which of the following best captures what the Rolling Stones concert stood for in the author's mind?
(a) A chance to celebrate the demise of the communist regime.
(b) An expression of individual choice and freedom.
(c) An opportunity to indulge in an activity that had been banned for a long time.
(d) A rebellion against conformity.
45. According to the passage, which of the following is not a characteristic of Czechoslovakia while it was under Soviet/Communist influence?
(a) Suppressing of individual thoughts and ideas.
(b) Mass demonstrations and parades.
(c) Censorship of news reporting.
(d) Discouragement of rebellious ideas or themes.
46. What can be inferred as the real reason for Communists in Czechoslovakia to oppose 'The Rolling Stones'?
(a) They were viewed as a form of rebellion by the regime.
(b) They were created by outsiders and conflicted with traditional Czech themes.
(c) They exposed the audience to vulgar images.
(d) They were a form of propaganda for Western governments
. 47. The word given below has been used in sentences in four different ways. Choose the option corresponding to the sentence in which the usage of the word is incorrect or inappropriate.
Run
(a) Oscar has run through the fortune he inherited after the death of his uncle.
(b) I had the run of the entire farm when I lived with my grandparents
. (c) Vinay likes to run down his rivals.
(d) The government is trying its best to curb run away inflation.
48. The word given below has been used in sentences in four different ways. Choose the option corresponding to the sentence in which the usage of the word is incorrect or inappropriate.
Key
(a) The critics claimed that the singer was out of key during the performance.
(b) He composed a beautiful symphony in a key of C major.
(c) Despite the media's expectations the celebrity wedding was a low-key event
. (d) Politicians need to key their strategies to the prevailing mood of the public.
52. In the question, there are four sentences or parts of sentences that form a paragraph. Identify the sentence(s) or part(s) of sentence(s) that is/are correct in terms of grammar and usage. Then, choose the most appropriate option.
A. The finding suggests some cases of the disease could be caused by the immune system running amok and attacking healthy tissues or failing to fight infection that leave people susceptible to the condition.
B. The study is the first to use evidence from the human genome to confirm the long-held suspicion that the immune system plays role in the disease.
C. "People have speculated about a link between the immune system and Parkinson's disease for some time and this study suggests that link is real", said Cyrus Zabetian.
D. Parkinson's disease is caused by a steady dying-off of brain cells that produce a chemical called dopamine.
(a) A and D (b) B and C (c) only D (d) only C
53. In the question, there are four sentences or parts of sentences that form a paragraph. Identify the sentence(s) or part(s) of sentence(s) that is/are correct in terms of grammar and usage. Then, choose the most appropriate option.
A. But the "economic miracle" came to a juddering halt at the beginning of the 1990s when the property bubble bursted.
B. What followed was a decade in the doldrums and the country has never fully recovered.
C. Today, it faces deflation, an ageing and shrinking population and only minimal growth.
D. Economists also cited the figures as evidence that the global recovery was still facing strong headwind.
(a) C and D (b) B and C (c) B, C and D (d) A and C
57. Five sentences are given below, labeled A, B, C, D and E. They need to be arranged in a logical order to form a coherent paragraph/passage. From the given options, choose the most appropriate option.
A. Teams focus on controlling pain, nausea and other side effects; they also address patients' worries and make sure they have help with making meals, dressing and bathing when not hospitalized.
B. Palliative care typically begins with a long conversation about what the patient with a terminal diagnosis wants out of his remaining life.
C. Hospice care is intensive palliative care including home nursing, but insurers usually cover it only if the patient abandons medical treatment.
D. It includes the options any oncologist addresses: surgery, chemotherapy and radiation and their side effects.
E. But it also includes how much suffering a patient wishes to bear, effects on the family, and legal, insurance and religious issues.
(a) BDEAC (b) CDEAB (c) BCDEA (d) ADEBC
58. Five sentences are given below, labeled A, B, C, D and E. They need to be arranged in a logical order to form a coherent paragraph/passage. From the given options, choose the most appropriate option.
A. From the moment he arrived there its citizens resented him and his Martians and his youth and his talent.
B. Hollywood claimed Welles never would make the grade.
C. At announcements that his first two productions had been called off, the town nodded knowingly.
D. He was just a big bag of publicity.
E. When he grew a beard for his first film, a sporty press agent sent him a bearded ham for Christmas; columnists dubbed him with nicknames like "Little Orson Annie."
(a) BDAEC (b) CBEAD (c) EABDC (d) BAECD
59. Five sentences are given below, labeled A, B, C, D and E. They need to be arranged in a logical order to form a coherent paragraph/passage. From the given options, choose the most appropriate option.
A. That's something Al Hirschfeld did so beautifully, especially as his artwork changed during different phases.
B. The more spare it was, I found, the more moved I was.
C. I fight when people ask me to put color in a picture.
D. A line with a hand at the end of it can give you just enough to envision an arm.
E. I love color, but I'm more intrigued by the relationship between black and white and space. (a) CEDBA (b) CEABD (c) ABCDE (d) DCEBA
60. Five sentences are given below, labeled A, B, C, D and E. They need to be arranged in a logical order to form a coherent paragraph/passage. From the given options, choose the most appropriate option.
A. The best way to undermine the traffickers is to tackle demand for their product
. B. There has been no significant increase in drug use, while take-up of treatments has increased and health has improved.
C. Portugal, where drug use was decriminalised nearly 10 years ago, is showing the way.
D. Its evidence suggests the most persuasive argument against changing policy – that it would increase the numbers abusing drugs – is baseless.
E. And as part of holistic policy that has to tackle well-being more widely, decriminalising individual drug use would be a good start.
(a) ECDBA (b) ADCEB (c) AECDB (d) CDBAE
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