Saturday, 15 August 2015

MOCK ABC

Directions for questions 31 to 33: The passage given below is followed by a set of three questions. Choose the most appropriate answer to each question.

I was recently shocked to read that several city councils in the UK are getting ready to expunge everyday Latin words from the English lexicon. Along with 'via' and 'etc' would be banished 'viz' and 'i.e.', not to speak of 'inter alia' and 'bona fide'. There goes away that exotic literary advantage. It was only recently that Amrita, my 10-year-old, fighting against a tide of domestic protestations voted against romantic French and prevalent Spanish and chose Latin as her second language in middle school. I had cheered her and actually promised to help out with the homework, given that three out of five words in English are of Latin origin. Blame this vicarious decision on my formative years but growing up in Mumbai, Latin was never an option in my school, as our national language Hindi was strictly enforced. Shiv Sainiks had decreed that local Marathi was de rigueur for all citizens of the city. I therefore ended up needing to speak three additional languages, not to forget Tamil, my mother tongue.

Languages rarely heard have always fascinated me. I always had this burning desire to speak them, particularly when my travel stints exposed me to the strangest of tongues. Language CDs didn't help me a whole lot. The thing about languages is that though you may be gifted with the art of penmanship, spoken word skills are mostly inherited or acquired after birth. I have always packed my dog-eared phrasebook along with my toothbrush and shaving cream for my travels. These haven't helped me much either, often eliciting that controlled giggle or even outright laughter at my stuttered attempts. Printed words won't tell you that Thai is a tonal language with grammatical minefields or Mandarin and Cantonese have a lilt to them flowing like Indian ink applied with a Chinese brush. These city councils argue that they needed to create a language devoid of such linguistic minefields. However, there could be far-reaching consequences in the professional community. Just like abstruse scientific papers and brain-twisting mathematical theorems, legal documents are made to sound pompous with Latin words sprinkled generously all over those reams of printed matter. With Latin slowly oozing out of our English dictionary our lawyers will be hard-pressed to retain their mystifying status quo.

31. Which of the following is a suitable title for the passage?

(a) My Fascination with Languages
(b) Languages Seldom Spoken
(c) Should English be pruned?
(d) Latin: The Legal Language

32. According to the passage, why did the author choose to help his daughter?

(a) The author felt that his daughter's choice of language was relevant in light of its close links with English.
(b) The author felt that his daughter's choice of language was justified given that he had never been allowed to study Latin.
(c) The author felt that his daughter's choice of language was practical and much better than romantic French and prevalent Spanish.
(d) The author felt that his daughter's choice of language was relevant since it would give her an exotic literary advantage.

33. According to the passage, why have councils in the UK decided to remove Latin from the English lexicon?

(a) They feel that the linguistic hurdles in Latin make it difficult to gain mastery over it.
(b) They want to create a language that does not have the linguistic problems associated with the use of Latin.
(c) They find themselves unable to overcome the linguistic hurdles provided by Latin.
(d) They want to create a language that will help them remove the ambiguities associated with the use of Latin which has now become an obsolete language.

Directions for questions 34 to 36: The passage given below is followed by a set of three questions. Choose the most appropriate answer to each question.

Henry Tyrrell, art critic of The New York World, now replies with the question "Is Chesterton Sane?" Apparently, his conclusion is that Chesterton is misled by his head, though his "heart is in the right place."

Chesterton said: "It was the whole point of Whistler and his school that they produced the picture without troubling about the meaning. We may say it is the point of Picasso and the rest to paint the meaning without troubling about the picture."

Henry Tyrrell, quoting Elie Faure, writer of the greatest history of art of recent years, says: "Picasso was undoubtedly a great criminal, in the sense that he is largely responsible for the muddle which painting has got into latterly. It is from him chiefly that the younger artists have taken the notion of looking within themselves to interpret the outer world, instead of, like their elders, looking at the outside world to realize themselves. Because oftentimes they are unable to distinguish much of anything within themselves, you know what happens (They get themselves called crazy). That is Picasso's crime. But Michael Angelo shares his guilt, and Rembrandt, and Delacroix, and Cezanne."

From this, Mr. Tyrrell concludes that Chesterton is quite wrong about Picasso and the mad modern artists.

However, though it certainly is not crazy, modern art, according to M. Faure he is in a "muddle." It is lost and groping its way in its search for new forms, and this naturally troubles such conservatives as Chesterton. The followers of Michael Angelo (individualists, like Picasso) represented a definite decline in Italian art. Are the imitators of Picasso also on the wrong track?

Some of them seem to think so, for they are attempting, in their latest craze for being "primitive," a thing really opposed to the earlier phase. They are trying to get back to the "unspoiled vision" of a child or a savage; which is the same as looking "out" instead of "in."

Mr. Chesterton also objects to this phase, as being an affectation. He is convinced that modern artists are mad, whatever they choose to do.

34. What is the central purpose of the passage?

(a) To bring forward the unending debate on the concept of modern art.
(b) To discuss the views of Henry Tyrell and Chesterton on modern art and artists.
(c) To discuss and critically analyze the views of the art critic Chesterton.
(d) To discuss and critically analyze the views of Chesterton and Henry Tyrell.

35. According to Elie Faure, how are the younger artists different from their elder ones?

(a) The paintings of the younger artists are a reflection of how the outer world impresses itself on the inner being of the artist.
(b) The paintings of the younger artists reflect the outer world as they interpret it within themselves.
(c) The paintings of the younger artists are inspired by Picasso's style and they followed his interpretation of the outside world.
(d) Their paintings are an expression of their independent thinking as opposed to the elder artists.

36. What is the role of the first paragraph in this passage?

(a) It indicates that Chesterton is misguided in his approach to art in general.
(b) It introduces the conflicting opinions of Tyrrell and Chesterton on art.
(c) It brings forward Tyrrell's opinion on the subject of modern art.
(d) It indicates that Tyrrell and Chesterton are two contemporaries who are at odds with each other.

Directions for questions 37 and 38: Answer the questions on the basis of the information given below.

Each of the six people – Panchi, Qureshi, Radha, Sonal, Tarun and Umesh – studies exactly two subjects among the four – Physiology, Ecology, Cell Theory and Genetics. No two persons among the six have the same combination of two subjects. Each person chooses one of the two subjects as Major and the other as Minor. It is also known that:

(i) The Minor subject of Qureshi and Radha is the same.
(ii) The Major subject of Umesh and Radha is the same.
(iii) The Major subject of Panchi is Physiology and the Minor subject of Sonal is Ecology.
(iv) The Major subject of Tarun is Cell Theory, which is not true for Radha.
(v) The Major subject of both Qureshi and Sonal is the same as the Minor subject of Umesh.

37. Which are the two subjects studied by Radha?

(a) Physiology and Genetics 
(b) Physiology and Cell Theory
(c) Ecology and Cell Theory 
(d) Genetics and Ecology

38. Who among the following doesn't study Ecology?

(a) Panchi          (b) Tarun                 (c) Sonal                (d) Qureshi

Directions for questions 39 to 41: Answer the questions on the basis of the information given below.

Each of the six people – Akshita, Babita, Chintan, Devina, Engela and Farooq – works in a different department among Marketing, Finance, Operations, Academics, IT and HR and belongs to a different city among Dhaka, Kashipur, Meerut, Bikaner, Jaipur and Pune, in no particular order. It is also known that:

(i) The person who works in Operations belongs to Kashipur.
(ii) Neither Akshita nor Devina belongs to Bikaner.
(iii) Akshita works in neither IT nor Marketing. The same is true for Farooq.
(iv) Devina works in HR and belongs to neither Jaipur nor Pune.
(v) Babita belongs to Dhaka and doesn't work in Finance.
(vi) The person who works in Academics belongs to neither Jaipur nor Pune. The same is true for the person who works in Finance.

39. Who works in Operations?

(a) Akshita              (b) Chintan           (c) Engela           (d) None of the

40. Who works in Finance?

(a) Akshita             (b) Chintan          (c) Engela             (d) Farooq

41. The person who works in Academics belongs to which city?

(a) Jaipur        (b) Dhaka         (c) Meerut                (d) None of these

Directions for questions 42 to 44: The passage given below is followed by a set of three questions. Choose the most appropriate answer to each question.

The data suggest Indians are scaling corporate heights. In a study of S&P 500 companies, Egon Zehnder found more Indian CEOs than any other nationality except American. Indians lead seven companies; Canadians, four. Among the C-suite executives in the 2009 FORTUNE 500 were two mainland Chinese, two North American Chinese and 13 Indians, according to a study by two professors from Wharton and China Europe International Business School.

For multinationals, it makes good sense to have leaders experienced in working with expanding Asian markets. And India is already the location of many of their operations. "If you look at companies like Pepsi or Hewlett-Packard or IBM, a huge chunk of their global workforce is sitting out in India," says Anshuman Das, a co-founder of CareerNet, a Bangalore executive-search company. "India and China are also the countries of future profits for the multinationals, so they may want their global leaders to come out of them."

Competitive and complex, India has evolved from a poorly run, centrally controlled economy into the perfect Petri dish in which to grow a 21st century CEO. "The Indians are the friendly and familiar faces of Asia," says Ader. "They think in English, they're used to multinationals in their country, they're very adaptive, and they're supremely confident."  The subcontinent has been global for centuries, having endured, and absorbed, waves of foreign colonizers, from the Mughals to the British. Practiced traders and migrants, Indians have impressive transnational networks. "The earth is full of Indians," wrote Salman Rushdie. "We get everywhere." Unlike, say, a Swede or a German, an Indian executive is raised in a multiethnic, multifaith, multilingual society, one nearly as diverse as the modern global marketplace.

Unlike Americans, they're well versed in negotiating India's byzantine bureaucracy, a key skill to have in emerging markets. And unlike the Chinese, they can handle the messiness of a litigious democracy. "In China, you want something done, you talk to a bureaucrat and a politician — it gets done," observes Ajay. "In India, if you talk to a bureaucrat or a politician, there are going to be 600 other people with their own points of view." There's an old saying about Asian business cultures: "The Chinese roll out the red carpet; Indians roll out the red tape."

Maybe that's why Indian managers are good at managing it. They have cut their teeth in a country ranked 134th by the World Bank for ease of doing business. To be fair, it's also the reason some of them left home. They're practiced in the exasperating culture of local, state and national permits. "To build a factory in China, a CEO will have to get two or three different permissions from various departments," observes Signe Spencer, a co-author of The Indian CEO, a 2007 study from the HayGroup consultancy. "An Indian CEO may have to get 80 different permissions from 80 different places." No wonder Indian executives spend much of their time networking and lobbying — tasks Western CEOs leave to their corporate public-affairs departments.

42. It can be inferred that the style of the passage is

(a) Factual 
(b) Didactic 
(c) Analytical 
(d) Argumentative

43. Which of the following is the best analogy for the Indian executive's advantage over his Chinese counterpart?

(a) Structured: Constrained 
(b) Constrained: Structured
(c) Control: Autonomy 
(d) Restrictions: Autonomy

44. It can be inferred that the author will move on to discuss

(a) further points of comparison between the Indian and the Chinese executive.
(b) further specific points on how Indian executives are able to manage bureaucratic hurdles.
(c) further points that substantiate why the Indian executive will always scale corporate heights.
(d) further points on the how the Indian executive scores over executives from countries other than China.

45. 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.

Rake

(a) When the dotcom boom occurred in the 1990s, his company raked in more than $300 million.
(b) She asked him to stop raking up the past at the slightest excuse.
(c) The manager raked me around the coals for being late again.
(d) She got a 5% rake-off from the deal.

46. 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.

Scrape

(a) Bringing up that minor legal point proves that you're scraping the bottom of the barrel.
(b) I might scrape out the exam if I'm lucky.
(c) After many attempts he managed to scrape into an Ivy League college.
(d) Her parents were able to scrape up the money to send their daughter to an international business school.

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.

Talk

(a) You can't have a real conversation with him—he just talks at you all the time.
(b) I didn't want to move abroad but Bill talked me over it.
(c) Can you talk me through the various investment options?
(d) They talked up the tourist attractions to encourage more visitors.

Directions for questions 48 to 50: Answer the questions on the basis of the information given below.

A company has five directors – Parjit, Manjit, Charjit, Daljit and Jasjit. Two of the directors are females. All the directors have different ages. Their annual incomes (in Rs. Lakhs) are 40, 45, 50, 60 and 75, in no particular order. It is also known that:

(i) The director with the least annual income is not the oldest. The director with the highest annual income is older than one of the two female directors and younger than the other.
(ii) The absolute difference between the annual incomes of Manjit and Daljit is Rs. 15 lakhs.
(iii) The annual income of Charjit is not the highest among the five directors.
(iv) The annual income of the older female director is more than that of the younger female director.
(v) Manjit is the youngest among the male directors and Jasjit is the older of the two female directors. Parjit was older than both Manjit and Jasjit.
(vi) The annual income of one among Parjit, Daljit and Jasjit is the average of the annual incomes of the other two.

48. What is the annual income (in Rs. Lakhs) of Parjit?

(a) 40            (b) 45              (c) 50              (d) Cannot be determined

49. What is the annual income (in Rs. Lakhs) of the oldest among the five directors?

(a) 45            (b) 50                (c) 60                (d) 75

50. What is the absolute difference (in Rs. Lakhs) between the annual incomes of the younger female director and the youngest male director?

(a) 10             (b) 30              (c) 15              (d) None of these

51. A paragraph is given below from which the last sentence has been deleted. From the given options, choose the one that completes the paragraph in the most appropriate way.

Afghanistan is so dependent on foreign aid that it could face an economic crisis when the West ends its military intervention in the country in 2014, a United States Senate report warned yesterday, criticizing the way the US had sunk billions into unsustainable projects in the shattered country. The US is spending $320m (£195m) a month in Afghanistan on reconstruction projects alone and has spent $18.8bn since it invaded in 2001. President Barack Obama's administration has requested a further $3.2bn for projects in the coming fiscal year.

(a) The U.S. program of assistance to Afghanistan confers long-term stability to the Afghan geopolitical environment and blunts popular support for extremist forces in the region.
(b) Hence, there are plans to increase direct funding, but only when ministries are able to execute the development funds that they do receive, and do so accountably.
(c) However, a number of humanitarian situations in Afghanistan, most stemming from the years of war that preceded the U.S. intervention, need to be addressed first.
(d) Yet the expensive nation-building efforts haven't utilized Afghanistan's resources effectively.

52. A paragraph is given below from which the last sentence has been deleted. From the given options, choose the one that completes the paragraph in the most appropriate way.

One area of specialization that I'm particularly skeptical of, is Computers. In recent years, a lot of hoopla has surrounded the arrival of computers in the classroom. Frankly, I'm not so sure that the ability to work a computer is all that essential to the future of this world. After all, what is a computer? It's a sort of brain that you can numbly call on with your fingers to obtain information.

(a) This information is by and large needed, thus making computers a necessity.
(b) But what are you going to do with all that information once you get it?
(c) There are several other specializations much more important for the future of this world, than computers.
(d) What for then do we require computers? We can very well progress without these.

53. All the students of a class are standing in a row. Some data regarding five of the students – Naman, Randhir, Karthik, Pratham and Swati – is given below.

(i) Twenty four students are standing between Naman and Randhir.
(ii) Thirty six students are standing between Naman and Karthik.
(iii) Twelve students are standing between Pratham and Karthik.
(iv) Swati is standing exactly in the middle of Naman and Pratham.
(v) Randhir is standing somewhere between Swati and Karthik.

What is the strength of the class if the students standing at the two ends of the row are two of these five students only?

(a) 38             (b) 51              (c) 63            (d) Cannot be determined

54. Fardeen distributed 18 chocolates among five children – Amit, Bimal, Chatur, Deepak and Ehsan – such that each child received at least one chocolate. The number of chocolates received by each of them was distinct. Deepak received two chocolates more than Ehsan. Amit received more chocolates than Chatur but fewer than Ehsan. Bimal received more chocolates than Ehsan. Bimal did not receive the highest number of chocolates among the five. What was the absolute difference between
the number of chocolates received by Amit and Bimal?

(a) 2              (b) 3              (c) 4               (d) Cannot be determined

55. 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. From the given options, choose the most appropriate one.

A. But it's not always easy to find one with genuine value that you connect with.
B. There are literally thousands of them written on the same topic every year.
C. So deciphering the 'good' from the 'great' can prove to be quite a challenge.
D. That's because, these days, books and online articles are a dime  dozen.
E. It's fairly easy to find a well-written book or an online article.

(a) EADBC        (b) EADCB        (c) EDABC          (d) EBCDA

56. 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. From the given options, choose the most appropriate one.

A. This felicity of forgetfulness lasted but half an hour.
B. Soon the lights went out and the show started a Tamil film with all the known gods in it.
C. He sat rapt in the vision of a heavenly world which some film director had chosen to present.
D. Soon the heroine of the story sat on a low branch of a tree in paradise and wouldn't move out of the place.
E. He soon lost himself in the politics and struggles of gods and goddesses.

(a) DBAEC           (b) EACBD            (c) BECAD          (d) CABED

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. From the given options, choose the most appropriate one.

A. When they move to another flower to feed, some of the pollen can rub off onto this new plant's stigma.
B. They are not trying to pollinate the plant.
C. Usually they are at the plant to get food, the sticky pollen or sweet nectar made at the base of the petals.
D. When animals such as bees, butterflies, moths, flies, and hummingbirds pollinate plants, it's accidental.
E. When feeding, the animals accidentally rub against the stamens and get pollen stuck all over themselves.

(a) EABDC          (b) DBCEA              (c) DCABE            (d) EADBC

58. There are two gaps in the sentence/paragraph given below. From the pairs of words given, choose the one that fills the gaps most appropriately.

After two days of__________—when teams representing competitors and stakeholders role-played against a "company" team—the executives understood that a strong competitor on the sidelines was likely to enter the market_________.

(a) reflection, tactfully 
(b) simulations, aggressively
(c) fabrications, shortly 
(d) discussions, energetically

59. Given below are a few sentences. Identify the sentence(s)/ part(s) of the sentence(s) that is/are correct in terms of grammar and usage (including spelling, punctuation and logical consistency).

Then choose the most appropriate option.
A. René Descartes had a short working life and it begin late.
B. He did not get down to sustained research in philosophy and the natural sciences until 1628.
C. Had he confined himself to the natural sciences his achievement would be remarkable enough.
D. But his range was, in fact, considerably wider.

(a) B & C             (b) A & B          (c) A & D            (d) B & D

60. Given below are a few sentences. Identify the sentence(s) part(s) of the sentence(s) that is/are incorrect in terms of grammar and usage (including spelling, punctuation and logical consistency). 

Then choose the most appropriate option.
A. The ancient Greeks believed that everything is made from a few basic elements.
B. The idea was basically correct; it were the details that were wrong.
C. Their 'earth, air, fire, and water' are made of what today we know as the chemical elements.
D. Pure water is made from two elements: hydrogen and oxygen.

(a) A & C             (b) B & C             (c) Only B (            d) D & A

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