PREDICT YOUR VA PERCENTILE

Q 1

Eleanor had not been cowed by ______ rumour in Antioch; she had not
______ in the face of a papal prohibition on divorcing her first
husband; and she would not back down now.

1) capricious … complied
2) calumnious … acquitted
3) scurrilous … acquiesced
4) spurious … compelled

Evolutionary change does not take place directly on the bodies of
living beings but on the gene pool of the breed or species. The idea
of a
gene pool is central to the body of knowledge and theory that goes
under the name of the 'Neo-Darwinian Synthesis' that forms the basis
of the modern understanding of evolution. Charles Darwin, the father
of evolutionary theory, himself knew nothing of it. It was not a part
of
his intellectual world, nor indeed were genes. He was aware, of
course, that characteristics run in families, aware that offspring
tend to
resemble their parents and siblings, aware that particular
characteristics of dogs and pigeons breed true. Heredity was a central
plank of
his theory of natural selection. But a gene pool is something else.
The concept of a gene pool has meaning only in the light of Mendel's
law of the independent assortment of hereditary particles. Darwin
never knew Mendel's laws, for although Gregor Mendel, the father of
genetics, was Darwin's contemporary, he published his findings in a
German journal which Darwin never saw.

A Mendelian gene is an all-or-nothing entity. When you were conceived,
what you received from your father was not a substance, to be
mixed with what you received from your mother as if mixing blue paint
and red paint to make purple. If this were really how heredity
worked (as people vaguely thought in Darwin's time) we'd all be a
middling average, halfway between our two parents. In that case, all
variation would rapidly disappear from the population (no matter how
assiduously you mix purple paint with purple paint, you'll never
reconstitute the original red and blue). In fact, of course, anybody
can plainly see that there is no such intrinsic tendency for variation
to
decrease in a population. Mendel showed that this is because when
paternal genes and maternal genes are combined in a child (he didn't
use the word 'gene', which wasn't coined until 1909), it is not like
blending paints, it is more like shuffling and reshuffling cards in a
pack.
Nowadays, we know that genes are lengths of DNA code, not physically
separate like cards, but the principle remains valid. Genes don't
blend; they shuffle. You could say they are shuffled badly, with
groups of cards sticking together for several generations of shuffling
before
chance happens to split them.
Any one of your eggs (or sperms if you are male) contains either your
father's version of a particular gene or your mother's version, not a
blend of the two. And that particular gene came from one and only one
of your four grandparents; and from one and only one of your eight
great-grandparents.
Hindsight says this should have been obvious all along. When you cross
a male with a female, you expect to get a son or a daughter, not
a hermaphrodite. Hindsight says anybody in an armchair could have
generalized the same all-or-none principle so that it applies to the
inheritance of each and every characteristic. Fascinatingly, Darwin
himself was glimmeringly close to this, but he stopped just short of
making the full connection.


Q 2 What is this passage about?

1) The concept of genes and how they combine was unknown when the
theory of evolution was propounded.
2)
The idea of how genes combine in a gene pool is central to
evolutionary theory, but was unknown to its proponent, Charles
Darwin.
3) Though Charles Darwin came up with evolutionary theory, he missed
out on explaining how genes and the gene pool work.
4)
Charles Darwin, the father of evolutionary theory, himself did not
understand how genes work, and it was left to later
scientists to fill in the gaps.

Q 3 When you cross a male with a female, you expect to get a son or
a daughter, not a hermaphrodite.' What is the point that the author is
trying to make with this statement?

1) It is obvious that hermaphrodites are born only when the process of
combining male and female genes goes wrong.
2)
It should be clear how genes work based on the fact that maleness and
femaleness are distinct traits that do not mix in
offspring.
3)
Darwin should have understood the principles on which genes work based
on the fact that male and female genes do not
blend.
4) None of the above.



Q 4

The passage given below is followed by a set of questions. Choose the
most appropriate answer to each question.
Which of the following can be inferred about Charles Darwin from this passage



1) He did not know German.
2) He had no idea that genes worked on an all-or-none principle.
3) He was aware of the importance of heredity in evolutionary processes.
4) All of the above.

Q5

If you were to interview the author, which follow-up question would you ask him?


1) How did the concept of genes help in understanding heredity?
2) Are Darwin's and Mendel's ideas still relevant to modern biology?
3) How is the concept of the gene pool important to evolutionary theory?
4) Does the inheritance of gender differ from the inheritance of other traits?

Q6

Each question has a paragraph from which the last sentence has been
deleted. From the given options, choose the sentence that
completes the paragraph in the most appropriate way.
The notion that each story has a natural length has long been
championed by writers and ignored by publishers. In traditional
publishing,
certain lengths are commercially viable. If a draft of a book exceeds
these limits, the author will more than likely be asked to cut it. The
flip
side of the coin is worse, where elegantly crafted stories are puffed
up to meet a page count. Good luck getting that perfect 30,000-word
novella published unless you're highly valued by your publisher, and
even then it's difficult

1) When it comes to traditional publishing, size matters.
2) There is no place for quality short fiction in the cut-throat world
of publication.
3) Fortunately, the ebooks industry is set to remove the burden of
length from writing.
4) Even excellent work finds itself on the chopping block, just
because it runs over a predetermined length.

Q 7

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. The task may be harder than she imagines.
B. It is the Marmite of the meat counter - dark, salty and you either
love it or hate it.
C. But black pudding is gaining in popularity, with a little help from
celebrity chefs, manufacturers and even government ministers.
D. I love the stuff, but my children are squeamish eaters and the very
notion of a "blood sausage" brings about their swift exit from the
kitchen.
E. The environment minister, Liz Truss, recently listed the culinary
concoction of blood, salt and rusk among the "must-eat" British foods
that a new generation should be introduced to.

a BCEAD
b CEADB
c EADBC
d ADBCE

Q 8

Four sentences are given below, labelled (a), (b), (c) and (d). Of
these, three sentences need to be arranged in a logical order to form
a coherent paragraph/passage. From the given options, choose the one
that does not fit the sequence.
a The victims, crammed into a sealed, coffin-like wooden case,
squawked as they struggled to breathe.
b The hiss of gas, released by a red lever turned by Arie den Hertog
in the back of his white van, signaled the start of the massacre.
c This is the most effective method of goose control.
d Then, after barely two minutes, they fell silent.

Q 9

Four sentences are given below, labelled (a), (b), (c) and (d). Of
these, three sentences need to be arranged in a logical order to form
a coherent paragraph/passage. From the given options, choose the one
that does not fit the sequence.
a In the past, when confronting this subject, the justices have
pondered the impact on children.
b The Supreme Court is set to issue a ruling soon that could make
same-sex marriage legal in every state.
c In 2013, during oral arguments on same-sex marriage in California,
Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wondered about the "some 40,000 children in
California" who "live with same-sex parents."
d Advocates of gay marriage saw that as an opportunity to use the
court's rulings to assert that marriage laws in other states were
discriminatory.


Q 10

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 under the Public Order Act 1986 the home secretary has no power
to ban static demonstrations.
B. The small New Dawn party has planned a protest in Golders Green for 4 July.
C. The Golders Green Together campaign, launched on Monday by the
London Jewish Forum and the anti-fascist organisation Hope Not Hate,
plans to spark feelings of solidarity in the area.
D. It will take place on a Saturday - the Jewish sabbath - in an area
where about 40% of the population are Jewish.
E. Tessa Jowell, one of the contenders to become Labour's London
mayoral candidate, has asked Theresa May to prevent the march from
going ahead and 11,000 people have signed an online petition to that
effect.
a BDCEA
b BDEAC
c EACBD
d CDBAE