Tuesday, 24 January 2017

English Important Reading Comprehension Set 5 Asked in Various Exams for IPPB and IDBI

Read the passage carefully and answer the given below it. Certain words/phrases are given in bold to help you locate them while answering some of the questions.

Sanjaya Baru’s book has been perceived as an attack on PM Manmohan Singh by a disgruntled employee who was denied a job by the Prime Minister in his second term. This is a completely wrong reading of the book. It is, in fact, a defence of Manmohan by a member of his fan club. Fortunately, it is not a fawning hagiography. It is straightforward and gossipy, but not excessively so. It is an important contribution to contemporary Indian history; it can also be read as a text book for those who wish to understand how politics and administration actually work in India of our times. Like the Crossman Diaries in Britain in earlier times and like Duty by Robert Gates in the US in recent times, it throws light on contingencies and counterfactuals.

Future historians may see inevitable and inexorable patterns in the way things have unfolded in India in the last decade. Baru’s book will be a source that will help the historian focus with some humility on issues of choice and chance.

Baru was recruited by Manmohan and worked with him closely as Media Adviser, Baru is a loyal defender of his boss. Contrary to the popular perception of Manmohan being dour or politically clumsy, Baru makes the case that the economist turned politician is, in fact, a clever and sophisticated operator. Manmohan’s excellent relationship with wily and experienced politicians like Sharad Pawar, Karunanidhi, Lalu Prasad, Harkishen Surjeet, Jyoti Basu and even Vajpayee and Jaswant Singh would not have been possible if he had been naïve or weak. On issues which mattered to Manmohan like Free Trade Agreements or the Nuclear Accord, he can be a cool and consummate political operator. But he does have his blind spots. Whether it is because he has a lifelong commitment to civil service traditions that one department must not intrude on the turf of another department, or it is out of a conviction that party politics is not his forte, or for whatever unmentioned reason, Manmohan has kept himself severely and completely away from the Congress Party. Perhaps, Manmohan felt that his own political guru, Narasimha Rao, paid a price for intruding into areas where both fools and angels should fear to tread. The net result was that Man mohan had less support from his own party leaders and, in Baru’s opinion, that proved very costly for our “accidental Prime Minister”.

There are some self-serving bits in this memoir. Manmohan’s performance in UPA-1 is portrayed as outstanding. After all, Baru was with him most of that time, was he not? And some of the achievements of that time seem to have a greater Baru imprint than what other observers might concede. And virtually all the problems of Manmohan seem to have coincided with UPA-2 when Baru was no longer around! Neverthless, Baru’s professionalism and better nature does assert itself almost everywhere in the book. He gives himself far less credit than others who have written similar books tend to do. He is lucid enough to concede that in economic matters, effects are preceded by causes with some lags. The good times of UPA-1 were not merely because the global economy was strong, but because Manmohan inherited a good legacy from Vajapayee. The roots of many of the problems in UPA-2 were the results of sins of profligacy committed during UPA-1 when economic growth was not only taken for granted, but treated with some contempt by the elitist do-gooders of the National Advisory Council, which could have been a source of anodyne amusement, if so many of its actions had not ended up being dangerous, even disastrous for the country.

1. Which of the following, according to the author, is true about Sanjaya Baru’s book?
a) It is a book intended to attack the former PM Manmohan Singh
b) It is a fawning hagiography
c) It is straightforward and excessively gossipy
d) It is a book which throws light on contingencies and counterfactuals of Indian politics

2.Which of the following statements is contrary to the facts mentined in the given passage?
a) Narasimha Rao was the political guru of Manmohan Singh
b) As per civil service traditions, one department must not intrude on the turf of another department
c) Manmohan Singh kept himself severely and completely away from the Congress Party.
d) None of these

3.Which of the following facts supports the view that Manmohan was neither a naïve nor a weak Prime Minister?
a) During his regime the nuclear deal was signed, which is one of most important achievements
b) He had a very good relationship with wily and experienced politicians
c) Manmohan Singh preferred to keep mum than to indulge into controversy
d) He was aware of the fact that party politics is not his forte and hence he kept himself away from active politics.

4. Why, according to Baru, was Manmohan’s performance in UPA-1 outstanding?
a) Because Baru was with him most of the time
b) Because the Congress Party had done a lot of good work to alleviate poverty
c) Because the global economy was strong and Manmohan Singh had inherited a good legacy from Vajpayee.
d) Because UPA-2 was full of scams

5. Choose the word/group of words which is most similar in meaning to the word/group of words printed in bold as used in the passage.
Intrude
a) Associate b) Interfere c) Leave
d) Combine

6. Choose the word/group of words which is most similar in meaning to the word/group of words printed in bold as used in the passage.
Profligacy
a) Fraglity b) Restraint c) Lacking
d) Recklessness

7. Choose the word/group of words which is most similar in meaning to the word/group of words printed in bold as used in the passage.
Anodyne
a) Soother b) Upsetting c) Excitative
d) Agitating

8. Choose the word/group of words which is most opposite in meaning of the word/group of words printed in bold as used in the passage.
Inexorable
a) Harsh b) Dogged c) Flexible
d) Relentless

9. Choose the word/group of words which is most opposite in meaning of the word/group of words printed in bold as used in the passage.
Concede
a) Allow b) Accord c) Acknowledge
d) Reject

Read the passage carefully and answer the questions given below it. Certain words/phrases are given in bold to help you locate them while answering some of the questions.

Since 1947, Indians have not spoken out so strongly and clearly for a completely new brand of people running government. Mercifully, there are no ministers educated abroad. Thankfully, none of them has been brainwashed at Harvard, Stanford, Cambridge, the World bank or the IMF, subtly forcing expensive Western solutions on typically Indian problems at the cost of the poor. Look what the high powered, foreign returned degree wallahs have reduced this country to. They wasted opportunities to show the inner strength of what is essentially Indian because they never really knew their own people living in Bharat. In the eyes of the World, we have lost our self-respect, dignity and identity.

All the ministers now have gone through average government schools. Some have never been to college. Many have experienced poverty, exploitation, injustice and discrimination at some point of time in their lives. It is truly the first barefoot government ever to be voted into power in independent India. Where else in the World would you have a one time tea seller on a railway station becoming Prime Minister, shaping the destiny of more than one billion people?

The first example the Modi government must set is by drastically reducing the perks and privileges of MPs. Free power, food, housing, travel to those whose personal assets run into crores and a Rs.2 Crore annual fund for development for over 500 MPs is costing the exchequer nearly Rs.2000 Crore. Only the Prime Minister will be able to make it happen and, at the same time, stifle any dissent from BJP MPs. The time is now.

No other government in the World has a Class 12 pass woman ministers speaking as an equal to almost 120 heavily qualified, on paper, vice chancellors (90 % male). Today, as we judge them, the VCs are all to intellectually and morally fatigued. There is something dreadfully wrong with an education system that produces graduates from even private, expensive, snobbish schools and colleges who are still prejudiced about caste, class, religion, sex and colour. These  “graduates”, who roam the streets of small towns and cities by the thousands, call themselves “educated”, practise the worst forms of cruelty, slavery and crimes against humanity, against society and in their own families. Indeed, some of them rose to the level of their incompetence by becoming ministers in previous governments, reinforcing the status quo, wasting vast public resources by implementing silly Western ideas, listening to foreign returned “experts” and making a hopeless mess of this country. The tragedy is that they cannot see the colossal damage they have done to the very fabric of this country.

10. What is/are true about the ministers of the new government formed at the Centre?
a) Some of them are ghighly qualified and foreign degree holders.
b) Only a few of them are t he products of average government schools.
c) There are so me ministers who have never been to college.
d) Our Prime Minister is a postgraduate in Political Science.

11. Which of the following is not one of the characteristics of the ministers of the last government at the Centre?
a) Some of the ministers of the last government at the Centre were educated abroad.
b) The ministers of the last government were brainwashed at foreign universities to suggest Western solutions for Indian problems.
c) The Western degree holder ministers coming from the elite class never knew their own people living in Bharat.
d) Though the ministers of the last government were Western educated yet they had great concern about the gripping problems of India

12. Which of the following statements is based on the facts mentioned in the passage?
a) The present government aims at reducing the perks and privileges of MLAs.
b) There is something wrong with those educational institutions that produjce graduates who remain prejudiced about caste, class and gender
c) The elitist education policy has still managed to make students humble and sensitive towards humanity.
d) None of the present ministers has gone through poverty, injustice, exploitation and discrimination

13. What is the perception about India in the eyes of the World?
a) That India is a developing nation
b) That we don’t have self respect, dignity and identity
c) That India is still a c ountry of snake charmers
d) That India is an educationally backward nation

14. Choose the word/group of words which is most similar in meaning to the word/group of words printed in bold as used in the passage.
Destiny
a) Objective b) Prospect c) Future
d) Concept

15. Choose the word/group of words which is most similar in meaning to the word/group of words printed in bold as used in the passage.
Perks
a) Benefits b) Candy c) Loss
d) Constraints

16. Choose the word/group of words which is most similar in meaning to the word/group of words printed in bold as used in the passage.
Fatigued
a) Fresh b) Lively c) Exhausted
d) Vivacious

17. Choose the word/group of words which is most opposite in meaning of the word/group of words printed in bold as used in the passage.
Dissent
a) Strife b) Marvellous c) Objections
d) Approval

18. Choose the word/group of words which is most opposite in meaning of the word/group of words printed in bold as used in the passage.
Snobbish
a) Haughty b) Pompous c) Arrogant
d) Humble

ANSWERS:
1. Option D
2. Option D
3. Option B
4. Option C
5. Option B
6. Option D
7. Option A
8. Option C
9. Option D
10. Option C
11. Option D
12. Option B
13. Option B
14. Option C
15. Option A
16. Option C
17. Option D

18. Option D


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