Questions

Read the passage carefully and select the best answer to each question out of the given four alternatives.

The Amazon basin has been continuously inhabited for at least 10, 000 years, possibly more. Its earliest inhabitants were stone-age peoples, living in hundreds of far-flung tribes, some tiny, others numbering in the tens of thousands. It was from the west that Europeans explorers first arrived. In 1541 a Spanish expedition from Quito, led by Gonzalo Pizarro, ran short of supplies while exploring east of the Andes in what is today Peru. Pizarro’s cousin Francisco de Orellana offered to take 60 men along with the boats from the expedition and forage for supplies. De Orellana floated down the Rio Napo to its confluence with the Amazon, near Iquitos (Peru), and then to the mouth of the Amazon. Along the way his expedition suffered numerous attacks by Indians; some of the Indian warriors, they reported, were female, like the Amazons of Greek mythology, and thus the world’s greatest river got its name. No one made a serious effort to claim this sweaty territory, however, until the Portuguese built a fort near the mouth of the river at Belém in 1616, and sent Pedro Teixeira up the river to Quito and back between 1637 and 1639. During the 17th and 18th centuries, Portuguese bandeirantes (groups of roaming adventurers) penetrated ever further into the rain forest in pursuit of gold and Indian slaves, exploring as far as present-day Rondônia, and the Guaporé and Madeira river valleys. Amazonian Indians had long used the sap from rubber trees to make waterproof bags and other items. European explorers recognized the potential value of natural latex, but were unable to market it because it tended to grow soft in the heat, or brittle in the cold, and thus had limited appeal outside the rain forest. However, in 1842 American Charles Goodyear developed vulcanization (made natural rubber durable) and in 1890 Ireland’s John Dunlop patented pneumatic rubber tires. Soon there was an unquenchable demand for rubber in the recently industrialized USA and Europe, and the price of rubber on international markets soared. As profits skyrocketed, so did exploitation of the seringueiros, or rubber tappers, who were lured into the Amazon, mostly from the drought-stricken northeast, by the promise of prosperity only to be locked into a cruel system of virtual slavery dominated by seringalistas (owners of rubber-bearing forests). Rigged scales, hired guns, widespread illiteracy among the rubber tappers, and monopoly of sales and purchases all combined to perpetuate the workers’ debt and misery. In addition, seringueiros had to contend with jungle fevers, Indian attacks and all manner of deprivation.

In which year did the fort was built by Portuguese near the river Belem?

In the following question, the sentence given with blank to be filled in with an appropriate word. Select the correct alternative out of the four and indicate it by selecting the appropriate option.

The survey provided the company with a wide __________ of feedback on its products.

The question below consists of a set of labelled sentences. Out of the four options given, select the most logical order of the sentences to form a coherent paragraph.

The room which yielded so
X-the fourth floor of a
Y-boarding-house in Bleecker Street
Z-much satisfaction to the two boys was on

A sentence/a part of the sentence is underlined. Four alternatives are given to the underlined part which will improve the sentence. Choose the correct alternative and click the button corresponding to it. In case no improvement is needed, click the button corresponding to "No improvement".

As you grow older, you will find that these all difficulties may be overcome by patience.

The question below consists of a set of labelled sentences. Out of the four options given, select the most logical order of the sentences to form a coherent paragraph.

P: He raised his voice against idol-worship.
Q: People are generally very open and accept social changes with a positive attitude.
R: Swami Dayanand Saraswati is remembered with reverence and affection among the social reformers of the nineteenth century.
S: India is a country which respects spiritualism much more than materialism.

Each item consists of six sentences of a passage. The first and sixth sentences are given in the beginning as S1 and S6. The middle four sentences in each have been jumbled up and labelled as P, Q, R and S. You are required to find the proper sequence of the four sentences and mark your response accordingly on the Answer Sheet.

S1 :The weak have no place here, in this life or in any other life. Weakness leads to slavery.
S6 :This is the great fact : strength is life, weakness is death. Strength is felicity, life eternal, immortal; weakness is constant strain and misery : weakness is death.
P :They dare not approach us, they have no power to get a hold on us, until the mind is weakened.
Q : Weakness leads to all kinds of misery, physical and mental. Weakness is death.
R : But they cannot harm us unless we become weak, until the body is ready and predisposed to receive them.
S :There are hundreds of thousands of microbes surrounding us.The correct sequence should be

The color of human skin depends upon

Read the sentence to find out whether there is any error in it. The error, if any, will be in one part of the sentence. If the given sentence is correct as it is, the answer is ‘No error’. Ignore the errors of punctuation, if any.

There is no one/ I have met or heard of/ whom I can consider knowledgeable/ than my English teacher.