Questions

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

One should consciously engage in activities that will nourish your soul. Just as we nourish the body, we need to nurture the soul to connect to the creative power of the universe and to manifest joy in our lives. Often, we forget to address the soul, lost as we are in a jungle of material and sensual pleasures. But the more you embrace what feeds your soul, the happier you become. So if you want to enjoy the abundance of life, engage in what enriches your soul. Nurturing the soul is all about finding calm amidst chaos. There are a number of practices that empower people towards this end including silent contemplation, various forms of meditation, yoga and tai chi However, the rigor and discipline involved in the pursuit of such practices often seems to discourage people. Add to this, the temptations of the material world that leave little time and motivation for anyone to pursue the spiritual path. Poet Walt Whitman declared: “Whatever satisfies the soul is truth”. The good news is that simple, everyday activities can also nutrify the soul — like spending time in the midst of nature, dancing in the rain or just putting thoughts on paper. Do whatever is calming and pleases you. Creative pursuits are particularly appealing as inside each one of us, there is an artist craving for release and awaiting an opportunity for expression. One of the ways to indulge the artist within is to get started with the practice of any one or more of the creative art forms such as music, singing, dancing, acting, drawing, painting, sculpting, poetry, fiction or essay writing.

When you engage in such soul nourishing activities, all thought and energy gets focused toward goal accomplishment. At this point, you will find that even unknown forces of the universe are conniving to assist you in your amateurish but sincere attempts. As you progress, you are motivated to do better. You touch and access a faculty, a part of you that you never knew existed. Your inner artist is unleashed, baring the beauty of your soul that has found a fond medium of expression. For instance, a sculptor’s soul is seen in his artwork; a musician’s in his compositions; an actor’s in his acting, a painter’s in his paintings and so on. It is immaterial whether your effort is an immaculate artwork or just a clumsy attempt by a layperson. The idea is to try, be inspired and to create giving free rein to the mind. As Michelangelo remarked: “I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free”!

Why do creative pursuits appeal us?

In the following question, out of the four alternatives, select the alternative which best expresses the meaning of the idiom/phrase.

to cry over spilt milk

In the following question, out of the four alternatives, select the alternative which will improve the bracketed part of the sentence. In case no improvementis needed, select "no improvement".

Certainly she (had been) under a lot of stress.

In the following passage, some of the words have been left out. Read the passage carefully and select the correct answer for the given blank out of the four alternatives.

Many persons of good education unconsciously circumscribe themselves ___________ a small vocabulary. They have a knowledge of hundreds of desirable wordswhich they do not put _________ practical use in their speech or writing. Many, too, are conscious __________ a poverty of language, which engenders in them a senseof timidity and self-___________. The method used for building a large vocabulary has __________ been confined to the study of single words.

circumscribe themselves ___________ a small vocabulary.

In the following passage, some of the words have been left out. Read the passage carefully and select the correct answer for the given blank out of the four alternatives.

India has already made _________________ concessions to enable a consensus and successful outcome at Paris. Now it must ensure that it is not caught in a relentless ________________ process where each concession becomes an argument for making the next one. The post-Paris negotiations will determine more ____________ the shape of the climate change architecture for the next several decades. We _______________ ensure that India’s vital interests are safeguarded and the principle ____________ equity and equitable burden-sharing is reflected across this architecture.

India has already made _________________ concessions to enable a consensus

In the following passage, some of the words have been left out. Read the passage carefully and select the correct answer for the given blank out of the four alternatives.

____________________ some respects, this is unsurprising. Many of these laws do not have an _______________ political flavour. The rule against admitting _______________ evidence, for instance, is a result of simple good sense and a keen awareness of human ______________, independent of the relationship between the ruler and the ruled. The same ________________ for the laws of property and contract.

____________________ some respects

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.

Despite the bank's security staff ____________ a vigil over the treasury boxes, the cash was stolen.

All this does not bode _______________ for even the loosest definitions of cosmopolitanism. A city by definition is a space, as ________________ historians and sociologists have already told us, which ideally privileges and _________________ the unexpected encounter, and calls on its citizens to be able to respond humanely even to those _______________ are not linked to us in familial, ethnic, nationalist or caste ___________________.

All this does not bode _______________ for even the loosest definitions of cosmopolitanism.