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.

Who among the following patented the pneumatic rubber tires?

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.

National integration means _____ all the people of the nation into a single whole. It is a _____ that bends together all people in one _____ bond no matter what their religion, caste, language or history may be. It is a _____ cementing force whereby all kinds of people live _____ peacefully and can identify themselves as a part and parcel of a nation.

It is a _____ that binds together

In the following questions, one part of the sentence may have an error. Find out which part of the sentence has an error and click the button corresponding to it. If the sentence is free from error, click the "No error" option.

Variety (A)/ is (B)/ spice of life (C)/ No Error (D)

Read the passage carefully and choose the best answer to each question out of the four alternatives and click the button corresponding to it.

The Alaska pipeline starts at the frozen edge of the Arctic Ocean. It stretches southward across the largest and northernmost state in the United States, ending at a remote ice-free seaport village nearly 800 miles from where it begins. It is massive in size and extremely complicated to operate. The steel pipe crosses windswept plains and endless miles of delicate tundra that tops the frozen ground. It weaves through crooked canyons, climbs sheer mountains, plunges over rocky crags, makes its way through thick forests, and passes over or under hundreds of rivers and streams. The pipe is 4 feet in diameter, and up to 2 million barrels (or 84 million gallons) of crude oil can be pumped through it daily. Resting on H-shaped steel racks called "bents", long sections of the pipeline follow a zigzag course high above the frozen earth. Other long sections drop out of sight beneath spongy or rocky ground and return to the surface later on. The pattern of the pipeline's up-and-down route is determined by the often harsh demands of the arctic and subarctic climate, the tortuous lay of the land, and the varied compositions of soil, rock, or permafrost (permanently frozen ground). A little more than half of the pipeline is elevated above the ground. The remainder is buried anywhere from 3 to 12 feet, depending largely upon the type of terrain and the properties of the soil. One of the largest in the world, the pipeline cost approximately $8 billion and is by far the biggest and most expensive construction project ever undertaken by private industry. In fact, no single business could raise that much money, so 8 major oil companies formed a consortium in order to share the costs. Each company controlled oil rights to particular shares of land in the oil fields and paid into the pipeline-construction fund according to the size of its holdings. Today, despite enormous problems of climate, supply shortage, equipment breakdowns, labour disagreements, treacherous terrain, a certain amount of mismanagement, and even theft, the Alaska pipeline has been completed and is operating.

How was the fund for pipeline - construction generated?

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.

What does "victim-centric" mean in the criminal justice system? It means restoring the confidence of victims in the system and achieving the __________ of justice in whichever sense the idea is conceived. __________ this end, the system must confer certain rights on victims to enable them to _____________ in the proceedings, including the right to be impleaded and to engage an advocate in serious offences, the right to track the progress of ________________, the right to be heard on critical issues and to assist the court in the ___________ of truth.

the system must confer certain rights on victims to enable them to _____________ in the proceedings

Read the passage carefully and choose the best answer to each question out of the four alternatives and click the button corresponding to it.

To know language is to be able to speak it; even a child who does not yet attend school can speak his or her language. In order to speak a language it is important to listen to it and to read a few pages in it everyday. A child picks up language and learns to talk just as (s)he learns to walk. Walking and talking comes naturally to a child as it grows. In our country, a child may grow up speaking more than one language, if these languages are spoken in the home and in the neighbourhood. we call this multilingualism. A child speaks a language or languages much before (s)he starts going to school. To know a language then is first of all to be able to speak it as easily and naturally as a tree year old child does. Later on the child will learn to read and write in that language. In order to read and write in a language, one has to speak it. But it is possible to speak a language but not able to read or write in it. A baby does not speak until it is nine months old but it understands a few words at six months of age. It has been listening ever since it was born, and even a little before that. So the first strategy in speaking a language is to listen.

It is necessary for one to __________ the language before (s)he writes in that language.

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”.

Would you feel safe if you have to walk through a street alone at midnight?

What is a bank rate?