Questions

A passage is given with 5 questions following it. Read the passage carefully and choose the best answer to each question out of the four alternatives and click the button corresponding to it.

Man's attitude to various animals changed many times in the course of centuries. From indifference or practicality, he went on to adoration and deification, and then to hatred. Ancient Egyptians, for example, highly appreciated the cat's ability to destroy rodents. The cat was much superior in this respect to the grass­snakes and weasels they had kept in their houses before. These proved unable to cope with hordes of rats which invaded Egypt from Asia. So the cat, a very useful animal, was ranked as a sacred animal and one of the most important animals, too. The goddess of the Moon, fertility and child­birth, Bast herself was portrayed by the Egyptians as a woman with a cat's head.

Sumptuous temples were built to this goddess, where cats were kept in luxury and fed the choicest of foods. They had their own priests and votaries, more numerous as a matter of fact than any other sacred animal could boast. According to the Greek historian Herodotus, the festival in the city of Bubastis, which had a temple dedicated to cats, was attended by as many as 700 thousand, who brought their offerings to the goddess in the shape of figurines of her made of gold, silver and bronze and adorned with precious stones.

The cat was considered to be a _____ .

A passage is given with 5 questions following it. Read the passage carefully and choose the best answer to each question out of the four alternatives and click the button corresponding to it.

Man's attitude to various animals changed many times in the course of centuries. From indifference or practicality, he went on to adoration and deification, and then to hatred. Ancient Egyptians, for example, highly appreciated the cat's ability to destroy rodents. The cat was much superior in this respect to the grass­snakes and weasels they had kept in their houses before. These proved unable to cope with hordes of rats which invaded Egypt from Asia. So the cat, a very useful animal, was ranked as a sacred animal and one of the most important animals, too. The goddess of the Moon, fertility and child­birth, Bast herself was portrayed by the Egyptians as a woman with a cat's head.

Sumptuous temples were built to this goddess, where cats were kept in luxury and fed the choicest of foods. They had their own priests and votaries, more numerous as a matter of fact than any other sacred animal could boast. According to the Greek historian Herodotus, the festival in the city of Bubastis, which had a temple dedicated to cats, was attended by as many as 700 thousand, who brought their offerings to the goddess in the shape of figurines of her made of gold, silver and bronze and adorned with precious stones.

The word 'deification' in the passage means _____ .

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

Actions speak louder than words

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

It's nothing short of a revolution in how we eat, and it's getting closer every day. Yes, a lot of people are obese, and yes, the definition of "healthy eating" seems to change all the time. But in labs and research centres around the world, scientists are racing to match our genes and our taste buds, creating the perfect diet for each of us, a diet that will fight disease, increase longevity, boost physical and mental performance, and taste great to boot. As food scientist J.Bruce German says, "The foods we like the most will be the most healthy for us."

Is that going to be a great day, or what?

All this will come to pass, thanks to genomics, the science that maps and describes an individual's genetic code. In the future, personalized DNA chips will allow us to assess our own inherited predispositions for certain diseases, then adjust our diets accordingly. So, if you're at risk for heart disease, you won't just go on a generic low-fat diet. You'll eat foods with just the right amount and type of fat that's best for you. You'll even be able to track your metabolism day-to-day to determine what foods you should eat at any given time, for any given activity. "Since people differ in their genetics and metabolism, one diet won't fit all," says German. As complex as all this sounds, it could turn out to be relatively simple.

What does J. Bruce German say?

The sentences given with blanks are to be filled with an appropriate word(s). Four alternatives are suggested for each question. For each question, choose the correct alternative and click the button corresponding to it.

By a single mean act, he _____ out all his good deeds.

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.

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, a sentence has been given in Direct/Indirect speech. Out of the four alternatives suggested, select the one which best expresses the same sentence in Indirect/Direct speech.

"Where are you going?" father asked me.