General Knowledge Questions

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.

Fraternity, then, was meant to complement civil rights, _______________ to destroy them. The _____________________ framers did not use this symbolic term for a court to come along 66 years _________________, and ______________________ it for the purposes of subordinating individual rights to some mythic notion of community harmony, entirely submerging the individual _______________ the society.

a court to come along 66 years _________________,

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.

From where did the Europeans explorers first arrive?

In the following question, a sentence has been given in Active/Passive voice. Out of the four alternatives suggested, select the one which best expresses the same sentence in Passive/Active voice.

I wrote a harsh letter to the editor.

In the following question the 1st and the last part of the sentence/passage are numbered 1 and 6. The rest of the sentence/ passage is split into four parts and named P, Q, R and S. These four parts are not given in their proper order. Read the sentence/passage and find out which of the four combinations is correct.

1. One evening he lit a large lamp in the bedroom and sat near his wife.
P. 'Why not?', was the answer.
Q. 'Whatever you like.'
R. 'Shall I read you something?', he asked.
S. 'What shall I read?', he continued.
6. He was somewhat taken aback by her answer.

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

Awareness means the capacity to see a coffee pot and hear the birds sing in one's own way, and not the way one was taught. It may be assumed on good grounds that seeing and hearing have a different quality for infants than for grownups and that they are more aesthetic and less intellectual in the first years of life. A little boy sees and hears birds with delight. Then the 'good father' comes along and feels he should 'share' the experience and help his son 'develop'. He says, "That's a jay and this is a sparrow." The moment the little boy is concerned with which is a jay and which is a sparrow, he can no longer see the birds or hear them sing. He has to see and hear them the way his father wants him to. Father has good reasons on his side: since few people can afford to go through life listening to the birds sing, sooner the little boy starts his 'education' the better. Maybe he will be an ornithologist when he grows up.

What does an Ornithologist study?

The _________ of a firm is a relationship between inputs used and output produced by the firm.

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

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Which   one   of   the   following   statements about the justice Party is not correct?