English Questions

Four words are given, out of which only one word is spelt correctly. Choose the correctly spelt word and click the button corresponding to it.

In the following question, out of the four alternatives, choose the word which is opposite in meaning to the given word and click the button corresponding to it.

RUGGED

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.

Where did De Orellano float down to for its confluence with the Amazon?

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.

I had seen this road many years ago when my parents moved to Mundakotukurussi, our ancestral village. However, in those early years, I hadn't begun exploring the countryside. I stored the unknown road in my head under 'One Day I Will'. Ten years ago, when I recovered from a herniated disc, it was to discover that I had a useless left leg. Though I managed to lose the limp, I hated not being able to stride around as I used to. I needed a challenge to tell myself that I wasn't going to buckle to a creature called sciatica. Thus the 'One Day I Will' arrived. "Where does the road by the medical shop lead to?" I asked my parents while visiting them next. "Chalavara," they said. "It's not an easy road to walk on," my father added. "There are too many ups and downs." Chalavara was a superior grade of a village as compared to Mundakotukurussi, with a high school, a fine library, ATMs and several shops. But it also has two approach roads. The one I had chosen was a narrow back road used by the locals and that settled it for me. I needed to know for myself I could walk a road that wasn't going to be easy. And the next day, I would get up and walk that road again.

What disability did the writer suffer due to the herniated disc?

In the following question, out of the four alternatives, select the word similar in meaning to the word given.

Opulent

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 have poured the tea.

Improve the bracketed part of the sentence.
The patient died (of a wound and not of) cancer.

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 : He no longer dreamed of storms, nor of women, nor of great occurrences, nor of great fish, nor fights, nor contests of strength, nor of his wife.

S6 : He urinated outside the shack and then went up the road to wake the boy.

P : He never dreamed about the boy.

Q : He only dreamed of places and of the lions on the beach now.

R : He simply woke, looked out through the open door at the moon and unrolled his trousers and put them on.

S : They played like young cats in the dusk and he loved them as he loved the boy.

The correct sequence should be