English 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.

People are now either exposed to the very best of their inner circle and the world, ________ to the worst — articles that look to shock, to provoke rage and put a lens on everything that is wrong _________ the world. Imperceptibly, it goes unsaid that often __________ pieces of ‘news’ fail to actually provide a constructive solution. The effect of such a disparity _________ to the same effect as news of TV and newspapers — a feeling that what we see does not ____________ our lives.

such a disparity _________ to the same effect

In each of the questions, four alternatives are given for the Idiom/Phrase. Choose the alternative which best expresses the meaning of the Idiom/Phraseand click the button corresponding to it.

Fish out of water

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

Fever in the season of dengue is sending Calcuttans scurrying to hospitals for admission, triggering a shortage of beds that has forced some private health care institutes to even postpone planned surgeries. Apollo Gleneagles Hospitals on the Bypass had 504 patients in its care as on Thursday of whom 70 had been admitted with fever. Belle Vue Clinic had 180 patients, 32 of them with dengue. Calcutta Medical Research Institute had 350 patients 60 of them with fever.

The number of people admitted for treatment of fever caused by dengue or any undiagnosed illness has been rising every day across hospitals for more than a fortnight.

"There has been heavy pressure on all private hospitals for admission of dengue and cases of unknown fever since the beginning of August. Now it is a surge," said Pradip Tondon, President of the Association of Hospitals of Eastern India.

In July, four to five patients were getting admitted with fever on an average in every hospital. The number has since ballooned with the Calcutta Municipal Corporation apparently in denial about the extent of the dengue outbreak and the Government focused on playing down the threat.

Such has been the rush of patients with fever that some hospitals are calling up people to postpone admissions planned in advance, mostly for surgeries. "We have told many people to come only when we call them to confirm availability of beds," said an official at Belle Vue.

The rush in hospitals has been rising

Look at the underlined part of each sentence. Below each sentence are given three possible substitutions for the underlined part. If one of them (a), (b) or (c) is better than the underlined part, indicate your response on the Answer Sheet against the corresponding letter. If none of the substitutions imporves the sentence, indicate (d) as your response on the Answer Sheet.

The man disappeared after he was rescuing a boy from drowning.

Select the word with the correct spelling.

In the following question, out of the four alternatives, select the alternative which is the best substitute of the phrase.
Phobia of dogs

Read the following passage carefully and choose the most appropriate answer to the question out of the four alternatives.

To avoid the various foolish opinions to which mankind are prone, no superhuman brain is required. A few simple rules will keep you free, not from all errors, but from silly errors. If the matter is one that can be settled by observation, make the observation yourself. Aristotle could have avoided the mistake of thinking that women have fewer teeth than men, by the simple device of asking Mrs. Aristotle to keep her mouth open while he counted. Thinking that you know when in fact you do not is a bad mistake, to which we are all prone. I believe myself that hedgehogs eat black beetles, because I have been told that they do; but if I were writing a book on the habits of hedgehogs, I should not commit myself until I had seen one enjoying this diet. Aristotle, however, was less cautious. Ancient and medieval writers knew all about unicorns and salamanders; not one of them thought it necessary to avoid dogmatic statements about them because he had never seen one of them.

The attitude of the author is

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.

Which of the following were not problems faced while constructing the pipeline?