Direction :Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions given below it. Certain words are printed in bold to help you locate them while answering some of the questions.
 The Emperor had inherited a peaceful and prosperous kingdom at a young age after the untimely death of his father. A few months later a man arrived at court. He stated that he was from a far off land and had the gift of foresight. He impressed the Emperor with his witty remarks and was appointed a courtier. The Emperor and those at court all enjoyed hearing accounts of his travels. One day the newly appointed minister said, "Your Majesty, you are destined to great things. It is written in the stars. I have learnt the art of fortune telling. Do not be content with your kingdom along. Travel, See the world and conquer. There are many who are oppressed. They will bless you for rescuing them from the tyranny of their rulers." The Emperor was stunned to hear this but he refused to discuss the matter at the time. The courtiers too were astonished to hear this and began debating among themselves. "It is true," they said, "Our Emperor's father was a great warrior and he ruled wisely. Perhaps there is truth in this." So the newly appointed courtier shrewdly planted the idea of waging war against other kingdoms at court. After hearing several repeated arguments in favour of this idea the Emperor finally agreed. He was a young man and a battle seemed to be exciting against a smaller neighbouring kingdom The Emperor knew the ruler was cruel and felt justified in waging war against him. Having the superior army the easily defeated the king. Everyone celebrated. But the campaign did not stop there. With every victory the new minister would urge the Emperor on to the next battle. The soldiers grew tired after over two years at war but did not complain out of respect and loyalty to their ruler. Meanwhile the situation in his kingdom began to deteriorate. With no one to look after the daily administration and to resolve disputes, signs of neglect began to be seen.
The Emperor was no longer bothered if he wars. The new minister who was in charge of these funds kept a large part for himself and grew richer. An old man who had been a minister in the Emperor's father's court grew worried and decided to do something about this situation. A few days later when the Emperor was out riding in the forest he suddenly saw the old man. He greeted him like an old friends and inquired what he was doing there. The man pointed to two owls in the trees. "I am listening to their conversation". What are they saying?" the Emperor asked unbelieving. "They are negotiating the marriage of their children. The first owl wants to know wheter the other will be gifting his daughter fifty villages on her would have to gift her one hundred and fifty as the villages were in ruins and as such were worthless but with the Emperor as ruler there would be many such villages." When the Emperor heard this he realized the error of his ways. He returned home immediately, rewarded the old minister putting him in charge of reconstructing the ruined villages and dismissed the fortune teller from his court. 

How did the minister convine the Emperor to attack the neighbouring kingdom?
 I. He bribed the courtiers to convince the Emperor that he could be a great ruler.
 II. He told the Emperor that his father was a great warrior and would want his son to follow his footsteps.
 III. He convinced the Emperor that there was no risk involved since the army was inferior to that of the Emperor. 

Directions:- Read the following passage and answer the following questions based on the given passage. Some of the words are highlighted which would help you to answer some of the questions given.
For years, world-wide organisations have become increasingly excited about the prospect of a cloud-based future. As the dream becomes an ever closer reality for many kinds of business and, Forrester predicted that enterprise spending on cloud services is set to surge. IDC also predicted that global spending on public cloud services and infrastructure would reach $210bn in 2019, an increase of 24% from 2018. But one obstacle stands create friction and introduce risk: the process of migration.
 As all indications point to a massive shift in data deployments to the cloud, it is more important than ever that the transition from on-premises to Cloud is as risk free as possible. In today's climate any loss or disruption to data can have a huge business impact. It’s a complex process, is frequently underestimated and many organisations have found there’s lots that can go wrong that can impact the business. Organisations across the globe have found the cloud to be an ideal place to run modern data applications due to big data’s elastic resource requirements. Furthermore, with the lack of data talent an ever-looming issue for most companies today they have been determined to adopt a cloud-first strategy to ensure business operations are accessible for a range of employees.
 The cloud offers great promise for developers especially, as it can increase the speed at which they develop software features and increase the resilience of applications once they are deployed - along with enhanced security through the use of multiple server locations. With all this considered, it is no surprise that 42% of UK businesses leverage some kind of cloud service, according to Eurostat.
 However, all the perceived benefits of leveraging the cloud are redundant if organisations come up against barriers to accessing cloud services. Cloud-based data pipelines still suffer from complexity challenges at the moment, along with the lack of visibility into cost and resource usage at the application and user level. The answer to this is automation fueled by robust Machine learning training models and artificial intelligence. These concepts and the tools that enable them can determine the prerequisites of cloud infrastructure, application dependencies,the appropriate target cloud instance profiles, and provide troubleshooting in real-time
 To summarise, the promise of the cloud has created a sense of excitement amongst enterprises, however, they have proceeded to go full steam ahead into adopting a cloud service, without sufficient data to ensure performance service level agreements (SLAs).

What is the meaning of the phrase “full steam ahead”?

Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions given below it. Certain words/phrases are printed in bold to help you to locate them while answering some of the questions.

In the second week of August 1998, just a few days after the incidents of bombing the US embassies in Nairobi and Dar-es-Salaam, a high-powered, brain-storming session was held near Washington D.C., to discuss various aspects of terrorism. The meeting was attended by ten of America’s leading experts in various fields such as germ and chemical warfare, public health, disease control and also by the doctors and the law-enforcing officers. Being asked to describe the horror of possible bio-attack, one of the experts narrated the following gloomy scenario. A culprit in a crowded business centre or in a busy shopping mall of a town empties a test tube containing some fluid, which in turn creates an unseen cloud of germ of a dreaded disease like anthrax capable of inflicting a horrible death within 5 days on any one who inhales it. At first 500, or so victims feel that they have mild influenza which may recede after a day or two. Then the symptoms return again and their lungs start filling with fluid. They rush to local hospitals for treatment, but the panic-stricken people may find that the Medicare services run quickly out of drugs due to excessive demand. But no one would be able to realise that a terrorist attack has occurred. One cannot deny the possibility that the germ involved would be of contagious variety capable of causing an epidemic. The meeting concluded that such attacks, apart from causing immediate human tragedy, would have dire long-term effects on the political and social fabric of a country by way of ending people’s trust on the competence of the government. The experts also said that the bombs used in Kenya and Tanzania were of the old-fashion variety and involved quantities of high explosives, but new terrorism will prove to be more deadly and probably more elusive than hijacking an aeroplane or a gelignite of previous decades.
According to Bruce Hoffman, an American specialist on political violence, old terrorism generally had a specific manifesto - to overthrow a colonial power or the capitalist system and so on. These terrorists were not shy about planting a bomb or hijacking an aircraft and they set some limit to their brutality. Killing so many innocent people might turn their natural supporters off. Political terrorists want a lot of people watching but not a lot of people dead. “Old terrorism sought to change the world while the new sort is often practised by those who believe that the world has gone beyond redemption”, he added. Hoffman says, “New terrorism has no long-term agenda but is ruthless in its short-term intentions. It is often just a cacophonous cry of protest or an outburst of religious intolerance or a protest against the West in general and the US in particular. Its perpetrators may be religious fanatics or diehard opponent of a government and see no reason to show restraint. They are simply intent on inflicting the maximum amount of pain on the victim.”

In what way would the new terrorism be different from that of the earlier years ?
A. More dangerous and less baffling
B. More hazardous for victims
C. Less complicated for terrorists

Violence has played a great part in the would's history. It  is today playing an equally important part and probably it will continue to do so for a considerable time. It is impossible to ignore the importance of violence in the past and present. To do so is to ignore life. Yet violence is undoubtedly bad and brings an unending trail of evil consequences with it. And worse even than violence are the motives of hatred, cruelty, revenge and punishment which very often accompany violence. Indeed violence is bad, not intrinsically, but because of these motives that go with it. There can be violence without these movies there can be violence of  a good object as well as for an evil object. But it is extremely difficult to separate violence from these motives, and therefore, it is desirable to avoid violence as far as possible. In avoiding it, however someone can not accept a negative attitude of submitting to bad and far greater evils. Submission to violence or the acceptance of an unjust regime based on violence is against the spirit of non-violence. The non-violent method, in order to justify itself, must be dynamic and capable of changing such a regime of social order.

“Indeed, violence is bad, not intrinsically, but because of these motives that go with it'. This suggests 

Directions: Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions given below it. Certain parts are given in bold to answer some of the questions based on the passage.
 Sometimes to upend entrenched power structures, a revolution is required. Naming and shaming powerful men in the #Metoo campaign is in many ways a revolutionary act. The truth about most was known, spoken in whispers, but not to their face. But now that omerta has been broken by some intrepid women , there’s a palpable sense of power and possibility. 

Revolutions are by definition anarchic, as they are aimed against those who make and enforce the rules. So it has been with #MeToo. Men are named, sometimes anonymously, and the naming itself requires punitive action to be taken against them. There isn’t really any room for discussion on context or degree of culpability. Some have raised questions about due process, and the response has been, somewhat reasonably, that due process has failed. And it is true, arguing for due process when due process has failed feels a bit like batting for status quo. So let it be said, #MeToo despite its limitations is unreservedly a good development. However, the question is, what next? The #MeToo movement is more than just outing powerful men, it is about shifting the balance of power between men and women, transferring the punitive aspects — shame, denial of work opportunities — from the victim to the perpetrator. It is about ending impunity embedded in our social construct by shaping new social mores. This is and has to be a collective effort, and it is important for the #MeToo movement to have these discussions.

Let the burden of shame now be shifted to where it is supposed to- the perpetrators and not the women; the victims. It’s the woman who has to hide from the world. And by and large, due to this very fact prevailing in Indian society that many women ultimately choose to leave their jobs, or seek employment elsewhere, when they confront inappropriate behaviour from their colleagues.

Another very important aspect which should be taken care of is that of equality, where there’s no inhibitions, no sense of caution. Women need healthy camaraderie in place of needless caution. Respect, not condescension. They would like colleagues to engage with them, not be patronising. And the fact that they are still having to demand these is telling.

 Which of the following statements is not true according to the passage ?

What, one wonders, is the lowest common denominator of Indian culture today? The attractive Hema Malini ? The songs of Vinidh Barati? The attractive Hema Malini? The sons of Vinidh Barati?
 Or the mouth-watering Masala Dosa? Delectable as these may be, each yield pride of place to that false (?) symbol of a new era-the synthetic fibre. In less than twenty years the nylon sari and the terylene shirt have swept the countryside, penetrated to the farthest corners of the land and persuaded every common man, woman and child that the key to success in the present day world lie in artificial fibers: glass nylon, crepe nylon, tery mixes, polyesters and what have you. More than the bicycles, the wristwatch or the transistor radio, synthetic clothes have come to represent the first step away form the village square. The village lass treasures the flashy nylon sari in her trousseau most delay; the village youth gets a great kick out of his cheap terrycot shirt and trousers, the nearest he can approximate to the expensive synthetic sported by his wealthy citybred contemporaries. And the Neo-rich craze for ‘phoren’ is nowhere more apparent than in the price that people will pay for smuggled, stolen, begged borrowed second hand or thrown away synthetics. Alas, even the uniformity of nylon. 

The tern ‘Neo-rich’ means – 

Read the following passage carefully and answer the given questions.
It is impossible for a well-educated, intellectual or brave man to make money the chief object of his thought, just as it is for him to make his dinner the principal object of them. All healthy people like their dinners, but their dinner is not the main object of their lives. So all healthy-minded people like making money-ought to like it, and to enjoy the sensation of winning it, but the main object of their life is not money, it is something better than money. A good soldier, for instance mainly wishes to do his fighting well. He is glad of his pay, very properly so, and justly grumbles when you keep him ten years without it - still his main notion of life is to win battles not to be paid for winning them. So of the doctor. They like fees, no doubt, ought to like them, yet if they are brave and well-educated, the entire object of their lives is not fees. They, on the whole, desire to cure the sick, and if they are good doctors, and the choice were fairly put to them, they would rather cure their patient, and lose the fees, than kill him and get it. And so with all other brave and rightly trained men, their work is first, their fees second - very important, no doubt, but still second. But in every nation, there are a vast number of people who are ill-educated, cowardly and stupid. And with these people, just as certainly the fee is first and work second, as with brave people the work is first and fee second.

The writer’s main argument in the passage is -

Direction: Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions given below it. Certain words / phrases have been printed in bold to help you locate them while answering some of the questions.

Princess Chandravati was very beautiful. She loved all kinds of ornaments and always wanted to wear the most precious and lovely jewels. Once, a jeweler came to the palace and gifted the King a wonderful diamond necklace. It glittered with big and small diamonds. It was certainly a very expensive necklace. The princess fell in love with it as soon as she saw it. So, the king presented it to her.
 From that day on, the princess always wore that necklace, wherever she went. One day before, going for a swim in the pond, she took the necklace off and put in the hands of her oldest and the most trustworthy servant. "Hold this and be careful. This is the most precious necklace in the whole world, " she said. The Servant was an old woman. She sat under tree, holding the ornament tightly and waited for the princess. It was a hot afternoon and the servant was very tired so she dozed off under the tree. Suddenly the servant felt that someone was tugging at the necklace and she woke up with a start. She looked around but it no one was there and the necklace was gone. Scared out of her wits, the old servant started screaming. On hearing her scream the royal guards rushed to her. She pointed towards the direction in which the thief may have gone and the guards ran off that way.
 There was a poor and dim-witted farmer walking on the same road. As soon as he saw the royal guards running towards him, he thought that they wanted to catch him and started running. But he was not a strong man and could not outrun the hefty guards. The royal guards caught him in no time. “Where is it? " they demanded. shaking him. “Where is what? " the poor farmer stammered back. The necklace you stole!" thundered one of the royal guards. The farmer had no idea what they were talking about. He only understood that some precious necklace was lost and he was supposed to have it. He quickly replied, " I don't know where it is now. I gave it to my landlord.”

The guards ran towards the landlord 's house. "Give us the necklace right now ! " the guards demanded of the at landlord. "Necklace? I don’t have any!" the stunned landlord replied. Then tell us quickly who “does demanded the soldiers. In order to get the royal guards off his back, the landlord pointed towards a priest who was walking by his house and said, "He does." The guards now caught hold of the priest who was walking towards the temple and thinking about the lunch he had just eaten. The priest was stunned when one of the burly guards jumped on him and asked about the necklace. He remembered that the minister, Bhupathi, was at the temple. He took the guards to the temple and pointed towards the praying minister, “I gave it to him, "he said. Bhupati too was caught and all four men were thrown in jail. The Chief Minister of the kingdom knew Bhupati well and was sure that Bhupati would never steal. He decided to find out who the culprit was. He hid near the jail where all four men were put and heard them talking First, Bhupati asked the priest, “Panditji, why did you say that you gave the necklace to me? I was quietly praying at the temple and now you have landed me in jail for no fault of mine.” The priest looked apologetic. He pointed towards the landlord and said, " I didn’t know what to say. He set the " guards on me. I was simply passing by his house and was on my way to the temple." The landlord looked at the priest sheepishly. Then he turned towards the poor farmer and yelled. “You lazy good-for-nothing man! Why did you say that I had the necklace? " The farmer, trembling under the angry gaze of all three men, said, " I was just walking home. The guards caught me and I did not know what to say." On hearing, this conversation, he Chief Minister understood that all the four men were innocent. He immediately ordered the royal guards to search thoroughly, near the pond. The guards searched high and low till they saw something clinging the tree. On the tree sat a monkey with the princess’ favorite necklace around his neck. It took a lot of coxing and bananas before the monkey threw the necklace on the ground. The’ king apologized to at the four men and gave them gold coins as compensation. He requested his daughter to wear the necklace only indoors.

Select the same meaningful word from the given paragraph.
Precious