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The public sector banks are witnessing in India a period of transition and are at crossroads, where they without giving up social responsibility, should also remain healthy. They need to undertake risky experiments, yet perform it innovatively in a way it does not fail. They should make forays into new areas which are rarely tread by them and lose no emerging opportunities. It should be understood that absence of any bad advance is no sign of efficient banking system. It only indicates immense conservatism. However this is no guarantee for profit. There should be a balance between liquidity and risk. Past sins should be forgotten. Novel and pragmatic techniques should be adopted without which banks would be in danger.

How can the banks take risks without risking a failure?

Choose the correct answer from the passage:
Most children start watching television long before they enter school. Many doctors have come to the conclusion that children up to the age of two years should not watch TV. The doctors are of the view that the first two years of life are very important for the development of a child’s brain. Spending time with parent and others encourages learning and healthy physical and social development. As children get older, TV can be watched toa limited extent. Children preparing to enter school can learn the alphabets and numbers from educational programme. They can also learn about wildlife on nature shows. Television can be excellent educator as well as entertainer for children.

Which of the following has the three degrees of the adjective in their correct form?

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.

Survival is the most essential factor for every living organism. People resort to different tricks to make both ends meet. One such live instances is mentioned here. Villagers of Makhrada village believed that a witch lived in the denseforest near Makhrada. The passers by were much harassed by the witch who used to frighten them and also took their belongings. In the village there lived a young man named Dhiru who was fond of adventures. When he heard about the witch, he did not believe that it was one of the witches who ate flesh. But there was something elseabout the witch, which made Dhiru curious. She did not eat flest but took away the belongings of the people. Therefore, he was keen to solve this mystery.

He set out with a bag of mangoes. He walked through the forest till it was midway. He took shelter under a shady tree and pretended to be fast asleep. However, after some time, he really fell as leep. After a while, he felt that someone was trying to snatch his bag of mangoes, Suddenly, he woke up and caught hold of the person. It was the witch who tried to frighten Dhiru and run away. But Dhiru was strong and bold enough to hold the withc fast. The witch finally surrendered. Dhiru forced has to tell him who she really was. The witch removed her mask and narrated her and story. She told that she was a poor old widow and she had nobody to look after her. Therefore, she used to live in the forest, wearing a fearful-looking mask. People passing through the forest got frightened due to her appearance and took her for a witch. She then robbed the people of their belongings to make both ends meet. Dhiru took pity on her and gave her the bag of ranages.

What made Dhiru curious? 

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.

Why did the landlord lie about the necklace? 

Directions : You have a passage with 10 questions. Read the passage carefully and choose the best answer to each question out of the four alternatives.

Long ago men spent most of their time looking for food. They ate anything they could find. Some lived mostly on plants. They ate the fruit, stems, and leaves of some plants and the roots of others. When food was scarce, they ate the bark of trees. If they were lucky, they would find a bird’s nest with eggs. People who lived near the water ate fish or anything that washed ashore, even rotten whales. Some people also ate insects and small animals like lizards that were easy to kill.

Later, men learned to make weapons. With weapons, they could kill larger animals for meat. These early people had big appetites. If they killed an animal, they would drink the blood, eat the meat, and chew the bones. When they finished the meal, there was nothing left.

At first men wandered from place to place to find their food. But when they began to grow plants, they stayed in one place and ate what they could grow. They tamed animals, trained them to work, and killed them for meat. Life was a little better then, but there was still not much variety in their meals. Day after day people ate the same food.

Gradually men began to travel greater distances. The explorers who sailed unknown seas found new lands. And in these lands they found new food and spices and took them back home.

The Portuguese who sailed around the stormy Cape of Good Hope to reach China took back “Chinese apples”, the fruit we call oranges today. Later, Portuguese colonists carried orange seeds to Brazil. From Brazil oranges were brought to California, the first place to grow oranges in the United States. Peaches and melons also came from China. So did a new drink, tea.

Which word in the passage means the main axis of a plant that bears buds and shoots? 

Read the given passage and answer the questions that follow

As the Sun inches closer to its peak activity in its solar cycle, an explosion has been picked up behind the north-eastern limb of the star in our solar system. Solar observatories saw bits and pieces of the explosion, which remain obscured in view from Earth's orbit. The explosion was spotted on 31 July at around 2309 UT and Earth-orbiting satellites registered a long-lasting C9.3-class solar flare. "The intensity is probably an underestimate because it was partially eclipsed by the edge of the sun. Nasa's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) saw hot debris flying away from the blast site," space weather, which tracks the solar activity, reported.

While the explosion was powerful, experts have predicted that Earth is not in the line of fire from the Sun. Scientists are expected to get a view of the active region later this week as it comes to sight. Earth is not in the line of fire. The explosion is significant because it may herald an active region set to emerge over the sun's north-eastern limb later this week. A new sunspot group could bring an end to weeks of relative quiet," space weather said in its report

Select the most appropriate synonym of the given word from the passage.

Debris

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

Andaman and Nicobar Islands consist of mainly two groups of islands, with distinctive features of the original residents - Negroid and Mongolese. It is strange to see how these two different groups migrated to these islands so far from the mainland - from India and Myanmar. The aboriginals found in these islands are the Jarawas, Sentinelese, Onges, Shompenites, mainly found in Andaman and the Nicobarese in Nicobar. Of these the Nicobarese in general, and some of the Onges, have accepted that so-called modern civilization and learned the use of modern tools and facilities. They can be seen frequently in the Port Blair market. The aboriginals are looked after by the Anthropological Department of the Government, who make regular visits to their islands and supply them with food and other necessities.

These aboriginals still do not know how to use a matchbox and prepare fire by rubbing two pieces of wood; they also do not know the use of cloth. If the people from the Anthropological Department offer them clothes, they use them only as turbans and not to wrap their bodies

The Jarawas, Sentinelese, Onges and Shompenites are mainly found in

Read the following passage and answer the questions that follow it. Each question has 4 options. Choose the correct option/answer for each question:

I worked for a brief while in a college in Delhi, and among my more uncomfortable memories is a language exercise, I gave a group of eight undergraduates: I asked them to imagine that they had already graduated and wanted them to write an application for a suitable job. Seven of the eight students wrote applications for the jobs of clerks. Even in one of the good universities, and in a college that had a reputation for its academic standards, the system has snuffed out all youthful ambition.

Choose the correct option from the given passage:
 According to the author, the system had -