Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions given below it.
If the census tells us that India has two or three hundred languages, it also tells us, I believe, that Germany has about fifty or sixty languages. I do not remember anyone pointing out this fact in proof of the disunity or disparity of Germany. As a matter of fact, a census mentions all manner of petty languages, sometimes spoken by a few thousand persons only; and often dialects are classed for scientific purposes as different languages. India seems to me to have surprisingly few languages, considering its area. Compared to the same area in Europe, it is far more closely allied in regard to language, but because of widespread illiteracy, common standards have not developed and dialects have formed. The principal languages of India are Hindustani (of the two varieties, Hindi and Urdu), Bengali, Gujarati, Marathi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Kannada. If Assamese, Oriya, Sindhi, Kashmiri, Pushtu and Punjabi are added, the whole country is covered except for some hill and forest tribes. Of these, the Indo-Aryan languages, which cover the whole north, centre and west of India, are closely allied; and the southern Dravidian languages, though different, have been greatly influenced by Sanskrit, and are full of Sanskrit words. 

Which of the following is not true in reference to the passage? 

Read the following passage and answer the questions given after it.

The number of Indian students going abroad for higher studies has increased by 68.79 per cent in the past year, according to data provided by the Minister of State in the Ministry of Education, Subhas Sarkar. As per the data provided by him in the Lok Sabha, the number of Indians enrolled in foreign varsities increased from 4.44 lakh in 2021 to 7.5 lakh in 2022. He clarified that while the Bureau of Immigration and Ministry of Home Affairs maintain departure and arrival data of Indians, there is no index for capturing the category of Indians going abroad for higher education. “Purpose of Indians going abroad for higher education is captured manually based either ontheir verbal disclosure or the type of visa of the destination country produced by them at the time of immigration clearance,” Sarkar said. According to the data provided by the ministry, the number of Indian nationals increased from 4.54 lakh in 2017 to 5.17 lakh in 2018. There was a significant increase in 2019 as well, with 5.86 lakh students flying out of the country. However, during the Covid pandemic, the number of Indian nationals in foreign varsities saw a drastic dip as only 2.59 lakh students were registered. While the number continued to remain low, it saw a slight increase in 2021 with 4.44 lakh registrations. However, the number has significantly jumped to 7.5 lakh in 2022. The increase in the number of Indian nationals abroad corresponds with the latest immigration reports from some of the popular study-abroad destinations such as the US, UK, and Australia. For the UK, the Immigration Statistics Report states that 127,731 visas were granted to Indian students in September 2022, an increase of 93,470 (+273 per cent) against 34,261 in 2019. Similarly, in the US, the number of Indian students has more than doubled, and the Open Doors Report 2022 has predicted that the number of Indian students heading to America is likely to surpass those from China in 2022-23.

Which of the following countries is not very popular with Indian students for studies?

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

The effects of the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression are forcing changes on state governments and the U.S. economy that could linger for decades. By one Federal Reserve estimate, the country lost almost an entire year's worth of economic activity – nearly $14 trillion – during the recession from 2007 to 2009. The deep and persistent losses of the recession forced states to make broad cuts in spending and public workforces. For businesses, the recession led to changes in expansion plans and worker compensation. And for individual Americans, it has meant a future postponed, as fewer buy houses and start families. Five years after the financial crash, the country is still struggling to recover." In the aftermath of [previous] recessions there were strong recoveries. That is not true this time around," said Gary Burtless, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. "This is more like the pace getting out of the Great Depression." For years, housing served as the backbone of economic growth and as an investment opportunity that propelled generations of Americans into the middle class.

But the financial crisis burst the housing bubble and devastated the real estate market, leaving millions facing foreclosure, millions more underwater, and generally stripping Americans of years' worth of accumulated wealth. Anthony B. Sanders, a professor of real estate finance at George Mason University, said even the nascent housing recovery can't escape the effects of the recession. Home values may have rebounded, he said, but the factors driving that recovery are very different than those that drove the growth in the market in the 1990s and 2000s. Sanders said more than half of recent home purchases have been made in cash, which signals investors and hedge funds are taking advantage of cheap properties. That could freeze out average buyers and also mean little real economic growth underpins those sales. Those effects are clear in homeownership rates, which continue to decline. In the second quarter of this year, the U.S. homeownership rate was 65.1%, according to Census Bureau data, the lowest since 1995. In the mid-2000s, it topped 69%, capping a steady pace of growth that began after the early 1990s recession. Reversing that will be a challenge, in part because credit has tightened and lending rules have been toughened in an effort to avoid the mistakes that inflated the housing bubble in the first place.

"Credit expanded, and now contracted, and it's going to be tight like this as far as the eye can see," Sanders said. "We so destroyed so many households when the bubble burst, there's just not the groundswell to fill the demand again." Some are skeptical that the tight credit market and new efforts to regulate the financial markets, like the Dodd-Frank law, will prove lasting. Americans have often responded with calls for regulation after financial sector-driven crises and accusations of mismanagement, according to Brookings' Burtless. "But eventually, those fires cool down," he said. "It's not as though this memory of what can go wrong sticks with us very long." That can be seen in the intense efforts to water down Dodd-Frank's regulations, Burtless said. Federal regulators have already made moves to relax requirements for some potential homeowners who were victims of the recent housing crisis. Even those steps and an unlikely return to easy credit might not fuel a full housing recovery without economic growth to back it up. As Sanders, referring to the growth in low-wage and part-time employment, put it: "At those wages, it's tough to scramble together down payments and mortgages’’.

 "Turmoil in the housing market has already reshaped the makeup of households nationwide. Homeownership rates among people with children under 18 fell sharply during the recession, declining 15% between 2005 and 2011, according to Census Bureau data. In some states it was far worse. For Michigan, the decline in homeownership was 23%, and in Arizona and California it was 22%. Lackluster job growth has outlived the downturn. A study by the Economic Policy Institute showed wages for all workers, when adjusted for inflation, grew just 1.5% between 2000 and 2007. But the last five years wiped out even those modest gains—the study found wages declined for the bottom 70% of all workers since the recession began. However, some areas have seen manufacturing jobs climb back from recessionary lows, and the energy sector has been a boon for some Midwestern states. One hopeful sign for workers is the shift away from manufacturing growth in the typically low-wage South back toward the Rust Belt states, reversing a movement that was taking hold before the downturn. That trend is documented in a 2012 report from the Brookings Institution, "Locating American Manufacturing: Trends in the Geography of Production.’’

"From 2000 to 2010, both the Midwest and South lost manufacturing jobs at about the national rate of 34%. But the Midwest has seen nearly half of all manufacturing jobs gained since 2010, almost double the increase in the South. For Michigan, the growth was 19%; in Indiana, 12%. Even with that growth, there are caveats. Autoworker unions have ceded ground with companies on wages and benefits, for example, allowing new hires to work for lower pay and fewer benefits than those who've held their jobs longer. Unemployment remains stubbornly high in some states, and the jobs created have leaned heavily toward part-time and low-pay work. A study from the San Francisco Federal Reserve found the proportion of U.S. jobs that are part-time is high, as many of the jobs lost during the recession have not returned.

Which of the following statements is/are NOT TRUE in the context of the passage?

Read the following passage carefully and choose the best answer to each question out of the five given alternatives.

Almost everybody allows himself or herself or herself some entirely unjustifiable generalizations on the subject of women. Married men, when they generalize on that subject, judge by their wives; women judge by themselves. It would be amusing to write a history of the views of men on women.

In antiquity, when male supremacy was unquestioned and Christian ethics were still unknown, women were harmless, rather silly, and a man who took them seriously was somewhat despised.

Plato’s great objection to the drama was that the playwright had to imitate women in creating his female roles. With the coming of Christianity, the woman took on a new part, that of the temptress; but at the same time, she was also found capable of being a saint.

Some unjustifiable generalizations are made on

Read the given passage and answer the questions that follow.
Design has manifold applications and usages ranging from the most obvious or surface-level usages to the subtler and indirect usages that have far-reaching and deeper impact. The significance of design lies in its ability to fulfil these demands, whether aesthetic, teleological or semiotic. By aesthetics, it is broadly understood as its sensory and beauty values, i.e. Concerned with the judgment of visual taste, here it is meant as the sensory appreciation of graphic design. While by functionality is meant the practical aspects of a given graphic design such as usability, communicability, readability and making an impact. Its efficiency lies in its ability to do so. Design has function as well as some purpose. In theoretical terms the ability of design to fulfil the function or purpose is called ‘teleology’ of design. Apart from the above two, there is one more aspect of design called ‘content’ or meaning of design that can be broadly called as semiotic value of design. A simple discussion might elaborate this case. Food has taste that caters to our taste buds which is a sensory quality of food. Sometimes the colour of food is attractive therefore we like it and probably other times we get attracted towards it because it is presented in an appealing manner. Aroma, taste and decoration or garnishing cater to our sensory expectations. Food also has nutritional value that is concerned with supplying energy to the body that helps in its overall physical growth and maintenance of general health and work efficiency and at times such food may not be visually attractive. This is the teleological significance. Now if the food is cooked by a mother, sister or wife, then it has a special meaning and a highly personal significance attached to it. It may not be very nutritious or properly garnished, still the food will have its own unique significance which is the semiotic value of the food. 

The ability of a design to fulfil the purpose is called:

Read the following passage and answer the questions given after it.

We sit in the last row, bumped about but free of stares. The bus rolls out of the dull crossroads of the city, and we are soon in the open countryside, with fields of sunflowers as far as the eye can see, their heads all facing us. Where there is no water, the land reverts to the desert. While still on level ground, we see in the distance the tall range of the Mount Bogda, abrupt like a shining prism laid horizontally on the desert surface. It is over 5,000 metres high, and the peaks are under permanent snow, in powerful contrast to the flat desert all around. Heaven lake lies part of the way up this range, about 2,000 metres above sea level, at the foot of one of the highest snow-peaks. As the bus climbs, the sky, brilliant before, grows overcast. I have brought nothing warm to wear. It is all down at the hotel in Urumqi. Rain begins to fall. The man behind me is eating overpoweringly smelly goat’s cheese. The bus window leaks inhospitably but reveals a beautiful view. We have passed quickly from the desert through arable land to pasture and the ground is now green with grass, the slopes dark with pine. A few cattle drink at a clear stream flowing past moss-covered stones; it is a Constable landscape. The stream changes into a white torrent, and as we climb higher I wish more and more that I had brought with me something warmer than the pair of shorts that have served me so well in the desert. The stream (which, we are told, rises in Heaven Lake) disappears, and we continue our slow ascent. About noon, we arrive at Heaven Lake, and look for a place to stay at the foot, which is the resort area. We get a room in a small cottage, and I am happy to note that there are thick quilts on the bed. Standing outside the cottage, we survey our surroundings. Heaven Lake is long, sardine- shaped and fed by snowmelt from a stream at its head. The lake is an intense blue, surrounded on all sides by green mountain walls, dotted with distant sheep. At the head of thelake, beyond the delta of the inflowing stream, is a massive snow-capped peak which dominates the vista; it is part of a series of peaks that culminate, a little out of view, in MountBogda itself. For those who live in the resort, there is a small mess-hall by the shore. We eat here sometimes, and sometimes buy food from the vendors outside, who sell kabab and naan until the last buses leave. The kababs, cooked on skewers over charcoal braziers, are particularly good; highly spiced and well-done. Horse’s milk is available too from the local Kazakh herdsmen, but I decline this. I am so affected by the cold that Mr. Cao, the relaxed young manwho runs the mess, lends me a spare pair of trousers, several sizes too large but more than comfortable. Once I am warm again, I feel a pre-dinner spurt of energy—dinner will be long in coming—and I ask him whether the lake is good for swimming in.

What is the tone of the passage?

Read the following passage carefully and give the answer of following questions.

The problem of water pollution by pesticides can be understood only in context, as part of the whole to which it belongs – the pollution of the total environment of mankind. The pollution entering our waterways comes from many sources, radioactive wastes from reactors, laboratories and hospitals; fallout from nuclear explosions; domestic wastes from cities and towns; chemical wastes from factories. To these is a added a new kid of fallout - the chemical sprays applied to crop lands and gardens, forests and fields. Many of the chemical agents in this alarming melange initiate and augment the harmful effects of radiation, and within the groups of chemicals themselves there are sinister and little - understood interactions, transformations and summations of effect.

Ever since the chemists began to manufacture substances that nature never invented, the problem of water purification have become complex and the danger to users of water has increased. As we have seen, the production of these synthetic chemicals in large volume began in the 1940’s. It has now reached such proportion that an appalling deluge of chemical pollution is daily poured into the nation’s waterways. When inextricably mixed with domestic and other wastes discharged into the same water, these chemicals sometimes defy detection by the methods in ordinary use by purification plants. Most of them are so complex that they cannot be identified. In rivers, a really incredible variety of pollutants combine to produce deposits that sanitary engineers can only despairingly refer to as “gunk”.

Water contamination has become serious:

Directions: You have two brief passages with questions following each passage. Read the passages carefully and choose the best answer to each question out of the four alternatives 

Ram had never thought much about the origin of wealth or inequalities in life. It was his firm belief that if this world was not good, the next would be good, and this faith sustained him. He was not like some others whom he knew, who would sell their souls to the devil. He always thought of God before doing anything. He lived the life of an honest man. He had not married but did not desire another man’s wife. He believed that women weakened men as was described in the story of Samson and Delilah. 

By not desiring another man’s wife Ram showed that