Q1 The passage given below is followed by four summaries.

Choose the option that best captures the author’s

position.

A newly released study, among others, notes that blacks have the highest cancer mortality rate when compared to other racial
and ethnic groups. People living in poverty have lower rates of routine screening and a lower likelihood of getting the best
possible treatment. In the U.S., Poverty USA reported that in 2016, Native Americans experienced the highest rate of poverty
at 27.6 per cent followed by blacks at 26.3 per cent and Hispanics at 23.4 per cent. For whites, the poverty rate is 12.4 per
cent, and for Asians 12.3 per cent. This finding is particularly important as the stage at cancer diagnosis influences survival.
Surviving cancer should not be determined by your ethnicity or your income level. But until the gap in access to care is
eliminated, that will be the prognosis.

a) Income and ethnicity are closely linked to getting the best possible treatment for cancer.

b) Economic factors and ethnicity determine mortality gap between blacks and whites.

c) People living in poverty are more susceptible to cancer and cancer mortality.

d) Often, ethnicity and income level determine whether a patient survives cancer.

Q2 The passage given below is followed by four summaries. Choose the option that best captures the author’s
position.

Affirmative action began as a government remedy to the effects of long-standing discrimination against minority groups and
has consisted of policies, programs, and procedures that give preference to minorities and women in job hiring, admission to
institutions of higher education, the awarding of government contracts, and other social benefits. The typical criteria for
affirmative action are race, disability, gender, ethnic origin, and age.

a. The educational and employment opportunities of minority groups are largely improved by governmental policies
that give them preferential treatment.

b. Affirmative action guarantees preferential treatment to minorities based on their race, disability, gender and age.

c. Affirmative action is an active effort to improve employment or educational opportunities for minority groups and
for women.

d. Government policies for preferential treatment to minorities can remedy the effect of long standing discrimination in
society.

Q3. Five sentences related to a topic are given below. Four of them can be put together to form a
meaningful and coherent short paragraph. Identify the odd one out. Choose its number as your
answer and key it in.

1. The Western mass culture that predominates the world currently inspires anorexic, photoshopped
ideals of beauty, instigating malcontent and insecurity in people.
2. An empirically beautiful person might have an easier time getting a job, finding a mate, and being
taken seriously.
3. Artists, scientists and philosophers concur that beauty is an inherently undefinable characteristic.
4. This insecurity often leads to detrimental personality changes, further marginalizing the physically
less-than-ideal individual.
5. But let’s not forget the detrimental effect that the concept of beauty has on others who are perceived
to lack the quality.

This insecurity…’ in sentence 4 can be immediately linked to sentence 1 – These two sentences, (1 and 4) put
together, can be summarized this way: The Western culture which has a great influence on the rest of world
propagates an artificial idea of beauty which instigates discontent and insecurity among people. And this
insecurity has detrimental effects on these people. The next clue is sentence 5 that begins with “but”; this can be
associated with 2—both draw a contrast between the situations of those who are ‘empirically beautiful’ and those
who are perceived to lack the quality. So, we see that sentences 1-4 and sentences 2 -5 form two pairs. Also, it is
possible to form a coherent paragraph (2514), the theme of which is ‘how an artificial concept of physical beauty
affects people who are physically less-than-ideal individuals’. Sentence 3 is not related to this theme.
‘The undefinable characteristic of beauty’ in sentence 3 is not relevant. Hence, 3

Q4 Five sentences related to a topic are given below. Four of them can be put together to form a
meaningful and coherent short paragraph. Identify the odd one out. Choose its number as your
answer and key it in.

1. According to a 2018 World Travel & Tourism Council report, it will support 52.3 million jobs in
2028 against 42.9 million currently.
2. Tourism brings revenue to the exchequer, creates jobs by way of direct and indirect employment and
provides an incentive to preserve our heritage and environment.
3. Travel and tourism currently accounts for 9.6% of India’s GDP, 88% of which comes from domestic
travel.
4. International arrivals have remained relatively low, at 9 million, providing India with a unique
opportunity to consider how to create demand.
5. It supports 9.3% of the country’s total jobs.

Sentences other than sentence 4 discuss the importance of tourism. The theme is introduced by sentence 2 –
“Tourism brings revenue to the exchequer, creates jobs by way of direct and indirect employment and provides an
incentive to preserve our heritage and environment.” Sentences 1 3, and 5 explain the contribution of tourism to
the economy. From this point of view sentence 2 has no place in the paragraph as it talks about international
arrivals in India. Hence, 4.

Q 5 Five sentences related to a topic are given below. Four of them can be put together to form a
meaningful and coherent short paragraph. Identify the odd one out. Choose its number as your answer
and key it in.

1. To put it crudely banks stand as a guarantor for the currency that is exchanged between a payer and a payee.
2. To remain relevant in the future, the banks should formally adopt cryptocurrency without drastic consequences
to the economy.
3. The most important objective of crypto currency is to eliminate the role of banks.
4. The guarantee and the record maintained by the bank are considered sacrosanct due to the fact that it’s a
bank.
5. They debit the receiver and credit the giver in what is called the double entry method of bookkeeping.

We can establish connection between sentences 1, 4 and 5, though not necessarily in that order. Sentence 1
states the function of banks in very simple terms – ‘crudely… banks stand as guarantor for currency transactions.’
How they do it is explained in sentence 5 (again in very simple words} that they use double entry bookkeeping
and debit the receiver and credit the giver. Sentence 4 then concludes by stating that the guarantee and the
record of debit and credit are sacrosanct because they are banks. Sentences 2 and 3 need to be evaluated to see
which one is related to the theme, which is the function of banks. Sentence 3 can be related to the function of
banks because it says cryptocurrency tries to do away with the ‘role of banks.’ Then, sentences 1, 5 and 4 in that
order, explain the ‘role of banks’, in terms of what they do. Sentence 2 is not related to this narrative – neither the
threat to banks (the need for banks to remain relevant against cryptocurrency, though its aim is to eliminate
banks), nor the need to formally adopt cryptocurrency, nor the ‘drastic consequences to the economy’ are
relevant to the narrative. Hence, 2. 

Direction for Q 6-8 In Each question, five sentences are given. Choose the answer that arranges the given sentences in
a logical and coherent manner.

6. (A) Is not extending a subsidy or sanctioning a rail-line or factory to his constituency a bribe ?
(B) For horse-trading for House votes, there has been no legal indictment or impeachment.
(C) If giving money to get a vote is crime, then is it not a crime to offer a Cabinet berth to a defector as inducement?
 (D) The history of parliamentary democracy does, not stipulate that the approaches and moves to secure a majority vote
shall be absolutely moral and righteous, and therefore there shall be no inducements, threats or tempting offers to
tantalize the victim.
(E) Defection in the House invites only disqualification, but no criminal punishment.
(1) ADBCE (2) DCBEA
(3) DBECA (4) EABCD

7. (A) Not learning anything from the Arjun debacle, the DRDO embarked on the development of combat aircraft
(B) Thousands of crores later, the aircraft has yet to take flight.
(C) Once again, on paper, the aircraft was to be the finest in the world.
(D) The result is we have to go abroad for more aircraft.
(E) The first flight keeps getting delayed and what was supposed to have taken place in 1995 has not yet happened.

(1) ABCDE (2) ACBED

(3) ADCBE (4) AECBD

8. (A) The concept is termed intellectual because it applies to products of the mind and property because the products
belong to the person whose mental efforts created them.
(B) What exactly is intellectual property?
(C) The control on access over certain types of knowledge / information is referred to as intellectual property.
(D) Knowledge is free but the flow of the same is restricted.
(E) The 20th century could be summed up as the age of information revolution.

(1) ABCDE (2) BCDEA

(3) DCBAE (4) EDCBA

Direction for 9– 10 : Each of the following questions has a sentence with two blanks. Given below each question are four
pairs of words. Choose the pair that best completes the sentences

9. The dualistic pattern of development in South Asia has meant an incomplete ----- transition, with the ------prevalence of
diseases of poverty caused due to poor living conditions and poor nutrition along with diseases induced by affluent
lifestyles.
(A) pathological. . epidemic
(B) epidemiological. . . simultaneous
(C) endemic . . . ubiquitous
(D) episodic. . . concomitant

10. By ensuring guaranteed wage employment for 100 days to any adult in a household who is willing to work, the
NREGA is the first legislation that compels the state to provide a social safety net for the poorest people of this country
and seeks to _____ the urgent issues of hunger and rural distress that ________ large parts of India.
(A) tackle. . loom (B) confront. . . affect
(C) attack. . . pervade (D) address. . . afflict