DPM 18

A to E

A. Words along with their meaning, Pronunciation and usage

Tantamount /ˈtantəmaʊnt/

[Adjective] equivalent in seriousness to; virtually the same as.

Usage – The resignation letters of the ministers were tantamount to an admission of guilt.

Origin – mid-17th century: from the earlier verb tantamount ‘amount to as much’, from Italian
tanto montare.

Tautological /ˌtɔːtəˈlɒdʒɪk(ə)l/

[Adjective] using two words or phrases that express the same meaning, in a way that is
unnecessary and usually unintentional.

Usage – Itmay seem tautological to suggest that getting money to poor people is the solution to
poverty.

Origin- mid-16th century: via late Latin from Greek, from tautologos ‘repeating what has been
said’, from tauto- ‘same’ + -logos (-logy, denoting a characteristic of speech or language).

Temerity /tɪˈmɛrɪti/

[Noun] excessive confidence or boldness; audacity.

Usage – No one had the temerity to question the professor.

Origin – lateMiddle English: from Latin temeritas, from temere ‘rashly’.

Tenuous /ˈtɛnjʊəs/

[Adjective] 1) very weak or slight.

2) very slender or fine; insubstantial.

Usage 1) – The relation between the gossip and reality is tenuous at best.

Usage 2) – There were tenuous clouds in the sky.

Origin – late-16th century: formed irregularly from Latin tenuis ‘thin’ + -ous.

Tessellate /ˈtɛsəleɪt/

[Verb] 1) decorate (a floor or pavement) with mosaics.

2) cover (a plane surface) by repeated use of a single shape, without gaps or

overlapping.

Usage 1) – The hotel lobby had a beautiful tessellated entrance.

Origin – late-17thcentury (as tessellated): from late Latin tessellat-, from the verb tessellare, from
tessella, diminutive of tessera(a small block of stone, tile, glass, or other material used in the
construction of a mosaic).

Travail /ˈtraveɪl/

[Noun] 1) painful or laborious effort.

2) labour pains.

[Verb] 3) engage in painful or laborious effort.

Usage 1) – This is a good book for those who wish to save themselves from great sorrow and
travail.

Usage 3) – Creation maybe rooted in travail but it is worth the result.

Origin – MiddleEnglish: via Old French from medieval Latin trepalium ‘instrument of torture’,
from Latin tres ‘three’ + palus ‘stake’.
Take the cake

[Phrase] be the most remarkable or foolish of its kind.

Usage – I have seen many mediocre movies but this one takes the cake.

Thick as thieves

[Phrase] Close friends with; sharing confidences.

Usage – They have been thick as thieves since childhood.

Terra firma

[Phrase, Latin] firm or solid land

Usage - It was with great gratitude that he stood on terra firma once more.

Tour de force

[Phrase, French] exceptional achievement.

Usage – His latest novel is a tour de force.

B. RC Passage (with Link)

Article 1: Can Science Explain Deja Vu?

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/can-science-explain-deja-vu/

Summary: Most of us have experienced deja vu—that sensation when new events feel eerily
familiar. Could this "glitch in the Matrix" be a brain short-circuit?

We associate the feeling of déjà vu with mystery and even the paranormal because it is fleeting
and usually unexpected. The very things that intrigue us about déjà vu are the same things that
make it hard to study. But scientists have tried using tricks like hypnosis and virtual reality.

Article 2 : Where in the brain does creativity come from? Evidence from jazz musicians
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/03/200331130104.htm

Summary: "If creativity is defined in terms of the quality of a product, such as a song, invention,
poem or painting, then the left hemisphere plays a key role," said Kounios. "However, if
creativity is understood as a person's ability to deal with novel, unfamiliar situations, as is the
case for novice improvisers, then the right hemisphere plays the leading role."

Article 3 : https://www.nature.com/articles/468868a

Summary: Once the link between asbestos exposure and the disease was convincingly made in
1960, responsible nations eventually took strong measures to remove the mineral from
commercial products and to halt mining and export.

Notwithstanding the fact that Canada enforces strict guidelines on asbestos use at home to
protect its own people, those in countries to which it sends the mineral have little or no
protection. Owing to the long time between exposure and the onset of disease, 30 years or
more, the asbestos trade in North America and elsewhere is creating an epidemic that may take
decades to peak and subside. The minerals industry has long tried to convince regulators that
white asbestos - or chrysotile - is safe when handled properly.

Article 4 : https://www.nature.com/articles/468599a

Summary : The grid is just one of half-a-dozen energy-infrastructure priorities for Europe that
the European Commission. The availability of grid capacity will determine, to a considerable
degree, which power sources are best placed to generate economically viable electricity. If
Europe had relied entirely on the private sector to plan, build and finance existing electricity
grids half a century ago, it would not have a functioning grid at all. If Europe relies on private
finance for its future grid development, it will end up with something more like the blackout-
prone electricity grid of the United States, which has been starved of public investment for
decades. Future grid development also requires research and development, much of it in areas
that have received little attention in recent decades.

Article 5 : https://theconversation.com/debate-beware-the-european-union-can-dis-integrate-
115949

Summary : Faced with this uniquely severe crisis, the EU has not proved as resilient as in the
past. True, the Eurozone has emerged politically more integrated from its crisis, and the pre-
existing level of integration in foreign and security policy also survived the Ukraine crisis. In the
refugee crisis, however, the EU has suffered some – limited – political disintegration.
C. RC Passage (with Questions)

Over the course of the last century , the United States has made modest progress in its
responses to genocides. The persistence and proliferation of dissenters within the US
government and human rights advocates outside it have made a policy of silence in the face of
genocide more difficult to sustain. As Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic learned, state
sovereignty no longer necessarily shields a perpetrator of genocide from either military
intervention or courtroom punishment.

But such advances have been eclipsed by America's toleration of unspeakable atrocities, often
committed in clear view. The personalities and geopolitical constraints influencing US decision-
making have shifted with time, but the United States has consistently refused to take risks in
order to suppress genocide. The United States is not alone. The states bordering genocidal
societies and the European powers have looked away as well .Despite broad public consensus
that genocide should never again be allowed , and a good deal of triumphalism about the ascent
of Liberal Democratic values ,the last decade of the 20th century was one of the most deadly in
the grimmest century on record . Rwandan Hutus in 1994 could freely, joyfully , and
systematically slaughter 8000 Tutsis a day for 100 days without any foreign
interference .Genocide occurred after the Cold War; after the growth of human rights
groups ;after the advent of technology that allowed for instant communication; after the election
of the Holocaust museum on the Mall in Washington DC.

Perversely, America's public awareness of the Holocaust often seemed to set the bar for
concerns so high that we were able to tell ourselves that contemporary genocides were not
measuring up. After the writer David Rieff noted,” never again” might best be defined as “never
again would Germans kill Jews in Europe in the 1940s”. Either by averting their eyes or
attending to more pressing conventional strategic can political concerns, U.S. leaders who have
denounced the Holocaust have themselves repeatedly allowed genocide.

What is most shocking about America's reaction to Turkey's killing of Armenians , the
Holocaust, Pol Pot's reign of terror, Iraq slaughter of the Kurds, Bosnian Serb’s mass murder of
Muslims , and the Hutu elimination of Tutsi is not that the United States refused to deploy US
ground forces to combat the atrocities. For much of the century, even the most ardent
interventionists did not lobby the US ground invasions will stop what is most shocking is that US
policymakers did almost nothing to deter the crime. Because America's “vital national interests”
were not considered imperiled by mere genocide, senior US officials did not give genocide the
model attention it warranted. Instead of undertaking steps along a continuum of intervention –
from condemning the perpetrators or cutting off U.S. aid to bombing or rallying multinational
invasion force – U.S. officials tended to trust in negotiation, cling to diplomatic niceties and
“neutrality”, and ship humanitarian aid.

Indeed, on occasion the United States directly or indirectly aided those committing genocide. It
orchestrated the vote in the UN Credentials Committee to favor the Khmer Rouge. It sided with
and U.S. agricultural and manufacturing credits to Iraq while Saddam Hussein was attempting to
wipe out the country’s Kurds. Along with its European allies, it maintained an arms embargo
against Bosnian Muslims even after it was clear that the arms ban prevented the Muslims from
defending themselves. It used its clout in the UN Security Council to mandate the withdrawal of
UN peacekeepers from Rwanda and block efforts to redeploy there. To the people of Bosnia
and Rwanda, the United States and its Security Council allies held out the promise of protection
– a promise that they were not prepared to keep.

Question 1 ) Which of the following best describes the tone adopted by the author of this
passage?

(A) Acerbic (B) Caustic (C) Harshly critical (D) Dispassionate

Question 2 ) The tone of the passage reveals the author’s

(A) Indignation (B) sense of fair play (C) agony (D) hostility
Question 3 ) The sentence, “Genocide occurred after….in the Washington DC”, in the second
paragraph is an example of

(A) Satire (B) irony (C) paradox (D) rhetoric

Question 4 ) In the sentence “ Because America’s ‘vital national interests’ were not considered
imperiled by mere genocide”, the phrase ‘mere genocide’ is

(A) Euphemistic (B) prosaic (C) sarcastic (D) pungent

D. Quantitative Aptitude

Directions for questions 1 and 2 :

A and B had a certain number of marbles with them, not necessarily the same. First A
gave 60% of his total marbles to B. Next B gave to A 60% of the total he had then. This
whole process is considered as one transaction. The ratio of the number of marbles with
A and B after each such transaction remains the same.

1. What was the ratio of the total of marbles with A and B initially?

2. If the difference between the number of marbles with A and B initially was 36, then
find the total number of marbles with them?

3. There are two positive numbers. Each was increase by 30 and then by the same
percentage as it was increased the first time. After the second increase, the value of
each number is 147. Find the difference between the two numbers.

4. A man can swim at 5 km/h in still water. He wants to cross a river 3 km wide. The
river is flowing at 12 km/h. If the man can run at 18 km/h, then what is the average
speed of the journey in which, he can reach a point that is exactly opposite to the
point from where he started, in the least amount of time?
5. The average marks of classes A and B is 48, that of the classes B and C is 72, and
that of A and C is 60. Which of the following value is possible for the average of all
three classes together?
(A) 48 (B) 54 (C) 59 (D) 72

800
6. The number of zeroes at the end of C400 is__

7. A decimal number when converted in base 7, 8 and 9 give the unit place as 1,2 and
3 respectively, which of the following can be the unit place of the number when
converted to base 5?
(A) 4 (B) 2 (C) 3 (D)all of the above

5𝑋+ 3
8. If f(x) = 7𝑋− 5 ; then find the value of f 6(3).

9. If 140a = 5 and 140b = 7, the value of 28(1−𝑎−𝑏)/(2(1−𝑎)) lies between __

(A) 0 and 5 (B) 5 and 10 (C) 10 and 15 (D) 15 and 20

10. A dice is rolled twice. If the sum of the numbers is 7, what is the probability that at
least one dice shows 3?
E. DILR – 1 Set

Directions for questions 1 to 4 :

The questions are based on the following information.

Eight friends A, B, C, D, E, F, G and H live on eight different floor of a building, not necessarily
in the same order. The lower most floor of the building is number one. The floor above that is
number two and so on until the top floor is number eight:

I. A lives on the floor number six.

II. Only one person lives between C and D.
III. F lives on the floor immediately below C.
IV. Only one person lives between F and G.
V. F lives above G.
VI. B lives on an even numbered floor but not on the floor numbered two.
VII. Two persons Live between B and H.
VIII. H does not live on the lower-most floor.
IX. E lives on one of the floors above H.

1. If G and C interchange their places, then who will be living between G and D?

(A) F (B) C (C) A (D) None

2. Which of the following is true about D?

(A) B lives immediately above D.

(B) Only two people live between D and H.

(C) D lives on an odd numbered floor.

(D) D lives on the lower-most floor.

3. Who amongst the following lives on the floor number eight?

(A) G (B) F ( C) B (D) Cannot be determined

4. Three of the following four are alike in a certain way based on the given

arrangement and thus form a group. Which of the following does not belong to the group?

(A) GC (B) DH (C) CE (D) FD