Passage-1

Think about the reason for your mental unrestlessness or the anxiety building up. When life
throws in challenges at people, it is more important
for us to hold our grounds and stay strong during
these periods. But all of your mental balance depends
on the kind of people that you surround yourself with.
As Jim Rohn sums it up best, you become what you
surround yourself with. Very much like the story of
the spoilt apple kept in touch with a bunch of other
fresh apples that weve been told our entire childhood,
there are significant impacts on keeping some kinds of
people close to you.
There are some people who are happy for your
successes or progress and genuinely take an interest
in your problems while there are the ones who are
opportunistic and only stay close as long as they feel
your need for their purpose. The importance of
identifying the people around you and staying away
from the commotion, which will only mentally
unstable you, is immense. Intentionally or sometimes
not, toxic people are the ones who drain you out,
mentally and emotionally, convince you of failure to
an extent where you revert to self-pitying, selfloathing and self-doubting.
If you believe in the beauty of your dreams and work
for it, there is no need of these people to bring you

down. One way I deal with naysayers is I try to

identify any potential loopholes and not the obvious
ones that are very often pointed out to me, in my ideas
or beliefs. But it sometimes sticks behind the back of
your brain and it becomes harder to ignore the
negativity that you received in the past for your ideas
or thoughts. One simple way to keep the naysayers
keep out of your life is to not let them know what
youre thinking or working on until you get it done
unless of course- it is your boss! Remember the
saying, Work hard in silence, let success speak for
itself.
1.) What does the author hope to convey to the
reader?
a) The importance of being positive and optimistic
about ones goals and ideas.
b) A strategy to deal with the people who bring you
down.
c) The effect optimistic people and naysayers can have
on you.
d) The importance hard work and persistence have
in success.
Answer: c) The effect optimistic people and naysayers
can have on you.
2.) How does the author deal with the naysayers?
a) By completely ignoring them.
b) By analysing the loopholes pointed out by them.

c) By analysing the loopholes in his/her ideas herself

and not involving the naysayers in her ideas.
d) By being reserved and isolated from people.
Answer: c) By analysing the loopholes in his/her
ideas herself and not involving the naysayers in her
ideas.
3.) The author reverts to self-loathing and self-pitying
as:
a) She comes to understand the real issues and
loopholes in her ideas and beliefs.
b) She gets dissuaded and demotivated by people who
criticise her recklessly.
c) She realises the futility of her ideas and beliefs.
d) She realises that she will never be able
to implement her ideas and beliefs.
Answer: b) She gets dissuaded and demotivated by
people who criticise her recklessly.
Passage-2
One hundred and fifty years ago, the American Civil
War ended. The Confederacy, which had broken away
from the Union, was defeated by the armies of the
North. There has ever since been a wound in the
American psyche. The Confederacy claimed that it had
seceded to defend States Rights. The issue for Lincoln
and the North was slavery. The Southern states had

slave ownership and wanted to retain it. They lost and

during the War Lincoln signed the Emancipation
Declaration. A fortnight ago, a young man, Dylann
Roof, entered a quiet church in Charleston, South
Carolina, one of the old Confederate states. He shot
nine Black churchgoers who were quietly conducting a
Bible reading. They had welcomed him. He had an
obsession about Black Americans taking over the
country. He wanted to start a race war. The victims he
shot were hardly likely to start any war Indeed, the
relations of the victims forgave Dylann Roof.
Of course the position of Black Americans is much
better now than it was when I was first there in the
early Sixties. Then the whole country had racist laws.
Now much of the country is free of crude racism and
racial discrimination. Lyndon Johnson, despite
coming from the South, pioneered civil rights
legislation. Over the next fifty years, much has
changed. There is a black middle class and for
children born in the middle class, colour does not
matter much. But poverty is disproportionately high
among the Black people.
It has taken a tragedy of the proportion of Charleston
with nine people shot dead for America to think again
about its history. The disgust at Dylann Roofs act has
moved many White Americans to give up their loyalty
to the Confederate flag. The generous gesture of the
church, where the killings took place, has also moved
many people. America has unfinished business when

it comes to race. It cannot be the land of the brave and

the home of the free while some are less free than
others.
1.) How would you describe the nature of
this passage?
a) Thought provoking.
b) Criticising.
c) Explanatory.
d) Nostalgic.
Answer: a) Thought provoking.
2.) Through the example of Charleston shooting, the
author aims to:
a) Highlight the socio-economic conditions of the
black in America.
b) Give the readers a historic explanation behind
racism in America.
c) Make readers question the interpretation of history.
d) Bring out the inherent prejudices and racism in
American society.
3.) What does the author mean by "a wound in the
American psyche?
a) Many Americans have not been fully able to
reconcile with the defeat of southern states and
abolition of slavery.
b) Americans believe that anti slavery laws have been
thrust upon them.

c) Many Americans view the southern states as a

separate country.
d) Many Americans feel threatened by the rise of
middle class black population.
Answer: a) Many American have not been fully able to
reconcile with the defeat of southern states and
abolition of slavery.
4.) What has been one of the impacts of Charleston
shootings?
a) Many white Americans have become aware of the
poor socio-economic background of the blacks.
b) Many white Americans have started questioning
the history that they have been taught.
c) Many white Americans have started doubting the
idea represented by the confederate flag.
d) Many white Americans have started to believe that
America is no more the land of brave and free.
Answer: c) Many white Americans have started
doubting the idea represented by the confederate flag.

Passage-3
The European Union (EU) is Indias second largest
trading partner, with 68 billion euros of commerce in
2010, accounting for 20 per cent of Indias global

trade. But Europes contribution to Indias overall

global trade has been shrinking even while the Indian
economy grows.
India has a number of affinities with Europe and with
the European Union, not least since we, too, are an
economic and political union of a number of
linguistically, culturally and ethnically different states.
Both are unwieldy unions of just under thirty states,
both are bureaucratic, both are coalition- ridden and
both are slow to make decisions. But in practice these
affinities have not translated into close political or
strategic relations.
The India-EU Joint Action Plan covers a wide range of
fields for cooperation, including trade and commerce,
security, and cultural and educational exchanges.
However, as the Canadian diplomat David Malone has
observed, these measures lead mainly to dialogue,
commitments to further dialogue, and exploratory
committees and working groups, rather than to
significant policy measures or economic
breakthroughs. Indians have an allergy to being
lectured to, and one of the great failings in the EUIndia partnership has been the tendency of Europe to
preach to India on matters we consider ourselves
quite competent to handle on our own. As a
democracy for over six decades (somewhat longer
than several member states of the EU), India sees
human rights as a vital domestic issue. There is not a

single human rights problem about India that has

been exposed by Amnesty International or Human
Rights Watch or any European institution, which has
not been revealed first by Indian citizens, journalists
and NGOs and handled within the democratic Indian
political space. So for the EU to try to write in human
rights provisions into a free trade agreement, as if
they were automobile emissions standards, gets
Indian backs up. Trade should not be held hostage to
internal European politics about human rights
declarations; the substance of human rights is far
more important than the language or the form. On the
substance, India and the EU are on the same side and
have the same aspirations. Once this irritant is
overcome, the negotiations for an FTA, which has
been long in its final stages, should be concluded and
should transform trade.
Of course there are structural impediments that will
not disappear. Ironically given its human rights
professions, the EU has long favoured China over
India, and China is clearly the preferred investment
destination: for every euro invested in India from the
EU, 20 euros are invested in China. (This is partly
Indias fault, in not creating a comparably congenial
climate for foreign investment.) An EU ambassador to
India, quoted by Malone, observed that each has a
tendency to look to the most powerful poles in
international relations rather than towards each
other, and each spends more time deploring the

shortcomings of the other rather than building the

foundations of future partnership.
1.) What has been a major irritant in better
collaboration between India and EU?
a) The terms of trade and foreign investment have not
been finalised.
b) Both the countries distrust each others human
rights record.
c) China has provided better opportunities for foreign
trade so european countries are more attracted to it.
d) Europe shows high handedness when it comes to
human rights and India does not like this patronising
behaviour.
Answer: d) Europe shows high handedness when it
comes to human rights and India does not like this
patronising behaviour.
2.) EUs investment in China is ironical because:
a) EU has compromised over its human rights
standards when it comes to china.
b) China has a better foreign investment climate as
compared to India.
c) EU has invested in China despite having nothing in
common with the Chinese culture.
d) EU has overcome all structural impediments when
it comes to investing in China.
Answer: a) EU has compromised over its human

rights standards when it comes to china.

3.) What does the author mean by unwieldy unions?
a) Both India and EU are fragile unions and always on
the brink of disintegration.
b) Both India and EU are so diverse that keeping
them together in a union is a daunting task.
c) Both India and EU have had human right problems
which have been solved domestically.
d) Both India and EU have had a long history of
powerful bureaucracies and coalition politics.
Answer: b) Both India and EU are so diverse that
keeping them together in a union is a daunting task.
4.) Which of the following statements is the author
most likely to agree with:
a) India and EU can never be major trading partners
as long as China is there.
b) Trade should be kept independent of human right
issues and internal political dissensions.
c) Structural impediments will not be a problem once
India and EU establish mutual trust.
d) India and EU can never capitalise on their mutual
similarities.
Answer: b) Trade should be kept independent of
human right issues and internal political dissensions.

passage-4
Way back in 1974, as a teenage collegian, I spent a
summer holiday at the tea estate of a classmates
father near Jorhat in Assam. One of the first things I
discovered during that idyllic escape was that I had to
re-set my watch to tea time, an imaginary clock
invented by the planters that was the time on my
watch plus two hours.
Indian Standard Time, my friends father explained,
made no sense in a place where the sun would be
rising by 4 am and setting by 3.30 pm if the planters
used the same clock as the people in New Delhi. I was
sufficiently schooled in nationalist sentiment to be
vaguely offended by this, seeing it as something of a
betrayal of Indianness not to be on the same time
zone as the rest of the nation. And yet, within a couple
of days, I realised that it made eminent practical
sense, if for no other reason than to avoid the
confusion of getting up well after the crack of dawn
and finding ones watch claimed it was the middle of
the night.
Soon after, I went off to graduate studies in the United
States, where one adjusted quickly enough to four
time zones on the American mainland Eastern, for
places like New York and Boston where I was
studying, Central, Mountain and Pacific (embracing

California) each an hour apart from the next. So

when it was 9 am in Washington, DC, the nations
capital, it was only 6 am in Washington State, on the
Pacific coast. The U.S., of course, also adopted
Daylight Savings Time in the summer, whereby
everyone set their clocks one hour ahead in the
springtime to take advantage of the longer hours of
sunlight in the summer season, setting them back
again in the autumn (which Americans call Fall) a
practice we were taught to remember with the
mnemonic Spring forward, Fall back.
I wondered initially that an entire nation would be
able to fiddle so comfortably with what I had grown
up believing was the immutable sanctity of the
national clock. But soon enough, changing ones
watch every spring and fall season, and again almost
every time one took a domestic flight, became routine
enough for me.
1.) What change of idea does the author go through
according to the passage?
a) The author realised the practicality of daylight
savings.
b) The author learned how USA was far ahead than
India in adopting daylight savings.
c) The author realised that the tea planters were
smarter than him.
d) The author realised that adjusting clocks is more of
a necessity and has little to do with the nationalistic

sentiments.
Answer: d) The author realised that adjusting clocks is
more of a necessity and has little to do with the
nationalistic sentiments.
2.) In the second paragraph, the author is "vaguely
offended because:
a) The tea planters think that theyre smarter
than him.
b) The planters did not seem to follow Indian
standard time.
c) The author is not sure if he should be angry or
amazed.
d) He did not understand the logic behind resetting
his time.
Answer: b) The planters did not seem to follow Indian
standard time.
passage-5
In the 1920s, a young Tamil girl sang and starred in
her school musical. It was, ostensibly, a private event
with few outsiders. Yet so exceptional was her singing
that Swadesamitran ran her photograph and wrote
about the event. Seeing that photo in the newspaper,
her household was appalled for, as the music
historian V Sriram writes, good, chaste women never
had their photographs published in papers.

Today, this seems like an archaic, if minor, prejudice

based on gender: one fostered by a conservative, illeducated, economically stagnant and culturally
insular society of the 1920s. There are more vicious
examples of gender discrimination now, from dowry
deaths to multiple rapes in Delhi. Yet the census of
2011 reveals the worst discrimination of all: there are
even more missing women in India than Amartya
Sen first realised, 22 years ago.
1.) Which of the following is correct according to the
passage?
a) Gender discrimination has disappeared from India.
b) Musicals did not have a wide societal acceptance
in 1920s.
c) Gender discrimination has taken more monstrous
forms as compared to 1920s.
d) The Indian society is no more conservative, illeducated, economically stagnant and culturally
insular.
Answer: c) Gender discrimination has taken more
monstrous forms as compared to 1920s.
2.) The author calls the publishing of photograph a
minor issue because:
a) Only the family was appalled at the publication of
the photograph.
b) It was not an offence in many peoples views in the
1920s.
c) The present society considers this to be a trivial

discrimination which has, since then, completely

stopped.
d) Not many people know how the women were
discriminated against in the past.
Answer: c) The present society considers this to be a
trivial discrimination which has since then completely
stopped.

passage-6
My generation grew up in an India where a vast gulf
separated those who went into the professions or the
civil services, and those who entered politics. The
latter, at the risk of simplifying things a bit, were
either at the very top or the very bottom: either
maharajahs or big zamindars with a feudal hold on
the allegiances of the voters in their districts, or semiliterate lumpens with little to lose who got into
politics as their only means of self-advancement. If
you belonged to neither category, you studied hard,
took your exams, and made a success of your life on
merit and you steered clear of politics as an activity
for those other people.
But the problem with that approach while
completely understandable in a highly competitive
society where the salaried middle-class rarely enjoyed

the luxury of being able to take the kind of risks that a

political life implied was that it left out of Indian
politics the very group of people that are the mainstay
of politics in other democracies. Around the world,
the educated taxpaying middle-classes are normally
the ones who bring values and convictions to a
countrys politics, and who have the most direct stake
in questions of what government can and cannot do.
Across Europe, for instance, its people from the
middle-class who make up the bulk of the activists,
voters and candidates for political office. But in India,
this group has neither the time for activism (theyre
too busy doing professional jobs to make ends meet)
nor the money or the votes to count in politics: the
money flows at the top, and the votes, in our stratified
society, lie at the bottom, where the numbers are. So
they abstain from the process, and all too often look at
it with disdain. In turn, our politics becomes more
populist, aiming at the lowest common denominator
(since thats who the voters are assumed to be). No
wonder there is so much disenchantment amongst
ordinary people with the processes of our democracy,
such cynicism about the lack of principle amongst our
politicians, and such surprise in learning of an honest
politician (because we routinely expect the opposite).
Some even speak of the secession of the elites from
the politics of India.
1.) Who are the other people being referred to in the
first paragraph?

a) People who are in politics.

b) People who are in professions and civil services.
c) People who were either very rich or people at the
bottom with no means of self-advancement.
d) People who looked at politics with disdain.
Answer: c) People who were either very rich or people
at the bottom with no means of self-advancement.
2.) With reference to the passage consider the
following sentences:
1- The people who actively took part in politics
belonged to a different group in India as compared to
other European countries.
2- Many people from middle class did not venture into
politics as they did not have the means and were
unwilling to take the risks.
3- The Indian politics lacked values because the
middle class did not actively participate in it.
Select the correct code form the options given below:
a) 1 and 3 only.
b) 2 and 3 only.
c) 1 and 2 only.
d) 1, 2 and 3.
Answer: c) 1 and 2 only.
3.) With which of the following statements is the
author most likely to agree with?
a) The Indian political system is inherently flawed.

b) Middle class never ventured into politics.

c) People in the middle class were not affected by
political decisions.
d) The Indian politics had become populist because
the middle class had failed to participate actively.
Answer: d) The Indian politics had become
populist because the middle class had failed to
participate actively.
Passage-7
The problem is quite simple: for every state that feels
it deserves a place on the Security Council, and
especially the handful of countries who believe their
status in the world ought to be recognised as being in
no way inferior to at least three if not four of the
existing permanent members, there are several who
know they will not benefit from any reform. The small
countries that make up more than half the UNs
membership accept that reality and are content to
compete occasionally for a two-year non-permanent
seat on the Council. But the medium-sized and large
countries which are the rivals of the prospective
beneficiaries deeply resent the prospect of a select few
breaking free of their current second-rank status in
the world body. Some of the objectors, like Canada
and Spain, are motivated genuinely by principle: they
consider the existence of permanent membership to
be wrong to begin with, and they have no desire to

compound the original sin by adding more members

to a category they dislike. But many of the others are
openly animated by a spirit of competition, historical
grievance or simple envy. Together they have banded
together into an effective coalition to thwart reform of
the membership of the Security Council.
1.) What is the original sin being referred to in the
passage?
a) The formation of security council with a few
permanent members in the first place.
b) The process of deciding which countries should be
made a part of an expanded security council.
c) Not reforming the council.
d) Deserving countries not getting a place in the
permanent members.
Answer: a) The formation of security council with a
few permanent members in the first place.
2.) Consider the following:
1- A reformed security council is resented by those
who will loose if the prospective members
are selected.
2- Canada and Spain are worried that
undeserving members will get a permanent seat while
they will be left out.
Select the correct code from the following:
a) 1 only.
b) 2 only.

c) Both 1 and 2.
d) None.
Answer: a) 1 only.
Passage-8
The clichd image of poverty everywhere in the world
is of thinness: stick-like figures who have had too little
to eat, their hair and eyes bearing witness to the lack
of nourishment, their bellies distended in hunger,
their swollen stomachs making a mockery of their
emptiness. The clich is true, but not everywhere. In
the United States, the poor arent thin: they are fat. In
fact, they are, in a startling number of cases, not just
fat but clinically obese.
Last year, a court in the New York suburb known as
the Bronx (where per capita income is considerably
lower than in Manhattan) threw out a suit against the
burger giant McDonalds, brought by two teenage girls
who blamed the fast-food outlet for making them fat.
The basic facts were not in dispute: the young ladies
tipped the scales at 170 lbs and 267 lbs respectively,
and they loved stuffing their substantial faces with Big
Macs. It was also pretty much all they could afford to
eat. But the judge felt that it was not entirely
unreasonable to assume that most people knew that
eating fatty food made you put on weight.

The girls lawyers were undeterred: one, John

Banzhaf, who made his name taking cigarette
companies to court, pointed out that in the area of
anti-smoking litigation it took over 700 cases before
one actually made it to trial, and over 850 before a
judge and jury really socked it to a tobacco giant.
McDonalds, he argued, failed to warn customers of
the dangers of consuming their products, never
disclosing the saturated fat content of their kiddie
meals, their nutritional benefits or lack thereof and
the deleterious effects on the health of their
consumers. And the company of the Golden Arches
compounded its failure to warn with enticing
marketing campaigns that lured poor kids to eat too
much, under Ronald McDonalds benignly smiling
gaze.
1.) The clichd image of poverty in America and
everywhere else is different because:
a) The poor in America are far richer than the poor
elsewhere.
b) The poor in America have failed to lodge a case
against unhealthy food suppliers.
c) Unhealthy, fatty and fast food is all that the poor in
America can afford.
d) The fast food companies in America do not give
nutritional information on their food.
Answers: c) Unhealthy fatty and fast food is all the
poor in America can afford.

2.) McDonalds failure to warn has been

compounded by:
a) Americas poverty.
b) Americans not knowing how bad for health fast
food is.
c) Lack of litigation against fast food giants.
d) Attractive campaigns to attract people to consume
its products.
Answer: d) Attractive campaigns to attract people to
consume its products.
3.) Consider the following:
1- Consumption of fast food and smoking have
something in common when it comes to making
people aware about possible health effects.
2- The lawyers believe that with time McDonalds will
have to take corrective courses on how it advertises it
products and sells them.
Choose the correct code:
a) 1 only.
b) 2 only.
c) Both 1 and 2.
d) None.
Answer: c) Both 1 and 2.

passage-9