English - Verbal & Reasoning - 2

English – Verbal & Reasoning – 2

(Sourced – XAT Questions)

(Questions 1 – 3) Choose the most appropriate option after reading the statements:

1.       (i) Whether due to haste or design, the new laws are marked by vagueness, leaving officials all down the organization’s bureaucratic chain great latitude in enforcing them.

(ii) The opacity of the language leaves the law open to manipulation on political grounds.

(a)    Statement (ii) can be induced from statement (i)

(b)   Statement (i) can be induced from statement (ii)

(c)    Statement (ii) can be deduced from statement (i)

(d)   Statement (i) can be deduced from statement (ii)

(e)   Statement (i) and (ii) are independent.

Ans: (a)

2.       (i) If there is any endeavour whose fruits should be freely available, that endeavour is surely public financed science.

(ii) There is widespread feeling that the journal publishers who have mediated the scientific exchange for the past century or more are becoming an impediment to free distribution of knowledge.

(iii) Internet revolution is happening making knowledge transfer cheaper. Technology permits it; researchers and politicians want it, more public money can be spent on it.

(a)    Statement (ii) definitely illustrates statement (i)

(b)   Statement (iii) is a facilitating condition for statement (i)

(c)    Statement (iii) states a condition under which statement (i) would be invalid

(d)   Statement (ii) can be deduced from statement (iii) but independent of statement (i)

(e)   Statements (i) (ii) and (iii) are necessarily independent.

Ans: (b)

3.       (i) Business schools are ideally positioned to point out when an action that provides benefit for an individual comes at a cost to society, but in reality they rarely bother.

(ii) It is part of the malaise that has befallen the political debate on capitalism, which has been taken over by special interest and people who have no faith in the real market based system.

(iii) When the government favours the private sector it is all too often by being ‘pro-business’ rather than ‘pro-market’, meaning that favourable conditions are provided to particular institutions rather than to institutions broadly.

(a)    Statements (i) and (ii) are necessarily dependent

(b)   Statements (ii) and (iii) are necessarily dependent

(c)    Statements (ii) and (iii) may be dependent

(d)   Statements (i), (ii) and (iii) cannot be independent

(e)   All the three statements are necessarily independent.

Ans: (c)

(Questions 4 – 6) Fill in the blanks with the most appropriate option that follows.

4.       ------ wolf meeting with ------- lamb astray from -------- fold, resolved not to lay violent hands on him, but to find some plea to justify to -------- lamb ------ wolf’s right to eat him.

(a)    a, a, the, the, the

(b)   the, a, the, a, the

(c)    a, a, a, the, the

(d)   the, the, the, the, the

(e)   the, a, the, a, a

Ans: (a)

5.       ------ bat who fell upon ----- ground and was caught by ------- weasel pleaded to spare his life ----- weasel refused, saying that he was by nature ------ enemy of all birds. ------ bat assured him that he was not -------bird, but -----  mouse, and thus was set free.

(a)    a, the, a, the, the, the, the, a

(b)   a, the, a, the, a, the, a, a

(c)    the, a, a, the, the, a, the, the

(d)   a, the, a, the, the, the, a, a

(e)   the, a, a, a, the, the, a, a

Ans: (d)

6.       He got ------- next morning, to be sure, and had his meals ------ usual, though he ate ----- and had more, I am afraid, than his usual supply of rum, for he helped himself --------- the bar, scowling and blowing --------his nose, and no one dared ------ cross him.

(a)    Down, like, a little, out of, out, to

(b)   Down, as, little, of, out, to

(c)    Downstairs, as, little, out of, out of, through

(d)   Downstairs, like, a little, out, of, to

(e)   Down, like, a little, of, of, through

Ans: (b)

(Question 7-9) Read the following sentences and choose the option that best arranges them in a logical order.

7.       (1) I was scarcely in position ere my enemies began to arrive, seven or eight of them, running hard, their feet beating out of time along the road and the man with the lantern some paces in front

(2) My curiosity, in a sense, was stronger than my fear, for I could not remain where I was, but crept back to the bank again, whence, sheltering my head behind a bush of broom, I might command the road before our door

(3) Three men ran together, hand in hand; and I made out, even through the mist, that the middle man of this trio was the blind beggar

(4) The next moment his voice showed me that I was right.

(a)    1, 2, 3, 4

(b)   2, 1, 3, 4

(c)    1, 2, 4, 3

(d)   1, 3, 4, 2

(e)   1, 4, 2, 3

Ans: (b)

8.       (1) Finally he took a wrong turn and passed a few steps past me, towards the hamlet, crying, ‘Johnny  black dog , Drik’ and other names, “you won’t leave old Pew, mates-not old Pew”

(2) This quarrel was the saving of us, for while it was still raging, another sound came from the top of the hill on the side of the hamlet- the tramp of horses galloping

(3) And that was plainly the last signal, of danger, for the buccaneers turned and at once and ran, separating in every direction, one seaward along the cove, one slant across the hill, and so on, so that in half a minute not a sign of them remained but Pew.

(4) Him they had deserted, whether in sheer panic or out of revenge for his ill words and blows I know not: but there he remained behind, tapping up and down the road in frenzy, and groping and calling for his comrades

(5) Almost at the same time a pistol-flash and report came from the hedge side.  

(a)    5, 1, 3, 4, 2

(b)   1, 2, 3, 5, 4

(c)    2, 5, 3, 4, 1

(d)   4, 3, 2, 5, 1

(e)   2, 5, 4, 3, 1

Ans: (c)

9.       (1) As chroniclers of an incremental process, they discover that additional research makes it harder, not easier, to answer questions like: When was Oxygen discovered? Who first conceived of energy conservation?

(2) Simultaneously, these same historians confront growing difficulties in distinguishing the ‘Scientific’ component of past observation and belief from what their predecessors had readily labelled ‘error’ and ‘superstition’

(3) Increasingly, a few of them suspect that these are simply the wrong sorts of questions to ask. Perhaps science does not develop by the accumulation of individual discoveries and inventions.

(4) In recent years, however, a few historians of science have been finding it more and more difficult to fulfil the functions that the concept of development – by – accumulation assigns to them.

(a)    2, 1, 3, 4

(b)   4, 3, 1, 2

(c)    4, 2, 3, 1

(d)   4, 3, 2, 1

(e)   4, 1, 3, 2

Ans: (e)