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Directions (1-5): Rearrange the following five sentences (A), (B), (C), (D), (E) in the proper sequence to form a meaningful paragraph then answer the questions given below them.
(A). Imran Khan, a former cricket star turned politician, is jubilant. His party’s candidate, Yasmin Rashid, a gynaecologist came a creditable second after roundly condemning the Sharif family for their aloofness, their lack of respect for the army and their cronyism.
(B). Her husband, Nawaz Sharif, was Pakistan’s prime minister until July, when the Supreme Court sacked him—hence the by-election for his parliamentary seat on September17th. Mr Sharif’s supporters dismiss the ruling as politically motivated. (He was banned from office for failing to declare a salary to which he was entitled as a director ofa family firm.)
(C). Kulsoom Nawaz Sharif, the former first lady of Pakistan, was in London undergoing cancer treatment. She did not campaign at all, leaving that job to her more charismatic daughter, Maryam Nawaz. She won anyway, but in a manner that augurs yet more political turmoil for her country.
(D). At a pre-election rally, a procession of cars and pick-up trucks squeezed through the narrow streets of Lahore. The crowd sweated, cheered, trod on each other’s feet and rained rose petals on the parade. All that was missing was the candidate.
(E). Mr Sharif hoped that voters would elect his wife to his old seat by a huge margin, thus repudiating the Supreme Court’s verdict. She won, but by a much smaller margin than Mr Sharif had managed in 2013. For Pakistan’s most prominent political family, on its home turf, in a province governed by Mr Sharif’s brother, that is a bad omen, less than a year before the next national elections.
1. Which is the third sentence of the paragraph?
a) E
b) C
c) B
d) A
e) D
2. Which is the first sentence of the paragraph?
a) D
b) E
c) A
d) B
e) C
3. Which is the second sentence of the paragraph?
a) A
b) C
c) B
d) D
e) E
4. Which is the fifth sentence of the paragraph?
a) C
b) A
c) D
d) B
e) E
5. Which is the fourth sentence of the paragraph?
a) A
b) B
c) C
d) D
e) E
Directions (6-15): Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions given below.
American President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), popularly called the Iran nuclear deal, is bound to have serious __(6)__ for the international system, and for India. To be sure, the least affected will be the U.S.; European Union countries will be moderately affected due to the business ties with Iran; and the most affected will be countries closer to the region, in particular India. Moreover, for a U.S. administration that has made it a habit of __(7)__other countries of “undermining the rules-based order”, this action has severely undermined the rules-based global order. Washington’s decision is unjustified and unreasonable for several reasons. For one, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has consistently maintained that Tehran has __(8)__with the strictures of the JCPOA without fail. Moreover, Iran has signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) which prohibits it from developing nuclear weapons, and has agreed to ratify the IAEA’s Additional Protocol five years from now which will grant IAEA inspectors wide-ranging access to monitor nuclear-related activities in Iran. And yet Mr. Trump has thoughtlessly undone the outcome of negotiations that went on for close to two years. Second, the argument that since the provisions of the JCPOA will become less strict over the years enabling Iran to move towards nuclear-weapon capability is not a credible __(9)__for undoing the deal. In fact, if indeed there are concerns about Iran potentially moving towards a nuclear option, efforts should be made to engage Tehran in negotiations rather than undo what has already been achieved. This is a classic case of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. With regard to Iran’s involvement in the various West Asian conflicts and “promotion of terrorism”, Iran is not the only country __(10)__in them. And in any case the way out, again, is diplomatic engagement rather than further unsettle an already volatile region. The global non-proliferation regime has taken a direct hit from the U.S.’s decision to __(11)__on the Iran deal. It is important to understand that norms, rules, persuasion and good faith make up the moral foundation of the non-proliferation regime, and the inability of the great powers to abide by them will __(12)__non-nuclear weapons states from signing on to or abiding by new or existing agreements, protocols or regimes. Second, even though Mr. Trump might think that playing hardball with Tehran will help him to extract concessions from Pyongyang, it is equally possible that the North Koreans will think twice before entering into any agreement with the untrustworthy Trump administration. Third, Washington’s unilateral and dictatorial withdrawal from the deal would create deep __(13)__in the time-tested but increasingly shaky trans-Atlantic security partnership. Not least because it implies potential secondary sanctions against those European companies which are engaged in business deals with Iran. Here again, the U.S. does not have much to lose given its almost non-existent business contacts with Iran. Besides, Mr. Trump’s Iran decision follows a pattern of similar unilateral steps — such as the withdrawal from the Paris climate accord and formal recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. Let alone the loss of face suffered by European leaders and the financial losses by their countries’ firms, U.S. unilateralism has deep-running implications for the global security and governance architecture, and other multilateral arrangements and regimes. It is in this context that what French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said becomes significant: “The deal is not dead. There’s an American withdrawal from the deal, but the deal is still there.” The argument has found support in several global capitals. Hassan Rouhani, the moderate President of Iran, who negotiated the nuclear deal, might lose his standing in the country as hardliners __(14)__for more aggressive steps, including developing a nuclear weapon capability and more military engagement in the neighbourhood. The chief of staff of the Iranian Armed Forces, Maj. Gen. Mohammad Bagheri, has said that the “Iranian people never favoured the nuclear deal”. This is an indication of the hardline Iranian responses in the __(15)__as and when sanctions are reimposed.
6).
a) implications
b) retributions
c) reprimand
d) occurrences
e) None of these.
7.
a) accruing
b) accusing
c) denying
d) manipulating
e) None of these.
8).
a) besieged
b) compiled
c) belonged
d) stated
e) None of these.
9).
a) spooky
b) entire
c) long
d) rationale
e) None of these.
10).
a) jamming
b) liability
c) engaging
d) truth
e) None of these.
11).
a) renege
b) relegated
c) enforce
d) forefront
e) None of these.
12).
a) fix
b) dissuade
c) diversify
d) neglecting
e) None of these.
13).
a) flail
b) measures
c) dearth
d) fissures
e) None of these.
14).
a) pitch
b) hum
c) hop
d) parking
e) None of these.
15).
a) coffing
b) offing
c) coughing
d) creeping
e) None of these.
Direction (16-20): Five sentences denoted by A, B, C, D and E have been given. Identify the odd sentence and arrange rest of the four sentences in such a way that they make a meaningful paragraph.
16).
A) The move is meant to streamline the new indirect tax regime and improve the cash flow of exporters who have been complaining that refund delays make them less competitive, CBIC has been trying to reduce refund delays but mismatches in the returns filed by exporters are a key hurdle.
B) A statement from the finance ministry said refund claims to the tune of Rs14,000 crore are pending with the government as on date, which includes both input tax credit claims as well as IGST refund claims.
C) The move will especially help exporters who were not getting refunds because of mismatches in goods and service tax returns, a circular issued by CBIC to field officers specified the procedures to be followed for processing the refund claims of exporters under different scenarios.
D) Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs has launched a tax refund drive and issued instructions to swiftly settle refund claims of exporters that are held up because of mismatches in the returns filed by them.
E) It noted that exporters have inadvertently erred in declaring the integrated GST paid on exports as IGST paid on interstate domestic supplies while filing their summary tax returns, some exporters also short paid taxes against the liability declared in their sales returns.
a) DACE
b) BCAE
c) ADBE
d) BACD
e) CABD
17).
A) As part of its efforts to expand its social base before the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP leadership has also asked its public representatives to explain initiatives like the Ujjwala Yojana to Dalits and other socially backward communities.
B) The large-scale benefits of MGNREGS and Ujjwala Yojana draw easy parallels, MGNREGS, the rural employment guarantee scheme, is the biggest public works programme in the world that brought the Congress-led UPA tremendous electoral advantage, it assures 100 days of manual work a year to at least one member of every village household.
C) The implementation is so well-tuned that it is now on auto-mode, launched on 1 May 2016, the Ujjwala Yojana aims to safeguard the health of women and children while the clean fuel protects them from the hazards of inhaling smoke, it also helps the poor avoid going to unsafe areas to collect firewood.
D) Under Ujjwala Yojana, the centre has provided free cooking gas connections to around 40 million poor families till now, the scheme’s ambit has been expanded to include 80 million poor families as the countdown to the 2019 Lok Sabha elections begins.
E) In the run-up to the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the government has been highlighting the success of the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana, the scheme that provides free cooking gas connections to poor families and the scheme provides financial support of Rs1,600 for each cooking gas connection to poor households.
a) DEBC
b) ACDE
c) EBDC
d) BADE
e) CBAD
18).
A) Usually durable investments do increase with GDP, but that is not necessarily true for natural capital, in fact GDP can increase dramatically by exploiting natural capital, given the absence of asset valuation in GDP calculations, debt is irrelevant.
B) With growing population and rising incomes, the challenge of the second half of the century will likely be sustainability, not poverty, about a billion people still live in poverty and improving their lives is of paramount importance.
C) The contract with future generations, thus is that greater future wealth will finance this debt, the future growth that is assumed however, depends on the sustainability of natural capital which is threatened due to the myopic pursuit of GDP growth.
D) But the pace of environmental damage today is such that scientists think 50% of species are facing extinction. This should make even those who are sceptical about obligations to future generations think about sustainability.
E) It is increasingly becoming clear that a focus on growth in gross domestic product to the exclusion of all else can sacrifice the interests of future generations, the problem with such a single-minded focus is that it fixates on aggregate demand, irrespective of whether it is due to greater consumption or investment.
a) DBEC
b) EDAC
c) DABC
d) BEAC
e) CBDE
19).
A) Farm distress too has led to a sharp rise in agrarian riots prompting the government to announce an expansion and hike in farm support prices, which could stoke the fires of inflation once again, although there is some evidence to suggest that rural fortunes may be reviving now, it is not clear whether the revival will sustain
B) But as it nears the finishing line, the government’s key achievement of taming inflation seems to be under threat as crude oil prices have risen sharply over the past few months, raising concerns about the twin deficits once again.
C) With two cylinders of India’s growth engine failing to fire, the Indian economy has largely depended on the other two consumption and government expenditure to power growth.
D) The government’s decision to keep farm support prices in check has helped lower inflation, and inflationary expectations, also fall in global commodity prices helped tame inflation even as it allowed the government to raise fuel taxes to finance its expenditure.
E) The other notable achievement of the Indian economy over the past few years has been the remarkable rise in foreign flows, and in particular, in foreign direct investment, the Indian economy has emerged as a top investment destination, with a ratings upgrade from Moody’s Investor Services last year.
a) EBCD
b) DBAE
c) ABDC
d) BCDE
e) CDEA
20).
A) Sectors that witnessed faster growth in quality of labour also generally saw higher growth in labour productivity, measured in terms of real value added per worker, for instance trade business services and transport and storage services witnessed relatively higher growth in both labour quality and labour productivity.
B) It is not a surprise therefore that a 2015 survey of 41,700 hiring managers in 42 countries found that Indian managers were most hard-pressed to find workers who matched their requirements.
C) While the quality of labour measured in terms of education and experience of workers has improved across most sectors, the pace of change has been considerably slower in sectors that employ the most number of workers, the services sector has witnessed the biggest gains in labour quality since the turn of the 21st century.
D) Even as the Indian economy struggles to create new jobs, employers in the country find it increasingly difficult to find employable workers, one reason behind this paradox could be the low quality of labour in the economy, new data from the KLEMS India database suggests.
E) However, sectors which have seen high growth in labour quality and productivity have failed to create many new jobs, several manufacturing sectors such as textiles and leather, food products and beverages, and non-metallic mineral products which witnessed a sharp rise in labour quality and productivity over the past three decades did not see a sharp growth in jobs over the same period.
a) DCAE
b) CABE
c) ABED
d) BDAE
e) EACD
Direction (21– 24): Choose the correct option for the following sentence fillers.
- Until a year ago, Mama Yuli could count on a steady stream of reporters and television crews to make their way to her small orange house in Jakarta’s suburbs for a peek at what is thought to be Indonesia’s only shelter for transgender women. Yulianus Rettoblaut—MamaYuli’s full name—had made a splash as the first openly transgender woman to obtain a master’s degree in Indonesia. She had also tried twice to become a member of the Human Rights Commission. But the coverage came to an abrupt halt last year. _________On a recent day there were nine. It is far from luxurious: a leaky roof had forced several of them to sleep on the floor, and a broken toilet added to their indignities. “We often invite television to come and now they say ‘No’,” Mama Yuli laments.
a) That is unfortunate, as Mama Yuli needs the donations that came with it. The shelter is home to six transgender women, though many more come and go.
b) That is unfortunate, as Mama Yuli needs the donations that came along and with it. The shelter is home to six transgender women, though many more come and go.
c) That is unfortunate, as Mama Yuli needs the donations that came in with it. The shelter is home to six transgender women, though many more come and go.
d) That is unfortunate, as Mama Yuli needs the donations that came on with it. The shelter is home to six transgender women, though many more come and go.
e) None of these.
- The young Tajik man does not want to leave home, despite his mother’s assurance that he looks fine. The day before he had sported a curly black beard, just like his friends from the mosque. But the police had frogmarched him and other bearded young men to the barber shop, where their beards were shaved off. A few of the onlookers laughed, but, once out of the police’s sight, many more grumbled. Such scenes have become increasingly common in Tajikistan, a landlocked country of 9m bordering Afghanistan and China.__________. Con men have started selling certificates, complete with photographs and official-looking stamps, permitting holders to grow a beard. Initially, the Tajik government blamed the crusade against beards on local police, but it now admits that it instigated the practice to curb religious extremism.
a) In 2015 an official in one of the country’s four regions reporting forcibly removing the beards of 13,000 men
b) In 2015 an official in one of the country’s four regions reported that forcibly removing the beards of 13,000 men
c) In 2015 an official in one of the country’s four regions reported that all of forcibly removing the beards of 13,000 men
d) In 2015 an official in one of the country’s four regions reported forcibly removing the beards of 13,000 men
e) None of these.
- Over the rubbery chicken at your next tourism symposium, challenge fellow delegates to name the world’s longest-running national tourism slogan. The answer—it was on the tip of your tongue—is “100% pure New Zealand”, Tourism New Zealand’s catchphrase since 1999. Why mess with a good thing? The notion of a country blessed with pristine land, water and air appeals not only to visitors. It goes to the core of what the country means to New Zealanders themselves. So the slogan has the “authenticity” such gatherings always call for. ________________Its genius, and that of its marketing campaign, is to appeal to everyone, from scruffy backpackers to silver-haired oenophiles and even the superyacht set. Chris Roberts of Tourism Industry Aotearoa, a lobby group, says that the cliché is true: a visitor comes for the scenery but goes home talking about the people. That includes Maoris, whose hospitality is the flipside of their legendary warrior spirit. Many visitors experience a Maori welcome up close—the biggest tourism operator on the South Island is the Ngai Tahu tribe.
a) New Zealand, wonderfully far from anywhere, really does seem to have it all: glaciers and jagged peaks, charismatic fauna, vineyards, lusty rivers for fly-fishing or rafting, dive sites and thousands of miles of glorious coastline—not to mention the cosmopolitan, foodie cities of Auckland and Wellington.
b) New Zealand, wonderfully far from everywhere, really don’t seem to have it all: glaciers and jagged peaks, charismatic fauna, vineyards, lusty rivers for fly-fishing or rafting, dive sites and thousands of miles of glorious coastline—not to mention the cosmopolitan, foodie cities of Auckland and Wellington.
c) New Zealand, wonderfully far off from anywhere, really does seem to have it all: glaciers and jagged peaks, charismatic fauna, vineyards, lusty rivers for fly-fishing or rafting, dive sites and thousands of miles of glorious coastline—not to mention the cosmopolitan, foodie cities of Auckland and Wellington.
d) New Zealand, wonderfully far away from anywhere, really does seem to have it all: glaciers and jagged peaks, charismatic fauna, vineyards, lusty rivers for fly-fishing or rafting, dive sites and thousands of miles of glorious coastline—not to mention the cosmopolitan, foodie cities of Auckland and Wellington.
e) None of these.
- If demography is destiny, as Auguste Comte, a French philosopher, once said, then China has many destinies. As a result of 30 years of the now-relaxed one-child policy, the country has an exceptionally low overall fertility rate: 1.2 according to the census of 2010. (The fertility rate is the number of children an average woman can expect to bear during her lifetime. If it is less than 2.1 a population will shrink in the long run, unless immigration makes up for the dearth of babies.) What is almost never recognised, however, is that this is not a uniform problem. Just as China has richer and poorer regions, so it has areas of higher and lower fertility—or, to be more precise, of low and lower fertility. _____________But some areas will hit demographic trouble earlier and harder than others, with serious implications for economic growth and regional stability. Wang Feng, of the University of California, Irvine, dubs the problem “the Balkanisation of Chinese demography”
a) As a whole, China has the few young adults relative to the size of older generations, meaning it will not have enough workers to support its pensioners (or children) properly in the future.
b) As a whole, China has too few young adults relative to the size of older generations, meaning it will not have enough workers to support its pensioners (or children) properly in the future.
c) As a whole, China has a few young adults relative to the size of older generations, meaning it will not have enough workers to support its pensioners (or children) properly in the future.
d) As a whole, China has too many few young adults relative to the size of older generations, meaning it will not have enough workers to support its pensioners (or children) properly around the future.
e) None of these.
Directions (25-30): Find out the error, if any. If there is no error, the answer is (e), i.e. No error. (Ignore the errors of punctuation, if any.)
- In 2008 Lou Vincent, a former New Zealand international cricketer, was playing in a now-defunct Indian Twenty20 cricket league. A man claiming to represent a cricket-bat manufacturer invited him to a hotel room. (A)/ But instead of being shown bats he was offered a prostitute and a wad of cash. He left, and now says he told his captain, Chris Cairns, what had happened— and that, rather than encouraging him to report what was clearly a match-fixer’s opening gambit, Mr Cairns tried to recruit him to fix on his behalf instead. (B)/ (Mr Cairns denies this, and won £90,000, or $122,000, in libel damages after suing a cricket official for accusing him of match-fixing.) (C)/ In 2013 rumours and odd patterns of gambling made the authorities suspect Mr Vincent, who had moved to England. The following year he admitted to 18 charges of fixing and was banned from cricket for life. (D)/ No error (E)/
a) A
b) B
c) C
d) D
e) E
- Competitive video-gaming, collectively known as eSports, is surging in popularity, packing out stadiums from Germany to South Korea, and attracting a global audience of almost 400m. (A)/ The industry is worth $700m annually, according to Newzoo, a market-intelligence firm, a figure expected to rise to $1.5bn by 2020. (B)/ And where there is money in sport, so there is corruption and betting—already an estimated $40bn annually, 90% of it illegal. The first eSports-fixing scandal was in 2010, when South Korean players threw professional matches of financial gain. (C)/ Last year Lee “Life” Seung-hyun, one of the biggest names in eSports, was convicted for his part in a series of fixes in Starcraft 2, a science-fiction strategy game. He was banned for life from eSports in South Korea. (D)/ No error (E)/
a) A
b) B
c) C
d) D
e) E
- If Saudi Aramco is a state within a state in Saudi Arabia, then the blandly named Oil Supply Planning and Scheduling (OSPAS) is its deep state. (A)/ To enter it, you pass tight security at Aramco’s suburban style headquarters in Dhahran, in the east of the kingdom. The transition is eye-opening. Suddenly, English is the common tongue even among Saudi “Aramcons”, as its workers are known. (B)/ Female employees, their faces uncovered, lead meetings of male colleagues. The crisp banter is common to engineers everywhere. A toilet break is called a “pressure-relief” exercise. Deep within, OSPAS is even further removed from the kingdom outside. (C)/ The few executives with clearance to enter call it the “nerve centre” of the world’s largest oil company. Using 100,000 sensors and data points on wells, pipelines, plants and terminals, it directs every drop of oil and cubic foot of gas that which comes out of the kingdom (10% of the world’s oil supply), monitors it on giant screens as it heads to ports and power stations, and tracks oil tankers as they load. (D)/ No error (E)/
a) A
b) B
c) C
d) D
e) E
- Antitrust, privacy, hate speech— whenever the European Union tries to rein in tech giants, Americans accuse it of protectionism. That argument has always been simplistic, but now it is harder to make; scarcely a week passes in Washington when companies like Apple and Google are not in politicians’ crosshairs. (A). The latest target is Facebook. Earlier this month the firm revealed that 470 accounts that appeared to be controlled from Russia had bought advertisements worth a total of $100,000 on the social network between June 2015 and May 2017. (B)/ Alex Stamos, Facebook’s chief security officer, said they aimed at “amplifying divisive social and political messages”. This was the first time Facebook had acknowledged that Russia may have used the social network, (C)/ leading the team of Robert Mueller, the special counsel investigating possible links between Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and the Russian government, to issue a search warrant to get further details. (D)/ No error (E)/
a) A
b) B
c) C
d) D
e) E
- Ryanair, an Irish airline, is known for three things: low fares, the brash way in which Michael O’Leary, its chief executive, advertises them, and its record for sticking to its flight schedules. The last of these is key to its appeal: many businessmen chose Ryanair more for its punctuality than its cheapness. (A)/ And so the announcement on September15th that it is cancelling over 2,000 flights between now and the end of October— around 2% of its capacity over the period—is more serious than it may at first seem. Ryanair’s share price fell by more than 5% in the aftermath. (B)/ The problems began in early September when Ryanair’s on-time record plunged, owning to a pilot shortage. (C)/ To restore punctuality, it cancelled many flights at short notice; passengers were marooned around Europe. Up to 400,000 people booked on the 2,000 scrapped flights riskmissing business trips and holidays. (D)/ No error (E)/
a) A
b) B
c) C
d) D
e) E
- Management gurus have chewed over the topic endlessly: is a flair for entrepreneurship something that you are born with, or something that can be taught? In a break with those gurus’ traditions, a group of economists and researchers from the World Bank, the National University of Singapore and Leuphana University in (A)/ Germany decided that rather than simply cook up a pet theory of their own, they would conduct a controlled experiment. Moreover, instead of choosing subjects from the boardrooms of powerful corporations or among the latest crop of young entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley, (B)/ Francisco Campos and his fellow researchers chose to monitor1,500 people running small businesses in Togo in West Africa. These are not the sorts of business owners who give TED talks or negotiate billion-dollar mergers. (C)/ The typical firm had three employees and profits of94,512 CFA francs ($173) a month. Only about a third kept books, and less than one in 20 had a written budget. (D)/ No error (E)/
a) A
b) B
c) C
d) D
e) E
Answers:
1). Correct Answer is: c)
DCBEA is the correct order of sentences.
2). Correct Answer is: a)
DCBEA is the correct order of sentences.
3). Correct Answer is: b)
DCBEA is the correct order of sentences.
4). Correct Answer is: b)
DCBEA is the correct order of sentences.
5). Correct Answer is: e)
DCBEA is the correct order of sentences.
Direction (6-10)
6) Correct Answer is: a)
Implications – hints
7). Correct Answer is: b)
Accusing – blaming
8). Correct Answer is: b)
Compiled – collected
9). Correct Answer is: d)
Rationale – reason
10). Correct Answer is: c)
Engaging – attractive
11). Correct Answer is: a)
Renege – revoke
12). Correct Answer is: b)
Dissuade – discourage
13). Correct Answer is: d)
Fissures – breaks
14). Correct Answer is: a)
Pitch – cast
15). Correct Answer is: b)
Offing – background
Direction (16-20)
16). D) Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs has launched a tax refund drive and issued instructions to swiftly settle refund claims of exporters that are held up because of mismatches in the returns filed by them.
A) The move is meant to streamline the new indirect tax regime and improve the cash flow of exporters who have been complaining that refund delays make them less competitive, CBIC has been trying to reduce refund delays but mismatches in the returns filed by exporters are a key hurdle.
C) The move will especially help exporters who were not getting refunds because of mismatches in goods and service tax returns, a circular issued by CBIC to field officers specified the procedures to be followed for processing the refund claims of exporters under different scenarios.
E) It noted that exporters have inadvertently erred in declaring the integrated GST paid on exports as IGST paid on interstate domestic supplies while filing their summary tax returns, some exporters also short paid taxes against the liability declared in their sales returns.
Explanation- the passage is about tax refund drive. According to the passage CBIC has launched a tax refund drive and along with this it issued instructions in order to resolve refund cases of exporters rapidly. Since there were lot of complaints regarding refund delays CBIC has took this move which is meant to simplify the new indirect tax regime and improve the cash flow of exporters.
Correct Answer is: a)
17). E) In the run-up to the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the government has been highlighting the success of the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana, the scheme that provides free cooking gas connections to poor families and the scheme provides financial support of Rs1,600 for each cooking gas connection to poor households.
B) The large-scale benefits of MGNREGS and Ujjwala Yojana draw easy parallels, MGNREGS, the rural employment guarantee scheme, is the biggest public works programme in the world that brought the Congress-led UPA tremendous electoral advantage, it assures 100 days of manual work a year to at least one member of every village household.
D) Under Ujjwala Yojana, the centre has provided free cooking gas connections to around 40 million poor families till now, the scheme’s ambit has been expanded to include 80 million poor families as the countdown to the 2019 Lok Sabha elections begins.
C) The implementation is so well-tuned that it is now on auto-mode, launched on 1 May 2016, the Ujjwala Yojana aims to safeguard the health of women and children while the clean fuel protects them from the hazards of inhaling smoke, it also helps the poor avoid going to unsafe areas to collect firewood.
Explanation- the passage is about the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana. According to the passage the government launched a new scheme on 1 May 2016 named as the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana. The scheme is meant to impart free cooking gas connections to poor families and the scheme deliver financial assistance for each cooking gas connection to poor households of about Rs1,600. Also it is stated that till the centre has provided free cooking gas connections to around 40 million poor families under the scheme.
Correct Answer is: c)
18). Correct Answer is: d)
B) With growing population and rising incomes, the challenge of the second half of the century will likely be sustainability, not poverty, about a billion people still live in poverty and improving their lives is of paramount importance.
E) it is increasingly becoming clear that a focus on growth in gross domestic product to the exclusion of all else can sacrifice the interests of future generations, the problem with such a single-minded focus is that it fixates on aggregate demand, irrespective of whether it is due to greater consumption or investment.
A) Usually durable investments do increase with GDP, but that is not necessarily true for natural capital, in fact GDP can increase dramatically by exploiting natural capital, given the absence of asset valuation in GDP calculations, debt is irrelevant.
C) The contract with future generations, thus is that greater future wealth will finance this debt, the future growth that is assumed however, depends on the sustainability of natural capital which is threatened due to the myopic pursuit of GDP growth
Explanation- the passage is about putting sustainable development into practice. According to the passage it high time for the government to overcome the major challenge that is sustainability and ensuring sustainable development will need recalibration of our current understanding of progress. GDP growth needs to be complemented with a valuation of assets, including natural capital. The growth in future depends on the sustainability of natural capital which is threatened due to the myopic pursuit of GDP growth
19). Correct Answer is: a)
D) Even as the Indian economy struggles to create new jobs, employers in the country find it increasingly difficult to find employable workers, one reason behind this paradox could be the low quality of labour in the economy, new data from the KLEMS India database suggests.
C) While the quality of labour measured in terms of education and experience of workers has improved across most sectors, the pace of change has been considerably slower in sectors that employ the most number of workers, the services sector has witnessed the biggest gains in labour quality since the turn of the 21st century.
A) Sectors that witnessed faster growth in quality of labour also generally saw higher growth in labour productivity, measured in terms of real value added per worker, for instance trade business services and transport and storage services witnessed relatively higher growth in both labour quality and labour productivity.
E) However, sectors which have seen high growth in labour quality and productivity have failed to create many new jobs, several manufacturing sectors such as textiles and leather, food products and beverages, and non-metallic mineral products which witnessed a sharp rise in labour quality and productivity over the past three decades did not see a sharp growth in jobs over the same period.
Explanation- the passage is about the data released regarding job challenges in the country. According to the data released from the KLEMS India database -India’s jobs challenge lies as much in creating new jobs as it does in creating employable workers. The data shows that the pace has been substantially moderate in sectors that employ the most number of workers however the services sector has spotted the massive progress in labour quality. Also data states that sectors which have observed excessive growth in labour quality and productivity have failed to create many new jobs.
Direction (21-24)
21) Correct Answer is: a)
Explanation – Usage done in option a is correct.
22). Correct Answer is: d)
Explanation – Usage done in option d is correct
23). Correct Answer is: a)
Explanation – Usage done in option a is correct.
24). Correct Answer is: b)
Explanation – Usage done in option b is correct.
Direction (25-30)
25). Correct Answer is: e)
Explanation – Usage done in given sentence is correct
26). Correct Answer is: c)
Explanation – ‘matches for financial gain’ is correct usage.
27). Correct Answer is: d)
Explanation – ‘gas that comes out’ is correct usage.
28). Correct Answer is: e)
Explanation – Usage done in given sentence is correct
29). Correct Answer is: c)
Explanation – ‘owing to pilot shortage’ is correct usage.
30). Correct Answer is: e)
Explanation – Usage done in given sentence is correct
