Practice Passages — CSAT Comprehension
Key takeaways
- The crux of a passage is the claim the whole passage supports, usually stated or sharpened in its last paragraph — not the most striking example in it.
- Extreme words — always, never, entirely, only — are the commonest mark of a wrong option, because CSAT passages are usually qualified and balanced.
- An assumption is what the argument needs but does not state. A statement the author explicitly denies, or merely does not mention, is not one.
- The meaning of a phrase in context is decided by the sentences around it, not by its dictionary meaning; read the sentence before and after.
- Answer from the passage alone. A true statement that the passage does not support earns a penalty, not a mark.
Practice questions (95)
Attempt each one before opening the answer. Every explanation names the tempting wrong option as well as the right one, because that is where marks are lost.
Passage 1. Read the passage below and answer the questions that follow on the basis of the passage alone.
Every administrative system must decide how far to trust the judgement of the official who sits at the counter. Rules promise fairness: the same case receives the same treatment, whoever presents it and whoever decides it. Yet no code, however detailed, can anticipate every circumstance that citizens bring to an office. A widow whose papers were lost in a flood, or a farmer whose land record carries a clerical error made decades ago, may fall outside every clause while plainly deserving relief.
Discretion fills this gap, but it also opens a door. The latitude that allows an honest officer to do justice in an unusual case allows a dishonest one to sell favours, and the citizen at the counter often cannot tell which of the two he is facing. Societies that have suffered arbitrary power tend to respond by writing more rules, and each new rule narrows discretion a little further. Over time the official learns that following the procedure to the letter is the only safe course, even when the outcome is absurd, because a mistake made within the rules is forgiven while a sensible departure from them is punished.
The way out is not to choose between rules and judgement but to make judgement answerable. Discretion that must be recorded, explained in writing and opened to review by someone other than the person who exercised it is far harder to abuse than discretion exercised in silence. The aim of reform, then, should be less to shrink the space for judgement than to light it up.
Which one of the following best reflects the crux of the passage?
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Answer: B — Discretion cannot be done away with, and its risks are best contained by making its use recorded and reviewable.
The passage grants that rules cannot anticipate every case, warns that discretion can be abused, and concludes that the answer is to make judgement answerable — recorded, explained and reviewed. Option A is the tempting half-truth: the passage does say rules cannot foresee everything, but it explicitly refuses to "choose between rules and judgement". Option D is the response the passage criticises, since piling up rules makes officials rigid.Passage 1. Read the passage below and answer the questions that follow on the basis of the passage alone.
Every administrative system must decide how far to trust the judgement of the official who sits at the counter. Rules promise fairness: the same case receives the same treatment, whoever presents it and whoever decides it. Yet no code, however detailed, can anticipate every circumstance that citizens bring to an office. A widow whose papers were lost in a flood, or a farmer whose land record carries a clerical error made decades ago, may fall outside every clause while plainly deserving relief.
Discretion fills this gap, but it also opens a door. The latitude that allows an honest officer to do justice in an unusual case allows a dishonest one to sell favours, and the citizen at the counter often cannot tell which of the two he is facing. Societies that have suffered arbitrary power tend to respond by writing more rules, and each new rule narrows discretion a little further. Over time the official learns that following the procedure to the letter is the only safe course, even when the outcome is absurd, because a mistake made within the rules is forgiven while a sensible departure from them is punished.
The way out is not to choose between rules and judgement but to make judgement answerable. Discretion that must be recorded, explained in writing and opened to review by someone other than the person who exercised it is far harder to abuse than discretion exercised in silence. The aim of reform, then, should be less to shrink the space for judgement than to light it up.
With reference to the passage, the following assumptions have been made: 1. Officials tend to shape their conduct according to how the system treats their mistakes. 2. Most officials who exercise discretion use it dishonestly. Which of the above assumptions is/are valid?
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Answer: A — 1 only
Statement 1 is assumed: the passage says officials learn to follow procedure to the letter because errors within the rules are forgiven and sensible departures punished — an argument that only works if conduct responds to how mistakes are treated. Statement 2 is not assumed; the passage says the same latitude serves honest and dishonest officers alike and that a citizen cannot tell which he faces, which says nothing about what most officials do.Passage 1. Read the passage below and answer the questions that follow on the basis of the passage alone.
Every administrative system must decide how far to trust the judgement of the official who sits at the counter. Rules promise fairness: the same case receives the same treatment, whoever presents it and whoever decides it. Yet no code, however detailed, can anticipate every circumstance that citizens bring to an office. A widow whose papers were lost in a flood, or a farmer whose land record carries a clerical error made decades ago, may fall outside every clause while plainly deserving relief.
Discretion fills this gap, but it also opens a door. The latitude that allows an honest officer to do justice in an unusual case allows a dishonest one to sell favours, and the citizen at the counter often cannot tell which of the two he is facing. Societies that have suffered arbitrary power tend to respond by writing more rules, and each new rule narrows discretion a little further. Over time the official learns that following the procedure to the letter is the only safe course, even when the outcome is absurd, because a mistake made within the rules is forgiven while a sensible departure from them is punished.
The way out is not to choose between rules and judgement but to make judgement answerable. Discretion that must be recorded, explained in writing and opened to review by someone other than the person who exercised it is far harder to abuse than discretion exercised in silence. The aim of reform, then, should be less to shrink the space for judgement than to light it up.
In the last sentence of the passage, the phrase "to light it up" most nearly means
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Answer: C — to make the exercise of judgement visible and open to scrutiny
The sentence before it explains the metaphor: discretion that is recorded, explained in writing and reviewed is harder to abuse than discretion "exercised in silence". To light it up is to expose judgement to view. Option D is the reverse of the sentence's contrast — "less to shrink the space for judgement" — and Option A confuses keeping discretion with enlarging it.Passage 1. Read the passage below and answer the questions that follow on the basis of the passage alone.
Every administrative system must decide how far to trust the judgement of the official who sits at the counter. Rules promise fairness: the same case receives the same treatment, whoever presents it and whoever decides it. Yet no code, however detailed, can anticipate every circumstance that citizens bring to an office. A widow whose papers were lost in a flood, or a farmer whose land record carries a clerical error made decades ago, may fall outside every clause while plainly deserving relief.
Discretion fills this gap, but it also opens a door. The latitude that allows an honest officer to do justice in an unusual case allows a dishonest one to sell favours, and the citizen at the counter often cannot tell which of the two he is facing. Societies that have suffered arbitrary power tend to respond by writing more rules, and each new rule narrows discretion a little further. Over time the official learns that following the procedure to the letter is the only safe course, even when the outcome is absurd, because a mistake made within the rules is forgiven while a sensible departure from them is punished.
The way out is not to choose between rules and judgement but to make judgement answerable. Discretion that must be recorded, explained in writing and opened to review by someone other than the person who exercised it is far harder to abuse than discretion exercised in silence. The aim of reform, then, should be less to shrink the space for judgement than to light it up.
Which one of the following is the most logical inference from the passage about the effect of multiplying rules?
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Answer: D — It can lead officials to apply procedure mechanically, even where the result is unreasonable.
The passage says that as rules multiply, the official learns that following procedure to the letter is the only safe course "even when the outcome is absurd" — which is Option D. Option B reverses the passage: it is societies that have suffered arbitrary power that demand more rules. Option A is an extreme claim the passage never makes, and nothing is said about public confidence rising (C).Passage 2. Read the passage below and answer the questions that follow on the basis of the passage alone.
For much of the twentieth century, the road from poverty to prosperity seemed well marked. Workers left low-productivity farming for factories, where even modest skills could be combined with machinery to make goods for distant markets. Manufacturing absorbed large numbers of people with little formal education, raised their incomes and, through exports, earned the foreign exchange needed to import technology. Several economies followed this route with remarkable success.
Later developers face a less obliging world. Automation has reduced the number of workers a factory needs for a given output, and global markets for many manufactured goods are already crowded with established producers. Some countries have found that the share of manufacturing in their employment begins to fall at income levels far lower than those at which today's rich countries saw the same turn. Services have grown in its place, but the most dynamic services — software, finance, professional consulting — reward precisely the education and connections that the rural poor lack.
None of this means that the older route is closed, or that services cannot employ large numbers. Retail, transport, construction, care work and tourism absorb many workers with modest schooling. The difficulty is that productivity in these activities often rises slowly, so they may provide livelihoods without providing the steady climb in wages that factory work once offered. The question for policy is therefore not simply how to raise growth, but how to ensure that the sectors which grow are also those in which ordinary workers can become steadily more productive.
Which one of the following best captures the central concern of the passage?
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Answer: A — Faster growth is not enough unless the sectors that expand also let ordinary workers become more productive.
The last paragraph states the concern directly: the question is not simply how to raise growth but whether the growing sectors are ones where ordinary workers can become steadily more productive. Option B is the tempting over-generalisation — the passage says later developers face a harder world but explicitly adds that "none of this means that the older route is closed". Services are said to employ many people, not to harm them (C), and automation is one factor among several, not the main cause of poverty (D).Passage 2. Read the passage below and answer the questions that follow on the basis of the passage alone.
For much of the twentieth century, the road from poverty to prosperity seemed well marked. Workers left low-productivity farming for factories, where even modest skills could be combined with machinery to make goods for distant markets. Manufacturing absorbed large numbers of people with little formal education, raised their incomes and, through exports, earned the foreign exchange needed to import technology. Several economies followed this route with remarkable success.
Later developers face a less obliging world. Automation has reduced the number of workers a factory needs for a given output, and global markets for many manufactured goods are already crowded with established producers. Some countries have found that the share of manufacturing in their employment begins to fall at income levels far lower than those at which today's rich countries saw the same turn. Services have grown in its place, but the most dynamic services — software, finance, professional consulting — reward precisely the education and connections that the rural poor lack.
None of this means that the older route is closed, or that services cannot employ large numbers. Retail, transport, construction, care work and tourism absorb many workers with modest schooling. The difficulty is that productivity in these activities often rises slowly, so they may provide livelihoods without providing the steady climb in wages that factory work once offered. The question for policy is therefore not simply how to raise growth, but how to ensure that the sectors which grow are also those in which ordinary workers can become steadily more productive.
With reference to the passage, the following assumptions have been made: 1. Rising productivity in an activity is closely linked to rising wages for those engaged in it. 2. Workers with modest schooling cannot find employment in the services sector. Which of the above assumptions is/are valid?
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Answer: A — 1 only
Statement 1 is assumed: the author argues that because productivity in retail, transport or care work rises slowly, these jobs may not bring the "steady climb in wages" factory work once did — the link between productivity and wages is what makes that argument work. Statement 2 is contradicted, not assumed: the passage says retail, transport, construction, care work and tourism "absorb many workers with modest schooling".Passage 2. Read the passage below and answer the questions that follow on the basis of the passage alone.
For much of the twentieth century, the road from poverty to prosperity seemed well marked. Workers left low-productivity farming for factories, where even modest skills could be combined with machinery to make goods for distant markets. Manufacturing absorbed large numbers of people with little formal education, raised their incomes and, through exports, earned the foreign exchange needed to import technology. Several economies followed this route with remarkable success.
Later developers face a less obliging world. Automation has reduced the number of workers a factory needs for a given output, and global markets for many manufactured goods are already crowded with established producers. Some countries have found that the share of manufacturing in their employment begins to fall at income levels far lower than those at which today's rich countries saw the same turn. Services have grown in its place, but the most dynamic services — software, finance, professional consulting — reward precisely the education and connections that the rural poor lack.
None of this means that the older route is closed, or that services cannot employ large numbers. Retail, transport, construction, care work and tourism absorb many workers with modest schooling. The difficulty is that productivity in these activities often rises slowly, so they may provide livelihoods without providing the steady climb in wages that factory work once offered. The question for policy is therefore not simply how to raise growth, but how to ensure that the sectors which grow are also those in which ordinary workers can become steadily more productive.
Which one of the following is the most logical and rational inference that can be made from the passage?
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Answer: B — The path of structural change followed by today's rich countries may not be repeated in the same way by later developers.
The second paragraph describes automation, crowded markets and manufacturing employment peaking at lower incomes — all reasons why later developers may not retrace the earlier route exactly. Option A is a policy prescription the passage avoids; it says the older route is not closed. Option C contradicts the point that dynamic services reward skills the rural poor lack, and D reverses the claim that such services raise wages slowly.Passage 2. Read the passage below and answer the questions that follow on the basis of the passage alone.
For much of the twentieth century, the road from poverty to prosperity seemed well marked. Workers left low-productivity farming for factories, where even modest skills could be combined with machinery to make goods for distant markets. Manufacturing absorbed large numbers of people with little formal education, raised their incomes and, through exports, earned the foreign exchange needed to import technology. Several economies followed this route with remarkable success.
Later developers face a less obliging world. Automation has reduced the number of workers a factory needs for a given output, and global markets for many manufactured goods are already crowded with established producers. Some countries have found that the share of manufacturing in their employment begins to fall at income levels far lower than those at which today's rich countries saw the same turn. Services have grown in its place, but the most dynamic services — software, finance, professional consulting — reward precisely the education and connections that the rural poor lack.
None of this means that the older route is closed, or that services cannot employ large numbers. Retail, transport, construction, care work and tourism absorb many workers with modest schooling. The difficulty is that productivity in these activities often rises slowly, so they may provide livelihoods without providing the steady climb in wages that factory work once offered. The question for policy is therefore not simply how to raise growth, but how to ensure that the sectors which grow are also those in which ordinary workers can become steadily more productive.
In the context of the passage, the expression "a less obliging world" refers to
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Answer: D — conditions that make it harder to repeat the earlier path of factory-led development
The sentences that follow the phrase define it: automation means fewer workers per factory, markets are crowded with established producers, and manufacturing employment peaks earlier. These are conditions that make the old route harder, not acts of hostility (B) or a failure of co-operation (A). Natural resources are not discussed at all (C).Passage 3. Read the passage below and answer the questions that follow on the basis of the passage alone.
Discussions of climate change long concentrated on mitigation — reducing the emissions that warm the planet. Adaptation, the business of living with changes that can no longer be avoided, was sometimes treated as a kind of surrender, an admission that the main battle had been lost. That attitude has weakened, and for good reason. Even if emissions fell sharply tomorrow, the warming already set in motion would go on altering rainfall, raising sea levels and intensifying heat waves for decades. For a farmer whose sowing calendar has been upset, or a coastal town facing more frequent floods, adaptation is not an alternative to mitigation; it is the immediate condition of survival.
Yet adaptation raises difficulties of its own. Its benefits are mostly local, so it attracts less international finance than projects that cut global emissions. It also depends heavily on knowledge of particular places: which embankment will hold, which crop variety tolerates a delayed monsoon, which neighbourhood floods first. Plans drawn up far from the affected communities often miss such details, and a sea wall built in the wrong place may merely push erosion onto the next village.
There is also the risk of what may be called maladaptation — responses that ease a problem now while worsening it later. Pumping ever more groundwater to cope with failing rains, or installing air-conditioning that adds to the heat of the street outside, are examples. Good adaptation, therefore, asks not only whether a measure helps today but whom it may harm tomorrow.
Which one of the following statements best reflects the central idea of the passage?
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Answer: B — Adaptation is necessary and urgent, but it must draw on local knowledge and be judged by its later effects too.
The passage moves from "adaptation is the immediate condition of survival" to its difficulties — dependence on local knowledge — and ends with the warning against maladaptation. Option B holds all three together. Option A misreads the first paragraph, which says adaptation is "not an alternative to mitigation". Option D inflates the warning about maladaptation into a claim about most measures, which the passage never makes.Passage 3. Read the passage below and answer the questions that follow on the basis of the passage alone.
Discussions of climate change long concentrated on mitigation — reducing the emissions that warm the planet. Adaptation, the business of living with changes that can no longer be avoided, was sometimes treated as a kind of surrender, an admission that the main battle had been lost. That attitude has weakened, and for good reason. Even if emissions fell sharply tomorrow, the warming already set in motion would go on altering rainfall, raising sea levels and intensifying heat waves for decades. For a farmer whose sowing calendar has been upset, or a coastal town facing more frequent floods, adaptation is not an alternative to mitigation; it is the immediate condition of survival.
Yet adaptation raises difficulties of its own. Its benefits are mostly local, so it attracts less international finance than projects that cut global emissions. It also depends heavily on knowledge of particular places: which embankment will hold, which crop variety tolerates a delayed monsoon, which neighbourhood floods first. Plans drawn up far from the affected communities often miss such details, and a sea wall built in the wrong place may merely push erosion onto the next village.
There is also the risk of what may be called maladaptation — responses that ease a problem now while worsening it later. Pumping ever more groundwater to cope with failing rains, or installing air-conditioning that adds to the heat of the street outside, are examples. Good adaptation, therefore, asks not only whether a measure helps today but whom it may harm tomorrow.
With reference to the passage, the following assumptions have been made: 1. Some effects of past emissions will persist whatever happens to future emissions. 2. Communities affected by climate change hold knowledge that is useful in designing responses to it. Which of the above assumptions is/are valid?
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Answer: C — Both 1 and 2
Both are valid. The case for adaptation rests on statement 1: "even if emissions fell sharply tomorrow", warming already set in motion would continue for decades. The criticism of distant planning rests on statement 2: plans drawn up far from affected communities miss which embankment holds or which neighbourhood floods first. A candidate who picks "1 only" has treated statement 2 as an outside opinion, but the passage's second paragraph depends on it.Passage 3. Read the passage below and answer the questions that follow on the basis of the passage alone.
Discussions of climate change long concentrated on mitigation — reducing the emissions that warm the planet. Adaptation, the business of living with changes that can no longer be avoided, was sometimes treated as a kind of surrender, an admission that the main battle had been lost. That attitude has weakened, and for good reason. Even if emissions fell sharply tomorrow, the warming already set in motion would go on altering rainfall, raising sea levels and intensifying heat waves for decades. For a farmer whose sowing calendar has been upset, or a coastal town facing more frequent floods, adaptation is not an alternative to mitigation; it is the immediate condition of survival.
Yet adaptation raises difficulties of its own. Its benefits are mostly local, so it attracts less international finance than projects that cut global emissions. It also depends heavily on knowledge of particular places: which embankment will hold, which crop variety tolerates a delayed monsoon, which neighbourhood floods first. Plans drawn up far from the affected communities often miss such details, and a sea wall built in the wrong place may merely push erosion onto the next village.
There is also the risk of what may be called maladaptation — responses that ease a problem now while worsening it later. Pumping ever more groundwater to cope with failing rains, or installing air-conditioning that adds to the heat of the street outside, are examples. Good adaptation, therefore, asks not only whether a measure helps today but whom it may harm tomorrow.
As used in the passage, the term "maladaptation" refers to
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Answer: D — a response that relieves a problem now but makes it worse later
The passage defines the term at once: "responses that ease a problem now while worsening it later", with deeper pumping of groundwater as an example. Option C is tempting because the previous paragraph criticises plans made far from communities, but that is a separate difficulty, not what maladaptation means. Cost (B) and inaction (A) are not part of the definition.Passage 3. Read the passage below and answer the questions that follow on the basis of the passage alone.
Discussions of climate change long concentrated on mitigation — reducing the emissions that warm the planet. Adaptation, the business of living with changes that can no longer be avoided, was sometimes treated as a kind of surrender, an admission that the main battle had been lost. That attitude has weakened, and for good reason. Even if emissions fell sharply tomorrow, the warming already set in motion would go on altering rainfall, raising sea levels and intensifying heat waves for decades. For a farmer whose sowing calendar has been upset, or a coastal town facing more frequent floods, adaptation is not an alternative to mitigation; it is the immediate condition of survival.
Yet adaptation raises difficulties of its own. Its benefits are mostly local, so it attracts less international finance than projects that cut global emissions. It also depends heavily on knowledge of particular places: which embankment will hold, which crop variety tolerates a delayed monsoon, which neighbourhood floods first. Plans drawn up far from the affected communities often miss such details, and a sea wall built in the wrong place may merely push erosion onto the next village.
There is also the risk of what may be called maladaptation — responses that ease a problem now while worsening it later. Pumping ever more groundwater to cope with failing rains, or installing air-conditioning that adds to the heat of the street outside, are examples. Good adaptation, therefore, asks not only whether a measure helps today but whom it may harm tomorrow.
Which one of the following would be an example of maladaptation in the sense used by the author?
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Answer: A — Deepening wells to irrigate thirsty crops through repeated droughts, lowering the water table still further
Deeper wells ease today's shortage while lowering the water table and so worsening the next drought — exactly the passage's own example of pumping more groundwater. The other three are measures that help now without creating a later harm; the drought-tolerant variety (B) is even the kind of locally informed adaptation the passage approves.Passage 4. Read the passage below and answer the questions that follow on the basis of the passage alone.
Small farms are often described as a problem to be solved. Holdings divided over generations into plots too small for machines, it is argued, cannot achieve the economies of scale that modern agriculture requires. There is truth in this, but not the whole truth. Studies in many regions have found that small farms frequently produce more per unit of land than large ones, because the family that works them applies more labour and closer attention to each plot. Where they fall behind is in output per worker, and therefore in the incomes they can sustain.
The challenge, then, is less about yields than about what a small farmer can earn from them. A farmer who sells a few quintals at harvest, when prices are lowest, to the nearest trader, captures only a small part of the price the consumer finally pays. Storage, grading, transport and access to distant buyers all favour those who operate at scale. Farmer producer organisations try to give small cultivators some of these advantages by pooling their produce and their bargaining power, while leaving the ownership of land untouched.
Such collectives are not easy to sustain. They need capable management, trust among members and enough working capital to pay farmers promptly; a collective that delays payment soon loses its members to the trader who pays cash at the farm gate. Their record is therefore mixed. But the idea behind them points to a useful distinction: scale in farming and scale in marketing are not the same thing, and the second can be achieved without the first.
What is the crux of the passage?
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Answer: C — Small farmers lose out mainly in selling rather than growing, and collective marketing can help without land consolidation.
The passage concedes that small farms often out-yield large ones per unit of land, locates their weakness in what they earn when they sell, and ends with the distinction between scale in farming and scale in marketing. Option A is the view the passage sets out to qualify. Option B ignores the passage's own warning that the record of collectives is "mixed", and D turns a description of market disadvantage into a policy the passage never proposes.Passage 4. Read the passage below and answer the questions that follow on the basis of the passage alone.
Small farms are often described as a problem to be solved. Holdings divided over generations into plots too small for machines, it is argued, cannot achieve the economies of scale that modern agriculture requires. There is truth in this, but not the whole truth. Studies in many regions have found that small farms frequently produce more per unit of land than large ones, because the family that works them applies more labour and closer attention to each plot. Where they fall behind is in output per worker, and therefore in the incomes they can sustain.
The challenge, then, is less about yields than about what a small farmer can earn from them. A farmer who sells a few quintals at harvest, when prices are lowest, to the nearest trader, captures only a small part of the price the consumer finally pays. Storage, grading, transport and access to distant buyers all favour those who operate at scale. Farmer producer organisations try to give small cultivators some of these advantages by pooling their produce and their bargaining power, while leaving the ownership of land untouched.
Such collectives are not easy to sustain. They need capable management, trust among members and enough working capital to pay farmers promptly; a collective that delays payment soon loses its members to the trader who pays cash at the farm gate. Their record is therefore mixed. But the idea behind them points to a useful distinction: scale in farming and scale in marketing are not the same thing, and the second can be achieved without the first.
With reference to the passage, the following assumptions have been made: 1. Prompt payment matters a great deal to small farmers when they decide where to sell. 2. Consolidating land holdings is a precondition for improving the bargaining position of small farmers. Which of the above assumptions is/are valid?
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Answer: A — 1 only
Statement 1 underlies the claim that a collective which delays payment "soon loses its members to the trader who pays cash at the farm gate" — that only follows if prompt payment weighs heavily with farmers. Statement 2 is the opposite of the passage's conclusion that marketing scale "can be achieved without" farming scale, while leaving land ownership untouched.Passage 4. Read the passage below and answer the questions that follow on the basis of the passage alone.
Small farms are often described as a problem to be solved. Holdings divided over generations into plots too small for machines, it is argued, cannot achieve the economies of scale that modern agriculture requires. There is truth in this, but not the whole truth. Studies in many regions have found that small farms frequently produce more per unit of land than large ones, because the family that works them applies more labour and closer attention to each plot. Where they fall behind is in output per worker, and therefore in the incomes they can sustain.
The challenge, then, is less about yields than about what a small farmer can earn from them. A farmer who sells a few quintals at harvest, when prices are lowest, to the nearest trader, captures only a small part of the price the consumer finally pays. Storage, grading, transport and access to distant buyers all favour those who operate at scale. Farmer producer organisations try to give small cultivators some of these advantages by pooling their produce and their bargaining power, while leaving the ownership of land untouched.
Such collectives are not easy to sustain. They need capable management, trust among members and enough working capital to pay farmers promptly; a collective that delays payment soon loses its members to the trader who pays cash at the farm gate. Their record is therefore mixed. But the idea behind them points to a useful distinction: scale in farming and scale in marketing are not the same thing, and the second can be achieved without the first.
According to the passage, small farms fall behind large ones chiefly in
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Answer: B — output per worker
The first paragraph says small farms often produce more per unit of land, and that "where they fall behind is in output per worker", which limits the incomes they can sustain. Option A is the trap: it is the measure on which the passage says small farms frequently do better. Family labour and close attention (C, D) are named as the reasons for their higher yields, not as weaknesses.Passage 4. Read the passage below and answer the questions that follow on the basis of the passage alone.
Small farms are often described as a problem to be solved. Holdings divided over generations into plots too small for machines, it is argued, cannot achieve the economies of scale that modern agriculture requires. There is truth in this, but not the whole truth. Studies in many regions have found that small farms frequently produce more per unit of land than large ones, because the family that works them applies more labour and closer attention to each plot. Where they fall behind is in output per worker, and therefore in the incomes they can sustain.
The challenge, then, is less about yields than about what a small farmer can earn from them. A farmer who sells a few quintals at harvest, when prices are lowest, to the nearest trader, captures only a small part of the price the consumer finally pays. Storage, grading, transport and access to distant buyers all favour those who operate at scale. Farmer producer organisations try to give small cultivators some of these advantages by pooling their produce and their bargaining power, while leaving the ownership of land untouched.
Such collectives are not easy to sustain. They need capable management, trust among members and enough working capital to pay farmers promptly; a collective that delays payment soon loses its members to the trader who pays cash at the farm gate. Their record is therefore mixed. But the idea behind them points to a useful distinction: scale in farming and scale in marketing are not the same thing, and the second can be achieved without the first.
Which one of the following best illustrates the distinction drawn in the last sentence of the passage?
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Answer: D — Two hundred smallholders keep their own plots but grade, store and sell their produce together.
The distinction is that scale in marketing can be achieved without scale in farming: Option D keeps each plot small while pooling grading, storage and sale. Options A, B and C all enlarge the scale of farming itself — by size of estate, consolidation or renting in — which is precisely what the last sentence says is not required.Passage 5. Read the passage below and answer the questions that follow on the basis of the passage alone.
Scientific advice is often demanded in a form that science cannot honestly supply. A public worried about a new disease or an unfamiliar chemical wants to know whether it is safe, and expects a yes or a no. What researchers can usually offer is a statement of probability, hedged by the limits of the evidence gathered so far. When early advice is revised as new data arrive, many people conclude that the experts never knew what they were talking about — though revision in the light of evidence is precisely how science is meant to work.
This mismatch puts scientists in an uncomfortable position. If they speak with more confidence than the evidence allows, they risk being proved wrong and losing credibility. If they dwell on every uncertainty, their message may be drowned out by voices offering simple certainty, however ill-founded. Some observers conclude that the public cannot handle nuance and must be given clear instructions without the reasoning behind them.
That conclusion underestimates ordinary people. Citizens make decisions under uncertainty every day — when they carry an umbrella on a cloudy morning, or buy insurance against an unlikely loss. What erodes trust is not uncertainty itself but the sense of being managed: of being told one thing with confidence today and the opposite tomorrow, with no acknowledgement that the ground has shifted. Advice that explains what is known, what is not yet known and what would change the recommendation may be less comforting at first, but it is more likely to keep its authority when the facts change.
Which one of the following best reflects the author's view?
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Answer: B — Being candid about uncertainty is more likely to preserve trust than a show of false certainty.
The final paragraph is the author's own position: trust is eroded not by uncertainty but by being "managed", and advice that explains what is and is not known keeps its authority when facts change. Option A is the view of "some observers" that the author rejects ("That conclusion underestimates ordinary people"). Option D is the public misreading the first paragraph corrects — revision is "precisely how science is meant to work".Passage 5. Read the passage below and answer the questions that follow on the basis of the passage alone.
Scientific advice is often demanded in a form that science cannot honestly supply. A public worried about a new disease or an unfamiliar chemical wants to know whether it is safe, and expects a yes or a no. What researchers can usually offer is a statement of probability, hedged by the limits of the evidence gathered so far. When early advice is revised as new data arrive, many people conclude that the experts never knew what they were talking about — though revision in the light of evidence is precisely how science is meant to work.
This mismatch puts scientists in an uncomfortable position. If they speak with more confidence than the evidence allows, they risk being proved wrong and losing credibility. If they dwell on every uncertainty, their message may be drowned out by voices offering simple certainty, however ill-founded. Some observers conclude that the public cannot handle nuance and must be given clear instructions without the reasoning behind them.
That conclusion underestimates ordinary people. Citizens make decisions under uncertainty every day — when they carry an umbrella on a cloudy morning, or buy insurance against an unlikely loss. What erodes trust is not uncertainty itself but the sense of being managed: of being told one thing with confidence today and the opposite tomorrow, with no acknowledgement that the ground has shifted. Advice that explains what is known, what is not yet known and what would change the recommendation may be less comforting at first, but it is more likely to keep its authority when the facts change.
With reference to the passage, the following assumptions have been made: 1. Scientific understanding of a new question can change as evidence accumulates. 2. Public trust in experts depends partly on how changes in their advice are communicated. Which of the above assumptions is/are valid?
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Answer: C — Both 1 and 2
Both are valid. The whole argument begins from statement 1 — early advice is revised as new data arrive. And the author's remedy rests on statement 2: trust is lost when people are told one thing today and the opposite tomorrow "with no acknowledgement that the ground has shifted", and kept when advice explains what would change it. Rejecting statement 2 would leave the last paragraph without a basis.Passage 5. Read the passage below and answer the questions that follow on the basis of the passage alone.
Scientific advice is often demanded in a form that science cannot honestly supply. A public worried about a new disease or an unfamiliar chemical wants to know whether it is safe, and expects a yes or a no. What researchers can usually offer is a statement of probability, hedged by the limits of the evidence gathered so far. When early advice is revised as new data arrive, many people conclude that the experts never knew what they were talking about — though revision in the light of evidence is precisely how science is meant to work.
This mismatch puts scientists in an uncomfortable position. If they speak with more confidence than the evidence allows, they risk being proved wrong and losing credibility. If they dwell on every uncertainty, their message may be drowned out by voices offering simple certainty, however ill-founded. Some observers conclude that the public cannot handle nuance and must be given clear instructions without the reasoning behind them.
That conclusion underestimates ordinary people. Citizens make decisions under uncertainty every day — when they carry an umbrella on a cloudy morning, or buy insurance against an unlikely loss. What erodes trust is not uncertainty itself but the sense of being managed: of being told one thing with confidence today and the opposite tomorrow, with no acknowledgement that the ground has shifted. Advice that explains what is known, what is not yet known and what would change the recommendation may be less comforting at first, but it is more likely to keep its authority when the facts change.
The author refers to carrying an umbrella and buying insurance in order to
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Answer: A — show that ordinary people routinely act on probabilities rather than certainties
The examples follow directly on "That conclusion underestimates ordinary people": they show citizens already deciding under uncertainty every day, so they can handle advice framed as probability. Option D picks up a surface feature of insurance but reverses the point — the examples show people coping with uncertainty, not being unable to bear it. B and C read the examples literally and miss their function.Passage 5. Read the passage below and answer the questions that follow on the basis of the passage alone.
Scientific advice is often demanded in a form that science cannot honestly supply. A public worried about a new disease or an unfamiliar chemical wants to know whether it is safe, and expects a yes or a no. What researchers can usually offer is a statement of probability, hedged by the limits of the evidence gathered so far. When early advice is revised as new data arrive, many people conclude that the experts never knew what they were talking about — though revision in the light of evidence is precisely how science is meant to work.
This mismatch puts scientists in an uncomfortable position. If they speak with more confidence than the evidence allows, they risk being proved wrong and losing credibility. If they dwell on every uncertainty, their message may be drowned out by voices offering simple certainty, however ill-founded. Some observers conclude that the public cannot handle nuance and must be given clear instructions without the reasoning behind them.
That conclusion underestimates ordinary people. Citizens make decisions under uncertainty every day — when they carry an umbrella on a cloudy morning, or buy insurance against an unlikely loss. What erodes trust is not uncertainty itself but the sense of being managed: of being told one thing with confidence today and the opposite tomorrow, with no acknowledgement that the ground has shifted. Advice that explains what is known, what is not yet known and what would change the recommendation may be less comforting at first, but it is more likely to keep its authority when the facts change.
Which one of the following practices by a public health agency would be most consistent with the passage?
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Answer: D — Giving a recommendation along with the evidence behind it and what would lead to its revision
The author recommends advice that "explains what is known, what is not yet known and what would change the recommendation" — Option D. Option A is the "show of confidence" the author says destroys credibility when facts change. Options B and C both abandon the job of advising, which the passage never suggests; it criticises false certainty, not advice itself.Passage 6. Read the passage below and answer the questions that follow on the basis of the passage alone.
Cities are often said to be growing faster than they can be planned, but a good deal of urban growth happens in places that are not officially recognised as cities at all. Large villages on highways and at the edges of metropolitan areas acquire dense populations, workshops and markets while continuing to be governed as rural settlements. Their residents work in non-farm occupations, yet the institutions that serve them were designed for agricultural communities and lack the powers and revenues needed to provide drainage, solid-waste management or public transport.
This in-between status has its advantages. Land is cheaper, regulation is lighter, and migrants find it easier to gain a foothold than in the established city, where rents are high and the formal housing market excludes most newcomers. Many small enterprises begin in such places precisely because they escape the costs that a municipal regime imposes.
The costs, however, accumulate quietly. Without planning, roads are laid too narrow to be widened later, ponds and drains are built over, and workshops and homes are mixed in ways that are expensive to undo. By the time such a settlement is formally absorbed into a city, the pattern of its streets and plots is fixed, and the administration inherits problems that could have been avoided cheaply a decade earlier. Recognising urbanisation where it actually occurs, rather than where official boundaries say it does, may be the first step towards managing it.
Which one of the following best reflects the crux of the passage?
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Answer: A — Unrecognised urban growth brings short-term gains but stores up costly problems, so it should be acknowledged and planned for early.
The passage weighs the advantages of in-between settlements (cheap land, light regulation, a foothold for migrants) against costs that accumulate quietly, and ends by urging that urbanisation be recognised where it actually happens. Option D is the tempting one, since the passage notes that rural institutions lack powers and revenues — but it blames their design, not their efficiency, and proposes no wholesale replacement. Halting growth (B) or redirecting migrants (C) goes against its acknowledgement of the benefits.Passage 6. Read the passage below and answer the questions that follow on the basis of the passage alone.
Cities are often said to be growing faster than they can be planned, but a good deal of urban growth happens in places that are not officially recognised as cities at all. Large villages on highways and at the edges of metropolitan areas acquire dense populations, workshops and markets while continuing to be governed as rural settlements. Their residents work in non-farm occupations, yet the institutions that serve them were designed for agricultural communities and lack the powers and revenues needed to provide drainage, solid-waste management or public transport.
This in-between status has its advantages. Land is cheaper, regulation is lighter, and migrants find it easier to gain a foothold than in the established city, where rents are high and the formal housing market excludes most newcomers. Many small enterprises begin in such places precisely because they escape the costs that a municipal regime imposes.
The costs, however, accumulate quietly. Without planning, roads are laid too narrow to be widened later, ponds and drains are built over, and workshops and homes are mixed in ways that are expensive to undo. By the time such a settlement is formally absorbed into a city, the pattern of its streets and plots is fixed, and the administration inherits problems that could have been avoided cheaply a decade earlier. Recognising urbanisation where it actually occurs, rather than where official boundaries say it does, may be the first step towards managing it.
Which one of the following can be inferred from the passage?
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Answer: B — The cost of correcting a badly laid-out settlement rises the longer it is left unplanned.
The passage says that by the time a settlement is absorbed its layout is fixed, and problems that "could have been avoided cheaply a decade earlier" are inherited — so delay raises the cost of correction. Option C is tempting because the passage mentions lack of revenue, but it also names lack of powers and a design meant for farming communities, so money alone is not implied. Options A and D contradict the passage.Passage 6. Read the passage below and answer the questions that follow on the basis of the passage alone.
Cities are often said to be growing faster than they can be planned, but a good deal of urban growth happens in places that are not officially recognised as cities at all. Large villages on highways and at the edges of metropolitan areas acquire dense populations, workshops and markets while continuing to be governed as rural settlements. Their residents work in non-farm occupations, yet the institutions that serve them were designed for agricultural communities and lack the powers and revenues needed to provide drainage, solid-waste management or public transport.
This in-between status has its advantages. Land is cheaper, regulation is lighter, and migrants find it easier to gain a foothold than in the established city, where rents are high and the formal housing market excludes most newcomers. Many small enterprises begin in such places precisely because they escape the costs that a municipal regime imposes.
The costs, however, accumulate quietly. Without planning, roads are laid too narrow to be widened later, ponds and drains are built over, and workshops and homes are mixed in ways that are expensive to undo. By the time such a settlement is formally absorbed into a city, the pattern of its streets and plots is fixed, and the administration inherits problems that could have been avoided cheaply a decade earlier. Recognising urbanisation where it actually occurs, rather than where official boundaries say it does, may be the first step towards managing it.
With reference to the passage, the following assumptions have been made: 1. The advantages of in-between settlements outweigh the costs they create. 2. Migrants prefer settling in such places mainly because they dislike city life. Which of the above assumptions is/are valid?
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Answer: D — Neither 1 nor 2
Neither is valid. The passage sets advantages against costs that "accumulate quietly" and never declares a winner; if anything its emphasis on avoidable costs cuts against statement 1. Statement 2 supplies a motive the passage does not give — migrants come because land and rent are cheaper and the formal housing market excludes them, not because they dislike cities.Passage 7. Read the passage below and answer the questions that follow on the basis of the passage alone.
For decades the measure of educational progress was enrolment: how many children were in school, and for how many years. By that measure many developing countries have achieved a great deal. Classrooms that were once half-empty are now full, and girls attend in numbers that would have seemed improbable a generation ago. But attendance is not the same as learning. Surveys in many countries have found children who have completed several years of school and still cannot read a simple paragraph or do basic arithmetic.
Part of the explanation lies in a curriculum that moves at a pace set by the textbook rather than by the child. A pupil who fails to grasp reading in the early grades is promoted with her class and meets material she cannot follow; each year she falls further behind, while the teacher, obliged to complete the syllabus, has little time to go back. A gap that begins as a small delay becomes, by the upper grades, an almost unbridgeable distance.
Approaches that group children by their actual level of learning, rather than by age or grade, and that give time to foundational skills, have shown encouraging results in several settings. They are not glamorous: they involve repetition, simple materials and frequent informal checks of what children can do. Their lesson is that the most important question to ask of a school is not how much it has taught, but how much its pupils have learnt.
Which one of the following best reflects the central idea of the passage?
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Answer: C — Education policy should judge schools by what children actually learn, not merely by how long they attend.
The passage credits gains in enrolment, then insists that "attendance is not the same as learning" and closes on the question of how much pupils have learnt. Option A is the extreme distortion — the passage says enrolment gains are real ("achieved a great deal"). Option D overreaches from the criticism that the curriculum is paced by the textbook to abolishing textbooks, which the passage never proposes.Passage 7. Read the passage below and answer the questions that follow on the basis of the passage alone.
For decades the measure of educational progress was enrolment: how many children were in school, and for how many years. By that measure many developing countries have achieved a great deal. Classrooms that were once half-empty are now full, and girls attend in numbers that would have seemed improbable a generation ago. But attendance is not the same as learning. Surveys in many countries have found children who have completed several years of school and still cannot read a simple paragraph or do basic arithmetic.
Part of the explanation lies in a curriculum that moves at a pace set by the textbook rather than by the child. A pupil who fails to grasp reading in the early grades is promoted with her class and meets material she cannot follow; each year she falls further behind, while the teacher, obliged to complete the syllabus, has little time to go back. A gap that begins as a small delay becomes, by the upper grades, an almost unbridgeable distance.
Approaches that group children by their actual level of learning, rather than by age or grade, and that give time to foundational skills, have shown encouraging results in several settings. They are not glamorous: they involve repetition, simple materials and frequent informal checks of what children can do. Their lesson is that the most important question to ask of a school is not how much it has taught, but how much its pupils have learnt.
In the context of the passage, "an almost unbridgeable distance" refers to
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Answer: B — a learning deficit grown so large that it is very hard to make up
The phrase completes the description of a pupil who falls further behind each year: "a gap that begins as a small delay" in learning becomes, by the upper grades, almost impossible to close. The distance is in learning, not in geography (A), funding (C) or social relations (D), none of which the paragraph mentions.Passage 7. Read the passage below and answer the questions that follow on the basis of the passage alone.
For decades the measure of educational progress was enrolment: how many children were in school, and for how many years. By that measure many developing countries have achieved a great deal. Classrooms that were once half-empty are now full, and girls attend in numbers that would have seemed improbable a generation ago. But attendance is not the same as learning. Surveys in many countries have found children who have completed several years of school and still cannot read a simple paragraph or do basic arithmetic.
Part of the explanation lies in a curriculum that moves at a pace set by the textbook rather than by the child. A pupil who fails to grasp reading in the early grades is promoted with her class and meets material she cannot follow; each year she falls further behind, while the teacher, obliged to complete the syllabus, has little time to go back. A gap that begins as a small delay becomes, by the upper grades, an almost unbridgeable distance.
Approaches that group children by their actual level of learning, rather than by age or grade, and that give time to foundational skills, have shown encouraging results in several settings. They are not glamorous: they involve repetition, simple materials and frequent informal checks of what children can do. Their lesson is that the most important question to ask of a school is not how much it has taught, but how much its pupils have learnt.
With reference to the passage, the following assumptions have been made: 1. Skills acquired in the early grades are a foundation on which later learning depends. 2. Teachers are generally unwilling to help pupils who fall behind. Which of the above assumptions is/are valid?
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Answer: A — 1 only
Statement 1 is assumed: the claim that a pupil who misses reading early meets material "she cannot follow" and falls further behind each year only works if later learning builds on early skills. Statement 2 misreads the constraint — the teacher has little time to go back because she is "obliged to complete the syllabus", which is a matter of pressure, not unwillingness.Passage 7. Read the passage below and answer the questions that follow on the basis of the passage alone.
For decades the measure of educational progress was enrolment: how many children were in school, and for how many years. By that measure many developing countries have achieved a great deal. Classrooms that were once half-empty are now full, and girls attend in numbers that would have seemed improbable a generation ago. But attendance is not the same as learning. Surveys in many countries have found children who have completed several years of school and still cannot read a simple paragraph or do basic arithmetic.
Part of the explanation lies in a curriculum that moves at a pace set by the textbook rather than by the child. A pupil who fails to grasp reading in the early grades is promoted with her class and meets material she cannot follow; each year she falls further behind, while the teacher, obliged to complete the syllabus, has little time to go back. A gap that begins as a small delay becomes, by the upper grades, an almost unbridgeable distance.
Approaches that group children by their actual level of learning, rather than by age or grade, and that give time to foundational skills, have shown encouraging results in several settings. They are not glamorous: they involve repetition, simple materials and frequent informal checks of what children can do. Their lesson is that the most important question to ask of a school is not how much it has taught, but how much its pupils have learnt.
With which one of the following statements would the author most likely agree?
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Answer: D — Moving all children ahead with their age group regardless of learning can widen gaps over time.
The second paragraph describes exactly this: a pupil promoted with her class despite not learning to read falls further behind each year. Option B is the tempting over-correction, but the remedy the passage approves is grouping by learning level and time for foundational skills, not detention by examination. The passage praises repetition (A is the reverse) and nowhere doubts enrolment figures (C).Passage 8. Read the passage below and answer the questions that follow on the basis of the passage alone.
Antibiotics are among the few medicines whose effectiveness is shared by everyone and can be used up. Each time an antibiotic is taken, the bacteria that happen to resist it gain an advantage over those that do not, and over many courses of treatment resistant strains become common. A drug that saves a life today therefore slightly reduces the chance that it will save another tomorrow. Unlike most goods, its value depends on how sparingly it is used.
The forces that encourage overuse are easy to understand. A patient with a viral fever, against which antibiotics are useless, may still expect a prescription and feel cheated without one. A doctor with little time and no quick diagnostic test may prescribe to be on the safe side. In many places antibiotics can be bought without a prescription at all, and they are also given to livestock to promote growth. Each of these choices makes sense to the person making it; the cost falls on others, and later.
Restricting access is not a simple answer. In regions where qualified doctors are scarce, the same drugs that some people overuse are unavailable to others who need them, and lack of access can be as deadly as resistance. A sensible policy must therefore steer between two failures — excess and scarcity — through better diagnostics, surveillance of resistance, and incentives to develop new drugs, which offer manufacturers little reward when they are meant to be used as rarely as possible.
Which one of the following best expresses the crux of the passage?
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Answer: C — Antibiotic policy must curb overuse without denying the drugs to those who need them.
The passage explains why antibiotics lose value with use and why overuse is tempting, then warns that restricting access is "not a simple answer" and calls for steering "between two failures — excess and scarcity". Option A is precisely the simple answer it rejects. Livestock use (B) and hurried prescribing (D) are listed as some of several pressures; the passage says each choice is sensible to the person making it rather than singling out a culprit.Passage 8. Read the passage below and answer the questions that follow on the basis of the passage alone.
Antibiotics are among the few medicines whose effectiveness is shared by everyone and can be used up. Each time an antibiotic is taken, the bacteria that happen to resist it gain an advantage over those that do not, and over many courses of treatment resistant strains become common. A drug that saves a life today therefore slightly reduces the chance that it will save another tomorrow. Unlike most goods, its value depends on how sparingly it is used.
The forces that encourage overuse are easy to understand. A patient with a viral fever, against which antibiotics are useless, may still expect a prescription and feel cheated without one. A doctor with little time and no quick diagnostic test may prescribe to be on the safe side. In many places antibiotics can be bought without a prescription at all, and they are also given to livestock to promote growth. Each of these choices makes sense to the person making it; the cost falls on others, and later.
Restricting access is not a simple answer. In regions where qualified doctors are scarce, the same drugs that some people overuse are unavailable to others who need them, and lack of access can be as deadly as resistance. A sensible policy must therefore steer between two failures — excess and scarcity — through better diagnostics, surveillance of resistance, and incentives to develop new drugs, which offer manufacturers little reward when they are meant to be used as rarely as possible.
When the author says that the effectiveness of antibiotics "can be used up", the author means that
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Answer: C — every use helps resistant bacteria spread, so the drugs work less well over time
The next sentences explain it: each course of treatment favours bacteria that resist the drug, so resistant strains become common and the drug saves fewer lives later. What is used up is effectiveness, shared by everyone, not physical stock (B), shelf life (A) or raw material (D). Option B is the literal reading of "used up" that the passage is careful to avoid.Passage 8. Read the passage below and answer the questions that follow on the basis of the passage alone.
Antibiotics are among the few medicines whose effectiveness is shared by everyone and can be used up. Each time an antibiotic is taken, the bacteria that happen to resist it gain an advantage over those that do not, and over many courses of treatment resistant strains become common. A drug that saves a life today therefore slightly reduces the chance that it will save another tomorrow. Unlike most goods, its value depends on how sparingly it is used.
The forces that encourage overuse are easy to understand. A patient with a viral fever, against which antibiotics are useless, may still expect a prescription and feel cheated without one. A doctor with little time and no quick diagnostic test may prescribe to be on the safe side. In many places antibiotics can be bought without a prescription at all, and they are also given to livestock to promote growth. Each of these choices makes sense to the person making it; the cost falls on others, and later.
Restricting access is not a simple answer. In regions where qualified doctors are scarce, the same drugs that some people overuse are unavailable to others who need them, and lack of access can be as deadly as resistance. A sensible policy must therefore steer between two failures — excess and scarcity — through better diagnostics, surveillance of resistance, and incentives to develop new drugs, which offer manufacturers little reward when they are meant to be used as rarely as possible.
Which one of the following can be inferred from the passage about the development of new antibiotics?
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Answer: B — Market incentives for it are weak, because a new drug would be kept in reserve and sold sparingly.
The passage says new drugs "offer manufacturers little reward when they are meant to be used as rarely as possible" — a drug held in reserve sells little, so the commercial incentive is weak and has to be supplemented. Option D is tempting but ignores the first paragraph: any antibiotic loses effectiveness with use, so no new drug ends the problem for good. Options A and C have no support in the passage.Passage 8. Read the passage below and answer the questions that follow on the basis of the passage alone.
Antibiotics are among the few medicines whose effectiveness is shared by everyone and can be used up. Each time an antibiotic is taken, the bacteria that happen to resist it gain an advantage over those that do not, and over many courses of treatment resistant strains become common. A drug that saves a life today therefore slightly reduces the chance that it will save another tomorrow. Unlike most goods, its value depends on how sparingly it is used.
The forces that encourage overuse are easy to understand. A patient with a viral fever, against which antibiotics are useless, may still expect a prescription and feel cheated without one. A doctor with little time and no quick diagnostic test may prescribe to be on the safe side. In many places antibiotics can be bought without a prescription at all, and they are also given to livestock to promote growth. Each of these choices makes sense to the person making it; the cost falls on others, and later.
Restricting access is not a simple answer. In regions where qualified doctors are scarce, the same drugs that some people overuse are unavailable to others who need them, and lack of access can be as deadly as resistance. A sensible policy must therefore steer between two failures — excess and scarcity — through better diagnostics, surveillance of resistance, and incentives to develop new drugs, which offer manufacturers little reward when they are meant to be used as rarely as possible.
With reference to the passage, the following assumptions have been made: 1. People who decide how antibiotics are used do not bear the full consequences of their decisions. 2. Quicker diagnostic tests could reduce unnecessary prescriptions. Which of the above assumptions is/are valid?
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Answer: C — Both 1 and 2
Both are valid. Statement 1 is what the second paragraph turns on: each choice "makes sense to the person making it; the cost falls on others, and later". Statement 2 underlies both the remark that a doctor with "no quick diagnostic test" prescribes to be safe and the call for "better diagnostics" in the policy mix. Choosing "1 only" misses that the diagnostics remedy would be pointless without statement 2.Passage 9. Read the passage below and answer the questions that follow on the basis of the passage alone.
It is common to hear that people no longer care about privacy. They share photographs, locations and opinions freely, and accept the terms of digital services without reading them. Yet the same people often react with anger when they discover how their data have been combined, sold or used to make decisions about them. The contradiction is more apparent than real.
Privacy has never meant total secrecy. A patient tells her doctor things she would not tell her employer; a customer gives a shop her address so that a parcel can be delivered, not so that it can be sold to strangers. What people expect is that information disclosed in one context will flow according to the norms of that context. The harm arises when data travel to places and purposes the person never anticipated — when a record of purchases becomes evidence of creditworthiness, or the data of a fitness application reach an insurer.
Consent, the usual remedy, is asked to carry more weight than it can bear. No individual can realistically read and weigh the policies of every service she uses, nor foresee how data gathered today might be combined with other data years later. Asking her to click "I agree" transfers responsibility without giving her any real choice. A more workable approach would place obligations on those who collect and use data: to gather only what a service genuinely needs, to use it only for the purposes declared, and to answer for the harm that follows when it travels further.
Which one of the following best reflects the central idea of the passage?
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Answer: D — Privacy is about information flowing as its context leads people to expect, and is better protected by duties on data users than by consent.
The passage redefines privacy as context-appropriate flow of information (second paragraph) and argues that consent "is asked to carry more weight than it can bear", proposing obligations on collectors instead (third paragraph). Option A is the common claim the passage opens with only to call its contradiction "more apparent than real". Option C runs against the point that no one can realistically read every policy, and B goes further than the passage, which treats disclosure in the right context as normal.Passage 9. Read the passage below and answer the questions that follow on the basis of the passage alone.
It is common to hear that people no longer care about privacy. They share photographs, locations and opinions freely, and accept the terms of digital services without reading them. Yet the same people often react with anger when they discover how their data have been combined, sold or used to make decisions about them. The contradiction is more apparent than real.
Privacy has never meant total secrecy. A patient tells her doctor things she would not tell her employer; a customer gives a shop her address so that a parcel can be delivered, not so that it can be sold to strangers. What people expect is that information disclosed in one context will flow according to the norms of that context. The harm arises when data travel to places and purposes the person never anticipated — when a record of purchases becomes evidence of creditworthiness, or the data of a fitness application reach an insurer.
Consent, the usual remedy, is asked to carry more weight than it can bear. No individual can realistically read and weigh the policies of every service she uses, nor foresee how data gathered today might be combined with other data years later. Asking her to click "I agree" transfers responsibility without giving her any real choice. A more workable approach would place obligations on those who collect and use data: to gather only what a service genuinely needs, to use it only for the purposes declared, and to answer for the harm that follows when it travels further.
According to the passage, the contradiction between people's sharing of data and their anger at its misuse is "more apparent than real" because
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Answer: B — sharing information in one context is consistent with objecting to its use in another
The second paragraph resolves the puzzle: privacy never meant total secrecy, and people expect information disclosed in one context to follow that context's norms — so sharing freely and objecting to unexpected reuse are compatible. Option D contradicts the passage, which treats combining and selling data as what provokes the anger. Options A and C introduce claims the passage does not make.Passage 9. Read the passage below and answer the questions that follow on the basis of the passage alone.
It is common to hear that people no longer care about privacy. They share photographs, locations and opinions freely, and accept the terms of digital services without reading them. Yet the same people often react with anger when they discover how their data have been combined, sold or used to make decisions about them. The contradiction is more apparent than real.
Privacy has never meant total secrecy. A patient tells her doctor things she would not tell her employer; a customer gives a shop her address so that a parcel can be delivered, not so that it can be sold to strangers. What people expect is that information disclosed in one context will flow according to the norms of that context. The harm arises when data travel to places and purposes the person never anticipated — when a record of purchases becomes evidence of creditworthiness, or the data of a fitness application reach an insurer.
Consent, the usual remedy, is asked to carry more weight than it can bear. No individual can realistically read and weigh the policies of every service she uses, nor foresee how data gathered today might be combined with other data years later. Asking her to click "I agree" transfers responsibility without giving her any real choice. A more workable approach would place obligations on those who collect and use data: to gather only what a service genuinely needs, to use it only for the purposes declared, and to answer for the harm that follows when it travels further.
With reference to the passage, the following assumptions have been made: 1. Individuals can generally foresee the future uses to which data they share will be put. 2. Requiring consent gives people meaningful control over how their data are used. Which of the above assumptions is/are valid?
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Answer: D — Neither 1 nor 2
Neither is valid; the passage denies both. It says no one can "foresee how data gathered today might be combined with other data years later" (against statement 1), and that clicking "I agree" transfers responsibility "without giving her any real choice" (against statement 2). These are views the author argues against, not premises the argument relies on.Passage 9. Read the passage below and answer the questions that follow on the basis of the passage alone.
It is common to hear that people no longer care about privacy. They share photographs, locations and opinions freely, and accept the terms of digital services without reading them. Yet the same people often react with anger when they discover how their data have been combined, sold or used to make decisions about them. The contradiction is more apparent than real.
Privacy has never meant total secrecy. A patient tells her doctor things she would not tell her employer; a customer gives a shop her address so that a parcel can be delivered, not so that it can be sold to strangers. What people expect is that information disclosed in one context will flow according to the norms of that context. The harm arises when data travel to places and purposes the person never anticipated — when a record of purchases becomes evidence of creditworthiness, or the data of a fitness application reach an insurer.
Consent, the usual remedy, is asked to carry more weight than it can bear. No individual can realistically read and weigh the policies of every service she uses, nor foresee how data gathered today might be combined with other data years later. Asking her to click "I agree" transfers responsibility without giving her any real choice. A more workable approach would place obligations on those who collect and use data: to gather only what a service genuinely needs, to use it only for the purposes declared, and to answer for the harm that follows when it travels further.
Which one of the following would the author regard as a violation of privacy?
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Answer: C — A shop passing its customers' addresses to a marketing firm without their knowledge
Harm, for the author, arises when data travel "to places and purposes the person never anticipated": an address given for delivery being sold to a marketer is the passage's own example. Options A and B are disclosures that stay within the norms of their context. Option D is tempting because it involves wide exposure, but the person chose it herself, so nothing has flowed beyond what she expected.Passage 10. Read the passage below and answer the questions that follow on the basis of the passage alone.
Traditions are often imagined as fixed inheritances, handed down unchanged and either preserved or abandoned as a whole. Those who defend a tradition and those who reject it frequently share this picture: the one wishes to keep the bundle intact, the other to throw it away. But living traditions have rarely worked in this manner. Any long-lived body of thought contains disagreements within it — rival schools, dissenting commentators, practices questioned by insiders long before outsiders arrived to criticise them.
India's intellectual history offers many instances. Philosophical schools debated the nature of knowledge, the self and the world for centuries, each expected to state its opponent's view in its strongest form before attempting to refute it. Devotional poets questioned the authority of ritual and of birth. Such debates were not departures from tradition; they were the tradition, carried on as a continuing argument.
To see a tradition in this way changes the question one asks of it. Instead of "Should we keep it or discard it?", one may ask "Which strands within it deserve to be carried forward, and on what grounds?" This does not make every choice easy, and it does not guarantee that what is retained will be wise. But it frees a society from the false choice between reverence and rejection, and it allows reform to draw on resources from within rather than always appearing as an imposition from outside.
Which one of the following best reflects the crux of the passage?
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Answer: A — A tradition is best seen as a continuing internal argument, from which a society can choose what to carry forward.
The passage rejects the "fixed bundle" picture, shows traditions as internal debate, and concludes that the right question is which strands deserve to be carried forward. Option C is the tempting detail-twist: the passage says devotional poets questioned ritual and birth, not that Indian philosophy as a whole rejected them. Option D reverses the conclusion that reform can draw "on resources from within".Passage 10. Read the passage below and answer the questions that follow on the basis of the passage alone.
Traditions are often imagined as fixed inheritances, handed down unchanged and either preserved or abandoned as a whole. Those who defend a tradition and those who reject it frequently share this picture: the one wishes to keep the bundle intact, the other to throw it away. But living traditions have rarely worked in this manner. Any long-lived body of thought contains disagreements within it — rival schools, dissenting commentators, practices questioned by insiders long before outsiders arrived to criticise them.
India's intellectual history offers many instances. Philosophical schools debated the nature of knowledge, the self and the world for centuries, each expected to state its opponent's view in its strongest form before attempting to refute it. Devotional poets questioned the authority of ritual and of birth. Such debates were not departures from tradition; they were the tradition, carried on as a continuing argument.
To see a tradition in this way changes the question one asks of it. Instead of "Should we keep it or discard it?", one may ask "Which strands within it deserve to be carried forward, and on what grounds?" This does not make every choice easy, and it does not guarantee that what is retained will be wise. But it frees a society from the false choice between reverence and rejection, and it allows reform to draw on resources from within rather than always appearing as an imposition from outside.
According to the passage, the defenders and the critics of a tradition often share which one of the following beliefs?
Show answer
Answer: C — That a tradition is a fixed whole to be kept or discarded entire
The first paragraph says both sides "frequently share this picture" — of a tradition handed down unchanged and preserved or abandoned as a whole; one wants to keep the bundle intact, the other to throw it away. Option B is tempting because the passage discusses internal debate, but it is the author's point that debate is the tradition, not a belief attributed to either side. A and D are not mentioned.Passage 10. Read the passage below and answer the questions that follow on the basis of the passage alone.
Traditions are often imagined as fixed inheritances, handed down unchanged and either preserved or abandoned as a whole. Those who defend a tradition and those who reject it frequently share this picture: the one wishes to keep the bundle intact, the other to throw it away. But living traditions have rarely worked in this manner. Any long-lived body of thought contains disagreements within it — rival schools, dissenting commentators, practices questioned by insiders long before outsiders arrived to criticise them.
India's intellectual history offers many instances. Philosophical schools debated the nature of knowledge, the self and the world for centuries, each expected to state its opponent's view in its strongest form before attempting to refute it. Devotional poets questioned the authority of ritual and of birth. Such debates were not departures from tradition; they were the tradition, carried on as a continuing argument.
To see a tradition in this way changes the question one asks of it. Instead of "Should we keep it or discard it?", one may ask "Which strands within it deserve to be carried forward, and on what grounds?" This does not make every choice easy, and it does not guarantee that what is retained will be wise. But it frees a society from the false choice between reverence and rejection, and it allows reform to draw on resources from within rather than always appearing as an imposition from outside.
With reference to the passage, the following assumptions have been made: 1. Disagreement within a body of thought can be a source of its renewal. 2. Whatever a society retains from its tradition after reflection will necessarily be wise. Which of the above assumptions is/are valid?
Show answer
Answer: A — 1 only
Statement 1 underlies the conclusion that reform can draw "on resources from within" — internal dissent is what makes that possible. Statement 2 is directly denied: the passage says this way of seeing tradition "does not guarantee that what is retained will be wise". The word "necessarily" is the signal of an over-strong statement.Passage 10. Read the passage below and answer the questions that follow on the basis of the passage alone.
Traditions are often imagined as fixed inheritances, handed down unchanged and either preserved or abandoned as a whole. Those who defend a tradition and those who reject it frequently share this picture: the one wishes to keep the bundle intact, the other to throw it away. But living traditions have rarely worked in this manner. Any long-lived body of thought contains disagreements within it — rival schools, dissenting commentators, practices questioned by insiders long before outsiders arrived to criticise them.
India's intellectual history offers many instances. Philosophical schools debated the nature of knowledge, the self and the world for centuries, each expected to state its opponent's view in its strongest form before attempting to refute it. Devotional poets questioned the authority of ritual and of birth. Such debates were not departures from tradition; they were the tradition, carried on as a continuing argument.
To see a tradition in this way changes the question one asks of it. Instead of "Should we keep it or discard it?", one may ask "Which strands within it deserve to be carried forward, and on what grounds?" This does not make every choice easy, and it does not guarantee that what is retained will be wise. But it frees a society from the false choice between reverence and rejection, and it allows reform to draw on resources from within rather than always appearing as an imposition from outside.
What does the author mean by "the false choice between reverence and rejection"?
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Answer: B — A tradition is wrongly presented as something that must be accepted or rejected whole.
The choice is "false" because it offers only two options — keep the bundle or discard it — when the passage has shown a third: selecting which strands to carry forward and on what grounds. Option A turns the phrase into a claim about individuals that the passage never makes, and C and D add ideas absent from it.Passage 11. Read the passage below and answer the questions that follow on the basis of the passage alone.
Much public discussion of integrity concentrates on corruption in its plainest form: money exchanged for favours. Laws against bribery are necessary, and their enforcement matters. Yet a public servant can obey every such law and still fail in the duty owed to citizens. An officer who delays a file because the applicant was rude, who extends to an influential caller a courtesy he denies to an ordinary one, or who signs whatever his superiors want without examining it, has taken no bribe. He has nonetheless placed something other than the public interest at the centre of his decisions.
Integrity in this fuller sense is less a matter of avoiding particular acts than of the reasons for which one acts. It requires impartiality towards those one serves, the courage to record disagreement when an instruction appears wrong, and the humility to recognise that public office is held in trust rather than owned. These qualities are hard to legislate. A rule can forbid a gift; it cannot compel an official to treat an unlettered villager with the same seriousness as a lawyer.
Institutions can nevertheless make such conduct more or less likely. Where honest dissent is punished and compliance rewarded, officials learn silence. Where those who raise uncomfortable questions are protected, and where advancement depends partly on how citizens are treated, the space for integrity widens. Character is formed by individuals, but it is sustained — or worn down — by the organisations in which they work.
Which one of the following best reflects the crux of the passage?
Show answer
Answer: D — Integrity goes beyond avoiding illegal acts, and institutions influence whether it thrives.
The first two paragraphs argue that integrity concerns the reasons for action, not only avoiding bribery; the third that organisations sustain or wear down such conduct. Option D holds both. Option C is the tempting one, but the passage says these qualities "are hard to legislate" — a rule can forbid a gift but cannot compel equal seriousness. Option A contradicts "laws against bribery are necessary", and B generalises the examples to "most" officials.Passage 11. Read the passage below and answer the questions that follow on the basis of the passage alone.
Much public discussion of integrity concentrates on corruption in its plainest form: money exchanged for favours. Laws against bribery are necessary, and their enforcement matters. Yet a public servant can obey every such law and still fail in the duty owed to citizens. An officer who delays a file because the applicant was rude, who extends to an influential caller a courtesy he denies to an ordinary one, or who signs whatever his superiors want without examining it, has taken no bribe. He has nonetheless placed something other than the public interest at the centre of his decisions.
Integrity in this fuller sense is less a matter of avoiding particular acts than of the reasons for which one acts. It requires impartiality towards those one serves, the courage to record disagreement when an instruction appears wrong, and the humility to recognise that public office is held in trust rather than owned. These qualities are hard to legislate. A rule can forbid a gift; it cannot compel an official to treat an unlettered villager with the same seriousness as a lawyer.
Institutions can nevertheless make such conduct more or less likely. Where honest dissent is punished and compliance rewarded, officials learn silence. Where those who raise uncomfortable questions are protected, and where advancement depends partly on how citizens are treated, the space for integrity widens. Character is formed by individuals, but it is sustained — or worn down — by the organisations in which they work.
With reference to the passage, the following assumptions have been made: 1. Treating all citizens impartially is part of the duty of a public servant. 2. The conduct of officials is influenced by what their organisations reward and punish. Which of the above assumptions is/are valid?
Show answer
Answer: C — Both 1 and 2
Both are valid. The officer who extends courtesy to an influential caller but not an ordinary one is said to fail in his duty though he took no bribe — which presumes impartiality is part of that duty (statement 1). The last paragraph rests on statement 2: where dissent is punished and compliance rewarded, "officials learn silence". Choosing "2 only" overlooks that the first paragraph's examples need statement 1.Passage 11. Read the passage below and answer the questions that follow on the basis of the passage alone.
Much public discussion of integrity concentrates on corruption in its plainest form: money exchanged for favours. Laws against bribery are necessary, and their enforcement matters. Yet a public servant can obey every such law and still fail in the duty owed to citizens. An officer who delays a file because the applicant was rude, who extends to an influential caller a courtesy he denies to an ordinary one, or who signs whatever his superiors want without examining it, has taken no bribe. He has nonetheless placed something other than the public interest at the centre of his decisions.
Integrity in this fuller sense is less a matter of avoiding particular acts than of the reasons for which one acts. It requires impartiality towards those one serves, the courage to record disagreement when an instruction appears wrong, and the humility to recognise that public office is held in trust rather than owned. These qualities are hard to legislate. A rule can forbid a gift; it cannot compel an official to treat an unlettered villager with the same seriousness as a lawyer.
Institutions can nevertheless make such conduct more or less likely. Where honest dissent is punished and compliance rewarded, officials learn silence. Where those who raise uncomfortable questions are protected, and where advancement depends partly on how citizens are treated, the space for integrity widens. Character is formed by individuals, but it is sustained — or worn down — by the organisations in which they work.
Which one of the following would the author regard as a lapse of integrity even though no law is broken?
Show answer
Answer: B — Taking up the file of a well-connected applicant ahead of others who applied earlier
Favouring a well-connected applicant mirrors the passage's example of extending to an influential caller "a courtesy he denies to an ordinary one" — no bribe, but a failure of impartiality. Option A is a lapse, but one that breaks the law, so it fails the question's condition. Recording disagreement (C) and declining a gift (D) are things the passage presents as marks of integrity.Passage 12. Read the passage below and answer the questions that follow on the basis of the passage alone.
Governments that wish to support poor households must decide whether to give them goods and services or money. In-kind support — subsidised grain, free school meals, public health care — ensures that assistance takes a particular form, which is attractive when society wants to guarantee a minimum of nutrition or schooling whatever a household might otherwise choose. Cash, by contrast, respects the recipient's own judgement about her needs, which may differ from those imagined by an official far away, and it avoids the costs of storing, transporting and distributing goods.
Each option has characteristic weaknesses. In-kind schemes can suffer leakage as goods are diverted before they reach the intended beneficiaries, and they may distort local markets. Cash transfers depend on reliable banking and identification systems; where these are weak, the poorest may find it hardest to receive what they are entitled to. Cash also loses value when prices rise unless the amount is revised, whereas a fixed quantity of grain keeps its usefulness.
Debates on this question are often conducted as if one approach must be right everywhere. Experience suggests otherwise. Where markets work well and payment systems reach remote villages, cash may serve households better. Where markets are thin, prices volatile or financial access limited, in-kind support may offer more security. The choice is less a matter of principle than of circumstance, and many countries combine the two.
Which one of the following best reflects the central idea of the passage?
Show answer
Answer: A — Whether cash or in-kind support suits a place depends on conditions such as markets and financial access.
After setting out the merits and weaknesses of each, the passage concludes that the choice is "less a matter of principle than of circumstance" and that many countries combine the two. Option B is the tempting one-sided reading: respect for recipients' judgement is a real advantage named in the passage, but "in every circumstance" is exactly what the last paragraph denies. Leakage is one weakness among several, not a reason for abolition (C).Passage 12. Read the passage below and answer the questions that follow on the basis of the passage alone.
Governments that wish to support poor households must decide whether to give them goods and services or money. In-kind support — subsidised grain, free school meals, public health care — ensures that assistance takes a particular form, which is attractive when society wants to guarantee a minimum of nutrition or schooling whatever a household might otherwise choose. Cash, by contrast, respects the recipient's own judgement about her needs, which may differ from those imagined by an official far away, and it avoids the costs of storing, transporting and distributing goods.
Each option has characteristic weaknesses. In-kind schemes can suffer leakage as goods are diverted before they reach the intended beneficiaries, and they may distort local markets. Cash transfers depend on reliable banking and identification systems; where these are weak, the poorest may find it hardest to receive what they are entitled to. Cash also loses value when prices rise unless the amount is revised, whereas a fixed quantity of grain keeps its usefulness.
Debates on this question are often conducted as if one approach must be right everywhere. Experience suggests otherwise. Where markets work well and payment systems reach remote villages, cash may serve households better. Where markets are thin, prices volatile or financial access limited, in-kind support may offer more security. The choice is less a matter of principle than of circumstance, and many countries combine the two.
According to the passage, which one of the following is an advantage of in-kind support over cash?
Show answer
Answer: D — It keeps its usefulness when prices rise.
The passage says cash "loses value when prices rise unless the amount is revised, whereas a fixed quantity of grain keeps its usefulness". Options A and B are advantages the passage attributes to cash, not to in-kind support — the classic swapped-attribute trap. Option C is the reverse of the leakage weakness the passage assigns to in-kind schemes.Passage 12. Read the passage below and answer the questions that follow on the basis of the passage alone.
Governments that wish to support poor households must decide whether to give them goods and services or money. In-kind support — subsidised grain, free school meals, public health care — ensures that assistance takes a particular form, which is attractive when society wants to guarantee a minimum of nutrition or schooling whatever a household might otherwise choose. Cash, by contrast, respects the recipient's own judgement about her needs, which may differ from those imagined by an official far away, and it avoids the costs of storing, transporting and distributing goods.
Each option has characteristic weaknesses. In-kind schemes can suffer leakage as goods are diverted before they reach the intended beneficiaries, and they may distort local markets. Cash transfers depend on reliable banking and identification systems; where these are weak, the poorest may find it hardest to receive what they are entitled to. Cash also loses value when prices rise unless the amount is revised, whereas a fixed quantity of grain keeps its usefulness.
Debates on this question are often conducted as if one approach must be right everywhere. Experience suggests otherwise. Where markets work well and payment systems reach remote villages, cash may serve households better. Where markets are thin, prices volatile or financial access limited, in-kind support may offer more security. The choice is less a matter of principle than of circumstance, and many countries combine the two.
With reference to the passage, the following assumptions have been made: 1. A household may sometimes judge its own needs better than a distant official. 2. Access to banking and identification is uniform across all regions. Which of the above assumptions is/are valid?
Show answer
Answer: A — 1 only
Statement 1 is what gives the case for cash its force: the recipient's needs "may differ from those imagined by an official far away". Statement 2 is contradicted — the passage warns that where banking and identification systems are weak, the poorest may struggle to receive cash, and its conclusion depends on conditions differing from place to place.Passage 12. Read the passage below and answer the questions that follow on the basis of the passage alone.
Governments that wish to support poor households must decide whether to give them goods and services or money. In-kind support — subsidised grain, free school meals, public health care — ensures that assistance takes a particular form, which is attractive when society wants to guarantee a minimum of nutrition or schooling whatever a household might otherwise choose. Cash, by contrast, respects the recipient's own judgement about her needs, which may differ from those imagined by an official far away, and it avoids the costs of storing, transporting and distributing goods.
Each option has characteristic weaknesses. In-kind schemes can suffer leakage as goods are diverted before they reach the intended beneficiaries, and they may distort local markets. Cash transfers depend on reliable banking and identification systems; where these are weak, the poorest may find it hardest to receive what they are entitled to. Cash also loses value when prices rise unless the amount is revised, whereas a fixed quantity of grain keeps its usefulness.
Debates on this question are often conducted as if one approach must be right everywhere. Experience suggests otherwise. Where markets work well and payment systems reach remote villages, cash may serve households better. Where markets are thin, prices volatile or financial access limited, in-kind support may offer more security. The choice is less a matter of principle than of circumstance, and many countries combine the two.
The statement that the choice is "less a matter of principle than of circumstance" implies that
Show answer
Answer: B — the decision should rest on practical conditions on the ground rather than a fixed doctrine
The sentence follows the observation that cash suits places with working markets and payment systems and in-kind support suits places without them, so the choice should follow conditions rather than a doctrine applied everywhere. Option C stretches "less a matter of principle" into "no place for principles", which the passage does not say; D ignores the care the passage takes over the choice.Passage 13. Read the passage below and answer the questions that follow on the basis of the passage alone.
One influential way of protecting nature is to put a price on it. Wetlands filter water and absorb floods; forests hold soil and store carbon; insects pollinate crops. When such services are left out of economic calculations, the argument runs, they are treated as worth nothing, and land is turned to uses whose benefits appear in the accounts while the losses do not. Estimating the money value of these services makes visible what had been invisible, and can persuade decision-makers who speak only the language of costs and benefits.
The approach has won real victories. Some cities have found it cheaper to protect the forests around their reservoirs than to build treatment plants, and coastal authorities have preserved mangroves once their value as storm barriers was reckoned. But the method has limits. Much of what people value in nature — the survival of a species, the beauty of a landscape, the sacred character of a grove — resists translation into money, and the figures produced for it can be little more than guesses. More troubling, once nature is valued only in money, it can be traded away whenever a project promises a larger sum.
For these reasons, monetary valuation is perhaps best treated as one tool among several rather than as the final arbiter. It is useful where it reveals hidden costs, but it should sit alongside legal protection for whatever a society decides should not be for sale, and alongside the voices of communities whose relationship with a place cannot be captured in a price.
Which one of the following best reflects the author's position on putting a money value on nature?
Show answer
Answer: C — It is a useful but incomplete tool that should work alongside legal protection and community voices.
The passage credits valuation with "real victories", lists its limits, and concludes that it is "best treated as one tool among several rather than as the final arbiter". Option A is the tempting overstatement of the limits: the author says some values resist pricing, not that valuation should be dropped. Option B contradicts the point that some figures are "little more than guesses", and D is a stance the passage never takes.Passage 13. Read the passage below and answer the questions that follow on the basis of the passage alone.
One influential way of protecting nature is to put a price on it. Wetlands filter water and absorb floods; forests hold soil and store carbon; insects pollinate crops. When such services are left out of economic calculations, the argument runs, they are treated as worth nothing, and land is turned to uses whose benefits appear in the accounts while the losses do not. Estimating the money value of these services makes visible what had been invisible, and can persuade decision-makers who speak only the language of costs and benefits.
The approach has won real victories. Some cities have found it cheaper to protect the forests around their reservoirs than to build treatment plants, and coastal authorities have preserved mangroves once their value as storm barriers was reckoned. But the method has limits. Much of what people value in nature — the survival of a species, the beauty of a landscape, the sacred character of a grove — resists translation into money, and the figures produced for it can be little more than guesses. More troubling, once nature is valued only in money, it can be traded away whenever a project promises a larger sum.
For these reasons, monetary valuation is perhaps best treated as one tool among several rather than as the final arbiter. It is useful where it reveals hidden costs, but it should sit alongside legal protection for whatever a society decides should not be for sale, and alongside the voices of communities whose relationship with a place cannot be captured in a price.
With reference to the passage, the following assumptions have been made: 1. Putting a money value on an ecosystem always leads to its conservation. 2. What is left out of economic calculations tends to be undervalued in decisions about how land is used. Which of the above assumptions is/are valid?
Show answer
Answer: B — 2 only
Statement 2 is the premise of the whole case for valuation: services left out of the accounts "are treated as worth nothing" and land is converted to uses whose benefits alone appear. Statement 1 is contradicted by the passage's "more troubling" point — once nature is valued only in money it "can be traded away whenever a project promises a larger sum". The word "always" marks it as too strong.Passage 13. Read the passage below and answer the questions that follow on the basis of the passage alone.
One influential way of protecting nature is to put a price on it. Wetlands filter water and absorb floods; forests hold soil and store carbon; insects pollinate crops. When such services are left out of economic calculations, the argument runs, they are treated as worth nothing, and land is turned to uses whose benefits appear in the accounts while the losses do not. Estimating the money value of these services makes visible what had been invisible, and can persuade decision-makers who speak only the language of costs and benefits.
The approach has won real victories. Some cities have found it cheaper to protect the forests around their reservoirs than to build treatment plants, and coastal authorities have preserved mangroves once their value as storm barriers was reckoned. But the method has limits. Much of what people value in nature — the survival of a species, the beauty of a landscape, the sacred character of a grove — resists translation into money, and the figures produced for it can be little more than guesses. More troubling, once nature is valued only in money, it can be traded away whenever a project promises a larger sum.
For these reasons, monetary valuation is perhaps best treated as one tool among several rather than as the final arbiter. It is useful where it reveals hidden costs, but it should sit alongside legal protection for whatever a society decides should not be for sale, and alongside the voices of communities whose relationship with a place cannot be captured in a price.
Which one of the following does the author describe as the "more troubling" limitation of monetary valuation?
Show answer
Answer: D — Nature valued only in money can be sacrificed whenever a larger sum is on offer.
The words "More troubling" introduce the risk that nature valued only in money "can be traded away whenever a project promises a larger sum". Option A is the trap: it is a genuine limitation the passage names, but the one that comes just before, not the one it calls more troubling. Options B and C misstate or invent details.Passage 14. Read the passage below and answer the questions that follow on the basis of the passage alone.
Democratic politics is often accused of short-sightedness. Governments face voters every few years, and the benefits of a policy that bears fruit after two decades will go to their successors, while its costs fall within their own term. Investment in soil health, groundwater recharge, early-childhood nutrition or basic research is therefore easy to postpone. Future citizens, who will bear the consequences, have no vote today.
It would be wrong, however, to conclude that only an authority free from elections could take the long view. Unaccountable rulers have their own reasons to neglect the future, including the need to reward the narrow group that keeps them in power, and they lack the corrective that public criticism provides. Short-termism is a temptation of power in general rather than a defect peculiar to democracy.
Democracies have, in fact, developed several devices to lengthen their horizon. Constitutions place certain commitments beyond the reach of ordinary majorities. Independent institutions are given mandates that outlast the electoral cycle. Statutory targets bind successive governments, and requirements to assess the long-term effects of legislation bring distant consequences into present debate. None of these devices is foolproof; each can be weakened by a determined majority. But they suggest that the remedy for short-sighted politics lies in better design of democratic institutions, not in their abandonment.
Which one of the following best reflects the central idea of the passage?
Show answer
Answer: D — Short-termism is a temptation of all power, and democracies can counter it through institutional design.
The passage grants the charge of short-sightedness, argues that it is "a temptation of power in general rather than a defect peculiar to democracy", and concludes that the remedy lies in "better design of democratic institutions". Option B is the conclusion the second paragraph explicitly calls wrong. Option A takes the opening accusation as the author's view, and C contradicts the point that constitutions place commitments beyond ordinary majorities.Passage 14. Read the passage below and answer the questions that follow on the basis of the passage alone.
Democratic politics is often accused of short-sightedness. Governments face voters every few years, and the benefits of a policy that bears fruit after two decades will go to their successors, while its costs fall within their own term. Investment in soil health, groundwater recharge, early-childhood nutrition or basic research is therefore easy to postpone. Future citizens, who will bear the consequences, have no vote today.
It would be wrong, however, to conclude that only an authority free from elections could take the long view. Unaccountable rulers have their own reasons to neglect the future, including the need to reward the narrow group that keeps them in power, and they lack the corrective that public criticism provides. Short-termism is a temptation of power in general rather than a defect peculiar to democracy.
Democracies have, in fact, developed several devices to lengthen their horizon. Constitutions place certain commitments beyond the reach of ordinary majorities. Independent institutions are given mandates that outlast the electoral cycle. Statutory targets bind successive governments, and requirements to assess the long-term effects of legislation bring distant consequences into present debate. None of these devices is foolproof; each can be weakened by a determined majority. But they suggest that the remedy for short-sighted politics lies in better design of democratic institutions, not in their abandonment.
With reference to the passage, the following assumptions have been made: 1. Policies whose benefits arrive late tend to receive less political priority than their merit deserves. 2. Public criticism can help correct a government's neglect of the future. Which of the above assumptions is/are valid?
Show answer
Answer: C — Both 1 and 2
Both are valid. Statement 1 is the basis of the opening paragraph: investments that bear fruit after two decades are "easy to postpone" because their benefits go to successors. Statement 2 underlies the argument against unaccountable rulers, who "lack the corrective that public criticism provides" — a point that only counts against them if such criticism does correct neglect.Passage 14. Read the passage below and answer the questions that follow on the basis of the passage alone.
Democratic politics is often accused of short-sightedness. Governments face voters every few years, and the benefits of a policy that bears fruit after two decades will go to their successors, while its costs fall within their own term. Investment in soil health, groundwater recharge, early-childhood nutrition or basic research is therefore easy to postpone. Future citizens, who will bear the consequences, have no vote today.
It would be wrong, however, to conclude that only an authority free from elections could take the long view. Unaccountable rulers have their own reasons to neglect the future, including the need to reward the narrow group that keeps them in power, and they lack the corrective that public criticism provides. Short-termism is a temptation of power in general rather than a defect peculiar to democracy.
Democracies have, in fact, developed several devices to lengthen their horizon. Constitutions place certain commitments beyond the reach of ordinary majorities. Independent institutions are given mandates that outlast the electoral cycle. Statutory targets bind successive governments, and requirements to assess the long-term effects of legislation bring distant consequences into present debate. None of these devices is foolproof; each can be weakened by a determined majority. But they suggest that the remedy for short-sighted politics lies in better design of democratic institutions, not in their abandonment.
In the context of the passage, the expression "to lengthen their horizon" means
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Answer: A — to make decisions take account of consequences further in the future
The devices that follow — commitments beyond ordinary majorities, mandates outlasting the electoral cycle, statutory targets, long-term impact assessments — all bring distant consequences into present decisions. Option B is the tempting literal reading, but none of the devices lengthens a government's term; they work around the electoral cycle instead. Territory (C) and the franchise (D) are not discussed.Passage 15. Read the passage below and answer the questions that follow on the basis of the passage alone.
When electricity for irrigation pumps is supplied free or at a flat charge unrelated to use, the farmer who draws water pays nothing for the last hour of pumping. The policy is usually defended as support for cultivators who live close to the margin, and its political appeal is easy to see. Its effects on the water table are less visible but no less real. Each farmer has every reason to pump for as long as the supply lasts, though the aquifer beneath the village is shared by all, and the well that runs dry first is usually that of the smallest farmer, who cannot afford to drill deeper.
Removing the support abruptly would hurt the very households it was meant to help, and few governments would survive the attempt. A more promising route separates the support from the act of pumping. A farmer might, for instance, receive a fixed sum each season while power is metered and charged; one who saves water then keeps the difference. The support remains, but it no longer rewards using more of a resource that is running out. Such schemes depend on reliable metering and on farmers trusting that the promised sum will actually arrive — conditions that cannot be taken for granted.
Which one of the following best reflects the crux of the passage?
Show answer
Answer: B — Support to farmers can be kept while ending its link to the amount of water pumped.
The passage blames flat-rate power for over-pumping, rejects abrupt withdrawal, and proposes a fixed seasonal sum with metered power, so that "the support remains, but it no longer rewards using more". Option A is the tempting half: the passage does blame free power for depletion, but says removing it abruptly "would hurt the very households it was meant to help". Option C reverses the passage — the small farmer is the first victim, not the cause — and D turns a stated condition (reliable metering) into an impossibility the passage never asserts.Passage 15. Read the passage below and answer the questions that follow on the basis of the passage alone.
When electricity for irrigation pumps is supplied free or at a flat charge unrelated to use, the farmer who draws water pays nothing for the last hour of pumping. The policy is usually defended as support for cultivators who live close to the margin, and its political appeal is easy to see. Its effects on the water table are less visible but no less real. Each farmer has every reason to pump for as long as the supply lasts, though the aquifer beneath the village is shared by all, and the well that runs dry first is usually that of the smallest farmer, who cannot afford to drill deeper.
Removing the support abruptly would hurt the very households it was meant to help, and few governments would survive the attempt. A more promising route separates the support from the act of pumping. A farmer might, for instance, receive a fixed sum each season while power is metered and charged; one who saves water then keeps the difference. The support remains, but it no longer rewards using more of a resource that is running out. Such schemes depend on reliable metering and on farmers trusting that the promised sum will actually arrive — conditions that cannot be taken for granted.
With reference to the passage, the following assumptions have been made: 1. A farmer's decision on how long to pump is influenced by what the extra pumping costs him. 2. Groundwater beneath a village is replenished as fast as it is drawn. Which of the above assumptions is/are valid?
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Answer: A — 1 only
Statement 1 is assumed: the complaint against flat charges is that the last hour of pumping costs nothing, and the remedy works because a farmer who saves water "keeps the difference" — both points hold only if cost affects how long a farmer pumps. Statement 2 is contradicted, not assumed: the passage speaks of "a resource that is running out" and of wells running dry.Passage 15. Read the passage below and answer the questions that follow on the basis of the passage alone.
When electricity for irrigation pumps is supplied free or at a flat charge unrelated to use, the farmer who draws water pays nothing for the last hour of pumping. The policy is usually defended as support for cultivators who live close to the margin, and its political appeal is easy to see. Its effects on the water table are less visible but no less real. Each farmer has every reason to pump for as long as the supply lasts, though the aquifer beneath the village is shared by all, and the well that runs dry first is usually that of the smallest farmer, who cannot afford to drill deeper.
Removing the support abruptly would hurt the very households it was meant to help, and few governments would survive the attempt. A more promising route separates the support from the act of pumping. A farmer might, for instance, receive a fixed sum each season while power is metered and charged; one who saves water then keeps the difference. The support remains, but it no longer rewards using more of a resource that is running out. Such schemes depend on reliable metering and on farmers trusting that the promised sum will actually arrive — conditions that cannot be taken for granted.
Which one of the following can be most logically inferred from the passage about the burden of a falling water table?
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Answer: C — It falls hardest on those least able to drill deeper wells.
The passage says the well that runs dry first "is usually that of the smallest farmer, who cannot afford to drill deeper", so the burden is unequal and heaviest on the poorest. Option A is the trap: the aquifer is "shared by all", but sharing the resource does not mean sharing the harm equally — the passage says the opposite. Option D overreaches: metering is one condition of a proposed scheme, and nothing says the burden then vanishes.Passage 15. Read the passage below and answer the questions that follow on the basis of the passage alone.
When electricity for irrigation pumps is supplied free or at a flat charge unrelated to use, the farmer who draws water pays nothing for the last hour of pumping. The policy is usually defended as support for cultivators who live close to the margin, and its political appeal is easy to see. Its effects on the water table are less visible but no less real. Each farmer has every reason to pump for as long as the supply lasts, though the aquifer beneath the village is shared by all, and the well that runs dry first is usually that of the smallest farmer, who cannot afford to drill deeper.
Removing the support abruptly would hurt the very households it was meant to help, and few governments would survive the attempt. A more promising route separates the support from the act of pumping. A farmer might, for instance, receive a fixed sum each season while power is metered and charged; one who saves water then keeps the difference. The support remains, but it no longer rewards using more of a resource that is running out. Such schemes depend on reliable metering and on farmers trusting that the promised sum will actually arrive — conditions that cannot be taken for granted.
As used in the passage, the phrase "live close to the margin" refers to people who
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Answer: B — have incomes barely sufficient for their needs
The phrase describes the cultivators whom free power is defended as supporting, and whose households would be hurt if it were withdrawn abruptly — people with little to spare. Option A is the literal trap, reading "margin" as a physical edge of the village; nothing in the passage concerns where the land lies.Passage 16. Read the passage below and answer the questions that follow on the basis of the passage alone.
Counting trees is easier than understanding forests. Satellite images can show, with growing precision, how much of a region lies under tree canopy, and a rising figure is readily announced as a sign of ecological health. But a canopy of a single fast-growing species planted in rows is not the same thing as a natural forest, even when the two look alike from above. The plantation may store carbon and yield timber, yet it often shelters only a fraction of the birds, insects and plants that the older forest supported, and it may draw more water from the soil.
The difficulty is not that plantations are worthless; on degraded land they can hold the soil and provide an income. It is that a single measure, once it becomes a target, begins to shape behaviour. If officials are judged by tree cover alone, it becomes rational to clear a diverse but scrubby woodland and replant it with a uniform crop that photographs well. What is counted is attended to, and what is not counted may be quietly lost. Sound environmental accounting therefore needs several indicators at once — the variety of life a landscape supports, the health of its soil and water, the needs of those who depend on it — rather than one convenient number.
Which one of the following best expresses the central idea of the passage?
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Answer: D — A single measure of ecological health can distort what is protected.
The passage moves from the gap between canopy and forest to its real point: a single measure, once it becomes a target, shapes behaviour, so environmental accounting needs several indicators at once. Option A is the tempting overreach — the passage says plantations are "not worthless" and can hold soil and provide an income on degraded land. Option B contradicts the passage, which credits satellites with growing precision; the problem is what is measured, not how accurately.Passage 16. Read the passage below and answer the questions that follow on the basis of the passage alone.
Counting trees is easier than understanding forests. Satellite images can show, with growing precision, how much of a region lies under tree canopy, and a rising figure is readily announced as a sign of ecological health. But a canopy of a single fast-growing species planted in rows is not the same thing as a natural forest, even when the two look alike from above. The plantation may store carbon and yield timber, yet it often shelters only a fraction of the birds, insects and plants that the older forest supported, and it may draw more water from the soil.
The difficulty is not that plantations are worthless; on degraded land they can hold the soil and provide an income. It is that a single measure, once it becomes a target, begins to shape behaviour. If officials are judged by tree cover alone, it becomes rational to clear a diverse but scrubby woodland and replant it with a uniform crop that photographs well. What is counted is attended to, and what is not counted may be quietly lost. Sound environmental accounting therefore needs several indicators at once — the variety of life a landscape supports, the health of its soil and water, the needs of those who depend on it — rather than one convenient number.
Which one of the following is the most logical inference from the passage?
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Answer: A — A rise in tree cover need not mean a rise in the variety of life a region supports.
A uniform canopy "often shelters only a fraction" of the species of an older forest, so a rising canopy figure can coexist with lost diversity. Option B is the trap: the passage says clearing scrub to replant becomes "rational" for officials judged by tree cover alone — it describes an incentive, not falsified figures. Option D compares carbon storage, which the passage never does, and C contradicts its remark that plantations can hold the soil on degraded land.Passage 16. Read the passage below and answer the questions that follow on the basis of the passage alone.
Counting trees is easier than understanding forests. Satellite images can show, with growing precision, how much of a region lies under tree canopy, and a rising figure is readily announced as a sign of ecological health. But a canopy of a single fast-growing species planted in rows is not the same thing as a natural forest, even when the two look alike from above. The plantation may store carbon and yield timber, yet it often shelters only a fraction of the birds, insects and plants that the older forest supported, and it may draw more water from the soil.
The difficulty is not that plantations are worthless; on degraded land they can hold the soil and provide an income. It is that a single measure, once it becomes a target, begins to shape behaviour. If officials are judged by tree cover alone, it becomes rational to clear a diverse but scrubby woodland and replant it with a uniform crop that photographs well. What is counted is attended to, and what is not counted may be quietly lost. Sound environmental accounting therefore needs several indicators at once — the variety of life a landscape supports, the health of its soil and water, the needs of those who depend on it — rather than one convenient number.
With reference to the passage, the following assumptions have been made: 1. People tend to adjust their conduct to the measures by which their performance is judged. 2. The appearance of a landscape from above can be a misleading guide to its ecological value. Which of the above assumptions is/are valid?
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Answer: C — Both 1 and 2
Both are valid. Statement 1 underlies the claim that a measure, once a target, "begins to shape behaviour", and the example of officials judged by tree cover alone. Statement 2 is needed for the criticism of satellite counting to work at all: a plantation and a natural forest "look alike from above" yet differ greatly in the life they support.Passage 17. Read the passage below and answer the questions that follow on the basis of the passage alone.
Decentralisation is often judged by the number of subjects formally handed to local bodies. By that test many village and town councils appear powerful: the law lists sanitation, water supply, local roads, primary health and much else among their responsibilities. In practice, a responsibility without the money to discharge it and the staff to carry it out is little more than an entry on paper. A council that must wait for grants tied to schemes designed elsewhere, and that can neither appoint nor discipline the engineer who builds its drains, is less a government than an agent of the departments above it.
Higher levels of government have their reasons for holding back. They fear that local bodies lack capacity, that funds will be misused, or that powerful local interests will capture the councils. These fears are not imaginary. But capacity is rarely built by withholding responsibility; it grows when people are allowed to take decisions, make mistakes and answer for them to those who elected them. A council that is never trusted with real choices can hardly be blamed for failing to make good ones.
What is the main message that the author seeks to convey?
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Answer: A — Local bodies must be given money and staff along with functions if decentralisation is to be real.
The passage argues that a responsibility without money and staff is "little more than an entry on paper", and that capacity grows only when councils are trusted with real choices. Option B is the trap: the author concedes that the fear of capture is "not imaginary" but rejects withholding as the cure. Option C is the test the first sentence sets up only to reject, and D overstates — the passage objects to grants "tied to schemes designed elsewhere", not to grants as such.Passage 17. Read the passage below and answer the questions that follow on the basis of the passage alone.
Decentralisation is often judged by the number of subjects formally handed to local bodies. By that test many village and town councils appear powerful: the law lists sanitation, water supply, local roads, primary health and much else among their responsibilities. In practice, a responsibility without the money to discharge it and the staff to carry it out is little more than an entry on paper. A council that must wait for grants tied to schemes designed elsewhere, and that can neither appoint nor discipline the engineer who builds its drains, is less a government than an agent of the departments above it.
Higher levels of government have their reasons for holding back. They fear that local bodies lack capacity, that funds will be misused, or that powerful local interests will capture the councils. These fears are not imaginary. But capacity is rarely built by withholding responsibility; it grows when people are allowed to take decisions, make mistakes and answer for them to those who elected them. A council that is never trusted with real choices can hardly be blamed for failing to make good ones.
With reference to the passage, the following assumptions have been made: 1. Higher levels of government have no genuine grounds for hesitating to devolve power. 2. The experience of taking decisions and answering for them helps to build the capacity to govern. Which of the above assumptions is/are valid?
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Answer: B — 2 only
Statement 2 is what the second paragraph rests on: capacity "grows when people are allowed to take decisions, make mistakes and answer for them". Statement 1 is contradicted, since the author says the fears of higher governments "are not imaginary"; the argument is that withholding does not cure those fears, not that they are groundless.Passage 17. Read the passage below and answer the questions that follow on the basis of the passage alone.
Decentralisation is often judged by the number of subjects formally handed to local bodies. By that test many village and town councils appear powerful: the law lists sanitation, water supply, local roads, primary health and much else among their responsibilities. In practice, a responsibility without the money to discharge it and the staff to carry it out is little more than an entry on paper. A council that must wait for grants tied to schemes designed elsewhere, and that can neither appoint nor discipline the engineer who builds its drains, is less a government than an agent of the departments above it.
Higher levels of government have their reasons for holding back. They fear that local bodies lack capacity, that funds will be misused, or that powerful local interests will capture the councils. These fears are not imaginary. But capacity is rarely built by withholding responsibility; it grows when people are allowed to take decisions, make mistakes and answer for them to those who elected them. A council that is never trusted with real choices can hardly be blamed for failing to make good ones.
In the passage, the expression "an agent of the departments above it" suggests that such a council
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Answer: C — carries out decisions made elsewhere rather than making its own
The expression completes the contrast "less a government than…": a council that waits for scheme-tied grants and cannot control its own engineer carries out others' decisions. Option A borrows a fear from the second paragraph, but capture by local interests is the opposite of dependence on higher departments. Option D misreads "agent" as a statement about how the council is chosen, which the passage never discusses.Passage 18. Read the passage below and answer the questions that follow on the basis of the passage alone.
Parents of modest means often make great sacrifices to send their children to schools that teach in English, and it is easy to see why. English is associated with better-paid work, with higher education and with the confidence of those who already hold power. To tell such parents that their children would learn better in their mother tongue can sound like advice from people whose own children are safely bilingual.
Yet the evidence on early learning is hard to ignore. A child who first meets reading and arithmetic in a language she does not speak at home must decode the language and the idea at the same time, and many end up memorising sentences they do not understand. Children who build a firm foundation in a familiar language generally find it easier to learn a second language later, because the skills of reading carry over. The real choice, then, is not between the mother tongue and English but between a sequence that builds one on the other and a shortcut that may deliver neither. The task for policy is to offer good teaching of English within schools that begin in the child's own language, so that parents are not forced to choose between understanding and opportunity.
Which one of the following best reflects the crux of the passage?
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Answer: C — Beginning school in the mother tongue and teaching English well need not be in conflict.
The passage turns an apparent either-or into a sequence: begin in the familiar language, build English on it, and offer good English teaching within such schools "so that parents are not forced to choose". Option A is the trap: the author treats the parents' choice as understandable — "it is easy to see why" — and faults the forced choice, not them. Option B invents a timetable the passage never sets; it asks for good English teaching within mother-tongue schools, not for postponing it.Passage 18. Read the passage below and answer the questions that follow on the basis of the passage alone.
Parents of modest means often make great sacrifices to send their children to schools that teach in English, and it is easy to see why. English is associated with better-paid work, with higher education and with the confidence of those who already hold power. To tell such parents that their children would learn better in their mother tongue can sound like advice from people whose own children are safely bilingual.
Yet the evidence on early learning is hard to ignore. A child who first meets reading and arithmetic in a language she does not speak at home must decode the language and the idea at the same time, and many end up memorising sentences they do not understand. Children who build a firm foundation in a familiar language generally find it easier to learn a second language later, because the skills of reading carry over. The real choice, then, is not between the mother tongue and English but between a sequence that builds one on the other and a shortcut that may deliver neither. The task for policy is to offer good teaching of English within schools that begin in the child's own language, so that parents are not forced to choose between understanding and opportunity.
On the basis of the passage, which one of the following is the most logical inference about children who first learn in a language not spoken at home?
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Answer: A — They may learn to repeat sentences without grasping what those sentences mean.
The passage says such a child must decode language and idea together, and "many end up memorising sentences they do not understand". Option B turns a risk into a certainty with "never" — the passage speaks of what many children do, not of what all must. Option D reverses the passage, which says it is children with a firm foundation in a familiar language who find a second language easier.Passage 18. Read the passage below and answer the questions that follow on the basis of the passage alone.
Parents of modest means often make great sacrifices to send their children to schools that teach in English, and it is easy to see why. English is associated with better-paid work, with higher education and with the confidence of those who already hold power. To tell such parents that their children would learn better in their mother tongue can sound like advice from people whose own children are safely bilingual.
Yet the evidence on early learning is hard to ignore. A child who first meets reading and arithmetic in a language she does not speak at home must decode the language and the idea at the same time, and many end up memorising sentences they do not understand. Children who build a firm foundation in a familiar language generally find it easier to learn a second language later, because the skills of reading carry over. The real choice, then, is not between the mother tongue and English but between a sequence that builds one on the other and a shortcut that may deliver neither. The task for policy is to offer good teaching of English within schools that begin in the child's own language, so that parents are not forced to choose between understanding and opportunity.
With reference to the passage, the following assumptions have been made: 1. Children taught first in their mother tongue cannot later learn English well. 2. Most parents who choose English-medium schools are themselves fluent in English. Which of the above assumptions is/are valid?
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Answer: D — Neither 1 nor 2
Neither is assumed. Statement 1 contradicts the passage, which says children with a firm foundation in a familiar language generally find a second language easier. Statement 2 is nowhere needed: the argument concerns parents "of modest means" and their hopes for their children, not their own English, and the passage contrasts them with people whose children are already "safely bilingual".Passage 19. Read the passage below and answer the questions that follow on the basis of the passage alone.
A striking scientific finding travels fast. A single study suggesting that a common food prevents disease, or that a simple habit sharpens memory, can be reported around the world within a day. What travels more slowly, if at all, is the news that later studies failed to find the same effect. Yet in science a result gains standing not when it is first published but when other researchers, working independently, are able to reproduce it.
There are many innocent reasons why a first result may not hold. Small samples can produce large effects by chance; researchers may test many possibilities and report the one that worked; journals are readier to publish a positive finding than a careful failure to find anything. None of this requires dishonesty. It does mean that the confidence a reader places in a result should depend on how often it has been confirmed, not on how surprising or welcome it is.
Paradoxically, the more surprising a claim, the more evidence it should require before it changes what we do. Surprise is a reason for interest, not for belief.
Which one of the following best sums up the passage?
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Answer: B — Trust in a scientific result should rest on independent confirmation, not on its novelty.
The passage says a result gains standing when others reproduce it, explains why first results often fail for innocent reasons, and concludes that confidence should depend on confirmation, "not on how surprising or welcome it is". Option A is ruled out in so many words — "None of this requires dishonesty". Option D is the tempting extension: the passage notes how fast first results travel but prescribes nothing for the media; its advice is addressed to the reader.Passage 19. Read the passage below and answer the questions that follow on the basis of the passage alone.
A striking scientific finding travels fast. A single study suggesting that a common food prevents disease, or that a simple habit sharpens memory, can be reported around the world within a day. What travels more slowly, if at all, is the news that later studies failed to find the same effect. Yet in science a result gains standing not when it is first published but when other researchers, working independently, are able to reproduce it.
There are many innocent reasons why a first result may not hold. Small samples can produce large effects by chance; researchers may test many possibilities and report the one that worked; journals are readier to publish a positive finding than a careful failure to find anything. None of this requires dishonesty. It does mean that the confidence a reader places in a result should depend on how often it has been confirmed, not on how surprising or welcome it is.
Paradoxically, the more surprising a claim, the more evidence it should require before it changes what we do. Surprise is a reason for interest, not for belief.
Which one of the following is a corollary of the argument of the passage?
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Answer: D — An unexpected claim should need stronger evidence before it changes how people act.
The last paragraph says that "the more surprising a claim, the more evidence it should require before it changes what we do" — Option D follows directly. Option B misreads the same paragraph: surprise is "a reason for interest", so the passage wants surprising claims examined, not ignored. Option A overreaches — journals prefer positive findings, which does not make such findings generally less reliable — and C contradicts the point that results gain standing only through reproduction.Passage 19. Read the passage below and answer the questions that follow on the basis of the passage alone.
A striking scientific finding travels fast. A single study suggesting that a common food prevents disease, or that a simple habit sharpens memory, can be reported around the world within a day. What travels more slowly, if at all, is the news that later studies failed to find the same effect. Yet in science a result gains standing not when it is first published but when other researchers, working independently, are able to reproduce it.
There are many innocent reasons why a first result may not hold. Small samples can produce large effects by chance; researchers may test many possibilities and report the one that worked; journals are readier to publish a positive finding than a careful failure to find anything. None of this requires dishonesty. It does mean that the confidence a reader places in a result should depend on how often it has been confirmed, not on how surprising or welcome it is.
Paradoxically, the more surprising a claim, the more evidence it should require before it changes what we do. Surprise is a reason for interest, not for belief.
With reference to the passage, consider the following statements: 1. A first result that later fails to be reproduced need not have come from dishonest research. 2. A finding becomes reliable once it has been widely reported. Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
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Answer: A — 1 only
Statement 1 restates the second paragraph, which lists innocent reasons a first result may not hold — chance in small samples, selective reporting, journals' preferences — and adds that "none of this requires dishonesty". Statement 2 inverts the first paragraph: wide reporting is exactly what a striking first finding gets, while standing comes only when independent researchers reproduce it.Passage 19. Read the passage below and answer the questions that follow on the basis of the passage alone.
A striking scientific finding travels fast. A single study suggesting that a common food prevents disease, or that a simple habit sharpens memory, can be reported around the world within a day. What travels more slowly, if at all, is the news that later studies failed to find the same effect. Yet in science a result gains standing not when it is first published but when other researchers, working independently, are able to reproduce it.
There are many innocent reasons why a first result may not hold. Small samples can produce large effects by chance; researchers may test many possibilities and report the one that worked; journals are readier to publish a positive finding than a careful failure to find anything. None of this requires dishonesty. It does mean that the confidence a reader places in a result should depend on how often it has been confirmed, not on how surprising or welcome it is.
Paradoxically, the more surprising a claim, the more evidence it should require before it changes what we do. Surprise is a reason for interest, not for belief.
As used in the passage, the phrase "gains standing" most nearly means
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Answer: B — comes to be accepted as reliable
The sentence contrasts first publication with reproduction by independent researchers; standing is the credibility a result earns by being confirmed. Option A is the tempting reading, but becoming widely known is what the passage says happens quickly to striking findings without making them trustworthy. Option C is ruled out by the sentence itself — standing comes "not when it is first published".Passage 20. Read the passage below and answer the questions that follow on the basis of the passage alone.
It is often said that what matters in public life is results, and that a leader who delivers roads, schools and growth may be forgiven the methods by which he delivered them. The argument has force: good intentions that produce nothing feed no one, and a scrupulous official who achieves little may be more comfortable than useful.
But the separation of means from ends is less clean than it appears. Methods are not merely the path to a result; they become part of it. A road built by ignoring the people whose land it crosses carries that disregard into every future project, because officials learn what is tolerated. A goal reached by deceiving the public teaches the public to distrust the next announcement, even an honest one. Over time, the habits formed in pursuing ends shape the institutions that will pursue all later ends.
This does not mean that results are unimportant, or that every compromise is a betrayal. It means that a method should be judged not only by what it achieves this time but by what it makes easier, and harder, next time.
Which one of the following best reflects the author's position?
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Answer: C — Methods matter because they shape how future goals will be pursued.
The passage grants the force of the results argument, then says methods "become part of" results because the habits they form shape the institutions that pursue later ends — so a method is judged by what it makes easier or harder next time. Option A is the view the passage opens with and then qualifies. Option B is ruled out by the last paragraph: not "every compromise is a betrayal". Option D generalises from one example the passage uses as an illustration, not as a verdict on leaders.Passage 20. Read the passage below and answer the questions that follow on the basis of the passage alone.
It is often said that what matters in public life is results, and that a leader who delivers roads, schools and growth may be forgiven the methods by which he delivered them. The argument has force: good intentions that produce nothing feed no one, and a scrupulous official who achieves little may be more comfortable than useful.
But the separation of means from ends is less clean than it appears. Methods are not merely the path to a result; they become part of it. A road built by ignoring the people whose land it crosses carries that disregard into every future project, because officials learn what is tolerated. A goal reached by deceiving the public teaches the public to distrust the next announcement, even an honest one. Over time, the habits formed in pursuing ends shape the institutions that will pursue all later ends.
This does not mean that results are unimportant, or that every compromise is a betrayal. It means that a method should be judged not only by what it achieves this time but by what it makes easier, and harder, next time.
Which one of the following can be inferred from the passage?
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Answer: A — An honest announcement may be disbelieved because of earlier deception.
The second paragraph says a goal reached by deceiving the public "teaches the public to distrust the next announcement, even an honest one". Option B reverses the first paragraph, which concedes that a scrupulous official who achieves little may be "more comfortable than useful". Option C overreaches: the passage objects to building a road "by ignoring the people whose land it crosses", not to every project that needs land.Passage 20. Read the passage below and answer the questions that follow on the basis of the passage alone.
It is often said that what matters in public life is results, and that a leader who delivers roads, schools and growth may be forgiven the methods by which he delivered them. The argument has force: good intentions that produce nothing feed no one, and a scrupulous official who achieves little may be more comfortable than useful.
But the separation of means from ends is less clean than it appears. Methods are not merely the path to a result; they become part of it. A road built by ignoring the people whose land it crosses carries that disregard into every future project, because officials learn what is tolerated. A goal reached by deceiving the public teaches the public to distrust the next announcement, even an honest one. Over time, the habits formed in pursuing ends shape the institutions that will pursue all later ends.
This does not mean that results are unimportant, or that every compromise is a betrayal. It means that a method should be judged not only by what it achieves this time but by what it makes easier, and harder, next time.
With reference to the passage, the following assumptions have been made: 1. Good intentions are sufficient to justify a public policy. 2. Institutions are shaped over time by the habits formed by those who work in them. Which of the above assumptions is/are valid?
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Answer: B — 2 only
Statement 2 is the hinge of the argument: methods matter beyond a single project only because "the habits formed in pursuing ends shape the institutions" that pursue later ones. Statement 1 contradicts the first paragraph, which the author accepts as having force: good intentions "that produce nothing feed no one".Passage 20. Read the passage below and answer the questions that follow on the basis of the passage alone.
It is often said that what matters in public life is results, and that a leader who delivers roads, schools and growth may be forgiven the methods by which he delivered them. The argument has force: good intentions that produce nothing feed no one, and a scrupulous official who achieves little may be more comfortable than useful.
But the separation of means from ends is less clean than it appears. Methods are not merely the path to a result; they become part of it. A road built by ignoring the people whose land it crosses carries that disregard into every future project, because officials learn what is tolerated. A goal reached by deceiving the public teaches the public to distrust the next announcement, even an honest one. Over time, the habits formed in pursuing ends shape the institutions that will pursue all later ends.
This does not mean that results are unimportant, or that every compromise is a betrayal. It means that a method should be judged not only by what it achieves this time but by what it makes easier, and harder, next time.
According to the passage, a method should be judged by
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Answer: D — what it achieves now and what it makes easier or harder later
The final sentence says a method should be judged "not only by what it achieves this time but by what it makes easier, and harder, next time". Option A captures only the first half — the results view the passage qualifies. Option C is the trap of the first paragraph's good intentions, which the passage says "feed no one" if they produce nothing.Passage 21. Read the passage below and answer the question that follows on the basis of the passage alone.
When a flood destroys homes and a region spends heavily to rebuild them, the measured output of the economy may rise. Builders are hired, materials are bought and incomes are earned, all of which appear in the national accounts as economic activity. Yet no one would say that the region is better off for having been flooded; it has worked hard merely to recover what it lost. The same logic applies whenever spending repairs damage that need not have occurred — treating illness caused by polluted air, or cleaning a river that should never have been fouled. Such expenditure is recorded in exactly the same way as spending that adds something new to people's lives.
Which one of the following is the most logical and rational inference that can be made from the passage?
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Answer: B — A rise in measured economic output is not by itself proof that people are better off.
The passage shows that output can rise when spending merely repairs avoidable damage, yet "no one would say that the region is better off" — so higher measured output does not by itself establish greater well-being. Option D is the tempting over-generalisation: the passage speaks only of treating illness caused by polluted air, not of health spending in general. Option C adds intent — "deliberately" — where the passage describes only how such spending is recorded.Passage 22. Read the passage below and answer the question that follows on the basis of the passage alone.
Recycling has become the most visible symbol of environmental responsibility. Households sort their waste, cities install coloured bins, and manufacturers print reassuring symbols on packaging. All of this is worthwhile, but it can encourage a comfortable belief that consumption does no harm so long as its waste is sorted afterwards. Recycling itself uses energy and water, many materials can be reprocessed only a few times before they degrade, and much of what is collected is never actually reused. The waste that does least harm is the waste that is never created — the bag not taken, the product designed to be repaired rather than replaced. Reduction, however, asks more of producers and consumers alike, and offers fewer occasions for visible virtue.
Which one of the following best reflects the central idea of the passage?
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Answer: D — Recycling helps, but avoiding waste in the first place matters more.
The passage calls recycling worthwhile but warns that it can breed the belief that consumption is harmless once sorted, and says "the waste that does least harm is the waste that is never created". Option A takes the criticism further than the author, who says "all of this is worthwhile". Option C contradicts the last sentence, which says reduction asks more "of producers and consumers alike".Passage 23. Read the passage below and answer the question that follows on the basis of the passage alone.
Laws that give citizens the right to see government records are rightly celebrated as instruments of accountability. They have exposed waste, forced officials to explain their decisions and given ordinary people a means of checking what is done in their name. But a right to see records is only as strong as the records themselves. If officials come to fear that every note they write may be published and used against them, some will respond by writing less: discussing sensitive matters orally, recording only the bare decision and leaving out the reasons. A transparency law that leads to thinner files may, in the end, leave citizens knowing less than before about why things were done.
Which one of the following is the most valid assumption underlying the passage?
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Answer: B — How officials keep records is influenced by how they expect those records to be used.
The warning that officials will "respond by writing less" if they fear their notes will be published only works if record-keeping responds to expected use. Option A is the trap: the passage attributes thin files to fear of exposure, which an honest official may share, not to wrongdoing. Option C turns a risk the passage raises into a verdict it never gives — it calls such laws "rightly celebrated" — and D contradicts its account of what citizens have done with them.Passage 24. Read the passage below and answer the question that follows on the basis of the passage alone.
Generous giving deserves admiration. When a wealthy family funds a hospital or a business endows scholarships, lives are improved, and it would be churlish to pretend otherwise. But charity, however large, rests on the choice of the giver. It can be withdrawn, redirected to a favoured cause or offered on conditions, and those who receive it have no claim to it. A society that depends on generosity for its schools and clinics leaves the poor in the position of petitioners. What they receive as a right — through public services that law and taxation sustain — they can demand, question and expect to be delivered on equal terms. Kindness is a virtue in individuals; it is a poor substitute for institutions.
What is the most crucial message conveyed by the passage?
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Answer: C — Essential services are more secure for the poor when provided as rights than as favours.
The passage admires giving but argues that charity rests on the giver's choice, whereas services held as rights can be demanded, questioned and expected "on equal terms" — kindness is "a poor substitute for institutions". Option B is the trap that turns a comparison into a case against giving: the author calls generous giving admirable and says it would be churlish to deny the good it does. Option A imputes a motive the passage never mentions.Passage 25. Read the passage below and answer the questions that follow on the basis of the passage alone.
Governments that struggle to collect taxes often respond by tightening enforcement: more audits, heavier penalties, more forms to file. Enforcement matters, for few people pay willingly when they believe others are escaping. But compliance cannot be explained by fear alone. In most societies the chance that any particular evader will be caught is small, yet many people pay what they owe. Part of the reason is a sense that the bargain is fair — that taxes are spent on services people can see, and that the rules apply to the powerful as well as to the ordinary.
Where that sense is absent, enforcement becomes both more necessary and less effective. Citizens who see little return for their taxes, or who watch the well-connected settle disputes on easy terms, come to regard evasion as self-defence rather than wrongdoing. Each new penalty then deepens the resentment it was meant to overcome. Building compliance may therefore depend as much on visible public services and even-handed treatment as on the machinery of collection.
Which one of the following best captures the central idea of the passage?
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Answer: B — Paying taxes willingly depends partly on seeing the system as fair and useful.
The passage grants that enforcement matters but says compliance "cannot be explained by fear alone": people pay when the bargain seems fair, and without that sense penalties breed resentment. Option A is the trap, turning "as much on… as on the machinery of collection" into replacing enforcement altogether. Option C contradicts the observation that many people pay although the chance of being caught is small, and D asserts a fact the passage never states.Passage 25. Read the passage below and answer the questions that follow on the basis of the passage alone.
Governments that struggle to collect taxes often respond by tightening enforcement: more audits, heavier penalties, more forms to file. Enforcement matters, for few people pay willingly when they believe others are escaping. But compliance cannot be explained by fear alone. In most societies the chance that any particular evader will be caught is small, yet many people pay what they owe. Part of the reason is a sense that the bargain is fair — that taxes are spent on services people can see, and that the rules apply to the powerful as well as to the ordinary.
Where that sense is absent, enforcement becomes both more necessary and less effective. Citizens who see little return for their taxes, or who watch the well-connected settle disputes on easy terms, come to regard evasion as self-defence rather than wrongdoing. Each new penalty then deepens the resentment it was meant to overcome. Building compliance may therefore depend as much on visible public services and even-handed treatment as on the machinery of collection.
With reference to the passage, consider the following statements: 1. Heavier penalties may worsen compliance where citizens see the tax system as unfair. 2. The fear of being caught is the main reason most people pay their taxes. Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
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Answer: A — 1 only
Statement 1 restates the second paragraph: where the sense of fairness is absent, "each new penalty then deepens the resentment it was meant to overcome". Statement 2 is contradicted: the passage notes that the chance of any evader being caught is small "yet many people pay what they owe", which is precisely why it looks beyond fear.Passage 25. Read the passage below and answer the questions that follow on the basis of the passage alone.
Governments that struggle to collect taxes often respond by tightening enforcement: more audits, heavier penalties, more forms to file. Enforcement matters, for few people pay willingly when they believe others are escaping. But compliance cannot be explained by fear alone. In most societies the chance that any particular evader will be caught is small, yet many people pay what they owe. Part of the reason is a sense that the bargain is fair — that taxes are spent on services people can see, and that the rules apply to the powerful as well as to the ordinary.
Where that sense is absent, enforcement becomes both more necessary and less effective. Citizens who see little return for their taxes, or who watch the well-connected settle disputes on easy terms, come to regard evasion as self-defence rather than wrongdoing. Each new penalty then deepens the resentment it was meant to overcome. Building compliance may therefore depend as much on visible public services and even-handed treatment as on the machinery of collection.
The expression "regard evasion as self-defence", as used in the passage, suggests that some citizens
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Answer: C — see avoiding tax as a justified response to an unfair system
The expression follows the description of citizens who see little return for their taxes or watch the well-connected settle on easy terms; they come to treat evasion as protecting themselves against an unfair bargain "rather than wrongdoing". Option B reads "self-defence" as a legal permission, which the passage never mentions. Option D reverses the meaning, since the expression describes evading tax, not paying it.Passage 26. Read the passage below and answer the questions that follow on the basis of the passage alone.
Public health suffers from a peculiar handicap: its greatest successes are invisible. When a vaccination drive prevents an outbreak, or clean water stops a disease from spreading, nothing happens — and nothing is not news. A hospital that saves a critically ill patient can point to a person who would otherwise have died; a programme that keeps thousands from falling ill can point only to an illness that did not occur.
This asymmetry shapes budgets. Spending on treatment answers a visible and urgent demand, while spending on prevention competes for attention with every other claim on public money, and is the first to be cut when nothing seems to be going wrong. Worse, the very success of prevention can undermine support for it: once a disease has become rare, people forget why it was feared, and the measures that made it rare begin to look unnecessary. A prudent health policy has to defend prevention precisely in the years when it appears least needed.
Which one of the following best reflects the crux of the passage?
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Answer: D — Prevention's successes are unseen, so it is easily cut and must be defended on purpose.
The passage explains that prevention's success is "nothing", that it is the first spending cut when nothing seems wrong, and that a prudent policy must defend it "precisely in the years when it appears least needed". Option C is the very attitude the passage warns against — the measures that made a disease rare "begin to look unnecessary". Option A goes beyond the passage, which explains why treatment wins budgets without saying hospitals are over-funded.Passage 26. Read the passage below and answer the questions that follow on the basis of the passage alone.
Public health suffers from a peculiar handicap: its greatest successes are invisible. When a vaccination drive prevents an outbreak, or clean water stops a disease from spreading, nothing happens — and nothing is not news. A hospital that saves a critically ill patient can point to a person who would otherwise have died; a programme that keeps thousands from falling ill can point only to an illness that did not occur.
This asymmetry shapes budgets. Spending on treatment answers a visible and urgent demand, while spending on prevention competes for attention with every other claim on public money, and is the first to be cut when nothing seems to be going wrong. Worse, the very success of prevention can undermine support for it: once a disease has become rare, people forget why it was feared, and the measures that made it rare begin to look unnecessary. A prudent health policy has to defend prevention precisely in the years when it appears least needed.
Which one of the following is the most logical inference from the passage?
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Answer: A — A disease being rare can be a reason to keep up the measures against it.
Since a disease may be rare because of the measures against it, and support fades once people forget why it was feared, rarity argues for keeping those measures, not for dropping them. Option B is the trap: the passage explains why treatment wins budget contests but never ranks it below prevention in value. Option D overreaches from "nothing is not news" to blaming the media, which the passage does not do.Passage 26. Read the passage below and answer the questions that follow on the basis of the passage alone.
Public health suffers from a peculiar handicap: its greatest successes are invisible. When a vaccination drive prevents an outbreak, or clean water stops a disease from spreading, nothing happens — and nothing is not news. A hospital that saves a critically ill patient can point to a person who would otherwise have died; a programme that keeps thousands from falling ill can point only to an illness that did not occur.
This asymmetry shapes budgets. Spending on treatment answers a visible and urgent demand, while spending on prevention competes for attention with every other claim on public money, and is the first to be cut when nothing seems to be going wrong. Worse, the very success of prevention can undermine support for it: once a disease has become rare, people forget why it was feared, and the measures that made it rare begin to look unnecessary. A prudent health policy has to defend prevention precisely in the years when it appears least needed.
With reference to the passage, the following assumptions have been made: 1. Budget decisions respond to how visible a need is, and not only to how important it is. 2. The measures that made a disease rare would still be needed for it to remain rare. Which of the above assumptions is/are valid?
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Answer: C — Both 1 and 2
Both are valid. Statement 1 underlies the budget argument: treatment wins because it answers "a visible and urgent demand", which only explains the outcome if visibility sways allocation. Statement 2 is what makes the final advice sensible — defending prevention when it seems least needed matters only if dropping it would let the disease return; if rarity were permanent, the measures really would be unnecessary.Passage 27. Read the passage below and answer the questions that follow on the basis of the passage alone.
Governments increasingly use automated systems to decide who qualifies for benefits, which tax returns to examine or which applications to flag as suspicious. The case for them is real: a well-designed system applies the same criteria to every case, works without fatigue and can process in hours what clerks would take months to handle. It cannot be bribed, and it does not favour one caste or community because of who sits behind the desk.
But automation changes the character of error. A careless clerk wrongs one applicant at a time; a flaw in a system's rules or data wrongs thousands at once, often in the same direction, and those affected are frequently the people least able to complain. A decision made by software can also be harder to contest. The applicant refused a pension may be told only that the system found her ineligible, and the official at the counter may not know why either.
The answer is not to abandon such tools but to surround them with safeguards: reasons that can be explained in plain language, a human who can override the machine, and a simple way to appeal. Speed is a virtue only when mistakes can be corrected as quickly as they are made.
Which one of the following best reflects the central idea of the passage?
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Answer: B — Automation has merits, but its errors are wide-reaching and need human remedies.
The passage credits automation with consistency, speed and freedom from bribery, then shows that its errors affect thousands at once and are hard to contest, and concludes for safeguards rather than abandonment. Option D is the trap: those affected are "frequently" the people least able to complain; "always" turns a tendency into a rule. Option C contradicts "the answer is not to abandon such tools", and A reverses the passage, which says a system "cannot be bribed".Passage 27. Read the passage below and answer the questions that follow on the basis of the passage alone.
Governments increasingly use automated systems to decide who qualifies for benefits, which tax returns to examine or which applications to flag as suspicious. The case for them is real: a well-designed system applies the same criteria to every case, works without fatigue and can process in hours what clerks would take months to handle. It cannot be bribed, and it does not favour one caste or community because of who sits behind the desk.
But automation changes the character of error. A careless clerk wrongs one applicant at a time; a flaw in a system's rules or data wrongs thousands at once, often in the same direction, and those affected are frequently the people least able to complain. A decision made by software can also be harder to contest. The applicant refused a pension may be told only that the system found her ineligible, and the official at the counter may not know why either.
The answer is not to abandon such tools but to surround them with safeguards: reasons that can be explained in plain language, a human who can override the machine, and a simple way to appeal. Speed is a virtue only when mistakes can be corrected as quickly as they are made.
Which one of the following can be most logically inferred from the passage?
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Answer: C — One flaw in an automated system can wrong far more people than one careless clerk.
The second paragraph contrasts a clerk who "wrongs one applicant at a time" with a flaw that "wrongs thousands at once". Option A is the trap: the passage compares the reach of errors, not how often they occur, and even credits the systems with working "without fatigue". Option D contradicts the passage, which says the official "may not know why either" — ignorance, not concealment.Passage 27. Read the passage below and answer the questions that follow on the basis of the passage alone.
Governments increasingly use automated systems to decide who qualifies for benefits, which tax returns to examine or which applications to flag as suspicious. The case for them is real: a well-designed system applies the same criteria to every case, works without fatigue and can process in hours what clerks would take months to handle. It cannot be bribed, and it does not favour one caste or community because of who sits behind the desk.
But automation changes the character of error. A careless clerk wrongs one applicant at a time; a flaw in a system's rules or data wrongs thousands at once, often in the same direction, and those affected are frequently the people least able to complain. A decision made by software can also be harder to contest. The applicant refused a pension may be told only that the system found her ineligible, and the official at the counter may not know why either.
The answer is not to abandon such tools but to surround them with safeguards: reasons that can be explained in plain language, a human who can override the machine, and a simple way to appeal. Speed is a virtue only when mistakes can be corrected as quickly as they are made.
With reference to the passage, the following assumptions have been made: 1. A person refused a benefit should be able to understand why she was refused. 2. Human officials never make decisions on grounds of caste or community. Which of the above assumptions is/are valid?
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Answer: A — 1 only
Statement 1 underlies the proposed safeguards — reasons "explained in plain language" and a way to appeal are remedies only if being able to understand and contest a refusal matters. Statement 2 runs against the passage, whose praise of automation — it "does not favour one caste or community because of who sits behind the desk" — implies that human decision-makers sometimes do.Passage 27. Read the passage below and answer the questions that follow on the basis of the passage alone.
Governments increasingly use automated systems to decide who qualifies for benefits, which tax returns to examine or which applications to flag as suspicious. The case for them is real: a well-designed system applies the same criteria to every case, works without fatigue and can process in hours what clerks would take months to handle. It cannot be bribed, and it does not favour one caste or community because of who sits behind the desk.
But automation changes the character of error. A careless clerk wrongs one applicant at a time; a flaw in a system's rules or data wrongs thousands at once, often in the same direction, and those affected are frequently the people least able to complain. A decision made by software can also be harder to contest. The applicant refused a pension may be told only that the system found her ineligible, and the official at the counter may not know why either.
The answer is not to abandon such tools but to surround them with safeguards: reasons that can be explained in plain language, a human who can override the machine, and a simple way to appeal. Speed is a virtue only when mistakes can be corrected as quickly as they are made.
The statement "Speed is a virtue only when mistakes can be corrected as quickly as they are made" implies that
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Answer: D — a fast system without a quick remedy for its errors multiplies harm
The sentence closes the case for safeguards: the speed that makes automation attractive also spreads its errors quickly, so speed helps only if correction keeps pace. Option A misreads a condition as a call to slow down — the passage keeps the tools and adds remedies. Option B is the tempting distractor, but the passage never compares how fast humans and machines correct errors; the human it proposes is there to override, not to race. Option C is not what the sentence says; speed is one merit among several.Passage 28. Read the passage below and answer the questions that follow on the basis of the passage alone.
A region short of water can still export large quantities of it — not in tankers, but in the crops it grows. Every tonne of a thirsty crop shipped out carries with it the water used to raise it. Where farmers in a dry region grow such crops, it is usually not out of ignorance. Assured purchase at a known price and well-established markets make the thirsty crop the safer bet, even as the water table falls year after year.
Exhorting farmers to switch to crops that need less water achieves little while these incentives remain. A farmer who grows an unfamiliar crop bears the risk of a poor harvest and an uncertain market alone; the cost of the falling water table, by contrast, is shared by everyone and felt only later. If the pattern of cropping is to change, the support that now favours one crop must be extended to others — through assured purchase, storage and processing — so that the prudent choice is also the profitable one.
Which one of the following best expresses the crux of the passage?
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Answer: B — Changing what farmers grow requires making water-saving crops as secure and rewarding as thirsty ones.
The passage says farmers choose thirsty crops because assured purchase and markets make them "the safer bet", and that change needs the same support extended to other crops "so that the prudent choice is also the profitable one". Option A is contradicted outright — "it is usually not out of ignorance". Option D reverses the second paragraph, which says exhortation "achieves little while these incentives remain", and C prescribes a ban the passage never proposes.Passage 28. Read the passage below and answer the questions that follow on the basis of the passage alone.
A region short of water can still export large quantities of it — not in tankers, but in the crops it grows. Every tonne of a thirsty crop shipped out carries with it the water used to raise it. Where farmers in a dry region grow such crops, it is usually not out of ignorance. Assured purchase at a known price and well-established markets make the thirsty crop the safer bet, even as the water table falls year after year.
Exhorting farmers to switch to crops that need less water achieves little while these incentives remain. A farmer who grows an unfamiliar crop bears the risk of a poor harvest and an uncertain market alone; the cost of the falling water table, by contrast, is shared by everyone and felt only later. If the pattern of cropping is to change, the support that now favours one crop must be extended to others — through assured purchase, storage and processing — so that the prudent choice is also the profitable one.
In the passage, a region short of water is said to "export" water in the sense that
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Answer: C — the water used to grow its crops leaves with the crops it sells
The passage says the region exports water "not in tankers, but in the crops it grows", since each tonne shipped out "carries with it the water used to raise it". Options A and B take the word literally as moving water itself, which is exactly the reading "not in tankers" excludes; migration (D) is not discussed.Passage 28. Read the passage below and answer the questions that follow on the basis of the passage alone.
A region short of water can still export large quantities of it — not in tankers, but in the crops it grows. Every tonne of a thirsty crop shipped out carries with it the water used to raise it. Where farmers in a dry region grow such crops, it is usually not out of ignorance. Assured purchase at a known price and well-established markets make the thirsty crop the safer bet, even as the water table falls year after year.
Exhorting farmers to switch to crops that need less water achieves little while these incentives remain. A farmer who grows an unfamiliar crop bears the risk of a poor harvest and an uncertain market alone; the cost of the falling water table, by contrast, is shared by everyone and felt only later. If the pattern of cropping is to change, the support that now favours one crop must be extended to others — through assured purchase, storage and processing — so that the prudent choice is also the profitable one.
With reference to the passage, the following assumptions have been made: 1. Farmers weigh the risks and returns of a crop when deciding what to grow. 2. The cost of a falling water table is borne mainly by the farmers who grow thirsty crops. Which of the above assumptions is/are valid?
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Answer: A — 1 only
Statement 1 is what the whole argument needs: incentives shape cropping only if farmers respond to risk and return, which is why the passage calls the thirsty crop "the safer bet". Statement 2 contradicts the passage, which says the cost of the falling water table "is shared by everyone and felt only later" — and that sharing is exactly why it weighs so little in one farmer's choice.Passage 29. Read the passage below and answer the questions that follow on the basis of the passage alone.
Tolerance of disagreeable speech is sometimes defended as a concession: we put up with views we dislike because silencing them would cost more than it gains. There is a stronger case. A belief that has never been challenged is held, as it were, on credit. Its holder may be right, but cannot say why, and is helpless when someone finally attacks it. Meeting the best arguments against our own position forces us to understand it better, to discard the parts that cannot be defended and to hold the rest with reasons rather than habit.
This case has limits. It does not require that every falsehood be given an equal platform, or that speech intended to incite violence be left alone. But it does suggest that the instinct to silence a mistaken view is often a sign of weakness in one's own. A society confident of its values engages its critics; one that fears them reveals how little it has examined what it believes.
Which one of the following best reflects the author's argument?
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Answer: D — Engaging opposing views strengthens our understanding of our own beliefs.
The passage sets aside the "concession" defence for a stronger one: meeting the best arguments against our position forces us to understand it, drop what cannot be defended, and hold the rest "with reasons rather than habit". Option B is the weaker case the passage mentions only to go beyond it. Option A is contradicted by the limits in the second paragraph, and C overreaches — silencing reveals an unexamined belief, not necessarily a false one.Passage 29. Read the passage below and answer the questions that follow on the basis of the passage alone.
Tolerance of disagreeable speech is sometimes defended as a concession: we put up with views we dislike because silencing them would cost more than it gains. There is a stronger case. A belief that has never been challenged is held, as it were, on credit. Its holder may be right, but cannot say why, and is helpless when someone finally attacks it. Meeting the best arguments against our own position forces us to understand it better, to discard the parts that cannot be defended and to hold the rest with reasons rather than habit.
This case has limits. It does not require that every falsehood be given an equal platform, or that speech intended to incite violence be left alone. But it does suggest that the instinct to silence a mistaken view is often a sign of weakness in one's own. A society confident of its values engages its critics; one that fears them reveals how little it has examined what it believes.
The expression "held, as it were, on credit" suggests that an unchallenged belief
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Answer: D — is held without the holder having earned it through reasons
The next sentence unpacks the metaphor: the holder "may be right, but cannot say why" — the belief is in use without having been paid for with reasons. Option A takes "credit" literally as a loan from another person. Option C contradicts the passage, which allows that the holder of such a belief may be right.Passage 29. Read the passage below and answer the questions that follow on the basis of the passage alone.
Tolerance of disagreeable speech is sometimes defended as a concession: we put up with views we dislike because silencing them would cost more than it gains. There is a stronger case. A belief that has never been challenged is held, as it were, on credit. Its holder may be right, but cannot say why, and is helpless when someone finally attacks it. Meeting the best arguments against our own position forces us to understand it better, to discard the parts that cannot be defended and to hold the rest with reasons rather than habit.
This case has limits. It does not require that every falsehood be given an equal platform, or that speech intended to incite violence be left alone. But it does suggest that the instinct to silence a mistaken view is often a sign of weakness in one's own. A society confident of its values engages its critics; one that fears them reveals how little it has examined what it believes.
On the basis of the passage, consider the following statements: 1. The author would accept that some forms of speech may legitimately be restricted. 2. The author holds that a belief which has never been challenged must be false. Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
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Answer: A — 1 only
Statement 1 follows from the second paragraph, which says the case does not require leaving alone "speech intended to incite violence" or giving every falsehood an equal platform. Statement 2 contradicts the first paragraph: the holder of an unchallenged belief "may be right, but cannot say why" — the flaw lies in how the belief is held, not in its truth.Passage 30. Read the passage below and answer the questions that follow on the basis of the passage alone.
When a congested road is widened, traffic usually flows faster for a while. Then the congestion returns. Journeys that people had avoided, routes they had abandoned and trips they had made at quieter hours flow back onto the wider road, and before long it is as crowded as before, now carrying more vehicles. Building roads to cure congestion is in this respect like buying a larger cupboard to cure a habit of hoarding: it makes room for the problem rather than solving it.
None of this means that roads are never needed; a growing town must connect its new neighbourhoods. But where the aim is to move more people rather than more vehicles, the space a road occupies is better judged by how many travellers it carries than by how many cars it holds. A lane given to buses, or a safe path for walkers and cyclists, can move many more people through the same width of street.
Which one of the following is the most logical inference from the passage?
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Answer: C — Widening a road can draw more trips onto it, so congestion may return.
The passage says that after widening, avoided journeys, abandoned routes and trips made at quieter hours "flow back onto the wider road" until it is as crowded as before, "now carrying more vehicles". Option A is the trap, contradicted by "None of this means that roads are never needed". Option B reverses the passage, which says the widened road ends up carrying more vehicles, not fewer.Passage 30. Read the passage below and answer the questions that follow on the basis of the passage alone.
When a congested road is widened, traffic usually flows faster for a while. Then the congestion returns. Journeys that people had avoided, routes they had abandoned and trips they had made at quieter hours flow back onto the wider road, and before long it is as crowded as before, now carrying more vehicles. Building roads to cure congestion is in this respect like buying a larger cupboard to cure a habit of hoarding: it makes room for the problem rather than solving it.
None of this means that roads are never needed; a growing town must connect its new neighbourhoods. But where the aim is to move more people rather than more vehicles, the space a road occupies is better judged by how many travellers it carries than by how many cars it holds. A lane given to buses, or a safe path for walkers and cyclists, can move many more people through the same width of street.
Which one of the following best expresses the implied message of the passage?
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Answer: D — Street space should be judged by how many people it moves, not how many vehicles.
The second paragraph shifts the measure of a road from "how many cars it holds" to "how many travellers it carries", favouring bus lanes and safe paths that move more people through the same width. Option B is the tempting extreme: the passage recommends giving space to buses, walkers and cyclists, not banning cars. Option C is what the cupboard comparison argues against — widening makes room for congestion rather than curing it.