Direction: In these questions, you have two brief passages with five questions following each passage. Read the passages carefully and choose the best answer to each question out of the four alternatives.
PASSAGE
What one wonders, is the lowest common denominator of Indian culture today. The attractive Hema Malini! The songs of Vividh Bharati! Or the mouth-watering Masala Dosa! Delectable as these may be, each yields pride of place to that false symbol of a new era–the synthetic fibre. In less than twenty years, the nylon sari and the terylene shirt have swept the countryside, penetrated to the farthest corners of the land and persuaded every common man, woman and child that the key to success in the present day world lies in artificial fibres : glass nylon, crepe nylon, tery mixes, polysters and what have you. More than the bicycles, the wristwatch or the transistor radio, synthetic clothes have come to represent the first step away from the village square. The village lass treasures the flashy nylon sari in her trousseau most dearly; the village youth gets a great kick out of his cheap terrycot shirt and trousers, the nearest he can approximate to the expensive synthetic sported by his wealthy citybred contemporaries. And the Neo–rich craze for ‘phoren’is nowhere more apparent than in the price that people will pay for smuggled, stolen, begged, borrowed secondhand or thrown away synthetics. Alas, even the unique richness of the traditional tribal costume is being fast eroded by the deadening uniformity of nylon.
SOME IMPORTANT WORDS
penetrated : went into or through something.
persuaded : made somebody do something by giving him good reasons for doing it.
trousseau : the clothes and the possessions collected by a woman who is soon going to get married in order to begin her married life
kick out : a great feeling of excitement and pleasure.
city bred : brought up in a city.
contempor–: belonging to the aries same time.
Neo-rich : Newly rich people. ‘phoren’ : foreign.
eroded : gradually destroyed something or made it weaken over a period of time.
deadening : making something such as a sound, a feeling, etc.
less strong. tragic : making you feel very sad, because somebody has died or has suffered a lot.
ironic : showing that you really mean the opposite of what you are saying.
sombre :sad and serious.
satiric : using humour to show the faults and weaknesses of a person.