Comprehension
Direction: You have two brief passages with 5 questions following each passage. Read the passages carefully and choose the best answer to each question out of the four alternatives.
PASSAGE
The United Nations Fourth World Women ’s Conference had a colourful start at Beijing on September 4th. This is the century’s most crucial conference which aimed at changing the status quo of women’s lives characterised by inequality. In a preliminary session, Ms. Aung Suu Kyi, the Nobel Peace Prize winner said that expanding women’s power will bring greater peace and tolerance to the world. “It is not the prerogative of men alone to bring light to this world. Women with their capacity for compassion and self-sacrifice, with their courage and perseverance have done much to dissipate the darkness of intolerance and hate”, said Ms. Suu Kyi. In the afternoon session Ms. Ayako Yamaguchi, a Japanese delegate, launched a petition against beauty pageants. “What right do men have to evaluate women in a few minutes ? All women are beautiful. Beauty is something different for everyone”, Ms. Ayako Yamaguchi said. “Beauty contests are used as trade and exploitation. The training is very vigorous, but it is the organisers, not the women, who get the full benefit”, said Ms. Ranjana Bhargava. “After the competition, the women become trapped and the abuse and the bad things begin. The women are tainted, no one else will accept them”.
SOME IMPORTANT WORDS
crucial : extremely important, because it will affect other things status
quo : the situation as it is now/as it was before a recent change
preliminary : happening before a more important action/event
intolerance : the fact of not being willing to accept ideas that are different from your own
launched : to start an activity
petition : an official document asking a court to take a particular course of action beauty
pageants: beauty contests/competitions vigorous : done with great force and energy
abuse : unfair, cruel/violent treatment of somebody
prerogative : a right/advantage belonging to a particular person or group because of his/its importance or social position.
perseverance : the quality of continuing to try to achieve a particular aim despite difficulties.
dissipate : to gradually make something become weaker until it disappears.
tainted : damaged or spoiled the quality of something or the opinion that people have of somebody/something
- The Women’s World Conference was very important because
-
View Hint View Answer Discuss in Forum
its main purpose was to change inequalities between men and women.
Correct Option: C
its main purpose was to change inequalities between men and women.
Direction: You have two brief passages with 5 questions following each passage. Read the passages carefully and choose the best answer to each question out of the four alternatives.
PASSAGE
The Law is an ass, declared Mr. Bumble in Oliver Twist, and it often seems he was right. For punishment does not always fit the crime and it rarely happens that a prison term reforms a criminal”. Consider the following two cases. The first one had happened in a village in Madurai District. One Gopal Yadhav, a hard-core criminal undergoing life sentence in the Madurai Prison came out on bail for two days to perform the last rites of his mother. But he was rearrested on the same evening on the charges of murdering his neighbour’s son to settle old scores. The second case too came to Madurai Court recently. Deserted by her husband a drunkard, his grief-stricken wife mixed rat poison in the food and gave it to her four children aged between 1 year 6 months and 9 years. Before she couldswallow the same food she was unable to bear the pitiable sight of her children writhing in pain. She rushed them to hospital where she disclosed everything. She was able to save the lives of the first three children, but the law of the country awarded her two years imprisonment (later commuted to one year) on the charges of plotting to kill her children. Would you say women like her are a danger to the society ? Would you call them criminals ? It is high time that we found other ways of registering our disapproval of wrong doing. To imprison the bad is expedient – when they are dangerous. To imprison the mad and the merely sad, as we do, is not only unnecessary, it is uncivilised.
SOME IMPORTANT WORDS
settle old scores : to hurt/punishsomebody/who has harmed/cheated you in the past.
writhing : suffering a lot.
expedient : an action that is useful/necessary for a particular purpose, but not always fair or right.
lifer : a person who has been sent to prison for whole life.
hard-core : stubbornly resistant to change/improvement
bail : security - release from prison by payment of money
last rites : a ceremony at which a dead person is buried
deserted : left by a person ; abandoned
grief-stricken : feeling extremely sad because of something that has happened
pitiable : deserving pity/causing you to feel pity
commuted : to replace one punishment with another that is less severe
- The main difference between the two cases is
-
View Hint View Answer Discuss in Forum
the woman regrets what she has done, but not the man
Correct Option: B
the woman regrets what she has done, but not the man
- The writer argues that punishments for people like the woman in the second case are not necessary because they
-
View Hint View Answer Discuss in Forum
are less dangerous than other criminals.
Correct Option: B
are less dangerous than other criminals.
- The mother in the second case cannot be called a criminal because she
-
View Hint View Answer Discuss in Forum
rushed her children to the hospital.
Correct Option: A
rushed her children to the hospital.
- Gopal Yadhav came out on bail
-
View Hint View Answer Discuss in Forum
to cremate his mother
Correct Option: B
to cremate his mother