Direction: You have passages with 5 questions in each passage. Read the passages carefully and choose the best answer to each question out of the four alternatives.
PASSAGE
It is not luck but labour that makes good luck, says an American author, is ever waiting for something to turn up; labour with keen eyes and strong will power turns up something. Luck lies in bed and wishes the postman would bring him news of a legacy, labour turns out at six and with busy pen and ringing hammer lays the foundation of competence. Luck whines, labour watches, luck relies upon chance, labour upon character. Luck slips downwards to self-indulgence; labour strides upwards and aspires to independence . The conviction, therefore, is extending that diligence is the mother of good luck. In other words, a man’s success in life will be proportionate to his efforts, to his industry, to his attention to small things.
SOME IMPORTANT WORDS
legacy : inheritance (related to money, property, etc.) given when someone dies.
competence : the ability to do something well.
strides : improves; develops relies: depends self-indulgence: involving too much in any work.
conviction : a strong opinion or belief.
diligence : careful and thorough work or effort

Direction: You have a passage with 10 questions. Read the passage carefully and choose the best answer to each question out of the four alternatives.
PASSAGE
The postmaster first took up his duties in the village of Ulapur. Though the village was a small one, there was an indigo factory nearby and the proprietor, an Englishman, had managed to get a post office established. Our postmaster belonged to Calcutta. He felt like a fish out of water in this remote village. His office and livingroom were in a dark thatched shed, not far from a green, slimy pond, surrounded on all sides by a dense growth. The men employed in the indigo factory had no leisure, moreover they were hardly desirable companions for decent folk. Nor is a Calcutta boy an adept in the art of associating with others. Among strangers he appears either proud or ill at ease. At any rate the postmaster had but little company, nor had he much to do. At times he tried his hand at writing a verse or two. That the movement of the leaves and clouds of the sky were enough to fill life with joy — such were the sentiments to which he sought to give expression. But God knows that the poor fellow would have felt it as the gift of a new life, if some genie of the Arabian Nights had in one night swept away the trees, leaves and all, and replaced them with a macadamised road, hiding the clouds from view with rows of tall houses.
SOME IMPORTANT WORDS
a fish out of water : a person who feels uncomfortable because he/she is in unfamiliar surroundings.
slimy : covered with unpleasant thick liquid substance.
adept : skilful verse : poetry macadamised : to lay a path with broken stone, often with asphalt or coal tar.