Direction: 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
Child psychology is certainly not a strong point with most Indian schools; why else would they inflict a double trauma on a student forming badly in the pre-boards by banning her from taking the board exams. Often with fatal results as evidenced by reports of student suicides in the run-up to the boards. Now the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) has stepped in and put the brakes on this discriminatory practice, ruling that no student can be barred from the Boards without prior clearance from the CBSE. This is good news for parents and students, many of whom have had to live with the threat of performancelinked department. While the school’s logic is that in order to attract talented students, they need to maintain their performance records at high levels. Chances are that a student faring poorly at the pre-boards will replicate this at the boards is faulty. Chances are that the student will be spurred to work doubly hard. On the other hand, the threat of debarment, will almost certainly impact adversely on his/ her performance. Of course, linking pre-boards to the boards is only one of the problems with our school system.
SOME IMPORTANT WORDS
inflict : to make somebody/something suffer something unpleasant.
trauma : an unpleasant experience that makes you feel upset and/or anxious; or mental condition caused by a severe shock.
run-up : period of time leading up to an important event; preparation for this discrimin– : unfair atory
replicate : duplicate; to copy/produce something exactly.
faulty : not perfect; defective
spurred : encouraged
debarment : being officially prevented to do something
banning : to decide or say officially that something is not allowed
fatal : causing/ending in death put the : to stop an activity
brakes on : barred :prevented logic : a way of thinking/explaining something doubly hard: very hard
impact : the powerful effect that something has on somebody/something
adversely : in a negative/unpleasant way

Direction: 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
Power and possession have been central pursuits of modern civilisation for a long time. They blocked out or distorted other features of the western renaissance (revival) which promised so much for humanity. What people have been and are still being taught to prize are money, success, control over the lives of others, acquisition of more and more objects. Modern social, political, and economic systems, whether capitalist, fascist or communist, reject in their working the basic principle that the free and creative unfoldment of every man, woman and child is the true measure of the worth of any society. Such unfoldment requires understanding and imagination, integrity and compassion, cooperation among people and harmony between the human species and the rest of nature. Acquisitiveness and the pursuit of power have made the modern man an aggressor against everything that is non-human; an exploiter and oppressor of those who are poor, meek and unorganised; a pathological type which hates and distrusts the world and suffers from both acute loneliness and false pride.
SOME IMPORTANT WORDS
pursuits : the act of looking for or trying to find something.
distorted : changed.
to prize : to value highly.
acquisition : the act of getting/acquiring something
capitalist : a person who owns or controls a lot of wealth and uses it to produce more wealth.
fascist : a person who supports central government that does not allow any opposition.
communist : a person who believes that all are treated equally.
unfoldment : known to all people.
Compassion :a strong feeling of sympathy for people who are suffering and a desire to help them.
integrity : the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles.
acquisitiveness : wanting very much to buy or get new possessions.
harmony : a state of peaceful existence and agreement
aggressor : a person, country, etc.
that attacks first oppressor : a person/group that treat somebody in a cruel and unfair way
pathological : not reasonable/sensible/controllable
acute : very serious/severe false
pride : a high opinion of oneself/one’s abilities, not based on real achievement/success