FMS 2011 Mock Sample Test Paper

If are roots of the quadratic equation ab then = ?

The graph of which of the following curves does not cut the x-axis?

If a, b, c are in geometric progression then a/bc, 2/c, 4/b are in…

If x is a positive proper fraction, which of the following increase as x increases?
I.
II.
III.

The system of simultaneous equations


where and are not zero has a solution if and only if…

To lift 765 liters of water from a well to a tank, we require 2.7 HP. What is the HP required to lift 3060 liters of water in the same time, assuming a direct linear variation?

A pole and a tower cast shadows of 2 meters and 7 meters at a particular instant. If the height of the pole is 5 meters. What is the height of the tower?

Of the following, which is equal to 36 × 5 ½?

What is the least possible product of 4 different integers each of which lies between – 5and 10, both numbers inclusive?

Three containers X, Y & Z have a capacity of 10, 20 and 30 lit. respectively. X, which is empty is filled with water from Y. Y is then filled with the wine from Z. X Is now emptied into Z. The entire operation is repeated. What would be the strength of the wine in the container Z ?

In a room, there are four persons and for their sitting arrangement there are six seats in a row then, in how many ways can they take their places?

The product of two numbers a and b equals one-quarter their average. What is a in terms of b?

If all the children in a class pay 35 paise, they can buy enough food for a party. If another twenty children chip in, each child need only pay 21 paise for the same total amount of food. How many children are there in the class?

A dealer would like to gift a gold coin to each of his first 9 customers. He finds that one of the coins he has is lighter than the others. What is the minimum number of time he has to use his balance to find the defective one?

How many four digit numbers can be formed out of the digit 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, if no digit is repeated in any number? How many such numbers will be greater than 4000?

A woman starts from a point A and walks for a distance of 2.6 km. She then alternately turns left and right for three times. Each time she turns left, she walks for 1 km and each time she turns right, she walks for 1.8 km. How far is she from the starting point (approximately)?

The average tax evasion of a group of 10 MP’s is 75 lakhs. Three conscientious MP’s pay their taxes and the average of the rest rise to 1 crore. What was the average tax evaded by the three conscientious ones?

Of the following expressions, find the one that is not equal to the other three.

Container A holds twice as much as container B, and container C holds as much as A and B put together. If we start with A and B full, and C empty, and pour half the contents of A and a third of the contents of B into container C, what fraction of C’s capacity will be filled

How many words can be formed by taking all the letters from “MICROSOFTWORD” if the consonants are always written together?

A man borrows Rs.100 and agrees to repay the loan at 8% pa C.I, interest being levied half-yearly. After 6 months, he decides to repay it at 5% pa interest, the interest being levied on a quarterly basis. How much does he gain or lose in one year due to this change?

A investor invests a certain amount in 5% stock at Rs.70, twice the amount in 7% stock at Rs.98 and four times the original amount 9% at Rs.70. What would be his income if he was to invest a total sum of Rs. 10000?

The sum of all numbers between 1 to 1000 which are multiples of 3 but not divisible by 6 is…

For any data, which of the following is true?

Fifteen friends are to be placed in a queue. 3 of them always stand together and out of remaining 12, 2 of them don’t want to stand together. Then number of possible arrangements are:

A goods train runs 668 meters, 127 meters, 208 meters, 312 meters and 535 meters respectively in the first five minutes, and for the next five minutes maintains an average speed of 36 km per hour. The average speed of the train per hour during this period was

The sum of the ages of 10 boys is 100 and each of them differs by 4yrs from the average. Then the no of boys having age more than the average age is…

If each observation value in a given set of observations with mean as x is multiplied by a constant a and c is then subtracted from it then the new mean of these new values will be:

From a vessel containing 60 liters of pure wine, 4 liters are drawn out and replaced by water: 4 liters of the mixture are again drawn out and replaced with water. What is the ratio of wine to water in the resultant mixture?

A thief steals a car at 1.30 P.M. and drives it 40 km. per hour. The theft is discovered half an hour later and the owner set off in another car 50 km an hour. When will he overtake thief?

If the area of triangle with base X is equal to the area of square with side X, then the altitude of the triangle is

When simplified

A hunter has just returned after day’s bird shooting. His wife asked, how many birds he had in his bag. He says, “They are all sparrows but six, all pigeons but six and all doves but six”. How many minimum numbers of birds could he have in his bag?

The value of (2 – 1) / (2 + 1) is

A closed metallic cylindrical box is 1.25 m high and its base radius is 35 cm. if the sheet metal costs Rs.80 per the cost of the material used in the box is

A streamer goes downstream and covers the distance between two ports in 4 hours while it covers the same distance upstream in 5 hours. If the speed of the stream is 2 km per hour, the speed of the streamer in still water is

Two poles of heights 6 m and 11 m stand vertically on a plane ground. If the distance between their feet is 12m, the distance between their tops is

The numerator of a rational number is less than its denominator by 3. If the numerator becomes three times and the denominator is increased by 20, the number becomes 1/8. The original number is

The numbers that can be formed in between 600 and 700 with digits 0-9 where 7 occurs in exactly one of the positions (repetition is allowed) is:

The length of a rectangle exceeds its breadth by 9 cm. If the length and the breadth are increased by 3 cm each, the area of the new rectangle will be 84 more than that of the given rectangle. The length of the given rectangle is

In the figure shown, each edge of BCD has length 1, D lies on , and ABC = . Find AB.

For an arbitrary real number x, we define [x] to be the greatest integer less than or equal to x. Let a and b be positive real numbers such that a . [a] = 17 and b . [b] = 11. What is the value of a – b?

A canvas of 1.5 m width is used to make a conical tent of 10m diameter and 6.3 m slant height. If the canvas is purchased at the rate of Rs.20 per metre, the total cost of canvas for making the tent is

In the month of January, the Railway Police caught 4000 ticket-less travelers, in February, the number rose by 5%. However, due to constant vigil by the Police and Railway staff, the number reduced by 5% in March, and in April it further reduced by 10%. The total number of ticket-less travelers caught in the month of April was

Seven times a given two-digit number is equal to four times the number obtained by interchanging the digits, and the difference of the digits is 3. The number is

How many three digits numbers formed by using the digits 5, 6 and 7 are odd?

Of the six towns, C is larger than A, H is larger than N, J is not as large as H but is larger than A, A is smaller than P but larger than S. Which is the smallest town?

A man goes 150 m to the east and then 200 m to the north. How far is he from the starting point?

A field is 80 m long and 50 m broad. In one corner of the field, a pit 10 m long, 8 m broad and 9.8 m deep is dug out. The earth taken out of it is evenly spread over the remaining part of the field. The level of the field rises by

Directions for next eleven questions: Read the following passage and answer the questions given at the end of the passage. The answers should be based either on the author’s views or inferences drawn from the given passage.

PASSAGE – I
In the new millennium the only good HR will be heresy. The only good HR strategy will be the one that aims to make managers believe as much. And the only good HR company will be the one that uses it’s heterodoxy to attract and retain the best human resources. Breaking all the conventions that circumscribe the HR policies of ordinary companies, it will teach its managers to create a great workplace for their people. In the wonder workplaces of the 21st century, classic wisdom will be uprooted ruthlessly by the HR anarchists. Treat all your people as equal? Perish the thought. Fix your worker’s weaknesses? What an antiquated notion? Train the people for the skills they don’t have? You must be joking. Promote your star performers to become managers? Just set off a stick of dynamite instead.

The rules, they are becoming extinct. Only chances are that the companies are not yet taking them into consideration. Perhaps the companies are too caught up designing their pay packages. Perhaps the companies inundated the employees with rewards but forgot to make them feel productive and proud. Seminal global research has revealed just what it is that makes a company a great workplace and just what it is the HR managers and the C.E.O. have to do to keep it exactly that way. The emphasis here is on the fact that the employees do not work for the company. They work for their managers. Necessity is the mother of invention and new HR techniques have to be adopted. Scepticism will only force a human haemorrhage in the organisation.

A year shy of the next century, a great workplace has proven to be akin to a great product. It must not only offer what your competitors do, but also promise and deliver a differentiator that makes it qualitatively superior – not to everyone but to its best customers. And just as great brands are built on accurate understanding of the users needs, so too must great workplaces be created by grasping just what matters the most to the customer a.k.a the employees. If one is among the C.E.Os who worries everynight whether their most mobile asset will return in the morning, one must translate their deepest wants – the ones that few workplaces meet – into actual working conditions in one’s organisation. But what do the star performers crave for?

Everyone knows that only great people – not just great processes, systems or financial power – are essential for a company to succeed. But virtually no one knows whether all their caring carrots – their stock options and twice a year increments, their challenging assignments and fast track promotions, their childcare facilities and anniversary gifts–really attract, retain, or motivate their best and most productive people. First it is never clear just which of these offers genuinely adds value to the employees and which only brings your company at par with the rivals. Second, the efficacy of these measures at retaining the best–without providing added incentives to indifferent performers to stay on–remains fuzzy. The only certainty is that the winning factors in a great workplace, probably do not flow from the tired and repeated tools of HR invention, fatter pay–packets, quicker promotions and snazzier perquisites. Not only can that be matched – and bettered – by the competitors, they can also make the company attractive to deadwood. Without these incentives one cannot compete for top talent, but having them is no assurance that they will stay with a company.
A recent epochal survey conducted has yielded a shortlist of twelve critical parameters, which can be stacked up to create a hierarchy of needs on four distinct levels. And all of these twelve factors are related to one or all of the business outcomes that matter to a company-productivity, profitability, employee retention and customer satisfaction.

Quality at work flows from unambiguous directions give clear instructions at every stage of the process. This has been the dogma that the HR managers have so far been following. Expectations are the milestones against which the employees test their progress. Within the workplace knowing what is expected is the pathway that guides the employees towards achievement. Hence, dear expectations have to be set. But in the process what happens most of the times is that jobs become over-operationalised. This roboticising of the human minds builds little self-worth and self–confidence in them and dramatically impairs quality input. Hence the innovative approach suggests define the outcomes that are expected from people and insist that they find their own way there.

Build a superb infrastructure of resources, accessible to everybody, for people to do their work without hindrance. The challenge that is faced by most HR managers in the workplace is how to appropriately match individuals with the right tools to maximise their potential.

Many organisations for example have supplied their sales people with laptops. But many salespeople do not use them at all. The heretic approach suggests that the manager shift the decision to his employee. They provide criteria for employees to use in taking decisions such as how this new tool is going to help the employee, the company and the customers.

Hire intelligent, hard working people with the right skills for a job. They can be taught the rest. This has been the principle that most HR managers have followed. Full human potential is recognised only when people are in a position to use their talent. Having an opportunity to do what I do best everyday is tied to the integration of a person’s talent, skills and knowledge. Talent is the pattern one cannot turn on or off at will. Great managers realise that while talent is the differentiating fact excellent performance, it can also neither be created nor altered. The new HR strategy would be clearly defining the talents needed for each role and then choose, the right person for that role.

Praise and recognition are essential building blocks of a great workplace–obviously recognition can either be positive or negative-however positive and negative recognitions are not opposites. Instead the opposite of any kind of recognition is being ignored. The worst possible thing can do to him or her is to ignore them. Positive recognition is often thought of as coming from the superiors or managers but employees cherish praise and recognition from peers. Co-worker know intimately the particulars of a job and when they notice excellence it is special. Praise and recognition do not come from the top down anymore. HR heresy states provide continuous response as quickly as possible, irrespective of whether it is negative or positive.

Employees do not leave companies, they leave managers and supervisors. The new HR tactic asks you to treat each individual as one as a unique bundle of needs wants insecurities, ambitions, desires, spirits and genius. Great managers have great talents and this talent include getting a true sense of satisfaction from seeing his employees grow and succeed even if they surpass their managers. Employee perception of senior management credibility are largely driven by the quality of relationship employees have with their supervisors. Thus rather than having a town hall meeting, the CEO himself has to ensure that all the employees have a caring relationship with their managers and all other management levels.

The innate yearning to grow and learn is natural to human beings. By focusing on their weaknesses, the reasoning went, employees would become more strongly effective and more productive. While this approach makes sense it seems to have unintended consequences by emphasizing who the employee is not, rather than who he is. The millennium’s HR says there is nothing complicated about development. Development involves holding up a mirror to employees and encouraging them to know themselves. As employees come to know who they are, these good managers strive to provide responsibilities that will be a good fit to an employees talent.

All employees want to feel that they are making significant contributions in their workplace, the way organisations hear and process employee ideas will shape to a large degree, whether or not they feel valued for their contributions. Nothing is more demoralising to an employee than being excluded from important decisions – especially those that affect their jobs. Good managers consult with employees to make sure that those close to the action have inputs into critical decisions. This does not mean that the employees have the final say on decisions that affect their jobs. What it does mean is that when the employees’ desire and the managers’ decision differ, the best managers explain the rational behind the decisions.

Excellence happens only when people have a deeply felt sense of purpose in their life. Employees at every level like to feel that they belong. Individual achievement is important but when employees feel that they are a part of a larger whole, they are more likely to stay committed to the organisation. Great managers continually strive to help employees understand how the company’s mission relates directly to the work the employees do. When employees are asked whether they are committed to quality, they answer in the affirmative. This reflects their natural human tendency to think highly of the work they produce. But the question does not differentiate the most productive workgroups from those that are less productive. Instead employees’ answers to the question “Are my associates committed to doing quality work?” are much more revealing. Employees want their co-workers to share their commitment to quality and want to be apart of an organisation that challenges and enables them to excel. A good manager would see to it that each and every employee is committed to quality.

Human beings are social animals and work is a social institution. Often it is a place where long-term relationships are formed, from networking relationships to friendships to marriage, in the best workplaces, employers recognise that employees want to forge quality relationships with their co-workers and company loyalty can be built up from such relationships. All employees have leaving moments when they decide whether to stay on or leave an organisation. The best managers observe that the quality and the depth of the relationships that employees have with others on the job will be a critical component that affects their decision to stay or leave the organisation.

The orthodoxy states that whatever progress a person has made only tiring rewards. Her future lies in charting out new territory. The heterodoxy states that use progress to measure how well an individual has used her talent and how well the company has allowed her to do so.
Great managers realise that they face a new challenge everyday. How do you create a culture that is open to new ideas and allows employees the opportunity to explore possible implications of those ideas without fear of rejection or retribution? The creation of this culture receptive to new ideas also involves significant trust on both sides. Great managers and their teams are never satisfied with the current way of doing things. There is always a slight tension about finding more effective and efficient ways to work.

What according to the passage would be the new HR of the millennium?

The tone of the passage is

How many Parameters does the survey classify as being critical to the HR of tomorrow?

The process of Over–operationalising leads to

The author feels that though talent is necessary, it

Who is a great manager according to the passage?

What does the author say that man and work are

The company’s mission should directly relate to

Development is not a great thing, according to the millennium’s HR, development should

What is more important to an employee than praise from superiors?

Why are managers always slightly tensed?

Directions for next ten questions: Fill in the blanks with the correct option given below :

Rich in local color, the undercurrents that run beneath the seemingly ………… surroundings of the sleepy village are explored in fluid prose.

With models and beauty queens becoming ……..for the youth, fashion is a …… sector.

Leaving the country of one’s ……… for a new land is a major decision but globalization has taken away the fear and lessened the anxiety.

As the second generation of the post 1965 Indian immigrants come of age in America, we are beginning to see a wealth of literature as well as critical essays in which they …………… and …………. their experiences.

The real reason communism …………….. in Eastern Europe was that people wanted to get their hands on Mercedes and Volkswagen instead of being forced to drive around lands in trabants.

Whatever baggage we are dragging with us into the new millennium at least we have the good sense to leave some of the century’s most…………. ideas behind.

It is ……………. that excise men will write bestsellers on herbal medicine and ………. unlikely that a herbalist will sip coke and not herbal tea.

The ……… between global and domestic prices of petroleum products has already pushed the oil pool, deficit to over 5000 crores.

After almost a decade of …….. field research, the anthropological survey of India has identified 4,635 communities that makeup the sum of Indian society.

The effort to ensure that the obsequies are in ………. with the scriptures can leave you with no time for grief or a quiet moment of personal homage.

Directions for next ten questions: Read the following passage and answer the questions given at the end of the passage. The answers should be based either on the author’s views or inferences drawn from the given passage.

PASSAGE – II
Since 1900, guns have killed over 800,000 persons in America. More than 20,000 people are shot to death and more than 200,000 are injured or maimed by firearms each year.

Total casualties from civilian gunfire in this century exceeds our military casualties in all the wars from the Revolution through Vietnam. Guns are dangerous even in the best trained and most responsible hands. In America, guns are readily in the grasp of psychotics, incompetents, criminals, addicts, alcoholics, children, anyone who wants them, however dangerous he may be.

Estimate of the number of firearms in private ownership range from 50 million to 200 million. We can only guess. Surveys indicate more than 40 million people own guns. Some have arsenals. They live in slums, high rise apartments, on farms-everywhere. Guns are in attics, garages, bureau drawers, glove compartment, closets, desks, under beds, standing in the corner, hanging on the wall-anywhere you might imagine and many places you might not.

Throughout our history, ownership of firearms has been widespread. From earliest times Americans have identified their safety and too often personal power with guns. Young boys were given guns and owned them with pride. For many, a gun was a thing of beauty. Nothing they possessed manifested such craftsmanship. With their cool blue steel, clean and smooth, the mechanical precision of their parts, the well-oiled natural grained wood stock, their perfect balance and fine workmanship, guns captured the hearts and minds of male America. Nothing was treated with greater respect. Guns were works of art, things of beauty, sources of power and symbols of manliness.

But we no longer pioneers venturing into the wilderness, dependent on our rifles for food and protection. We are more than 200 million highly urbanized and interdependent citizens of the most technologically advanced and affluent nation in history. We must control guns or continue to suffer the violence they generate, the crime they cause and the injury they inflict.

We have failed to control firearms because history and habit have more powerful influences on human conduct than reason and regent experience. Customs adapt gradually to meet new conditions. Society is slow to see how change makes senseless and often dangerous, ancient aerates long deemed essential to survival. Guns were once thought to be provider, protector and defender of liberty. Today they murder.

If government is incapable of keeping guns from the potential criminal while permitting them to the lawabiding citizen, then government is inadequate to the times. The only alternative is to remove guns from the American scene. In question is our ability to meet a crisis. It is not hysteria that demands gun control: it is 8,900 murders, 12,000 suicides, 65,000 assaults, 99,000 robberies all committed with guns in the single year of 1968. The toll will rise until we act.

Between 1964 and 1969 robberies with guns increased 113 per cent and assaults with guns 117 per cent. More than 25 percent for all violent crimes, which now exceed half a million annually, involve the use of firearms.

The peril has existed since decades. It has been disregarded at an awesome cost, which, when totaled, amounts to a national catastrophe.

Guns are designed to kill. That is their purpose. In mass urban society they are not the beautiful provider and protector. They are the ugly killer. They are death. They add immeasurably to the climate of violence in America. When viewed as a source of power by other-wise powerless people, guns can only mean violent crime. This is the lesion to be learnt from the man ironically chosen in 1969 as the typical prisoner in the District of Columbia Department of Corrections. Interviewed by the press after his selection and asked what he would do when released again, he replied, “Do what I always did–get a pistol and stick up anything that moves”.

The more violence we experience in America, the more guns we stack. Following every not, firearm sales have soared. With the repealed and compounded reporting of increase in crime known to the police, gun sales steadily rise. Rifle sales in that United States from 1963 through 1967 increased 115 per cent to 1,882,000 annually. In the same period shotgun sales increased 151 percent to 1,515,000. Pistol sales were up 139 percent to 1,118,00. Total firearms sales increased during these four years by 132 per cent to an annual total of 4,585,000 in 1967.

Two million firearms are manufactured in the United States annually for private ownership–70 percent are rifles and shotguns. Of 1,200,000 guns imported annually, 60 percent are handguns. America is the chief world market for pistols, which have little utility except to shoot people. Most of the pistols imported are inexpensive and so poorly constructed that they are dangerous to the user as well as to anyone in the general direction they may point.

The murder and suicide rates by gunfire in our country are incredibly higher than the rates in other advanced nations. Japan, with one-half our population, had 16 murders and 68 suicides by gunfire in 1966 compared to 6,885 murders and 10,407 suicides in the US. Australia still pioneer country herself, had 57 gun murders among its 11 million people in 1965. Here in America the rate is seven times higher. Canada had 98 murders among 19,604,000 people in 1966, one-seventh the rate of its neighbour to the south. England and Wales had 27 murders committed with guns in 1966 among 54½ million people, while Houston, Texas, alone had 150 gun murders among its 1½ million citizens. That same year Sweden, with a suicide rate nearly twice ours, experienced 14 murders and 192 suicide by gunfire. Its murder rate by guns was one-seventeenth as high as ours; its suicide rate by gunfire was one-half as high.

Murders and other crimes committed with firearms occur more frequently where guns are most plentiful and gun control laws toast stringent. Surveys indicate 34 per cent of the households in the Eastern parts of the United States contain guns, compared to 53 percent in the West, 55 percent in the Midwest and 64 percent in the South. Not only the percent of murders committed by firearms higher in areas where there are more guns and weaker laws-the overall murder rate is higher, too. Rhode Island, New York and Massachusetts have strong gun control lants. Arizona, Texas and Mississippi-have more guns per capita and very weak gun control laws.

According to the passage, annual injuries from guns, including fatalities, are in area of

Historically, guns were viewed as which of the following?
I. A symbol of masculinity
II. Artistic creations
III. A symbol of power

The author explains that imported guns

The article indicates that we have failed to control firearms because

Most of the domestically produced firearms for private ownership are

The author asserts that the government

Why does the author compare the gun crimes in the US with the gun crimes of Australia?

The area of the US with the highest concentration of households with guns is

The passage indicate that states with strict gun control laws have which of the following characteristics?
I. Fewer gun murders per capita
II. More gun murders per capita
III. A overall lower murder rate

This was most likely excerpted from

Directions for next four questions: From the given options, choose the antonym for the given word.

Prudent

Quibble

invincible

innocuous

Directions for next ten questions: Read the following passages and answer the questions given at the end of the passage. The answers should be based either on the author’s views or inferences drawn from the given passages.

PASSAGE – III
The Nostradamus fad might have been just that, a short-lived blip that would evaporate when the next big thing came along. And it might have been dismissed as nothing more than a few whackos’ nutty obsession with doomsday. But a lot of un-nutty Japanese take it seriously and it’s influence has persisted for nearly three decades. The most alarming development occurred when certain cults including Shoko Asaharas Aum got in the act. Aum which allegedly masterminded the deadly sarin gas attacks to attract followers already bitten by the Nostradamus bug. Other groups did likewise while also providing avenues for surviving doomsday. Writers like Goto fanned a sense of fear. The books sell but they do not have any answers and the cult steps in and generates followers on mere sensationalism.

These days Nostradamus has become such an ingrained part of Japanese pop culture that most people are well versed with his doomsday scenario. Even many skeptics pause to consider his predictions when confronted with the real world dangers. Ever since Pyongyang sent a missile flying over Japan last August, North Korea has been considered as the most plausible source of apocalyptic of the yen, Martina Hingis loss at Wimbledon would suffice among the faithful as evidences that Nostradamus was on to something.

This fever in Japan tends to skew towards young people like 18 year old Inoue, who wanted to feel as if she had achieved something before the world ends. The goal she decided would be to create fashions. She promoted beach clothes, cosmetics and drugs that would enhance a woman’s bust. Here it is not sure whether she was using Nostradamus to promote a career in marketing. And she is a perfect example of how fact and fantasy can coexist in today’s Japan.

Nishimoto on the other hand has made full preparations and needs no convincing. He has outfitted his home in Habikino, a suburb of Osaka with a personal bomb shelter. It has 30 cm thick concrete walls reinforced with steel escape hathes, a hand cranked battery operated generator and a ventilation system that pumps in air while filtering out radioactive elements and biological and chemical contaminants.

What is the author’s view on Japan?

“Here it is not sure whether she was using Nostradamus to promote a career in marketing.” What is the underlying tone in this line?

Which of the following can be implied from the passage?

What according to the passage is probably the most deadly effect of the Nostradamus fad?
1. Silliness of the Japanese people.
2. The sarin gas attack.
3. The cult culture that demands blind following.
4. Sensationalism that generates a lot of followers.

What is the meaning of the word ‘Apocalyptic’ with reference to the passage?

Which is the odd word with reference to the passage?

What is the meaning of the word ‘cranked’ with reference to the passage?

What is the antonym of the word ‘suffice’?

Suggest a suitable title of this passage?

What is the meaning of the word ‘Skew’ with reference to the passage?

Directions for next ten questions: Read the following passages and answer the questions given at the end of the passage. The answers should be based either on the author’s views or inferences drawn from the given passages.

PASSAGE – IV
The study of past times and uncivilised races makes it clear beyond question that the customary beliefs of tribes or nations are almost invariably false. It is difficult to divest ourselves completely of the customary beliefs of our own age and nation but it is not very difficult to achieve a certain degree of doubt in regard to them. The Inquisitor who burnt men at the stake was acting with true humanity if all his beliefs were correct; but if they were in error at any point, he was inflicting a wholly unnecessary cruelty. A good working maxim in such matters is this: Do not trust customary beliefs so far as to perform actions which must be disastrous unless the beliefs in question are wholly true. The world would be utterly bad, in the opinion of the average Englishman, unless he could say ‘Britannia rules the waves’; in the opinion of the average German, unless he could say ‘Deutschland uber alles’. For the sake of these beliefs, they are willing to destroy European civilisation. If the beliefs should happen to be false, their action is regrettable.

One fact which emerges from these considerations is that no obstacle should be placed in the way of thought and its expression, nor yet in the way of statements of fact. This was formerly common ground among liberal thinkers, though it was never quite realised in the practice of civilised countries. But it has recently become, throughout Europe, a dangerous paradox, on account of which men suffer imprisonment or starvation. For this reason it has again become worth stating. The grounds for it are so evident that I should be ashamed to repeat them if they were not universally ignored. But in the actual world it is very necessary to repeat them. To attain complete truth is not given to mortals, but to advance toward it by successive steps is not impossible. On any matter of general interest, there is usually, in any given community at any given time, a received opinion, which is accepted as a matter of course, by all, who give no special thought to the matter. Any questioning of the received opinion arouses hostility, for a number of reasons. The most important of these is the instinct of conventionality, which exists in all gregarious animals and often leads them to put to death any markedly peculiar member of the herd.

The next most important is the feeling of insecurity aroused by doubt as to the beliefs by which we are in the habit of regulating our lives. Whoever has tried to explain, the philosophy of Berkeley to a plain man in its unadulterated form will have seen the anger aroused by this feeling. What the plain man derives from Berkeley’s philosophy at a first hearing is an uncomfortable suspicion that nothing is solid, so that it is rash to sit on a chair or to expect the floor to sustain us. Because this suspicion is uncomfortable, it is irritating, except to those who regard the whole argument as merely nonsense. And in a more or less analogous way any questioning of what has been taken for granted destroys the feeling of standing on solid ground and produces a condition of bewildered fear. A third reason which makes men dislike novel opinions is that vested interests are bound up with old beliefs. The long fight of the church against science, from Giordano Bruno to Darwin, is attributable to this motive among others. The horror of socialism which existed in the remote past was entirety attributable of this cause. But it would be a mistake to assume, as is done by those who seek economic motives everywhere, that vested interests are the principal source of anger against novelists in thought. If this were the case, intellectual progress would be much more rapid than it is. The instinct of conventionality, horror of uncertainty and vested interests, all militate against the acceptance of a new idea. And it is even harder to think of a new idea than to get it accepted: most people might spend a lifetime in reflection without ever making a genuinely original discovery.

In view of all these obstacles, it is not likely that any society at any time will suffer from a plethora of heretical opinions. Least of all is this likely in a modern civilised society, where the conditions of life are in constant rapid change and demand, for successful adaptation, an equally rapid change in intellectual outlook. There should be an attempt, therefore, to encourage, rather than discourage the expression of new beliefs and the dissemination of knowledge tending to support them. But the very opposite is, in fact, the case. From childhood upward, everything is done to make the minds of men and women conventional and sterile. And if, by misadventure, some spark of imagination remains, its unfortunate possessor is considered unsound and dangerous, worthy only of contempt in time of peace and of prison or a traitor’s death in time of war. Yet such men are known to have been in the past the chief benefactors of mankind and are the very men who receive most honour as soon as they are safely dead.

The whole realm of thought or opinion is utterly unsuited to public control: it ought to be as free and as spontaneous as is possible to those who know what others have believed. The state is justified in insisting that children shall be educated but it is not justified in forcing their education to proceed on a uniform plan and to be directed to the production of a dead level of glib uniformity. Education and the life of the mind generally, is a matter in which individual initiative is the chief thing needed; the function of the state should begin and end with insistence on, some kind of education, and, if possible, a kind which promotes mental individualism, not a kind which happens to conform to the prejudices of government officials.

A suitable title for the above passage would be

The author seems to be

The flaw in the maxim mentioned by the author in the first passage

Obstacles should not be placed in

The dangerous paradox is that

The instinct of conventionality here indirectly refers to the…
I. the instinct of survival
II. herd mentality
III. law of conformity

The author would disagree with which of the following?

A society’s insularity of thought

Modern society is unlikely to suffer from an intolerant outlook because

According to the author, education is best suited to the individual when: and
(I) it brings about public control
(II) it is spontaneous and well-justified
(III) it promotes mental individualism

Directions for next ten questions: Read the following passages and answer the questions given at the end of the passage. The answers should be based either on the author’s views or inferences drawn from the given passages.

PASSAGE – V
“Let me,” cried Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, “have men about me that are fat, sleek-headed men and such as sleep o’ nights.” One can see his point. There is something infinitely reassuring about a rounded, even cherubic, countenance: something sound and trustworthy about a man of bulk.
Now this may, of course, be merely an optical illusion. But the lean and hungry look does not, in general, inspire confidence. Perhaps that’s why, when a fat man is proved to be a villain, he’s very villainous indeed. We feel sadly let down.

Ramblings such as this occurred to me in considering the case of the television presenter. In recent weeks the nature of my work has brought me face to face with many forms of the genus interlocutor. As you know, they come in many shapes and sizes. Any consideration of their merits must begin with the visual impression that they make. Let us disregard the disembodied ones, the out-of-vision narrators, those known in the trade as “voice-overs”. Our business is with the front men and women in corporeal view, upon whom the producer pins all his hopes of an audience joining and staying with his product. And, while it’s a television truism that the strength of a chat show or a magazine is often the strength of its weakest link, it’s equally true that a presenter can make or mar the best-intentioned programme.

It is no easy task. Far too often presenters and producers forget that the Box is essentially an intimate medium. It is not a market place, nor a Speaker’s Corner. And, as in those two public arenas, the louder the voice, the more strident the appeal, the more dubious appear the goods for sale. No, your good presenter must get on intimate terms with his viewer-singular, not plural. He may in numerical terms be talking to millions but it is still a one-to-one business.

So, the essence of the craft is the quiet, conversational buttonholing of the viewer. This is precisely the point at which good TV presentation Parts Company with show business. Introducing the next item or personality in a steady crescendo of spurious excitement is no more than rabble rousing, to elicit audience applause. Often what follows falls flat on its face, despite the bolstering of audience reaction, for the viewer at home is solitary before his set.

The ground rules of presentation are pretty obvious – a friendly face and manner, a persona one can like on first impression or warm to as the one-way conversation continues. It was no accident that the archetypal presenter, Richard Dimbleby, was so good at his job. He was a large man, voice and personality projected effortlessly into the home. Always the keynote was a quiet sincerity. In a lighter fashion, the ever-green Cliff Michelmore continues the tradition. He’s another rounded person, in several senses, with whom the viewer finds instant rapport. Of course, there are dangers in the large personality. It can be allowed to grow so that it fills the screen, allowing only a peep over the shoulder of the famous front man at what the programme’s really about.

What is the “optical illusion” referred to in the passage?

What does “ramblings” mean in the context of the passage?

How can an interlocutor be “disembodied”?

What are the two public arenas referred to by writer?

What effect does a loud voice often have on an audience, according to the writer?

What is the effect on the viewer of the “rabble-rousing” mentioned in the passage?

What do you gather from the passage that is in common between Richard Dimbleby and Cliff Michelmore?

What is the disadvantage of having a large personality as a presenter?

What is the meaning of the word ‘Spurious’ as given in the passage?

This passage has been extracted from

Directions for next four questions: From the given options, choose the meaning for the given word.

PROSCRIBE

SWATHE

IMPIOUS

ARCHAIC

Directions for next five questions: Each question has a main statement followed by four statements labelled A, B, C, D. Choose the ordered pair of statements, where the first statement implies the second and the two statements are logically consistent with the main statement.

The best book on history has been written by Mohar.
(A) X is the best book on history.
(B) X is not written by Mohan.
(C) X is not the best book on history.
(D) X is written by Mohan.

Mr. X is either a mathematician or a physicist.
(A) Mr. X is a physicist.
(B) Mr. X is not a physicist.
(C) Mr. X is a mathematician.
(D) Mr. X is not a mathematician.

Whenever I go to SHOPPERS’ PARADISE, I buy a pair of shoes.
(A) I went to SHOPPERS’ PARADISE.
(B) I bought a pair of shoes.
(C) I didn’t go to SHOPPERS’ PARADISE.
(D) I didn’t buy a pair of shoes.

Whenever I eat bananas, I catch cold.
(A) I ate bananas.
(B) I didn’t catch cold.
(C) I didn’t eat bananas.
(D) I caught cold.

Whenever I see Jaggu, I am filled with disgust.
(A) I was not filled with disgust.
(B) I was filled with disgust.
(C) I saw Jaggu.
(D) I didn’t see Jaggu.

Directions for next four questions: Give one word for the following.

A political theory that advocates a society in which all property is publicly owned and each person is paid according to his or her abilities.

A place where cows are kept.

A five sided figure is a

The use of reason and argument in seeking truth and knowledge of reality.

Directions for next five questions: In each question below, two statements are given, followed by two conclusions numbered I and II. You have to take the two given statements to be true even if they seem to be at variance from commonly known facts and then decide which of the given conclusions logically follows from the two given statements, disregarding commonly known facts. Read both the statements and – Give answer

Statements	:	Some foods are sweet.
.	.	Some foods are sour.
Conclusions	:	I. All foods are either sweet or sour.
.	.	II. Some sweet are sour.

Statements	:	All dogs are cats.
.	.	Some cats are tigers.
Conclusions	:	I. Some dogs are tigers.
.	.	II. No dogs are tigers.

Statements	:	All desks are chairs.
.	.	No chair is a table.
Conclusions	:	I. No desk is a table.
.	.	II. No table is a desk.

Statements	:	Many scooters are trucks.
.	.	All trucks are trains.
Conclusions	:	I. Some scooters are trains.
.	.	II. No truck is a scooter.

Statements	:	Some toys are books.
.	.	Some books are papers.
Conclusions	:	I. Some books are toys
.	.	II. Some papers are books.

Directions for next five questions: These questions are to be answered on the basis of the pie–chart given below showing how a person’s monthly salary is distributed over different expense heads:

For a person, whose monthly salary is Rs. 6,000 p.m, how many items are there on which he has to spend more than Rs. 1,000 p.m.?

For the same person, an expenditure of Rs. 1,800 p.m. takes place on

The annual savings for such a person will be approximately

The monthly salary for a person who follows the same expense pattern, but has a petrol expense of Rs. 500 p.m. is

The percentage of money spent on clothes and savings is equal to which other single item of expense?

Directions for next five questions: Refer to the following Algorithm. Given starting value of x = 2.25.

Step 1 to step 5 called one cycle. We have 4 such cycles.

What is the value of z at the end of 3 cycles?

The value of y after four cycles is:

(y – z) × [x] after three cycles amounts to:

The product yz is always :

The product xyz is always: