CBSE Class 11 English Reading Passage

SECTION : (Reading)

This section will have three unseen passeges followed by a variety of questions including those on vocabulary, such as word formation and inferring meaning for 05 marks. Total length of the three passages shall be around 1100 words

SECTION : A (Reading)

Passage : 1

A.1 Read the passage given below and write the options that you consider the most appropriate. 

In this country, women, men and children have too oftern been attacked because of their identify as Dalits or tribals, religious or linguistic minorities. A recurring feature of such brutal hate crimes and mass violence is that elected and selected public officials fail to uphold their Constitutional duty: to secure equal protection to every citizen, regardless of their caste, faith or linguistic identity.

They fail not because they lack the mandate, authority or legal powers but because they choose to fail, because the pervasive prejudice against these disadvantaged groups permeates large sections of the police, magistrace, judiciary and the political class. Based on my experience as a district officer, I am convinced that no riot or anit-Dalit massacre can continue for more than a few hours without the active collusion of the State. But public officials enabling massarce is not recognised explicitly as a crime. Officials who have been named as guilty of bias in numerous judicial commissions of enquiry have rarely been penalised.

A similar culture of impunity surrounds those who instigate and participate in murder, arson and rape. Impunity is the assurance that you can openly commit a crime and not be punished. This impunity arises from infirmities in, and corrosion of, the criminal justice system. The collapse of the justice machinery is compounded when the victims are disadvantged by caste, religion, or minority language. You are more likely to be punished when you murder a single person in ‘peace time’ with no witnesses, than if you slay 10 in broad daylight observed by hundreds of people.

A careful study of major episodes of trageted violence have shown that despite being separated in time and space, there is a similarity in the systematic and active subversion of justice. The impunity of the accused begins immediately after the violence. Preventive arrests and searches usually target Dalits and minorities. Police refuse to record the names of killers, rapists and arsonists and instead refer to anonymou mobs. If victims assert, ‘cross-cases’ are registered against them, accusing them of crimes.

Arrests are partisan, the grant of bail even more so. Accused persons from dominant groups find it easy to get bail in weeks, or at most months, while those caught in ‘cross-cases’ are not released, sometimes for years. This openly discriminatory treatment of the accused based on whether they are from dominant or discriminated groups, is one way to coerce them to ‘compromise. It amounts to extra-legal out-of-court ‘agreement’ by victims to turn ‘hostile’ and retract from their accusations in court. Victims are intimidated, offerecd inducements or threatened with exile or social boycutt. Police investigation is deliberately shoddy, and most cases are closed even befor they come to trial. The few that reach the court are demolished by the prosecution.

It is agreed that no new laws are required to empower state officials to control targeted violence. Most crime already exist in statute books, and no greater punishment is called for. The National Advisory Council’s (NAC) draft Communal and Targeted Violence Bill does create a few new crimes - sexual assault, hate propaganda and torture - but these can be written into the Indian Penal Code.

To discourage targated hate-crimes in future, we require a law that creates the offence of dereliction of duty of public officials who deliberately fail to protect vulnerable groups. This must be coupled with the principle of command responsibility, which ensures that responsibility for failing to act is carried to the level from which orders actually flow. This public accountability is at the heart of the NAC draft Bill.

A. Dalits, tribal and people of religious and lingnistic minorities are attacked when .....

i) their strength is weakend

ii) their identity is known

iii) they become careless.

iv) they oppose a political party.

B. The public officials fail in protecting citizens because ....

i) they lack mandate and authority.

ii) they get afraid of criminals

iii) they opt to fail

iv) they do not have legal powers.

C. The author’s experience shows that the public officials enabling Dalit massacre are .....

i) protected by politicians

ii) not strong to stop massacre

iii) actually goons in disguise

iv) rarely penalised.

D. The ineffective criminal justice system has given rise to ....

i) impunity

ii) infirmity

iii) ingenuity

iv) insincerity

E. The author intends to communicate that the victims of riots and arsoning do not get support, protection and relief from ....

i) political parties

ii) social groups

iii) government machinery

iv) celebrities and icons.

F. Find the word from the passage which means the same as - neglect or failure in carrying out one’s obligation’.

i) instigate

ii) propaganda

iii) dereliction

iv) vulnerable

Passage : 2

A.1 Read the passage given below and write the options that you consider the most appropriate. 

Pontius Pilate asked Christ, “What is truth?” and did not wait for an answer. In contrast ‘what is civil society?” has provoked innumerable answers, descriptions and definitions. It is suffice to say that the term includes a large chunk of social groups outside the State and the group is much bigger than the small spectrum the media is focusing on.

Much of India’s law-making process has been outside the scrutiny of ordinary people. They are not framed by legislators or even senior bureaucrats but are often drafts prepared by babus. Sometimes, powerful business interests influence these laws (like the Special Economic Zone Act) and then they are passed in Parliament with little or no discussion. Sometimes, a popular public demand enters the discourse of a political party and takes the shape of policy and legislation. However, the desire of citizens to participate in the framing of law and policy has intensified over the years, and their voice needs to be included in democratic decision - making.

With growing interest in governance, citizens may suggest policy and legislation and such deliberations will only strengthen constitutional processes. Actual consultation on draf legislation and policy require detailed discussion of the principles, framework and formulation of specifics. These consultations will provoke multiple views and it is important for the institutional framework to assimilate and consider them.

Any group placing its views in the public domain cannot claim total representation. There will be criticism and those need to be resolved. However, assemblies of people can only support the need for legislation. Surveys and votes by raisng hands are important to register support for the general idea but cannot be the basis for detailed drafting of a law and its constituent parts.

The principles and framwork of any legislation must be debated and the erroneous conclusion that any difference of opinion is tantamount to mala finde intent needs to be questioned. It is in any case only of peripheral importance, as the issues themselves need to be addressed. This applies to laws made both by the formal and informal structures.

Many democracies in the world already have started placing policy and draft laws in the public domain before they are sent to the government, cabinet and then Parliament. The deliberative consultative process is for everyone but focuses more on people who are most affected by the legislation. The policy and the sharing of frameworks are followed by a draft of the bill itself. All this is done within a timeframe. The nascent process of participation of citizens in shaping legislation in the last two decades will find systemic space and democratic credibility.

Today, lokpal has become a phrase, a concept and almost a passion. But that apart, the unpackaging of the concept and the understanding of the Bill, and its legal and administrative mechanisms are restricted to a few civil society and government groups. It is time for the interested groups to build a constituency of concerned people who will steer democracy in consonance with constitutional rights. What we need is a well argued critique of the way we want change.

People must have the space to mobilise and protest - it is a constitutional right. But different processes need different platforms. The argument against corruption will stand or fall, not on the volume of our protest alone, but on the rigour of our proposals.

What we need is a transparent pre-legislative process within the democratic framework. It is important that the pre-legislative process is evolved and shaped in a synergetic manner. If it is properly institutionalised, it will not impinge on executive or legislative privilege. There should be a response to citizens’ desire to participate in framing legislation by creating platforms for institutionalised participation to deepen democratic processes. India today is at a moment in history where a more complex political idiom is being evolved. This needs to be understood, nurtured and used for enriching our processes of making law and policy. It is a test of the maturity of a people, a polity and the underlying democratic mores of all of us.

A. India’s law-making process is generally not within the purview of ....

i) judiciary’s review.

ii) public scrutiny

iii) politician’s power

iv) parliament’s power.

B. Over the year people’s voice has been sounding louder. This intends to make citizens a party in ......

i) passing the nation’s budget.

ii) catching culprits

iii) framing laws and policies

iv) boosting support in favour of opposition.

C. Public participation in governance will make constitutional processes....

i) weak

ii) effective

iii) secretive

iv) more strengthened

D. The author strongly supports the stand that any legislation must be subjected to wide

i) publicity

ii) super man’s supervision

iii) public debate

iv) scathing criticism

E. In many democracies of the world, the public deliberations and consultations pay special attention to those who get .....

i) affected by the concerned legislation

ii) profited by the concerned legislation

iii) punished by the concerned legislation

iv) popularity by the concerned legislation

F. Find the word in the passage which means the same _____ “agreement on harmony”

i) domain

ii) tantamount

iii) peripheral

iv) consonance

Passage : 3

A.1 Read the passage given below and write the options that you consider the most appropriate. 

May 31, 1999 was one the darkest days in Old Delhi’s living memory. A fire that started in shop 898 of Shahjahanabad’s Lal Kuan chemical market quickly swept through the stree, claiming 57 lives. It wasn’t the first chemicals related disaster in the area - the trade’s hub of Lal Kuan-Khari Baoli-Tilak Bazar had already witnessed two major fires in 1987 and 1996 - but the scale of this tregedy shook everyone, the government included. Soon, orders came for the chemical traders to move out to Holambi Kalan, near Narela Industrial Area on the city’s northwestern periphery. In 2006, even the paper merchants of Chawri Bazaar got an ultimatum to relocate to Ghazipur due to fire safety concerns. But so far, not a single chemical or paper trader has moved out of the tiderbox that is Old Delhi.

Why? Traders say the conditions at the new sites are not conducive for business. For instance, paper merchants say, the Integrated Freight complex (IFC), Ghazipur, where they are supposed to move has poor infrastructure and inadequate security. So, five years after Delhi Development Authority allotted plots to 621 traders, they continue to operate out of Chawri Bazaar and only 250-odd have started construction in Ghazipur. Chemical traders, too, are resisting relocation to Holambi Kalan for similar reasons. “The place is a jungle. There are no roads, streetlights, water pipelines, sewerage and security. Most of us don’t even know which piece of land belongs to us. Land has been transferred only on paper,” said Shyam Sunder Gupta, general secretary, Chemical Market Association. So far, plots have been allotted to 639 of the 883 chemical traders found eligible in the 1999 survey.

For traders who feel secure amidst old associates and the tightly packed warrens of these old markets, a move to the spacious new sites seems fraught with risk. “Traders keep lakhs of rupees with them. At least nobody can rob us of our hard earned money here,” said Pradeep, a, chemical merchant. “There are no arrangements for security (at the new sites). In our warehouses, we have goods worth lakhs of rupees. How can we leave them there,” said Prem Prakash, who paid Rs 161akh for a 98sqm plot in Ghazipur.

Batting for the traders, area MP and human resource development minister, Kapil Sibal, said it is unfair to ask traders to move to the outskirts without providing them facilities. “The matter “has been pending for a long time. I have asked - the Union urban development minister to expedite the process so that the area (Walled City) can be decongested and redeveloped. We can’t ask people to move to an area where basic amenities are missing,” said Sibal.

Notwithstanding orders of the government and the high court to move wholesale trades out of the old city, the number of establishments has only increased over the years. According to a conservative estimate, paper merchants have increased by 15-20 %, and chemical merchants by 20-30% since the relocation orders were issued.

“The number of paper traders has increased considerably since 2006. DDA is yet to provide plots to nearly 300-odd traders. What will happen to the new traders?” said Mahesh Shah, president of Paper Merchants’ Association. Chemical traders, too, have similar concerns. “They have allotted plots based on a survey done in 1999-2000. The market has grown a lot in the last 11 years,” said Gupta.

As per Master Plan of Delhi-2021, Municipal Corporation of Delhi is responsible for stopping expansion of wholesale markets and commercial activity in Shahjahanabad, but MCD officials themselves admit there is rampant commercialization in the area. Even as hazardous businesses mushroom in the densely inhabited Walled City, MCD has washed its hands of the relocation process. Traders of the chemical market allege the MCD has refused to issue them building plans, passing the buck to DDA instead.

A. After Shahjahanabad’s 1999 fire disaster, the chemical traders were ordered to ....

i) close down their units

ii) compensate the victims and their families

iii) shift to Holambi Kalan near Narela

iv) upgrade their fire fighting systems

B. The anthor has described old Delhi as ‘tinderbox’ because it ill houses.

i) spicy chinese food stores

ii) substances prone to catching fire

iii) electronic gadgets

iv) chandni chowk’s chat outlets

C. The traders are reluctant to move out to new sites because they do not find the new destinations .....

i) suitable for their business

ii) approachable from Delhi

iii) hygienic and safe

iv) beyond land acquisition disputes

D. The local MP also believes that it would be difficult for traders to move to the new sites unless .....

i) customers are made available to them

ii) facilities are provided in these sites

iii) the govt pays the traders enough compensation

iv) the traders get accustomed to new locations.

E. It is ironical that since the relocation orders were issued, the number of traders in the congested walled city .....

i) has decreased

ii) remained constant

iii) has fallen steeply

iv) has increased.

F. Find the word in the passage which means same as ‘flourishing excessively’.

i) conducive

ii) rampant

iii) hazardom

iv) prospective

Passage : 4

A.1 Read the passage given below and write the options that you consider the most appropriate.

Hundreds of thousands of our qualified youngsters take off from different international airports every year for higher studies or highly lucrative jobs in the US, the UK, ,Germany, France and Australia. And most of these Indians prefer to settle down abroad, attracted by the facilities and the higher quality of life provided by these countries. We have been crying hoarse about the brain drain from India over the last five decades or more, without going in for a wellset blueprint to check the counter-productive phenomenon. Some of the public schools in our metros and our IITs (Indian Institutes of Technology) and IIMs (Indian Institutes of Managernent) are providing world-class education. One might wonder that having spent a lot on infrastructure, training and other facilities and the best teaching staff, can the Government and the people of India look away as the talent, assiduously nurtured in India, is utilised by other countries for their development and excellence in different fields

Critics ask that when other developed countries provide higher facilities, pay packages and perks, how can you dissuade our youngsters from going abroad ? What has been our loss has been the gain of the countries where our youth has migrated. Kalpana Chawla, the first Indian-American woman astronaut in space, had been a role model for every woman -world over including India. Though she became an IndianAmerican, we still lionise her as a citizen who could climb to the summit of excellence, when given a chance. Two distinguished scientists who won Nobel Prize for their meritorious work in Physics and Medicine in 1983 and 1968, were Dr. S. Chandrasekhar and Dr. Hargobind Khorana, respectively. They were working in the US. One might ask had they been working in India, would they have ever got the highly-prestigious prize like the Nobel Prize ?

Early in 2005, the US took a decision to ease visa restrictions on foreign scientists and academics prompted by the US National Academy of Engineering’s 2005 scroll of honour containing several foreign-born members, including five scholars of Indian origin. The five Indians who were named among the 74 new members for the year 2005 were Prof. Subhash Mahajan, Chairman, Department of Chemical and Material Engineering, Arizona State University; Prof. Arunava Majumdar, Professor of Mechanical Engineering, University of California, Berkeley; Mr. R. Shankar Nair; senior Vice-President, Teng & Associates, Chicago; Prof. Raja V Ramani, Professor Emeritus, Mining and Geo-environmental Engineering, Pennsylvania State University; and Dr. Subhash Singhal, Director of Fuel Cells, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, Washington. These eminent Indians were recognised for their work in areas such as semi-conductors, fuel cells, nanotechnology, building technology and coal mine safety. These five professionals joined an elite list of some 2,000 engineers, including around 50 Indians, who are lifetime members of the National Academy of Engineering and Sciences. Honourees of 2004 included Stephen Hawking and Bill Gates. Among the distinguished American Indians, who are members of this body include, Nobel Laureates Dr. Hargobind Khorana and Dr. S. Chandrasekhar. ,

During the decades-long debate on the brain drain, it was said that ouryoungsters leave India just because excellence is neither recognised nor rewarded- in India. This could have been partly true at the beginning of this debate. But today, things have changed beyond recognition and talented people can reach the highest position possible if only they are prepared to work hard.

Youngsters fron India - Whatever be the field they are working in - are today suitably recognised and rewarded. Take the field of sports where many of the celebrities are household names - Sania Mirza, Narain Karthikeyan, Sachin Tendulkar, Anju Bobby George, P.T. Usha and several others. Innovation and managerial skill get recognition when Indians can vie with others in excellence from any part of the world.

If there is one individual who has catapulted India to the number one position in milk production in the world, it’s none other than Dr. Verghese Kurien, the father of the White Revolution.. A top engineer who completed the Konkan Railway in record time, Mr. E. Sreedharan has built up the world class Delhi Metro. Mr. Amitabh Bachchan is no longer a megastar of the Indian screen only. 

A. Our qualified and talented youngsters leave for abroad for ....

i) holidaying

ii) higher study and better jobs

iii) propogating India’s greatness

iv) helping Indian students in Australia

B. The ‘counter-productive phenomenon’ refers to

i) lucrative jobs abroad

ii) restrictions on foreigners

iii) brain drain

iv) problem of unemplyment

C. The author does not agree with the view that our youngster leave India because excellence is neither recognised nor rewarded in India. He is of the opinion that talent can reach the top if he/she is ....

i) a throughout first class

ii) a public school educated

iii) offered higher salary and perks

iv) is ready to work hard.

D. Dr. Verghese Kurien has been phenomenal in givin a boost to .....

i) technology in India

ii) sports activities in India

iii) milk production in India

iv) Konkan railways

E. A report from Silicon Valley states that skilled and talented Indians are ....

i) coming back

ii) not interested in home coming.

iii) demanding more higher wages

iv) turning to politics in India.

F. Find the word in the passage which means same as - ‘brought up or trained’.

i) dissuade

ii) elite

iii) alluring

iv) nurtured

Passage 5 .

A.1 Read the passage given below and write the options that you consider the most appropriate.

The Universe or the Cosmos, as perceived today, consists of millions of galaxies. A galaxy is a huge congregation of stars which are held together by the forces of gravity. Most of the galaxies appear to be scattered in the space in a random manner, but there are many others which remain clustered into groups. Our own galaxy, called the Milky Way or Akash Ganga, which appears as a river of bright light flowing through the sky, belongs to a cluster of some 24 galaxies called the ‘local group’. The Milky Way is made up of over a hundred billion sparkling stars, which, though quite distant from one another, seem from the Earth as having been placed close together. The two other nearest galaxies are the Large Magellanic Cloud and the Small Magellanic Cloud, named after the famous Portuguese navigator, Ferdinand Magellan (1480-1521), who discovered them.

The Universe is infinite, both in time and space. Its age was formerly believed to be between, 10-15 billion years. However, in 1999, a NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope Project team determined the age of cosmos to be 12 billion years (plus or minus 10 percent). In June 2001, NASA launched the MAP (Microwave Anisotropy Probe) to study the cosmic, microwave background radiation in greater detail according to which the exact age of the universe is 13.7 billion years after the theoretical Big Bang. The human perception of the Universe has, however, been different at different times over the long span of history of civilisation. The innate human inquisitiveness and tireless pursuit of knowledge have brought about revolutionary changes about our ideas of the Universe. The Moon and the stars are no longer looked upon as heavenly bodies or the abodes of gods. Solar and lunar eclipses are no more dreaded as foretellers of natural calamities. Man’s conquest of the Moon has now blown off many a myth of the religious testaments.

It was around 6th century BC that men started enquiring into the mysteries of the Universe in an endeavour to rationally analyse the earthly and the heavenly phenomena. They posed to themselves several questions : What is the Universe ? Why do things change ? Why do things move ? What is life ? and so on. These questions were of far-reaching significance to the development of modern science.

Ancient Greek astronomers and mathematicians came up with the view that the Earth was a perfect motionless sphere, surrounded by eight other crystalline spheres-the Sun, the Moon, and the five known planets, viz, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Saturn and Jupiter, which revolved around the Earth on seven inner spheres. The stars were permanently fixed to the outer sphere that marked the edge of the Universe.

Ptolemy a second century Greco Egyptian astronomer, synthesised the various data gathered by the early Greek astronomers and in his book, Almagest, presented hiss system of astronomy based on a Geocentric (Earth-centred) Universe. He maintained that the Earth was the centre of the Universe, and the Sun and other heavenly bodies revolved around the Earth. This view of the Universe remained firmly entrenched in the minds of the people right up to the middle of the 16th century. Most men in the Middle Ages strongly adhered to the Ptolemaic system as they felt that they did, indeed, live in a physically limited, rigidly structured Universe centred around a motionless Earth. The Greeks had also estimated the visible Universe to be about 125 million miles in diameter.

The generally accepted view of Geocentric Universe received its first real jolt with the publication of the monumental work by Copernicus (1473-1543) De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium (On the Revolution of Celestial Bodies). The main points- of the Copernican system are: (i) the Sun and the stars are motionless; (ii) the Sun lies at the centre of the Universe and the stars at its circumference; (iii) the Earth rotates on its axis taking 24 hours to complete one rotation; and (iv) the Earth and the planets revolve around the Sun; whereas the Moon revolves around the Earth.

This system of Universe, as propounded by Copernicus, was more consistent than that of Ptolemy. But its major flaw was that while it changed the centre of the Universe from the Earth to the Sun, it did not enlarge the limits of the Universe, as the Universe still remained equated with the Solar System.

Later Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei (1564-1642), too, with his newlyinvented telescope demonstrated the validity of the Copernican system through his studies of the phases of the Venus and the moons of Jupiter that the Earth did revolve around the Sun. He discovered many new stars and proved that sensory appearances could be deceptive and that it is, our own. limitations of perception and reason that place boundaries around the

Universe. To be punished for telling the truth was not uncommon in the 16th century, and those who dared to do so, had to face the wrath of the Church. Indeed, Galileo had to pay the penalty for telling the truth. English scientist Isaac Newton (1642-1727) demonstrated that forces of gravitation linked all material bodies in an immence Universe and showed that these bodies moves in accordance with strict mathematical laws. God was still the creator, but he exercised a through mastery over mathematics and engineering.

A. Stars in a congregation are held in cluster by ....

i) Akash Ganga

ii) gravitational forces

iii) galaxies

iv) cosmos

B. Ferdinand Magellan discovered .....

i) law of gravitation

ii) two continents

iii) two galaxies

iv) Milky way

C. Our inquisitiveness and pursuit of knowledge have added to our knowledge of

i) civilization

ii) Aliens

iii) the universe

iv) Earth

D. The questioning nature of man has led to the

i) development of universe

ii) expansion of the Milkyway

iii) development of modern world

iv) development of modern science

E. Galileo Galiei’s telescope endorsed the system of universe as

i) suggested by Issac Newton

ii) suggested by Copernicus

iii) propounded by Ptolemy

iv) earlier astrologer.

F Find a word in the passage which means same as - “efforts directed towards a goal”.

i) congregation

ii) entrenched

iii) immense

iv) endeavour

Passage : 6

A.1 Read the passage given below and write the options that you consider the most appropriate. 

When M K Gandhi was thrown out of a train in South Africa he had a choice to make - either to ignore the event and live in peace or enter into a conflict and face harassment, hardship and the possibility of getting physically hurt. He chose the latter. Why? Did he not have a guru who had taught him that living in peace and tranquillity was the ultimate objective of life and the best way to achieve this objective was to avoid situations of conflict? Why did he not walk away?

The Dalai Lama chose to live in exile rather than live in peace in Tibet. He is a spiritual master himself. He preaches peace around the world. Does he not know that living in peace requires avoiding situations of conflict?

Aung San Suu Kyi did not have to stay in jail. Winston Churchill did not have to join the World War. Nelson Mandela did not have to suffer in solitary confinement. Julius Nyerere did not have to fight a war with IdiAmin. There is a long list of people who have embraced conflict, despite standing for peace, otherwise. They had the courage to stand up against repression rather than submit to it.

Both the Ramayana and Mahabharata, revered Indic epics, are stories of war, not peace. Krishna did not tell the Pandavas to ignore the incident of Draupadi’s humiliation in court (the Draupadi vastraharan). He encouraged them to go to war. The Gita says engaging in war to uphold truth is not a matter of choice for a warrior; it is his duty. Islam says participation in jihad is the duty of a Muslim when the fight is to uphold justice when challenged by oppression, as a way of self-defence.

Most of us are confused between conflict and the method of resolving a conflict. We assume, incorrectly, that Gandhi, as a peace loving person, must have avoided situations of conflict. On the other hand, he faced conflict head-on. Bhagat Singh and Gandhi were both gearing themselves to deal with conflict, except that Gandhi tried to employ peaceful means while Bhagat Singh chose aggression.

The duty of a scientist, artist or professor is also to engage in conflict against repressive regimes of knowledge. Any kind of limited knowledge is a form of bondage. Albert Einstein advanced the boundaries of scientific knowledge. James Joyce did the same in the world of literature. He flouted rules of writing as he saw them as restrictions on creativity. Picasso and M F Husain, for example, explored realms beyond accepted rules in visual art. Mother Teresa redefined the concept of caring. Every one of them faced criticism and contro versy, yet they remained convinced of the nature of their work and the methods they used to fulfil their vision. They remained engaged.

One can only conclude from this that the people we admire and even those we worship have all rejected the existing as being adequate and have chosen to engage in conflict to expand the existing. They have redefined the purpose of our life. The purpose of our life is not to live in passive acceptance but to engage with conflict in order to be creative. Creativity is the purpose of life. The purpose is to advance an individual soul and the collective Consciousness. The only word of caution here is that we must first settle ourselves spiritually so that we know whether a conflict is justified or not.

A. Place loving personalities like Mahatma Gandhi, Dalai Lama, Suu-kyi etc took the way of conflict so that they could challange the forces of ....

i) peace and harmony

ii) war and peace

iii) tyranny and repression

iv) peace and progress.

B. Bhagwad Gita says that waging war to uphold truth is ....

i) the duty of a warrior

ii) an excuse of a coward

iii) a diplomatic stand of a cunning person

iv) compulsion of an individual.

C. Mahatma Gandhi faced the conflic head on but he employed......

i) aggression

ii) peaceful means

iii) strategic moves

iv) surrendering tactics.

D. The author wants the scientists, artists and teachers to ....

i) support repressive regine

ii) challange repressive knowledge

iii) stand by old theories

iv) refute old beliefs.

E. The conflict must be .....

i) personal

ii) general

iii) justified

iv) groundless

F. Find the word from the passage which means same as ________ ‘confirm or maintain’.

i) uphold

ii) ignore

iii) assume

iv) engage.

Passage : 7

A.1 Read the passage given below and write the options that you consider the most appropriate. 

Mining scandals are rocking the country and daily news reports bring to light more cases of corruption among politicians and businessmen and their total apathy towards the environment and life. However, 72 years ago mining had found a strong proponent in Rabindranath Tagore-as long as it was within limits and kosher, of course. The protagonist in his short story ‘Parting Words’ (Sesh Katha) had conveyed his “Salam to Jamsetji Tata” for the Latter’s pioneering effort in mining and setting up a steel factory in 1912. The village Sakchi, where iron ore was first found five years earlier, became Jamshedpur, now a thriving town that is an industrial hub.

The story’s protagonist, Nabinmadhav, castigates the dysfunctional posse of English civilians for their “excessive preoccupation with law and order”. He deprecates, “They had once indulged in indigo cultivation, then they switched to tea plantation.. .but had utterly failed, to explore the huge assets buried deep within Bharat, be it in the hearts and minds of her people, or be it within her nature.”

He further notes, “Deep within her hard-to reach womb, the earth keeps stored tough metals that powerful ones have used to conquer the four winds”. Nabin observes, “The poor have remained contented only with the produce of the earth’s topsoil-crops; and in the process their stomachs have dried out, their ribs gone skeletal.” Hence, Nabin changed his job, learnt mining and became a geologist.

Tagore wrote his last three short stories at the age of 78. Of a different genre, these were compiled in the book, Three Associates. The three protagonists of these stories were professionals of science or engineering to presage industrialisation to the new generation.

But before someone even thinks of loading his trucks with illegally mined ores, he must stop in his tracks and reflect a bit on why he is doing what he is doing and what the consequences of such an action could be. Illegal mining is the consequence of self-aggrandisement that comes from unbridled greed. Quoting the Upanishad, Tagore had repeatedly advocated ma gridhah, meaning “Do not greed!”

He had reasoned, “Why we must not give in to greed? Everything is pervaded by One Truth. Therefore, an individual’s greed prevents us from realising that One. Tena tyaktena bhunjeethah - let all benefit from what emanates from that One ...ma gridhah kashyas wiidhanam, that is, do not covet another’s wealth.” Manifested as corruption, greed is gnawing at the entrails of our nation.

We need to stop this here and now, without giving in to self-despair. When greed overtakes need, it spells trouble. Tagore wrote his famous song’Ekla Chalo’ (walk alone) during the days of national crisis so as to enthuse one and all to make the call of their inner conscience as paramount. The monsoon is here once again, bringing with it welcome rain.

What else can one pray for but renewal and rejuvenation? It’s time to sow seeds of hope for a better tomorrow. It’s also an opportune time to renew our social contact by cleansing our conscience and spreading hope. And it’s a good time to invoke the words of Gurudev as we celebrate 150 years of his birth. Just three months before his death-on his last birthday - Tagore had emphatically declared, “It’s a sin to lose faith in man.”

A. The modern day business men and politicians are least interested in ...........

i) mining and industry

ii) contesting elections and winning

iii) protecting environment and other life forms

iv) protecting indians abroad

B. The protagonist believes that India’s huge assets are lying unexplored in the ...

i) vast planes of Gangas

ii) mountains of Himalayan range

iii) hearts and minds of Indians and India’s

iv) mines of Haryana and Jharkhand

C. Nabin shifted from farming to mining and started working as a .....

i) Business man

ii) Politician

iii) geologist

iv) environmentalist

D. One’s greed should not ...

i) be reflected in his/her behaviour

ii) be exposed

iii) overtake his/her need

iv) be less than country’s need

E. The song ‘Ekla Chalo’ was intended to address to ....

i) Politicians long walk

ii) farmer’s protest for their land

iii) miner’s profession

iv) individual’s inner conscience.

F. Find the word in the passage which means, the same as ______ make young or energetic.

i) unbridle

ii) rejuvenate

iii) enthuse

iv) entails.

PASSAGE : 8

A.1 Read the passage given below and write the options that you consider the most appropriate. 

Last week was spent glued to TV, watching India getting thrashed by a rejuvenated England at Lord’s. Like most Indians, I too was dispirited by India’s inability to live up to its reputation as the number one team. But at least there was the immense satisfaction of watching the match live and - even listening to BBC’s good-humoured Test Match Special on Internet radio.

It was such a change from my schooldays when you had to tune in to a crackling short wave broadcast for intermittent radio commentary. Alternatively, we could go to the cinema, some three weeks after the match, to see a two-minute capsule in the Indian News Review that preceded the feature film. It is not that there was no technology available to make life a little more rewarding. Yet, in 1971, when B S Chandrasekhar mesmerized the opposition and gave India its first Test victory at the Oval, there was no TV, except in Delhi.

Those were the bad old days of the short age economy when everything, from cinema tickets to two-wheelers, had a black market premium. Telephones were a particular source of exasperation. By the 1970s, the telephone system in cities had collapsed. You may have possessed one of those heavy, black Bakelite instruments but there was no guarantee of a dial tone when you picked up the receiver. The ubiquitous ‘cable fault’ would render a telephone useless for months on end.

What was particularly frustrating was that there was precious little you could do about whimsical public services. In the early 1980s, when opposition MPs complained about dysfunctional telephones, the then communications minister C M Stephen retorted that phones were a luxury and not a right. If people were dissatisfied, he pronounced haughtily, they could return their phones!

Inefficiency was, in fact, elevated into an ideal. When capital-intensive public sector units began running into the red, the regime’s economists deemed that their performance shouldn’t be judged by a narrow capitalist yardstick. The public sector, they pronounced, had to exercise ‘social’ choices. India, wrote Jagdish Bhagwati (one of the few genuine ‘dissidents’ of that era), “suffered the tyranny of anticipated consequences from the wrong premises.”

Being an Indian in those days was truly demeaning if you had the misfortune of travelling overseas. Government regulations decreed that a private citizen travelling overseas had the right to buy all of $8. Subsequently, the ceiling was raised to $500 every three years. This meant that Indians had to evolve innovatively illegal methods of buying a few extra dollars or scrounging off‘fortunate NRI relatives. No wonder, escaping from India became a middle class obsession, as did petty hawala.

A. The narrator felt dispirited as his team ...

i) was the number one team of the world

ii) could not perform as per people’s expectations

iii) could not play even 100 overs.

iv) performed like professionals.

B. B.S. Chandrasekhar played a cricial role in making India register ....

i) its complaint to the match refree

ii) it as a test playing team

iii) its first test win at the oval

iv) its humiliating loss at oval

C. The author calls his school days as ‘bad old day’s because ..

i) he could not get handsome pocket money.

ii) things were too costly

iii) almost all things had black market premium

iv) his teachers would not distribute each under welfare schemes.

D. Enforced socialist hard measures gave rise to

i) honesty

ii) dishonesty

iii) carelessness

iv) indifference

E. In the beginning, travelling abroad was very demeaning as one could only buy.

i) buy $8

ii) $500

iii) Electronic goods

iv) Personal things.

F. Find the word from the passage which means same as _____ ‘occuring at intervals’.

i) Ubiquitous

ii) intermittant

iii) exasperation

iv) mesmerized