(Q1)

[A] A feature of the boom in 1980’s was the sensitivity of the stock markets to government policies.
[B] Companies, especially in the IT sector, are often more dependent n foreign markets than on what
happens at home.
[C] These changes have made Indian stock markets less sensitive to government policy.
[D] Since then economy has been substantially liberalized.
[E] And the attitude of the foreign institutional investors is quite heavily influenced by trends in global
stock markets.
(1) BEADC (2) ADECB (3) ADBEC (4) AEBCD

(Q2)
[A] They argue that it is this, which has led to the bankruptcy in many states.
[B] Here was a commission whose members worked very hard, did exemplary research and homework,
before coming up with a list of recommendations that balanced economic efficiency with safety nets for
disadvantaged labor.
[C] It reminds us of the political shenanigans during the implementation of the Fifth Pay Commission.
[D] How many times have you heard experts, politicians and the finance ministers refer to the
implementation of the pay hikes following the commission’s report as the singular cause for the increase
in government’s expenditure?
[E] Barring P. Chidambaram, who was then the finance minister, every single political party and politicians
opposed the implementation of the recommendations and are directly responsible for the current fiscal
crises in the Centre and the states.

(1) DEBAC (2) CDABE (3) BEADC (4) BAECD

(Q3)
[A] "The iPod Nano was optimized for short-form video like TV shows, music videos," said Michael
Gartenberg, analyst with Jupiter Research.
[B] But in order to play movies, the player will require a Beverly-Hills-caliber makeover.
[C] The iTunes music store has sold over one billion songs through the service and has successfully
offered downloads of TV shows since last year.
[D] That success is due in no small part to the iPod's ubiquity and ease of use.

(1) CDAB (2) BACD (3) BADC (4) CDBA

(Q4)
[A] There is much to be done
[B] Outside in the sunrise garden roses are already awake, clematis climb like a growing child and all the
border marigolds are on fire.
[C] Climbing painfully from a sore mattress, standing in striped pajamas by the window, Jim stares garden
wards.
[D] These days it's all weed killing, backache and wishes.
(1) ABCD (2) DCBA (3) CADB (4) BCDA (5) ACBD

(Q5)
[A] I spent months in that hospital bed.
[B] Sadly, the plane crash had claimed many lives including those of Jack and Ross, my business
partners - a loss that devastated me.
[C] The three of us had experienced so much together over the previous few years, and I had no interest
in running the company without them.
[D] They were not simply the co-founders of Bravelife.com Jack and Ross had become my best friends.

(1) DCBA (2) ABCD (3) DCAB (4) CBDA (5) ADCB

(Q6)
[A] Similarly, turning to caste, even though being lower caste is undoubtedly a separate cause of
disparity, its impact is all the greater when the lower-caste families also happen to be poor.
[B] Belonging to a privileged class can help a woman to overcome many barriers that obstruct women
from less thriving classes.
[C] It is the interactive presence of these two kinds of deprivation - being low class and being female -
that massively impoverishes women from the less privileged classes.
[D] A congruence of class deprivation and gender discrimination can blight the lives of poorer
women very severely.
[E] Gender is certainly a contributor to societal inequality, but it does not act independently of class.

(1) EABDC (2) EBDCA (3) DAEBC (4) BECDA

(Q7)
[A] When identity is thus 'defined by contrast', divergence with the West becomes central.
[B] Indian religious literature such as the Bhagavad Gita or the Tantric texts, which are identified as
differing from secular writings seen as 'western', elicits much greater interest in the West than do other
Indian writings, including India's long history of heterodoxy.
[C] There is a similar neglect of Indian writing on non-religious subjects, from mathematics, epistemology
and natural science to economics and linguistics.
[D] Through selective emphasis that point up differences with the West, other civilizations can, in
this way, be redefined in alien terms, which can be exotic and charming, or else bizarre and terrifying, or
simply strange and engaging.
[E] The exception is the Kamasutra in which western readers have managed to cultivate an interest.

(1) BDACE (2) DEABC (3) BDECA (4) BCEDA

(Q8)
[A] This is now orthodoxy to which I subscribe - up to a point.
[B] It emerged from the mathematics of chance and statistics.
[C] Therefore the risk is measurable and manageable.
[D] The fundamental concept: Prices are not predictable, but the mathematical laws of chance can
describe their fluctuations.
[E] This is how what business schools now call modern finance was born.

(1) ADCBE (2) EBDCA (3) ABDCE (4) DCBEA

(Q9)
[A] Both parties use capital and labor in the struggle to secure property rights.
[B] The thief spends time and money in his attempt to steal (he buys wire cutters) and the legitimate
property owner expends resources to prevent the theft (he buys locks).
[C] A social cost of theft is that both the thief and the potential victim use resources to gain or maintain
control over property.
[D] These costs may escalate as a type of technological arms race unfolds.
[E] A bank may purchase more and more complicated and sophisticated safes, forcing safecrackers to
invest further in safecracking equipment.

(1) ABCDE (2) CABDE (3) ACBED (4) CBEDA

(Q10)
[A] With that, I swallowed the shampoo, and obtained most realistic results on the spot.
[B] The man shuffled away into the back regions to make up a prescription, and after a moment I got
through on the shop-telephone to the Consulate, intimating my location.
[C] Then, while the pharmacist was wrapping up a six-ounce bottle of the mixture, I groaned and inquired
whether he could give me something for acute gastric cramp.
[D] I intended to stage a sharp gastric attack, and entering an old-fashioned pharmacy, I asked for a
popular shampoo mixture, consisting of olive and flaked soap.

(1) DCBA (2) DACB (3) BDAC (4) BCDA

(Q11)
[A] As officials, their vision of a country shouldn’t run too far beyond that of the local people with whom
they have to deal.
[B] Ambassadors have to choose their words.
[C] To say what they feel they have to say, they appear to be denying or ignoring part of what they know.
[D] So, with ambassadors as with other expatriates in black Africa, there appears at a first meeting a kind
of ambivalence.
[E] They do a specialized job and it is necessary for them to live ceremonial lives.

(1) BCEDA (2) BEDAC (3) BEADC (4) BCDEA

(Q12)
[A] The situations in which violence occurs and the nature of that violence tends to be clearly defined at
least in theory, as in the proverbial Irishman’s question: ‘Is this a private fight or can anyone join in?’
[B] So the actual risk to outsiders, though no doubt higher than our societies, is calculable.
[C] Probably the only uncontrolled applications of force are those of social superiors to social inferiors and
even here there are probably some rules.
[D] However binding the obligation to kill, members of feuding families engaged in mutual massacre will
be genuinely appalled if by some mischance a bystander or outsider is killed.

(1) DABC (2) ACDB (3) CBAD (4) DBAC

(Q13)
[1] Picture a termite colony, occupying a tall mud hump on an African plain.
[A] Hungry predators often invade the colony and unsettle the balance.
[B] The colony flourishes only if the proportion of soldiers to workers remains roughly the same, so that
the queen and workers can be protected by the soldiers, and the queen and soldiers can be serviced by
the workers.
[C] But its fortunes are presently restored, because the immobile queen, walled in well below ground
level, lays eggs not only in large enough numbers, but also in the varying proportions required.
[D] The hump is alive with worker termites and soldier termites going about their distinct kinds of
business.
[6] How can we account for her mysterious ability to respond like this to events on the distant surface?

(1) BADC (2) DBAC (3) ADCB (4) BDCA

(Q14)
[1] According to recent research, the critical period for developing language skills is between the ages of
three and five and a half years.
[A] The read-to child already has a large vocabulary and a sense of grammar and sentence structure.
[B] Children who are read to in these years have a far better chance of reading well in school, indeed, of
doing well in all their subjects.
[C] And the reason is actually quite simple.
[D] This correlation is far and away the highest yet found between home influences and school success.
[6] Her comprehension of language is therefore very high.

(1) DACB (2) ADCB (3) ABCD (4) BDCA

(Q15)
[1] High-powered outboard motors were considered to be one of the major threats to the survival of the
Beluga whales.
[A] With these, hunters could approach Belugas within hunting range and profit from its inner skin and
blubber.
[B] To escape an approaching motor, Belugas have learned to dive to the ocean bottom and stay there for
up to 20 minutes, by which time the confused predator has left.
[C] Today, however, even with much more powerful engines, it is difficult to come close, because the
whales seem to disappear suddenly just when you thought you had them in your sights.
[D] When the first outboard engines arrived in the early 1930s, one came across 4 and 8 HP motors.
[6] Belugas seem to have used their well-known sensitivity to noise to evolve an ‘avoidance’ strategy to
outsmart hunters and their powerful technologies.

(1) DACB (2) CDAB (3) ADBC (4)BDAC

(Q16)
[1] The reconstruction of history by post-revolutionary science texts involves more than a multiplication of
historical misconstructions.
[A] Because they aim quickly to acquaint the student with what the contemporary scientific community
thinks it knows, textbooks treat the various experiments, concepts, laws and theories of the current
normal science as separately and as nearly seriatim as possible.
[B] Those misconstructions render revolutions invisible; the arrangement of the still visible material in
science texts implies a process that, if it existed, would deny revolutions a function.
[C] But when combined with the generally unhistorical air of science writing and with the occasional
systematic misconstruction, one impression is likely to follow.
[D] As pedagogy this technique of presentation is unexceptionable.
[6] Science has reached its present state by a series of individual discoveries and inventions that, when
gathered together, constitute the modern body of technical knowledge.

(1) BADC (2) ADCB (3) DACB (4) CBDA

(Q17)
[1] India’s experience of industrialization is characteristic of the difficulties faced by a newly independent
developing country.
[A] In 1947, India was undoubtedly an under-developed country with one of the lowest per capita incomes
in the world.
[B] Indian industrialization was the result of a conscious, deliberate policy of growth by indigenous
political elite.
[C] Today India ranks fifth in the international community of nations if measured in terms of purchasing
power.
[D] Even today, however, the benefits of Indian industrialization since independence have not reached the
masses.
[6] Industrialization in India has been a limited success; one more example of growth without
development.

(1) CDAB (2) DCBA (3) CABD (4) BACD

(Q18)
[1] The necessity for regional integration in South Asia is underlined by the very history of the last 45
years since the liquidation of the British empire in this part of the world.
[A] After the partition of the Indian subcontinent, Pakistan was formed in that very area which the imperial
powers had always marked out as the potential base for operations against the Russian power in Central
Asia.
[B] Because of the disunity and ill-will among the South Asian neighbors, particularly India and Pakistan,
great powers from outside the area could meddle into their affairs and thereby keep neighbors apart.
[C] It needs to be added that it was the bountiful supply of sophisticated arms that emboldened Pakistan
to go for warlike bellicosity towards India.
[D] As a part of the cold war strategy of the US, Pakistan was sucked into Washington’s military alliance
spreading over the years.
[6] Internally too, it was the massive induction of American arms into Pakistan which empowered the
military junta of that country to stub out the civilian government and destroy democracy in Pakistan.

(1) ACBD (2) ABDC (3) CBAD (4) DCAB

(Q19)
[1] The success of any unit in a competitive environment depends on prudent management sources.
[A] In this context, it would have been more appropriate, if the concept of accelerated depreciation,
together with additional incentives towards capital allowances for recouping a portion of the cost of
replacements out of the current generations, had been accepted.
[B] Added to this are negligible retention of profits because of inadequate capital allowances and artificial
disallowances of genuine outflows.
[C] One significant cause for poor generation of surpluses is the high cost of capital and its servicing cost.
[D] The lack of a mechanism in Indian tax laws for quick recovery of capital costs has not received its due
attention.
[6] While this may apparently look costly from the point of view of the exchequer, the ultimate cost to the
government and the community in the form of losses suffered through poor viability will be prohibitive.

(1) ADBC (2) BCDA (3) CBDA (4) DBAC

(Q20)
[1] All human beings are aware of the existence of a power greater than that of the mortals — the name
given to such a power by individuals is an outcome of birth, education and choice.
[A] Logically, therefore such a power should be remembered in good times also.
[B] Their other philanthropic contributions include the construction and maintenance of religious places
such as temples or gurudwaras.
[C] Industrial organizations also contribute to the veneration of this power by participating in activities
such as religious ceremonies and festivities organized by the employees.
[D] This power provides an anchor in times of adversity, difficulty and trouble.
[6] The top management/managers should participate in all such events, irrespective of their personal
choice.

(1) CADB (2) BCAD (3) DACB (4) DBCA

(Q21)
[A] In Mr. Depp’s portrayal, words come first in the shaping of a phrase.
[B] But too many opera singers are overly focused on making beautiful sounds and sending notes soaring
at the expense of crisp diction and textual clarity.
[C] These principles of vocal artistry matter just as much onstage, as the best operatic artists understand.
[D] They could learn something from Mr. Depp’s verbally dynamic singing.
[E] Expression, nuance, intention and controlled intensity matter more than vocal richness and sustaining
power.

(1) BCDE (2) BDCE (3) BDEC (4) ECBD (5) DCEB

(Q22)
[A] Although the “cyber coolie” metaphor may be overdrawn, many voice and non-voice agents do report
that they experience their work as contributing to exit and burnout.
[B] Yet, the existing distinctive characteristics of the Indian BPO industry embody significant pressures:
nocturnal call-handling for overseas customers, long commuting times, extended shifts and unpaid
overtime, all of which have health and work-life balance implications.
[C] The outcome of these implies increasing pressure on workers: longer shifts, shorter and fewer breaks
and tighter targets.
[D] In recent times, many employees have experienced an intensification of work, stemming from
sharpened competition in the outsourcing market, affecting both captives and third parties, rising costs in
India and reducing margins.
[E] While companies have sought to realize cost savings through economies of scale, concomitant with
this has been this focus on leveraging efficiencies through “managing productivity and utilization”.

(1) BCDE (2) BCED (3) CDEB (4) CBDE (5) DECB

(Q23)
[A] The very meaning and mission of deconstruction is to show that things do not have definable
meanings and determinable missions, that they are always more than any mission would impose, that
they exceed the boundaries they currently occupy.
[B] A “meaning” or a “mission” is a way to contain and compact things, like a nutshell, gathering them into
a unity, whereas deconstruction bends all its efforts to stretch beyond these boundaries, to transgress
these confines, to interrupt and disjoin all such gathering.
[C] What is really going on in things, what is really happening, is always to come.
[D] Whenever it runs up against a limit, deconstruction presses against it. Whenever deconstruction finds
a nutshell the very idea is to crack it open and disturb this tranquility.
[E] Every time you try to stabilize the meaning of a thing, to fix in its missionary position, the thing
itself, if there is anything at all to it, slips away.

(1) CDBE (2) BECD (3) BDCE (4) BCDE (5) CEBD

(Q24)
[A] Notably, same-sex relationships, whether between men or women, were far more egalitarian than
heterosexual ones.
[B] While the gay and lesbian couples had about the same rate of conflict as the heterosexual ones, they
appeared to have more relationship satisfaction, suggesting that the inequality of opposite-sex
relationships can take a toll.
[C] Heterosexual married women live with a lot of anger about having to do the tasks not only in the
house but in the relationship. That’s very different from what same-sex couples and heterosexual men live
with.
[D] With same-sex couples, of course, none of these dichotomies were possible, and the partners tended
to share the burdens far more equally.
[E] In heterosexual couples, women did far more of the housework; men were more likely to have the
financial responsibility; and men were more likely to initiate sex, while women were more likely to refuse it
or to start a conversation about problems in the relationship.

(1) EDBC (2) DBCE (3) CDEB (4) BCDE (5) CDEB

(Q25)
[A] A curved titanium plate with five tiny screws would hold the bone in place and help reform the
damaged margin of the eye.
[B] Deftly, he replaced the wedge of bone in Tenneh's face.
[C] Intravenous antibiotics would take care of any lingering infection.
[D] When he'd eliminated most of the diseased tissue, he stopped.

(1) ABCD (2) DCAB (3) DCBA (4) ACBD

(Q26)
[1] I knew we were right, Neil Simon thought to himself as the steward brought him a glass of Cardhu
single malt.
[A] Simon, the Director in charge of international franchise operations at Smith & Robin, an $8-billion
marquee garment retailer, had arrived in India exactly seven days back with mixed feelings.
[B] The whiskey felt good after a week when he was allowed to drink nothing but champagne by his hosts
in India.
[C] Simon signaled to the steward that he’d like a refill – he planned to take his time over the second one
– and thought about the week that had been.
[D] Ah, but then they had had a reason to celebrate.
[E] He’d been at S & R less than eight months – he had been hired when the company decided to
abandon its twenty-year-old strategy of expanding geographically through owned outlets as against
franchised ones – but he knew the India trip was one of those things that could make or break his career.

(1) ABCDE (2) CDAEB (3) ECBDA (4) BDCAE

(Q27)
[A] What’s a jarwal?
[B] The jarwal stared at her malevolently; saliva dripping from its gaping jaws, making its fearsome teeth
glistens in the harsh winter sunlight.
[C] I don’t know.
[D] A bit like in Alien, only more like the maggot.
[E] Something fierce and nasty.
[F] A huge maggot-like beastie with a ferocious temper and huge teeth.

(1) ACEBDF (2) AECBDE (3) BACEDF (4) BACEFD

(Q28)
[A] Unlike in our forests over there you could find neither fruits, not berries to calm your hunger.
[B] During the day we were herded into the deep jungle.
[C] The only food we were given were a handful of cold rice, which often smelled of the oil from the
containers in which it had been cooked.
[D] We chewed new leaves and drank from muddy rain swollen streams.

(1) CBAD (2) ADCB (3) BCAD (4) BACD (5) ABCD

(Q29)
[A] Then come revisionist assessment when they are subjected to criticism, fair and unfair.
[B] All great leaders are subjected to fluctuating evaluation after their death.
[C] Thereafter follows the period of balanced judgement.
[D] In the years immediately after their demise, they are extolled.

(1) BADC (2) CADB (3) CBDA (4) BDAC (5) DCAB

(Q30)
[A] He also mentions the existential burdens on his brother with as much delicacy as the subject will
permit.
[B] Many will be disappointed that there is little introspective dwelling on his relationship with Hillary.
[C] Even from the early part of his life, he seems to have inspired extraordinary loyalty from his friends,
most of whom he managed to involve in his presidency.
[D] They will be disappointed because his early life in Arkansas is particularly well told.
[E] The early life contains description of his troubled family life with an abusive stepfather, the dilemmas
of his mother.

(1) ABEDC (2) BEDAC (3) ABCDE (4) BDECA

(Q31)
[A] Two and a half years ago, her father received the grim news that he was suffering from the early
symptoms of Alzheimer’s.
[B] She is focusing on her other career as a successful children’s book author.
[C] Her latest, What’s Happening to Grandpa? is a touching, compassionate story about a young girl who
learns her grandfather is suffering from Alzheimer’s disease.
[D] As an author, she has taken up the challenge of tackling subjects that kids often don’t understand and
parents don’t know how to talk about.
[E] Sadly, this book, like her past two children’s best-sellers “What’s Heaven?” And “What’s wrong with
Timmy?” stems from a firsthand family drama.

(1) BDCEA (2) BEDCA (3) ABEDC (4) None of the above

(Q32)
[A] There are other dark rumours about the Spetsnaz.
[B] Officially, Russian law strictly regulates the treatment of Chechen prisoners, even those suspected of
terrorism.
[C] In practice, units are given a high degree of autonomy.
[D] I have never heard specific allegations, but Russian forces in Chechnya have been accused of torture
and extra judicial killings.
[E] This autonomy has been blamed as a ruse for taking recourse to methods, which are primitive, often
brutal and sometimes fatal.
[F] My questions about allegations of torture are met with shrugs because no reporter, especially a
foreign one, could hope to dig out the dirty secrets of the Spetsnaz’s past.

(1) AEDCBF (2) ABCEDF (3) AEDBCF (4) ADECBF

(Q33)
[A] Whitney’s personal life at that time is less well documented.
[B] The couple had no children.
[C] 1930 he married Mary Elizabeth Altemus, a society beauty with a passion for dogs and horses, but the
marriage ended in divorce in 1940.
[D] Betsey had recently divorced James Roosevelt, the elder son of the former president, Theodore
Roosevelt.
[E] But in 1942 he married the glamorous Betsey Cushing, one of three sisters who had been known in
New York as ‘the East Side Gabors’.
[F] She loved art and antiques and shopping for them, and the marriage to Whitney produced, if no
children, a staggering procession of art acquisitions.

(1) AEDBCF (2) AEBCDF (3) ACBEDF (4) AEDCBF

(Q34)
[A] It was in the late-1980s Boston, ‘a rock town’, that Meritt formed the Magnetic Fields with Harvard
student Claudia Gonson, an outspoken classically trained pianist, and they began releasing home-
produced albums of Merrit’s artful compositions.
[B] And I say, “What, you mean that suicidal song of despair that advises you to kill yourself immediately
rather than go on for one more moment?”
[C] Today, although he has found critical acclaim, he does not harvest much pleasure from the devotion
his music inspires.
[D] ‘They say, “That song you wrote really helped me through a break-up.”
[E] To his mind, people don’t really listen to it.
[F] He frowns, “It’s an unrewarding way of communicating with people.”

(1) ACEDBF (2) AEDBCF (3) ADBECF (4) AECBDF