Reading Comprehension Exercises with Answers for UPSC in English, | PASSAGE – 4

 Read the following passages and answer the questions given below:

 9. Books today have become mere adjuncts to the world of the mass media, offering light entertainment and reassurances that all is for the best in this, the best of all possible worlds. The resulting control on the spread of ideas is stricter than anyone would have thought possible in a free society. The need for public debate and open discussion, inherent in the democratic idea, conflicts with the ever-stricter demand for total profit.

Which of the following implications is correct based on the passage above?

a. The false sense of security provided by conformist literature can be detrimental to free thought

b. Light entertainment can be harmful to the democratic idea of a free society in the long run

c. The most important idea in democracy is dissent

d. Books published earlier used to be more critical of society as opposed to the light entertainment we get today

10. Cause and effect assumes history marches forward, but history is not an army. It is a crab scuttling sideways, a drip of soft water wearing away stone, an earthquake breaking centuries of tension. Sometimes one person inspires a movement, or her words do decades later, sometimes a few passionate people change the world; sometimes they start a mass movement and millions of others; sometimes those millions are stirred by the same outrage or same ideal, and change comes upon us like a change of weather. What all these transformations have in common is that they begin in the imagination, in the hope.

What is the crux of the passage given above?

a. Imagination is the breeding ground for ideas that change the world

b. History is not a linear movement

c. Mass movements can be sparked by a single person

d. History should be approached in a holistic manner instead of a cause and effect manner

11. The concept of sustainability has often been distorted, co-opted, and even trivialised by being used without the ecological context that gives it its proper meaning. What is sustained in a sustainable community is not economic growth, competitive advantage, or any other measure used by economists, but the entire web of life on which our long-term survival depends. The first step toward a sustainable community, naturally, must be to understand how nature sustains life. This involves a new ecological understanding of life, or “ecoliteracy”, as well as a new kind of systemic thinking - thinking in terms of relationships, patterns and context.

What is the most plausible, logical inference drawn from this passage?

a. Ecoliteracy is essential to the understanding of climate change policies

b. Nature and naturalistic living needs to be given more importance over a demand for total profit

c. Separating sustainability from its ecological context has led to the reduction of its importance.

d. Ecological understanding of life is essential for a sustainable future.

12. Education plays a transformatory role in life, particularly so in this rapidly changing and globalising world. Universities are the custodians of the intellectual capital and promoters of culture and specialised knowledge. Culture is an activity of thought, and receptiveness to beauty and human feelings. A merely well informed man is only a bore on God’s earth. What we should aim at is producing men who possess both culture and expert knowledge. Their expert knowledge will give them a firm ground to start from and their culture will lead them as deep as philosophy and as high as art. Together it will impart meaning to human existence.

On the basis of the above passage the following can be said to be true

I. Without acquiring culture, a person’s education is not complete

II. A society of well educated people cannot be transformed into a modern society

III. It is essential that a society has cultured as well as intellectual people.

Which is/are valid?

a. I only

b. II only

c. I and II only

d. I and III only