English Practice Question and Answer

Q:

Directions: Read the following. passage carefully and answer the questions given below it. Certain words/phrases have been printed in bold to help you locate them while answering some of the questions. 

In February 2010 the Medical Council of India announced a major change in the regulation governing the establishment of medical colleges. With this change, corporate entities were permitted to open medical colleges. The new regulation also carried the following warning: "permission shall be withdrawn if the colleges resort to commercialization". Since the regulation does not elaborate on what constitutes "resorting to commercialisation", this will presumably be a matter left to the discretion of the Government. 

A basic requirement for a new medical college is a preexisting hospital that will serve as a teaching hospital. Corporate entities have hospitals in the major metros and that is where they will have to locate medical colleges.The earlier mandated land requirement for a medical college campus, minimum of 25 acres of contiguous land, cannot be fulfilled in the metros. Not surprisingly, yet another tweak has been made in the regulation, prescribing 10 acres as the new minimum campus size for 9 cities including the main metros. With this, the stage is set for corporate entities to enter the medical education market. 

Until now, medical education in India has been projected as a not-for- profit activity to be organised for the public good. While private bodies can run medical colleges, these can only be societies or trusts, legally non-profit organizations. In opening the door to corporate colleges, thus, a major policy change has been effected without changing the law or even a discussion in Parliament, but by simply getting a compliant MCI to change the regulation on establishment of medical colleges. This and other changes have been justified in the name of addressing the shortage of doctors. At the same time, over 50, existing medical colleges, including 15 run by the government, have been prohibited from ad- mitting students in 2010 for having failed to meet the basic standards prescribed. Ninety per cent of these colleges have come up in the last 5 years. Particularly shocking is the phenomenon of government colleges falling short of standards approved by the Government. Why are state government institutions not able to meet the requirements that have been approved by the central government? A severe problem faced by government-run in- situations is attracting and retaining teaching faculty, and this is likely to be among the major reasons for these colleges failing to satisfy the MCI norms. The crisis building up on the faculty front has been flagged by various commissions looking into problems of medical education over the years.

An indicator of the crisis is the attempt to conjure up faculty when MCI carries out inspections of new colleges, one of its regulatory functions. Judging by news reports, the practice of presenting fake faculty-students or private medical practitioners hired for the day -during MCI inspections in private colleges is common. What is interesting is that even government colleges are adopting unscrupulous methods. Another indicator is the extraordinary scheme, verging on the ridiculous that is being put in place by the MCI to make inspections 'foolproof. Faculty in all medical colleges are to be issued an RFID based smart card by the MCI with a unique Faculty Number. The Card, it is argued, will eliminate the possibility of a teacher being shown on the faculty of more than one college and establish if the qualifications of a teacher are genuine. In the future it is projected that biometric RFID readers will be installed in the colleges that will enable a Faculty from within the college and even remotely from MCI headquarters.

The picture above does not even start to reveal the true and pathetic situation of medical care especially in rural India. Only a fraction of the doctors and nursing professionals serve rural areas where 70 per cent of our population lives. The Health Ministry, with the help of the MCI, has been active in proposing yet another 'innovative' solution to the problem of lack of doctors in the rural areas. The proposal is for a three-and-a-half year course to obtain the degree of Bachelor of Rural Medicine and Surgery (BRMS). Only rural candidates would be able to join this course. The study and training would happen at two different levels -Community Health Centers for 18 months, and sub-divisional hospitals for a further period of 2 years and be conducted by retired professors. After completion of training, they would only be able to serve in their own state in district hospitals, community health centers, and primary health centers.

The BRMS proposal has invited sharp criticism from some doctors' organisations on the grounds that it is discriminatory to have two different standards of health care -one for urban and the other for rural areas, and that the health care provided by such graduates will be compromised. At the other end is the opinion expressed by some that "something is better than nothing", that since doctors do not want to serve in rural areas, the government may as well create a new cadre of medics who will be obliged to serve there. The debate will surely pick up after the government formally lays out its plans. What is apparent is that neither this proposal nor the various stopgap measures adopted so far address the root of the problem of health care. The far larger issue is government policy, the low priority attached by the government to the social sector in particular, evidenced in the paltry allocations for maintaining and upgrading medical infrastructure and medical education and for looking after precious human resoureces. 

What solution is being offered by the Health Ministry for the shortage of doctors in rural areas? 

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  • 1
    Increase the number of government run hospitals in the rural areas thereby increasing the number of doctors catering to the people in these regions.
    Correct
    Wrong
  • 2
    Make it mandatory for doctors serving in the urban areas to serve in the rural areas for a specific number of years.
    Correct
    Wrong
  • 3
    Set up increasing number of community health centres in rural areas.
    Correct
    Wrong
  • 4
    Hire retired professors of medicine to offer medical help to people living in the rural areas till the time more doctors are appointed.
    Correct
    Wrong
  • 5
    Run a separate medical course for three and a half years which can be taken up only by rural candidates who would ultimately serve in the rural areas.
    Correct
    Wrong
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Answer : 5. "Run a separate medical course for three and a half years which can be taken up only by rural candidates who would ultimately serve in the rural areas."

Q:

Select the most appropriate antonym of the given word.

CONSUME

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  • 1
    absorb
    Correct
    Wrong
  • 2
    devour
    Correct
    Wrong
  • 3
    save
    Correct
    Wrong
  • 4
    exhaust
    Correct
    Wrong
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Answer : 3. "save"

Q:

Mark the Opposite of the underlined word in the sentence given below. 

complicated

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    complex
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    Wrong
  • 2
    laid
    Correct
    Wrong
  • 3
    split
    Correct
    Wrong
  • 4
    simple
    Correct
    Wrong
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Answer : 4. "simple"

Q:

INADVERTENT 

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  • 1
    undisturbed
    Correct
    Wrong
  • 2
    ignorant
    Correct
    Wrong
  • 3
    unexpected
    Correct
    Wrong
  • 4
    unintentional
    Correct
    Wrong
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Answer : 4. "unintentional "

Q:

Instructions Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions given it. Certain word/phrases have been printed in ‘’bold’’ to help you to locate them while answering some of the questions.

India is rushing headlong towards economic success and modernisation, counting on high-tech industries such as information technology and biotechnology to propel the nation to prosperity. India’s recent announcement that it would no longer produce unlicensed inexpensive generic pharmaceuticals bowed to the realities of the World Trade Organisation while at the same time challenging the domestic drug industry to compete with the multinational firms. Unfortunately, its weak higher education sector constitutes the Achilles’ heel.

of this strategy. Its systematic disinvestment in higher education in recent years has yield neither world-class research nor very many highly trained scholars, scientists or managers to sustain high-tech development. India’s main competitor especially China buts also Singapore, Taiwan and South Korea are investing in large and ‘’differentiated’’ higher education systems. They are providing access to large number of students at the bottom of the academic system while at the same time building some research-based universities that are able to compete with the world’s best institutions. The recent London Times Higher Education Supplement ranking of the world’s top 200 universities included three in China, three in Hong Kong three in South Korea. one in Taiwan, and one in India. These countries are positioning themselves for leadership in the knowledge based economies for coming era. There was a time when countries could achieve economic success with cheap labour and low-tech manufacturing. Low wages still help, but contemporary large-scale development requires a sophisticated and at least partly knowledge based economy. India has chosen that path, but will find a major stumbling block in its universities system. India has significant advantages in the 21st century knowledge race. It has a large higher education sector --- the third largest in the world in student numbers, after China and the United States. It uses English as a primary language of higher education and research. It has a long academic tradition. Academic freedom is respected. There are a small number of highly quality institutions, departments, and centres that can form the basis of quality sector in higher education. The fact that the States, rather than the Central Government, exercise major responsibility for higher education creates a rather cumbersome structure, but the system allows for a variety of policies and approaches. Yet the weakness far outweigh the strengths. India educates approximately 10 per cent of its young people in higher education compared with more than half in the major industrialised countries and 15 per cent in China. Almost all of the world’s academic systems resemble a pyramid, with a small high quality tier at the top and a massive sector at the bottom. India has a tiny top tier. None of its universities occupies a solid position at the top. A few of the best universities have some excellent departments and centres and there are a small number of outstanding undergraduate colleges. The university Grants Commission’s recent major support of five universities to build on their recognised strength is a step toward recognising a differentiated academic system and fostering excellence. These universities, combined, enroll well under 1 percent of the student population. 

Choose the word/group of words which is most similar in meaning to the word printed in bold as used in the passage:
FOSTERING

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    safeguarding
    Correct
    Wrong
  • 2
    neglecting
    Correct
    Wrong
  • 3
    sidelining
    Correct
    Wrong
  • 4
    nurturing
    Correct
    Wrong
  • 5
    ignoring
    Correct
    Wrong
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Answer : 4. "nurturing "

Q:

Select the correct passive form of the given sentence.
 Shalu has ordered new copies of the album.

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    New copies of the album have being ordered by Shalu.
    Correct
    Wrong
  • 2
    New copies of the album has been ordered by Shalu.
    Correct
    Wrong
  • 3
    New copies of the album has been order by Shalu.
    Correct
    Wrong
  • 4
    New copies of the album have been ordered by Shalu.
    Correct
    Wrong
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Answer : 4. "New copies of the album have been ordered by Shalu."
Explanation :

The given sentence is in the active voice. We have to change the sentence into passive form.
The given sentence is written in 'present perfect tense.'
The structure of these kinds of sentences is:
Active Voice: Subject + have/has + V3 + Object.
Passive Voice: Object + have/has + been + V3 + by (preposition) + Subject.
Let’s see another example:
Active voice: I have written this instruction only for visitors.
Passive voice: This instruction has been written by me only for visitors.
The subject of the given sentence is 'Shalu' and the object of the given sentence is 'new copies of the album.'
So, in the passive voice, the position of ‘subject’ and ‘object’ will be interchanged.
Also here, 'has ordered' will be changed into 'have been ordered'.
Correct Sentence: New copies of the album have been ordered by Shalu.

Q:

Direction: In the following passage, there are blanks, each followed by a word given in bold. All these bold words are jumbled and do not necessarily fit in the blank against them. Find the appropriate fit for every blank and mark the answer accordingly. If none of the bold words fit in the blank, mark option E, "None of these" as the answer.

Cloud computing is a method for delivering information technology (IT) services in which resources are (A) (viable) from the Internet through web-based tools and applications, as opposed to a direct connection to a server. Rather than keeping files on a (B) (seamless) hard drive or local storage device, cloud-based storage makes it possible to save them to a remote database. As long as an electronic device has access to the web, it has access to the data and the software programs to run it. The rise of cloud-based software has offered companies from all sectors several benefits, including the ability to use software from any device, either via a native app or a browser. As a result, users can carry their files and settings to other devices in a completely (C) (proprietary) manner. Cloud computing offers big businesses some serious cost-saving potential. Before the cloud became a (D) (tangible) alternative, companies were required to purchase, construct and maintain costly information management technology and infrastructure. Now, instead of investing millions in huge server centres, a firm can use "lite" versions of workstations with (E) (retrieved) fast internet connections. The cloud-like structure allows users to upgrade software more quickly – because software companies can offer their products via the web rather than through more traditional, (F) (lightning) methods involving discs or flash drives.


Find the appropriate word for blank D.

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  • 1
    Seamless
    Correct
    Wrong
  • 2
    Lightening
    Correct
    Wrong
  • 3
    Tangible
    Correct
    Wrong
  • 4
    Viable
    Correct
    Wrong
  • 5
    None of these
    Correct
    Wrong
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Answer : 4. "Viable"

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