My sincere advice to my maidservant fell on stony ground. 

We waste much time on trifles. 

In the following question, some part of the sentence may have errors. Find out which part of the sentence has an error and select the appropriate option. If a sentence is free from error, select 'No Error'

He was not (a)/ so well versed in (b)/ English that we (c)/ had expected. (d)/ No error (e)

In these questions read each sentence to find out whether there is any error in it. If there is no error, the answer is (D).

The tree (A)/ is losing (B)/ its leaves. (C)/ No error. (D) 

What, one wonders, is the lowest common denominator of Indian culture today? The attractive Hema Malini ? The songs of Vinidh Barati? The attractive Hema Malini? The sons of Vinidh Barati? .
Or the mouth-watering Masala Dosa? Delectable as these may be, each yield pride of place to that false (?) symbol of a new era-the synthetic fibre. In less than twenty years the nylon sari and the terylene shirt have swept the countryside, penetrated to the farthest corners of the land and persuaded every common man, woman and child that the key to success in the present day world lie in artificial fibers: glass nylon, crepe nylon, tery mixes, polyesters and what have you. More than the bicycles, the wristwatch or the transistor radio, synthetic clothes have come to represent the first step away form the village square. The village lass treasures the flashy nylon sari in her trousseau most delay; the village youth gets a great kick out of his cheap terrycot shirt and trousers, the nearest he can approximate to the expensive synthetic sported by his wealthy citybred contemporaries. And the Neo-rich craze for ‘phoren’ is nowhere more apparent than in the price that people will pay for smuggled, stolen, begged borrowed second hand or thrown away synthetics. Alas, even the uniformity of nylon.

The tern ‘Neo-rich’ means –

Directions :Read the following passage to answer the given questions based on it. Some words/phrases are printed in bold to help you locate them while answering some of the questions.
During the reign of king Veer, there lived a wise magistrate. Haripant’s verdicts were always just and people from all over vast kingdom came to him in ordered to settle their disputes. In the city where Haripant lived, there was a greedy ghee merchant named Niranjan. He always kept twenty barrels of ghee. Of these, fifteen would contain good quality ghee and the remaining could be adulterated. He would mix the two and sell it. This went on for a long time, till finally the people fed up of being cheated, complained to Haripant.
Haripant had the ghee examined and found to it be adulterated. He gave Niranjan a choice of punishment-drink the five barrels of adulterated ghee from his shop, or receive a hundred lashings, or pay a thousand gold coins to the treasury. Niranjan thought for a while. Losing a thousand gold coins was too much and a hundred lashings too painful. So he decided to drink the five barrels of ghee. Though Niranjan sold adulterated goods in his shop, he made sure his own food was of the best quality. So after drinking one barrel of ghee he began to feel sick. By the second barrel, he was vomiting. At this point he decided to opt for the lashings instead. But he was pampered and his body was unused to any harsh treatment. After ten lashes, he started trembling and by twenty he was giddy. ‘Stop!’ he screamed. ‘I will pay the thousand gold coins!’ And he handed them over.
So he ended up suffering all three punishments, something he did not forget in a hurry and the people of the city got to use only the best quality in their food from then on

Luke remained behind at the orchard because he

Read the following passage carefully and give the answer of following questions.

The cyber–world is ultimately ungovernable. This is alarming as well as convenient; sometimes, convenient because alarming. Some Indian politicians use this to great advantage. When there is an obvious failure in governance during a crisis they deflect attention from their own incompetence towards the ungovernable. So, having failed to prevent nervous citizens from fleeing their cities of work by assuring them of proper protection, some national leaders are now busy trying to prove to one another, and to panic-prone Indians, that a mischievous neighbour has been using the internet and social networking sites to spread dangerous rumours. And the Centre's automatic reaction is to start blocking these sites and begin elaborate and potentially endless negotiations with Google, Twitter and Facebook about access to information. If this is the official idea of prompt action at a time of crisis among communities, then Indians have more reason to fear their protectors than the nebulous mischief-makers of the cyber world. Wasting time gathering proof, blocking vaguely suspicious websites, hurling accusations across the border and worrying about bilateral relations are ways of keeping busy with inessentials because one does not quite known what to do about the essentials of a difficult situation. Besides, only a fifth of the 245 websites blocked by the Centre mention the people of the Northeast or the violence in Assam. And if a few morphed images and spurious texts can unsettle an entire nation, then there is something deeply wrong with the nation and with how it is being governed. This is what its leaders should be addressing immediately, rather than making a wrongheaded display of their powers of censorship.
 It is just as absurd, and part of the same syndrome, to try to ban Twitter accounts that parody despatches from the Prime Minister's Office. To describe such forms of humour and dissent as "misrepresenting" the PMO–as if Twitter would take these parodies for genuine despatches from the PMO — makes the PMO look more ridiculous than its parodists manage to. With the precedent for such action set recently by the chief minister of West Bengal, this is yet another proof that what Bengal thinks today India will think tomorrow. Using the cyber–world for flexing the wrong muscles is essentially not funny. It might even prove to be quite dangerously distracting.

The author warns us against

In the following question, out of the four alternatives, select the alternative which is the best substitute of the phrase.

A person’s last performance