Directions : You have a passage with 10 questions. Read the passage carefully and choose the best answer to each question out of the four alternatives.

Long ago men spent most of their time looking for food. They ate anything they could find. Some lived mostly on plants. They ate the fruit, stems, and leaves of some plants and the roots of others. When food was scarce, they ate the bark of trees. If they were lucky, they would find a bird’s nest with eggs. People who lived near the water ate fish or anything that washed ashore, even rotten whales. Some people also ate insects and small animals like lizards that were easy to kill.

Later, men learned to make weapons. With weapons, they could kill larger animals for meat. These early people had big appetites. If they killed an animal, they would drink the blood, eat the meat, and chew the bones. When they finished the meal, there was nothing left.

At first men wandered from place to place to find their food. But when they began to grow plants, they stayed in one place and ate what they could grow. They tamed animals, trained them to work, and killed them for meat. Life was a little better then, but there was still not much variety in their meals. Day after day people ate the same food.

Gradually men began to travel greater distances. The explorers who sailed unknown seas found new lands. And in these lands they found new food and spices and took them back home.

The Portuguese who sailed around the stormy Cape of Good Hope to reach China took back “Chinese apples”, the fruit we call oranges today. Later, Portuguese colonists carried orange seeds to Brazil. From Brazil oranges were brought to California, the first place to grow oranges in the United States. Peaches and melons also came from China. So did a new drink, tea.

Which of the following titles best expresses the main idea of the passage ?

Select the most appropriate ANTONYM of the given word.
 ABSURD 

Choose the correctly spelt word.

Select the most appropriate meaning of the highlighted idiom.

The employee took the manager’s remark with a pinch of salt

In the following passage, some of the words have been left out. Read the passage carefully and select the correct answer for the given blank out of the four alternatives.

The entry of foreign media has to be ______ by strict rules. Any intention to ______ the country politically or economically or any attempt at cultural ______ in order to make the country a slave to the designs of international powers would not be ______. If the foreign media is keen on making a presence on the Indian soil, respect for the country’s unity and ______ is essential.

cultural ______ in order to make the country.

Select the most appropriate ANTONYM of the given word.
 DIFFERENCE 

Select the option that expresses the given sentence in direct speech.

Fiona enquired whether I had gone to school on Tuesday.

Select the most appropriate option to substitute the underlined segment in the given sentence. If there is no need to substitute it, select ‘No substitution required’.

Of the two plans submitted by the architect, this is the one more likely to be accepted.