SBI PO 2001

Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions given below it. Certain words/phrase are printed in ‘’bold’’ to help you to locate them while answering some of the questions.

Using infant mortality as a key indicator of the status of children, we now begin to have the broad features of a hypothesis as to the cause of the higher or lower mortality rates. One aspect is the ‘’complex’’ of factors involving the ‘’access’’ of mothers to trained personnel and other facilities for children delivery, the nutritional status of pregnant and nursing mothers and the quality of health-care and nourishment which babies receive. The other aspect, indicated by rural-urban differentials, is the possible importance of human settlement patterns in relation to the availability of health-care and related facilities such as potable water, excreta disposal systems, etc. Thus, in a special sense it is much cheaper available to a community when it is densely settled rather than widely dispersed.
It is possible to argue, however, that both these sets of factors are closely related to a third one, namely income levels. Poorer mothers and babies have less access to health-care facilities and nourishment than those who are better-off, urban communities are on average much better-off than rural communities. That economic conditions play a crucial role in determining the status of both mother and child is beyond dispute. But the question really is whether this is the only decisive factor or whether factors such as the availability of medical facilities, health-care programmes and nutritional programmes have an independent role. If so, then the settlement patterns which affect service delivery to the mother and child target groups become a relevant consideration. These are clearly issues of some importance for policy and programme planning.

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

To open up a field of study, draw attention to its vital elements, the lecture is invaluable. To listen to a lecture can be thrilling experience from which the student may gain ideas obtainable in no other way. But possibly to a greater degree than other forms of instruction, lecturing presumes a high order of intellectual competence on the part of learners. The purposes of the lecture are to summarize, to clarify, to stimulate and to humanize the materials of the course. It should synthesize, evaluate, criticise and compare ideas and facts with which students have come in contact through out-of-class assignments.

The effectiveness of lectures could be enhanced by introducing the lecture with a brief review of the work preceding. It should also be indicated how the day’s lecture fits into the course pattern. A lecture should seldom be presented in one unbroken discourse. Unless exceptionally interesting, a long lecture ‘’strains’’ the capacity for concentrated listening, causing intermittent wandering of attention and loss of continuity in thought. The lecture should therefore be organized in a few block or units. As a rule, the exposition should be concluded before the end of the class period so as to allow some time for general discussion.

For students to obtain maximum benefit from a lecture, individual participation in study in both precede and follow it. On their own initiative, most students would not engage in preparatory study, hence formal assignments may be necessary. The lecture should be concluded on the assumption that the assignments has been fulfilled. It pays to explore the aids available for teaching a course particularly through lectures, since verbal exposition alone, however ‘’lucid’’ has its shortcomings.