SSC CGL Tier-2 20-February-2018 English

A passage is given with five questions following it. Read the passage carefully and select the best answer to each question out of the given four alternatives.
Passage:

The Indian Space Research Organisation boosted its reputation further when it successfully launched a record 104 satellites in one mission from Sriharikota on 15th February, 2017 by relying on its workhorse PSLV rocket. An earth observation Cartosat-2 series satellite and two other nano satellites were the only Indian satellites launched; the remaining were from the United States, Israel, the UAE, the Netherlands, Kazakhstan and Switzerland. Of the 101 foreign satellites launched, 96 were from the U.S. and one each from the other five countries. Till now Russia held the record of launching 37 satellites in a single mission, in 2014, while the National Aeronautics and Space Administration of the U.S. launched 29 satellites in one go in 2013. Last June, ISRO had come close to NASA’s record by launching 20 satellites in one mission. But ISRO views the launch not as a mission to set a world record but as an opportunity to make full use of the capacity of the launch vehicle. The launch is particularly significant as ISRO now cements its position as a key player in the lucrative commercial space launch market by providing a cheaper yet highly reliable alternative. At an orbital altitude of around 500 km, the vehicle takes about 90 minutes to complete one orbit. Though ISRO had sufficient time to put the satellites into orbit, it accomplished the task in about 12 minutes. With the focus on ensuring that no two satellites collided with each other, the satellites were injected in pairs in opposite directions. Successive pairs of satellites were launched once the vehicle rotated by a few degrees, thereby changing the separation angle and time of separation to prevent any collision.

Besides setting the record for the most number of satellites launched in a single mission, the Indian space agency has launched two nano satellites weighing less than 10 kg. It is a technology demonstrator for a new class of satellites called ISRO nano satellites (INS). With many Indian universities already building and launching nano satellites, the availability of a dedicated nano satellites platform is sure to boost space research in India.

Read the passage carefully and select the best answer to each question out of the given four alternatives.
Passage:

Let’s move to the crackling topic of the SC’s firecracker ban in Delhi. Like me and millions of other children raised in India, Masaba must have celebrated Diwali with new clothes, sweets and the quintessential rockets, anars and phuljharis. But when she supports the ban on firecrackers because of the pollution it creates, the earthworms once again flail desperately, not by quoting statistics or making logical arguments to refute her point but by muck-raking. ‘Don’t mess with our ancient traditions,’ they say. I would like to tell them that if we stuck to all our traditions just because they’re ancient then we should still be pushing widows into funeral pyres to commit sati and get our children married off at the age of eight.
As much as I would like to see the delight on my daughter’s face — the same glee I had as a child — while bursting atom bombs and laris, it is the present scenario and not nostalgia that must dictate my actions. If even doctors welcome the ban as they feel fumes from firecrackers take pollution levels beyond safe limits, then perhaps we need to change our traditional values and create new ones. If saying that makes me a bad Indian, then so be it.
One of the greatest privileges I have — in fact because of the very background that they are trying to smear — stems from the fact that I was lucky enough to have a mother who has raised me to believe that equality isn’t one of my privileges but it is my right. One that was hard won by some brave and fearless women, women who set the right precedent for other women by standing against inequality.
The flailing trollers do not realize that you cannot shame us by pulling down our mothers, those fiercely independent women who have lived life on their own terms, who have not just talked the talk but walked the walk. Yes, you can reason with us by presenting a logical argument but this seems to be beyond the resources of these anonymous creatures hiding their faces in the mud.
And yes one last thing, for all those claiming to be the flag-bearers of ancient traditions, it would be lovely if you adhered to your so-called traditional ways completely. Why do you write open letters, tweet and troll in the language of the Brits? Why not go traditional there as well, use only our ancient languages and spare us your venom-filled and grammatically incorrect English?

Read the passage carefully and select the best answer to each question out of the given four alternatives.
Passage:

The first thing is that the rich people of the world should start living in communes. Let those communes be of the rich! So they will not be dragged down from their standard of life, their comforts, and their luxuries. Let there be, around the world, hundreds of communes of rich people - that is, rich communes.
And to me, wealth is a certain kind of creativity. If five thousand rich people who have all created wealth individually are together, they can create wealth a million-fold. Their standard will not go lower; their standard could go even higher. Or they can start sharing. They can start inviting people who are not rich but who are creative in some other way, who will enhance the life of their commune although they may be poor.
Five thousand rich people, together with their genius for creating wealth, are capable of creating so much wealth that they can invite thousands of other people who may not be rich in the sense of being wealthy, but who may be rich as painters, poets, dancers, singers.
What are you going to do only with wealth? You cannot play music on money; you cannot dance just because you have so much cash in the bank. And these rich communes can start becoming bigger, absorbing more and more creative people. They can make beautiful places all around the world, and slowly, new people can be absorbed.
For example, you will need plumbers, however rich you may be; you will need mechanics; technicians; you will need shoemakers. Invite them - and they come to you not as servants, but as members of the commune. Slowly, we can transform the whole world - without any bloodshed and without any dictatorship.
A communism that comes out of love, out of intelligence, out of generosity, will be real. A communism that comes through force is going to be unreal. There is not a single man in the world, howsoever poor, who has nothing to contribute. Around the world all the rich communes will need people; and slowly, slowly your commune will become bigger and bigger.
The rich will not become poor, but the poor will become rich, and respectable, and equal - in no way inferior to anybody else - because they are also functioning in the same way as anybody else. And whatever they are doing is needed as much as anybody else’s expertise is needed.