SSC CGL Tier-2 4th-September-2011 English

In the following questions, you have eight brief passage with 5/10 questions following each passage. Read the passages
carefully and choose the best answer to each question out of the four alternatives.
Passage II:

Time was when people looked heavenward and prayed, “Ye Gods, given us rain, keep drought away,” Today there are those who pray. “Give us rain, keep EI Nino away.”

El Nino and its atmospheric equivalent, called the Southern Oscillation, are together referred to as ENSO, and are household words today. Meteorologists organize it as often being responsible for natural disaster worldwide. But this wisdom dawned only after countries suffered, first from the lack of knowledge, and then from the lack of coordination between policy making and the advance in scientific knowledge.

Put simply, El Nino is a weather event restricted to certain tropical shores, epically the Peruvian coast. The event has diametrically opposite impacts on the land and sea. The Peruvian shore is a desert. But every few years, an unusually warm ocean current - El Nino - warms up the normally cold surface-waters of the Peruvian coast, causing very heavy rains in the early half of the year.

And then, miraculously, the desert is matted green. Crops like cotton, coconuts and banana grow on the other wise stubbornly barren land. These are the Peruvians’ anos de adundencia or years of abundance. The current had come to be termed El Nino, or the Christ Child because it usually appears as an enhancement if a mildly warm current that normally occurs here around every Christmas.

But this boon on land is accompanied by oceanic disasters. Normally, the waters off the South American coast are among the most productive in the world because of a constant upswelling of nutrient rich cold waters from the ocean depths. During an El Nino, however waters are stirred up only from near the surface. The nutrient-crunch pushes down primary production, disrupting the food chain. Many marine species, including anchoveta (anchovies) temporarily disappear.

This is just one damming effect of El Nino. Over the years its full impact has been studied and what the Peruvians once regarded as manna, is now seen as a major threat.

In the following questions, you have eight brief passage with 5/10 questions following each passage. Read the passages
carefully and choose the best answer to each question out of the four alternatives.
Passage III:

There is a general consensus that ‘International Understanding’ need to be taught as a separate subject at the school stage as that would add to the curricular load which is already too heavy. Instead it should be woven into the curriculum and the numerous opportunities that present themselves while teaching normal school subjects may be intelligently and imaginatively used by the teacher to promote International Understanding.

The school subject which can be most profitably used for this purpose are History, Geography, Civics, Economics, Sociology, Political Science, Social Science, Languages as well as Physical and Life Science. However, at the higher education level, international education can be prescribed as a separate subject of study. In fact, the present situation on India broadly conforms to this consensus so far as the school stage is concerned.

At the under-graduate and the post-graduate levels, courses of study in subjects like History, Geography, Economics, Political Science,
International Law and International Organizational have been prescribed by most of the universities and these contain content which
has a direct or indirect bearing on promoting UNESCO ideals.