SSC Stenographer 12th Nov 2021 Shift-1

In the following passage some words have been deleted. Fill in the blanks with the help of the alternatives given. Select the most appropriate option for each blank.

The rain was coming down relentlessly. Even (1)_________ a fast windscreen wiper, the road was (2)_________ visible in the dark. Away from the noisy station we had just left, I (3)_________ the empty roads. Indeed, who would be walking (4)_________ at such a late hour in the pouring rain? Shekhar was (5)_________ steady driver as a rule, but we (6)_________ both worried by now and he was already driving (7)_________ fast. The road conditions were (8)_________ from good. It was a bad ride, but we barely noticed it as we were so (9)_________ . The only thing I was worried about was finding my daughter, a young, (10)_________ girl alone on the streets at this hour.

Read the given passage and answer the questions that follow.

New York City is on ‘high alert’ after reporting 100 cases of a rare inflammatory disease apparently tied to COVID-19 in children.
The city recently began reporting rising cases of paediatric multi-system inflammatory syndrome, an illness that officials say is similar to toxic shock or Kawasaki disease, with symptoms including a fever and abdominal pain and which ‘appears to be linked to an immune response to COVID-19,’ The New York Times reports.
City Mayor Bill de Blasio, in a press briefing on Thursday said, "We are now on high alert in addressing the syndrome after the number of confirmed cases of paediatric multi-system inflammatory syndrome in the city has reached 100.” “Among those cases, 55 children have tested positive for COVID-19 or the antibodies”, de Blasio said, “and one child has died.” Two other children have also died from the illness in New York State, according to the Times. De Blasio had reported 82 cases of the syndrome in the city.
These developments continue to be ‘really troubling’ after it was previously thought that “children seemed to have very little effect from this disease," de Blasio said. He urged parents to call their doctor immediately if a child had a persistent fever, a rash, abdominal pain, vomiting, and especially a combination of these symptoms.