Read the passage carefully and answer the THREE questions that follow.
Comprehension:
What Arendt does for us is to remind us that our “publicness” is as important to our flourishing as our sociability and our privacy. She draws a distinction between what it means to act “socially” and what is means to act “politically.” The social realm for Arendt is both the context where all our basic survival needs “are permitted to appear in public” and also the realm of “behaviour.” One of the things she fears about modern societies is that society - focused on how we behave and what we will permit for ourselves and others -becomes the realm of conformism. This is worrying not just because we don’t really get vibrant societies out of conformism and sameness, but also, Arendt says because there is a risk that we think this is all there is to our living together. We lose ourselves in the tasks of managing behaviour and forget that our true public task is to act, and to distinguish ourselves in doing so. The risk, says Arendt, is therefore that we confuse behaviour with action , that in modern liberal societies “behaviour replaces action as the foremost mode of human relationship.” This confusion can happen in any area of our modern lives and institutions, secular or faith-based. None is immune.
Arendt wants to drive home the point that the healthy public life requires that we do not just see ourselves as social actors but also as fully public persons, committed to judging and acting as members of a common world we want to inhabit and pass on. Arendt tells us that public action is action in which we stand out, are individuated, become in some way excellent in a manner that is of service to others and a greater good. This is the space where we take risks, subject our common life to scrutiny, seek justice (that sometimes requires us to transgress what seem like accepted laws) in order to be increasingly open to the claims and needs of other humans - ones who are not our household and our kin.
Based on the passage, which of the following options BEST describes “public action”?
Which of the following is the BEST reason for focusing on behaviour instead of acting in public?
Read the poem carefully, and answer the TWO questions that follow.
Comprehension:
It hurts to walk on new legs:
The curse of consonants. The wobble of vowels.
And you for whom I gave up a kingdom
Can never love that thing I was.
When you look into my past
You see
Only weeds and scales.
Once I had a voice.
Now I have legs.
Sometimes I wonder
Was it a fair trade?
For the following questions answer them individually
Which of the following conditional sentences are grammatically INCORRECT?
1. If Sandhya had started from the hotel on time, she would have not missed the flight.
2. The students wouldn’t have completed their assignment even if the professor would have been there.
3. I had travelled across Europe if I weren’t afraid of airplane crashes.
4. Saurav won’t join music classes unless his father will ask him.
5. Should you wish to join the party, you must let me know by this evening.
6. We would be stupid if we shared our strategy with her.
Read the passage carefully and answer the following question.
Labouring is simply what we do to survive. We labour to eat. To keep our bodieshealthy. To keep roof over our heads, and to keep life reproducing. All animalslabour, with or without coaxing…. There’s nothing special about labour, save for thefact that without it we would die.
Work, on the other hand, gives collective meaning to what we do. When we work toproduce something we both put something into and leave something lasting in theworld: a table, a house, a book, a car, a rug, a high precision piece of engineeringwith which we can order the days into time, or keep a body breathing.
Which of the following statements can be BEST concluded from the passage?
Read the following scenario and answer the THREE questions that follow.
Comprehension:
Raghubir, a reputed doctor, practices medicine in a tier-three city. He owns an importedSUV which he bought 10 years ago, using his hard- earned savings of nearly 5 years.Initially, he used to take it for long rides, but for the last 6-7 years, he only commutes to hisclinic, a 10-minute drive from his home.
The SUV has been his proud possession but it demands high maintenance. Also, thediesel-guzzling SUV does not comply with the new emission norms being introduced in thetier-one and tier-two cities. Of late, a few newspapers reported that the new emission normsmay be introduced in tier-three cities as well. This news has worried Raghubir.
Raghubir is afraid that once the new emission norms are rolled out, he might not beable to use his SUV anymore.
Which of the following options will BEST put Raghubir at ease with using his SUVfor some more time?
Anya, Raghubir’s daughter, works in a metro city. She is concerned about privatetransport emissions and is unhappy with her father’s diesel-guzzling SUV. Thoughshe wants her father to be more environmentally responsible, she is aware that anydrastic suggestion might attract strong resistance. Hence, she wants a solution,acceptable to Raghubir, that gently dissuades him from using his SUV on a dailybasis.
Which of the following actions by Anya will BEST dissuade Raghubir from using hisSUV on a daily basis?
The new emission norms are about to get implemented in tier-three cities, andRaghubir’s city will follow suit shortly. Hence, Raghubir starts exploring options ofbuying an electric vehicle (EV). He lists the following factors that will guide him onbuying an electric car:
P. EVs within Raghubir’s budget can cover his daily commute, but not the long rides.
Q. A new electric SUV in the market, within his budget, nearly has the same look andfeel of his present SUV.
R. EVs cannot be driven beyond a speed of 70 kmph.
S. New charging stations on the main highway, connecting his city to the closestmetro city, may come up in another year.
T. The only shop, selling EVs in his city, is ready to trade in Raghubir’s SUV at areasonable price.
The above listed factors have been arranged in a DECREASING order of influence inthe options given below.
Which of the following options will BEST help Raghubir buy an electric vehicleimmediately?
Read the following scenario and answer the THREE questions that follow.
Comprehension:
Future Leaders is one of the most prestigious private schools in a small town, next to an industrial hub. Most of its students come from affluent families, but there are some who belong to middle-income and lower-middle-income families as well. The school charges an annual fee of â‚ą2 lakhs, inclusive of all charges, payable at the beginning of the academic year. Roughly 20% of the fees collected goes into paying the salaries of the teachers, another 30% for the upkeep of the school, and roughly 20% for miscellaneous expenses in running day-to-day businesses like supply, cleaning etc. The remaining goes into an exigency corpus.
This year, like the rest of the country, the town has been hit by the coronavirus pandemic. The classes have been shifted online. The local authorities have mandated that all schools have to reduce their fees by 20%. Further, parents should be given extended time to pay the fees if they are in financial distress. Six months into the academic year, only 40% of the parents have paid even the reduced annual fees.
Ajay Biswas, the rector of the school, is alarmed by the shortfall in fee payments and wants to find the best solution to manage the situation. He does not want to trouble parents who might be genuinely in financial distress, but feels that there may be a possibility that many parents are taking advantage of the situation.
Which of the following actions by the school will BEST make financially capable parents pay the fees?