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au
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Reading Section
Directions for questions 1-8: Read the passage and answer the

questions based on it-

The economic transformation of India is one of the great business stories of our time. As stifling

government regulations have been lifted, entrepreneurship has flourished, and the country has

become a high-powered center for information technology and pharmaceuticals. Indian

companies like Infosys and Wipro are powerful global players, while Western firms like G.E. and

I.B.M. now have major research facilities in India employing thousands. India’s seemingly

endless flow of young, motivated engineers, scientists, and managers offering developed-world

skills at developing-world wages is held to be putting American jobs at risk, and the country is

frequently heralded as “the next economic superpower.”

But India has run into a surprising hitch on its way to superpower status: its inexhaustible supply

of workers is becoming exhausted. Although India has one of the youngest workforces on the

planet, the head of Infosys said recently that there was an “acute shortage of skilled manpower,”

and a study by Hewitt Associates projects that this year salaries for skilled workers will rise

fourteen and a half per cent, a sure sign that demand for skilled labor is outstripping supply.

How is this possible in a country that every year produces two and a half million college

graduates and four hundred thousand engineers? Start with the fact that just ten per cent of

Indians get any kind of post-secondary education, compared with some fifty per cent who do in

the U.S. Moreover, of that ten per cent, the vast majority go to one of India’s seventeen

thousand colleges, many of which are closer to community colleges than to four-year

institutions. India does have more than three hundred universities, but a recent survey by the

London Times Higher Education Supplement put only two of them among the top hundred in the
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world. Many Indian graduates, therefore, enter the workforce with a low level of skills. A current

study led by Vivek Wadhwa, of Duke University, has found that if you define “engineer” by U.S.

standards, India produces just a hundred and seventy thousand engineers a year, not four

hundred thousand. Infosys says that, of 1.3 million applicants for jobs last year, it found only two

per cent acceptable.

There was a time when many economists believed that post-secondary education didn’t have

much impact on economic growth. The really important educational gains, they thought, came

from giving rudimentary skills to large numbers of people (which India still needs to do—at least

thirty per cent of the population is illiterate). They believed that, in economic terms, society got a

very low rate of return on its investment in higher education. But lately that assumption has

been overturned, and the social rate of return on investment in university education in India has

been calculated at an impressive nine or ten per cent. In other words, every dollar India puts

into higher education creates value for the economy as a whole. Yet India spends roughly three

and a half per cent of its G.D.P. on education, significantly below the percentage spent by the

U.S., even though India’s population is much younger, and spending on education should be

proportionately higher.

The irony of the current situation is that India was once considered to be overeducated. In the

seventies, as its economy languished, it seemed to be a country with too many engineers and

Ph.Ds working as clerks in government offices. Once the Indian business climate loosened up,

though, that meant companies could tap a backlog of hundreds of thousands of eager, skilled

workers at their disposal. Unfortunately, the educational system did not adjust to the new

realities. Between 1985 and 1997, the number of teachers in India actually fell, while the

percentage of students enrolled in high school or college rose more slowly than it did in the rest

of the world. Even as the need for skilled workers was increasing, India was devoting relatively

fewer resources to producing them.

Questions:

1. Which of these could you infer according to the passage?

a. Wages in the Developing countries are less as compared to wages in the developed

countries.

b. Wages in the Developing countries are more as compared to wages in the developed

countries.

c. Wages in the Developing countries are same as wages in the developed countries.

d. None of these.

2. What does “American jobs” in the last line of the first paragraph of the passage imply?

a. Jobs provided by American companies.

b. Jobs held (or to be held) by American people.

c. Jobs open to only American citizens.

d. Jobs provided by the American government.

3. According to the passage, why India does not have enough skilled labour?

a. The total amount of the young population is low.

b. The total number of colleges are insufficient.

c. Students do not want to study.

d. Maximum universities and colleges do not match global standards.

4. What can you infer as the meaning of ‘stifling‘ from the passage?

a. Democratic.

b. Liberal.

c. Impeding.
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d. Undemocratic.

5. What is an appropriate title to the passage?

a. Growing Indian Economy.

b. Higher education in India.

c. India’s Skill Shortage.

d. Entrepreneurship in India.

6. In the third sentence of the third paragraph of the passage, the phrase “closer to community

colleges ” is used. What does it imply?

a. Near to community colleges.

b. Like community colleges.

c. Close association with community colleges.

d. None of these.

7. According to the passage, what is the paradox of the Indian economy today?

a. The economic progress is impressive, but the poor (earning one dollar per day) are not

benefited.

b. The economic progress is impressive disallowing the government to take tough decisions.

c. There is not enough skilled workforce and the government does not realize this.

d. Government is not ready to invest in setting up new universities.

8. Why are salaries for skilled workers rising?

a. Companies are paying hire to lure skilled people to jobs.

b. American companies are ready to pay higher to skilled workers.

c. Entrepreneurship is growing in India.

d. There are not enough skilled workers, while the demand for them is high.
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Directions for questions 9- 14: Read the poem and answer the

questions based on it-

The School Boy

I love to rise in a summer morn,

When the birds sing on every tree;

The distant huntsman winds his horn,

And the sky-lark sings with me.

O! what sweet company.

But to go to school in a summer morn

O: it drives all joy away;

Under a cruel eye outworn.

The little ones spend the day.

In sighing and dismay.

Ah! then at times I drooping sit.

And spend many an anxious hour.

Nor in my book can I take delight,

Nor sit in learnings bower.

Worn thro’ with the dreary shower.

How can the bird that is born for joy,

Sit in a cage and sing.

How can a child, when fears annoy,

But droop his tender wing.

And forget his youthful spring.

O! father & mother. if buds are nip’d,

And blossoms blown away.

And if the tender plants are strip’d

Of their joy in the springing day,

By sorrow and cares dismay.

— William Blake

9. What does the boy like about the huntsman?

A. Sound of his horn

B. Hunting skills

C. His personality

D. All of the Above

10. What drives all the joy away?

A. Caged bird

B. Nip in the bud

C. Blown blossoms

D. School on a summer morning

11. “The little ones spend the day, in _____ and _____”

A. Sighing, dismay

B. Happiness, glory
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C. Happiness, joy

D. Sighing, sorrow

12. Who does he compare himself to when he says “How can a child when fears annoy,

But droop his tender wing, And forget his youthful spring.”?

A. Book

B. Flower

C. Nip in the bud

D. Caged bird

13. Who is he talking to when he says “if buds are nip’d…”

A. His parents

B. Teacher

C. Caged bird

D. All of the Above

14. How shall the summer arise in joy, Or the summer fruits appear if _____.

A. Buds are nipped

B. Blossoms are blown

C. Plants are stripped

D. All of the Above

Directions for questions 15-20: Read the passage and answer the

questions based on it- Six sentences have been removed from the
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text. Choose from the sentences (A – G) the one which fits each gap

(15 – 20). There is one extra sentence which you do not need to use.

Customer Service in Banks

The banking profession doesn’t have a very good reputation for customer service at the

moment, and it’s not just due to loss of savings. High street branches are shutting down and

where banks are available, their opening hours are inconvenient. Staff at the desks are surly,

increasingly under-qualified and often unable to answer questions. 15………… Astonishingly,

however, 86% of the customers at one bank are either ‘extremely satisfied’ or ‘very satisfied’

with the service they receive. And what is even more surprising is that the bank in question has

no High Street outlets at all.

First National bank is run entirely through the telephone and the internet. And its success shows

that customer service is just about face-to-face contact with clients. The primary concern of the

bank is recruiting the right people. 16…………So they only recruit people who already exhibit

good communication skills.

And unlike other services that operate primarily over the telephone, the staff at First National do

not use scripts. 17…………What this bank asks for is that staff be themselves and establish a

rapport with their customers. Part of this is recognizing people’s needs. 18…………. Some want

the process to be swift and efficient. The member of staff has to pick up on the caller’s mood

and react accordingly. 19……… The idea that customer service can be improved on a medium

where there is no actual contact with a member of staff may seem strange at first. However, the

website designers at First National spend a great deal of time understanding their customers

and offering services which meet their needs. 20…... First National is already taking steps to fill

this demand. They already offer a service in which customers receive a text when funds are
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received or when their account falls below a certain level. In the future, online systems may pre-

empt customers’ needs in even more sophisticated ways.

A Although people do not expect much from the internet these days, this will change in the

future.

B The managers recognize that customers find them impersonal and unnatural.

C First National is also preparing to adopt this personal approach to its internet banking.

D They have the attitude that some skills, such as keyboard skills and so on, can be taught, but

a member of staff can’t be taught to be a nice person.

E Telephones are very personal because staff are speaking to people on their own territory.

F And if customers try to contact the bank by telephone, they are put through to a call centre in

another country where they have to speak slowly in order to be understood.

G Not everyone wants a chatty, friendly service.

Read the four extracts below. For questions 21 – 30, choose the

option (A, B, C or D) which you think best answers the question.

Which extract...

21 ------------ talks about the origin of Genealogy

22-------------says that Genealogy has become a hobby now

23-------------explains how Genealogy works

24-------------talks about Genealogy being international in scope

25--------------links it to the Greek origin

26--------------tells us how a family tree grows

27-------------- tells how traditional genealogy research was done

28-------------- says that knowing a person’s origin increases our interest in him

29--------------says that it’s a science of studying family history

30-------------- says that census, church, court, and land records were used in old days for

genealogy study

EXTRACT A

Genealogy is fun. Just as a piece of furniture or a picture takes on much more interest if you

know its history, so does an individual become more real once the ancestral elements that

shaped him are known. An in-depth family history is a tapestry of all those to whom we owe our
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existence. Children of the parent form branches around the center and their names are plotted

in their birth year on the time scale. Spouses' names join children's names and nuclear families

of parents and children branch off to grandchildren, and so on.

EXTRACT B

Genealogy is a study of family origins and history. It is found in most parts of the world and is

international in scope. Originally concerned with tracing royal, aristocratic, or clerical lines,

genealogy has broadened its scope over the centuries, and many ordinary people now pursue it

as a hobby. The golden rule in family history research is to work backwards from what you

already know. It is not necessary to have much detail to start, but it does makes sense to log

whatever information is readily available and to seek out further details from relatives.

EXTRACT C

Genealogists compile lists of ancestors, which they arrange in pedigree charts or other written

forms. The word genealogy comes from two Greek words—one meaning “race” or “family” and

the other “theory” or “science.” Thus is derived “to trace ancestry,” the science of studying family

history. Traditional genealogy research uses various records to trace a living person to their

ancestral roots, including census, church, court, and land records. Genealogy as historical

narrative may have no clear origin, but it is associated primarily with Friedrich

Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morals and more recently Michel Foucault's Discipline and Punish.

EXTRACT D

Genealogy allows us to comprehend the essence of who we are. It provides insight into the

diverse cultures, traditions, and values that have shaped our family over generations. This

understanding is crucial for forging a strong sense of identity and belonging. In addition to

simply wanting to know more about who they are and where they came from, individuals may
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research their genealogy to learn about any hereditary diseases in their family history. Genetic

ancestry is based upon a person's DNA, which can be traced back to the genetic sequences of

their ancestors. So, if a person's ancestry report says they are 34% East Asian, then that means

that person has genetic DNA most similar to the population of many of the people living in that

geographic location now.