SOLVED PAPER 2020 (CDS) (I) (English)

Total Questions: 120

1. (Questions 1-5) In this section you have a few short passages. After each passage, you will find some items based on the passage. First, read a passage and answer the items based on it. You are required to select your answers based on the contents of the passage and opinion of the author only.

PASSAGE-I

Not all agricultural societies become civilisations, but no civilisation can become one without passing through the stage of agriculture. This is because at some stage in the development of agriculture, as productivity improves, not all people would need to be engaged in producing or procuring food.

A significant number of people could be freed up to pursue other activities such as building walls or monuments for new cities; making new tools, weapons and jewellery; organising long-distance trade; creating new artistic masterpieces; coming up with new inventions; keeping accounts; and perhaps constructing new public infrastructure such as irrigation canals that further improve the productivity of agriculture, thus realising even more people to do new things.

This can happen, of course, only if a society that has transitioned to high-productivity agriculture has also, at some stage in its evolution, found a way to channel the bonanza of free time into other work fruitfully. In the ancient world, this often involved creating new ideologies and new hierarchies or power structures to coerce or otherwise convince large groups of people to devote their time to the new tasks for very little reward.

Which one of the following statements is true according to the author?

Correct Answer: (a) Agriculture has always been part of all civilisations.
Solution:According to the given passage, all civilisations have developed after going through a phase of agriculture. Hence, agriculture had been as part of all civilisations.

2. A significant number of people were sent to carry out other work from agriculture because

Correct Answer: (c) there were sufficient agricultural products.
Solution:The given passage states that as the agriculture production was bulk, people had to time to invest their time in other activities.

3. What kind of agriculture based societies would emerge as civilisations?

Correct Answer: (a) Societies which achieved high productivity in agriculture had the opportunity to find time for other work.
Solution:According to the given passage, those agricultural societies where agricultural production was high and in bulk, those societies emerged as civilisations.

4. People as groups were convinced to do new work through

Correct Answer: (b) ideologies, hierarchies and power structures.
Solution:The last line of the passage states that it was ‘ideologies, hierarchies and power structures’ that convinced or forced people to devote their time to activities other than agriculture.

5. Which word in the passage means ‘changeover’?

Correct Answer: (a) Transitioned
Solution:The synonym of changeover is transitioned. Both word represent a shift to a new way.

6. (Questions 6-10) In this section you have a few short passages. After each passage, you will find some items based on the passage. First, read a passage and answer the items based on it. You are required to select your answers based on the contents of the passage and opinion of the author only.

PASSAGE-II

When we pick up a newspaper, a book or an article, we come to our task with certain preconceptions and predispositions. We expect to find a specific piece of information or be presented with an argument or an analysis of something, say, the likelihood of recession in the next six months or the reasons why children can’t read. We probably know a little about the book or article we are reading even before we start. There was, after all, some reason why we chose to read one piece of writing rather than another.

Our expectations and predispositions may, however, blind us to what the article and its author is actually saying. If, for example, we are used to disagreeing with the author, we may see only what we expect to see and not what is actually there. Day after day in our routine pattern of life we expose ourselves to the same newspaper, the same magazine, even books by authors with the same perspectives. In order to reflect on our reading habits and improve our skills we need to break out of this routine, step back and look at what we are doing when we read.

According to the author, which one of the following statements is not true?

Correct Answer: (d) Readers assume that everything they read will have new information.
Solution:As per the given passage, readers have certain presumptions and ideas that govern what and how they would read any literary work. In fact, it also points that readers look for some specific pieces of information in any literature. Hence, option (d) is not given in the passage.

7. Our expectations and predispositions may, however, blind us because

Correct Answer: (a) we may not get the actual ideas of the author.
Solution:The passage points out that whenever we have preconceived ideas or viewpoints, it blinds us or does not let us understand what the author truly wants to say. We often assume the meaning to be something else than what the author actually wanted to say.

8. One of the ways to improve our reading habits is to

Correct Answer: (c) break the routine of reading the same newspaper.

9. Which quality does the author here advocate, to be a good reader?

Correct Answer: (a) Being objective to the ideas of the author.
Solution:The passage clearly states that we must be open and objective to the ideas of the author to become an effective reader.

10. Which word in the passage means ‘viewpoints’?

Correct Answer: (d) Perspectives
Solution:The synonym of ‘viewpoints’ is ‘perspectives’, as both words means a persons opinion or point of view.