Reading Compreh...

$$1$$. Often, we passionately pursue matters that in the future appear to be contradictory to our real intention or nature; and triumph is followed by remorse or regret. There are numerous examples of such a trend in the annals of history and contemporary life.
$$2$$. Alfred Nobel was the son of Immanuel Nobel, an inventor who experimented extensively with explosives. Alfred too carried out research and experiments with a large range of chemicals; he found new methods to blast rocks for the construction of roads and bridges; he was engaged in the development of technology and different weapons; his life revolved around rockets and cannons and gun powder. The ingenuity of the scientist brought him enough wealth to buy the Bofors armament plant in Sweden.
$$3$$. Paradoxically, Nobel's life was a busy one yet he was lonely; and as he grew older, he began suffering from guilt of having invented the dynamite that was being used for destructive purposes. He set aside a huge part of his wealth to institute Nobel Prizes. Besides honouring men and women for their extraordinary achievements in physics, chemistry, medicine and literature, he wished to honour people who worked for the promotion of peace.
$$4$$. It's strange that the very man whose name was closely connected with explosives and inventions that helped in waging wars willed a large part of his earnings for the people who work for the promotion of peace and the benefit of mankind. The Nobel Peace Prize is intended for a person who has accomplished the best work for fraternity among nations, for abolition or reduction of war and for promotion of peace.
$$5$$. Another example that comes to one's mind is that of Albert Einstein. In $$1939$$, fearing that the Nazis would win the race to build the world's first atomic bomb, Einstein urged President Franklin D Roosevelt to launch an American programme on nuclear research. The matter was considered and a project called the Manhattan Project was initiated. The project involved intense nuclear research for the construction of the world's first atomic bomb. All this while, Einstein had the impression that the bomb would be used to protect the world from the Nazis. But in $$1945$$, when Hiroshima was bombed to end World War II, Einstein was deeply grieved and he regretted his endorsement of the need for nuclear research.
$$6$$. He also stated that had he known that the Germans would be unsuccessful in making the atomic bomb, he would have probably never recommended making one. In $$1947$$, Einstein began working for the cause of disarmament. But, Einstein's name still continues to be linked with the bomb. Man's fluctuating thoughts, changing opinions, varying opportunities keep the mind in a state of flux. Hence, the paradox of life: it's certain that nothing is certain in life.

$$1$$. Often, we passionately pursue matters that in the future appear to be contradictory to our real intention or nature; and triumph is followed by remorse or regret. There are numerous examples of such a trend in the annals of history and contemporary life.
$$2$$. Alfred Nobel was the son of Immanuel Nobel, an inventor who experimented extensively with explosives. Alfred too carried out research and experiments with a large range of chemicals; he found new methods to blast rocks for the construction of roads and bridges; he was engaged in the development of technology and different weapons; his life revolved around rockets and cannons and gun powder. The ingenuity of the scientist brought him enough wealth to buy the Bofors armament plant in Sweden.
$$3$$. Paradoxically, Nobel's life was a busy one yet he was lonely; and as he grew older, he began suffering from guilt of having invented the dynamite that was being used for destructive purposes. He set aside a huge part of his wealth to institute Nobel Prizes. Besides honouring men and women for their extraordinary achievements in physics, chemistry, medicine and literature, he wished to honour people who worked for the promotion of peace.
$$4$$. It's strange that the very man whose name was closely connected with explosives and inventions that helped in waging wars willed a large part of his earnings for the people who work for the promotion of peace and the benefit of mankind. The Nobel Peace Prize is intended for a person who has accomplished the best work for fraternity among nations, for abolition or reduction of war and for promotion of peace.
$$5$$. Another example that comes to one's mind is that of Albert Einstein. In $$1939$$, fearing that the Nazis would win the race to build the world's first atomic bomb, Einstein urged President Franklin D Roosevelt to launch an American programme on nuclear research. The matter was considered and a project called the Manhattan Project was initiated. The project involved intense nuclear research for the construction of the world's first atomic bomb. All this while, Einstein had the impression that the bomb would be used to protect the world from the Nazis. But in $$1945$$, when Hiroshima was bombed to end World War II, Einstein was deeply grieved and he regretted his endorsement of the need for nuclear research.
$$6$$. He also stated that had he known that the Germans would be unsuccessful in making the atomic bomb, he would have probably never recommended making one. In $$1947$$, Einstein began working for the cause of disarmament. But, Einstein's name still continues to be linked with the bomb. Man's fluctuating thoughts, changing opinions, varying opportunities keep the mind in a state of flux. Hence, the paradox of life: it's certain that nothing is certain in life.

In view of the passage given below, choose the best option for the blank:
     When talks come to how India has done for itself in 50 years of independence, the world has nothing but praise for our success in remaining a democracy. On other fronts, the applause is less loud. In absolute terms, India has not done too badly, of course, life expectancy has increased, so has literacy. Industry, which was barely a fledgling has grown tremendously.
     And as far as agriculture is concerned, India has been transformed from a country perpetual on the edge of starvation into a success story held up for others to emulate. But these are competitive times when change is rapid, and to walk slowly when the rest of the world is running is almost as bad as standing still or walking backward.
     Compared with large chunks of what was then the developing world South Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, China and what was till lately a separate Hong Kong-India has fared abysmally. It began with a far better infrastructure than most of these countries had.
     It suffered hardly or not at all during World War II. It had advantages like an English speaking elite quality scientific manpower (including a Nobel laureate and others, who could be ranked among the world's best) and excellent business acumen. Yet today, when countries are ranked according to their global competitiveness, it is tiny Singapore that figures at the top.
     Hong Kong is a powerhouse. So, is Taiwan. If a symbol were needed of how far we have fallen back, note that while Korean Cielos are sold in India no one in South Korea is rushing to buy an Indian car.
     The reasons list themselves. Topmost is economic isolationism. The government discouraged imports and self-sufficiency. Whatever the aim was, the result was the creation of a totally encouraging inefficient industry that failed to keep pace with global trends and therefore, became absolutely uncompetitive. Only, when the trade gates were opened a little did this become apparent.
     The years since then have been spent in merely trying to catch up. That the government actually sheltered its industrialists from foreign competition is a little strange. For in all other respects, it opened under the conviction that businessmen were little more than crooks, who were to be prevented from entering the most important areas of the economy, who were to be hamstrung in as many ways as possible, who were to be tolerated in the same way as an excisable wart.
     The high expropriatory rates taxation, the licensing laws, the reservation of whole swathes of the industry for the public sector and the granting of monopolies to the public sector firms were the principal manifestations of this attitude.
     The government forgot that before wealth could be distributed, it had to be created. The government forgot that it itself could not create, but only squander wealth. Some of the manifestations of the old attitude have changed. Tax rates have fallen. Licensing has been all but abolished. And the gates of global trade have been opened wide.
     But most of these changes were first by circumstances partly by the foreign exchange bankruptcy of 1991 and the recognition that the government could no longer muster the funds to support the public sector, leave alone expand it. Whether the attitude of the government itself or that of more than a handful of ministers has changed, is open to question. In many other ways, however, the government has not changed one with. Business still has to negotiate a welter of negotiations.
     Transparency is still a long way off. And there is no existing policy. In defending the existing policy, politicians betray an inability to see beyond their noses. A no-exit policy for labor is equivalent to a no-entry policy for new business. If one industry is not allowed to retrench labor, other industries will think a hundred times before employing new labor. In other ways too, the government hurts industries.
     Public sector monopolies like the Department of Telecommunications and Videsh Sanchar Nigam Limited make it possible for Indian business to operate only at a cost several times that of their counterparts abroad.
     The infrastructure is in a shambles party because it is unable to formulate a sufficiently remunerative policy for private business and partly because it does not have the stomach to charge market rates for services. After a burst of activity in the early nineties, the government is dragging its feet. At the rate it is going, it will be another fifty years before the government realizes that a pro-business policy is the best pro-people policy. By then, of course, the world would have moved even farther ahead.

I reported on the Iraq invasion as a "unilateral" journalist, which meant I rented an SUV from Hertz in Kuwait and sneaked across the border with the first US tanks, I wound up in Baghdad on April 9, 2003, and watched the Marines tear down the iconic statue of Saddam Hussein at Firdos Square. I returned to Iraq on several occasions to work on length stories about the dismal turn of events as the occupation turned into a war of Americans against Iraqis, and Iraqis against Iraqis. The carriage, though heartbreaking, was almost the least shocking experience of my journeys between the war in the Mideast and my home in New York City. While Americans killed and got killed in Iraq, Americans back home shopped at Walmart and watched reality television. I had covered a lot of wars and thought I had grown accustomed to peaceful countries being unconcerned by other people's quarrels. My unsentimental education had begun in the 1990s in Bosnia where I often had a Matrix-like experience. In the morning, I would wake up in Sarajevo or another cursed town that was blasted by bombs, frozen by winter and deprived of food. I would then begin my efforts to get out of the hell. I would hope for a seat on what was known as Maybe Airlines. These were the UN relief flights that brought food into besieged Sarajevo. Maybe the shelling would be light enough for flights to land and take off, maybe not. If the flights were grounded, I could try to escape by driving along Sniper Alley and through a creepy no man's land that constituted the only border that mattered in a nation cut and quartered by war. Distance is small in Europe. By the afternoon, I could be in Vienna or Budapest or London, enjoying the comfortable life that Europe offered many of its citizens: hot showers, good food, clean sheets, the certainty that I would not be killed by a mortar as I slept. I had a hard time believing these altered states existed in such close proximity. The contented Europeans eating apple strudel or shopping at Harrods on those 1990s afternoons- didn't they realize the war was being fought in their backyard? The answer was that they knew and didn't care. Proximity isn't density. Bosnia though close wasn't their home. Other people were killing and dying, not their people. I had understood only half of it and learned the other half a decade later, on my return to America after sojourns in Iraq. Outside the tight-knit community of military families who cared deeply about the wars, nearly everyone in America went about his or her life as though Iraq and Afghanistan didn't matter much. Nor had Americans been asked to change their way of life. It had become possible, I realized, for a nation to be at war without suffering the inconveniences associated with war- including the inconvenience of thinking about it. World War II was a classic war in the sense of rationing, of derives for war bonds, of a draft the elite could not avoid the college deferments and of a ceaseless drumbeat in almost every sector of society that a great conflict as being fought that required great sacrifices if everyone. Even for families spared the loss of a loved one overseas. World War II was a visible - intentionally visible - aspect of life in the homeland; the nation's leaders made it do. Life as it was before the war had to be suspended.

[passage-header]Read the poem and answer the question that follows:
[/passage-header]13443Better to see your cheek grown hollow,
42254Better to see your temple worn,
Than to forget to follow, follow,
After the sound of a silver 78540horn.

Better to bind your brow with willow
And follow, follow until you die,
Than to sleep with your head on a golden pillow,
Nor lift it up when the 70065hunt goes by.

Better to see your cheek grown sallow
And your hair grown gray, so soon, so soon.
Than to forget to 69833hallo, hallo,
After the milk-white hounds of the moon.
[passage-footer]''Madman's Song'' was written by William Rose Benet in 1921.[/passage-footer]

[passage-header]Read the passage and fill in the blank:
[/passage-header]Sometimes we went off the road and on a path through the pine forest. The floor of the forest was soft to walk on; the frost did not harden it as it did the road. But we did not mind the hardness of the road because we had nails in the soles and heels of our boots and the heel nails bit on the frozen ruts and with nailed boots it was good walking on the road and invigorating. It was lovely walking in the woods.

[passage-header]Read the passage given below and answer the question that follows:[/passage-header]There are dull, mechanical fellows who turn out runs with as little emotion as a machine turns out pins. There is no colour, no enthusiasm, no character in their play. Cricket is not an adventure to them, it is a business. It was so with Shrewsbury. His technical perfection was astonishing, but the soul of the game was wanting in him. There was no sunshine in his play, no swift surprise of splendid unselfishness. And without these things, without gaiety, daring and the spirit of sacrifice, cricket is a dead thing.

More than 125,000 study participants who were free of diabetes, cancer, and cardiovascular disease at the II start of a study were selected from the on-going Health Professionals Follow-up Study and the Brigham and Women's Hospital-based Nurses Health Study. Some 41,934 men were tracked from 1986 to 1998 and 84,276 women from 1980 to 1998 via food frequency questionnaires every two to four years to assess their intake of both regular and decaffeinated coffee. During the span of the study, 1,333 new cases of type-2 diabetes were diagnosed in men and 4,085 among the women participants. The researchers also found that for men, those who drank more than six cups of caffeinated coffee per day reduced their risk for type-2 diabetes by more than 50 percent compared to men in the study who didn't drink coffee. Among the women, those who drank six or more cups per day reduced the risk of type-2 diabetes by nearly 30 percent. Decaffein at ed coffee was also beneficial, but its effects were weaker than regular coffee.

[passage-header]Read the paragraph and complete the sentence given below:[/passage-header]Insects, by far the most abundant creatures on earth, might have taken over long ago if hordes of them weren't eaten away every day by birds, frogs or spiders. But these tiny, six-legged invertebrates have many ways of protecting themselves: a speedy get away, venomous stings, repugnant odours, poisonous flesh or irritating hairs. However, camouflage is the most spectacular form of insect trickery. Some deceive their enemies by taking on the appearance of a dreaded species. This is called mimesis. It's how small wasp moths imitate wasps, thanks to the black and yellow rings on their armour, their diaphanous wings and irregular flight. Some butterflies simply disappear by becoming exactly the colour of their host plant. Others disguise, their shape with disruptive patterns of colours -the principle used to design military uniforms.

[passage-header]Read the passage given below and answer the question that follows:[/passage-header]There are dull, mechanical fellows who turn out runs with as little emotion as a machine turns out pins. There is no colour, no enthusiasm, no character in their play. Cricket is not an adventure to them, it is a business. It was so with Shrewsbury. His technical perfection was astonishing, but the soul of the game was wanting in him. There was no sunshine in his play, no swift surprise of splendid unselfishness. And without these things, without gaiety, daring and the spirit of sacrifice, cricket is a dead thing.