English Test for IBPS PO 2018 Prelim Exam Set – 17

Directions(1-5): In each question, a sentence is given followed by a blank. Each blank is followed by three options and you have to determine which option can be used in place of blank to make it a meaningful sentence and mark it as your answer.

1. The rewards from all this carnage have flowed to one group: shareholders. In 2015, Bank of England chief economist Andy Haldane charted what has happened to workers’ share of national income __________________ . He found that labour had been getting smaller and smaller slices of the pie: from 70% in the 1970s to 55% now. By his reckoning, employees get proportionately less now than they did at the very outset of the Industrial Revolution in the 1770s.
   a. for longer periods
   b. over the long-run
   c. eventually
   Both a & b
   Both b & c
   both c & a
   Only b
   All are Correct
   Option E
   

    

2. It is an/a __________________ that Home Office officials have told him they cannot possibly construct a hard border for all EU visitors at ports of entry by next March. They cannot even contemplate one in Northern Ireland, where the argument is still over lorries, let alone people. Free movement of EU citizens will remain of necessity, until some hard-Brexit thinktank can devise an alternative to the free market in continental labour, so ardently championed by their hero Margaret Thatcher in 1986.
   a. skeleton in the cupboard
   b. open secret
   c. widely known secret
   Both a & b
   Both b & c
   Both c & a
   Only a
   All are Correct
   Option B
   

    

3. Despite less than 15% of adults admitting to being smokers, to me, 12 years to full abstinence seems rather fleet for a community not known for its speed. The __________________ of tobacco, its hardiness in the face of hostility, may be weaker than it once was – those who would have smoked until they dropped are mostly now fogged in clouds of vape – but its survival instincts are those of a cockroach in the aftermath of an atomic strike.
   a. lingering distraction
   b. dragging matter
   c. cultural pull
   Both a & b
   Both b & c
   Both c & a
   Only c
   All are Correct
   Option D
   

    

4. It’s hard to describe how it feels to be a woman living through the #MeToo era. Not at the centre of anything, but reflecting on your personal experiences. In the beginning I remember just __________________, followed by a giddiness that something really did seem to be changing. Then a forced rationality, an awareness that things must not swing too far just because emotions were high and, by God, men had it coming.
   a. a dark rage
   b. a fanatic fascination
   c. a dismal desire
   Both a & b
   Both b & c
   Both c & a
   Only b
   All are Correct
   Option C
   

    

5. Last December, the Institute for Public Policy Research presented Labour with a white paper advocating Swiss-style “alignment” with the single market, rather than participation. As with May’s Chequers plan, the IPPR wanted Britain to align voluntarily with some single market rules, but diverge from others in order to promote growth and social justice. Though the shadow cabinet refused to endorse the IPPR plan, the document is the closest Labour has ever come to __________________ its own version of Chequers.
   a. pulling up
   b. drawing up
   c. beating back
   Both a & b
   Both b & c
   Both c & a
   Only b
   All are Correct
   Option A
   

    

Directions(6-10): In the passage given below there are 10 blanks. Every blank has four alternative words given in options (A),(B),(C), and (D). You have to tell which word is APPROPRIATE according to the context. If all are appropriate then mark your answer as “E”.

Further outflows in the coming months would put more pressure on the beleaguered currencies of many emerging markets. Depreciation makes their ___6___ external debts even more ___7___. Dollar credit to non-banks outside America reached $9.8 trillion in the middle of this year; a bit more than a third of that was ___8___ by borrowers in emerging markets, according to the Bank for International Settlements, a forum for central bankers. To defend their currencies, central banks can raise interest rates in line with the Fed. In recent weeks Peru, Chile and Colombia have done just that in anticipation of ___9___, as have Angola, Ghana, Zambia and others. Higher domestic interest rates, though, come at a cost, dampening economic activity. They also make it more expensive for companies to refinance domestically, a problem since the bulk of their new debt in recent years has been in their local currencies. Whichever route emerging markets choose to take, in other words, some ___10___ is inevitable—hence the desire to get it over with quickly.

6. gaunt
   hefty
   flimsy
   etiolated
   fragile
   Option B
   

    

7. comforting
   convenient
   daunting
   reassuring
   emboldening
   Option C
   

    

8. exuberant
   extravagant
   remunerate
   owed
   contented
   Option D
   

    

9. fly-up
   lift-off
   fly-off
   take-off
   All are Correct
   Option E
   

    

10. pain
    torture
    convience
    pains
    sting
    Option A