English Questions: Fill in the Blanks 102

Direction (1-10): In each question below a sentence is given with two blanks in each. Each question is followed by four options with two words in each. You have to select that option as your answer which can fill both the blanks of the sentence.

1. The arc of bad loans has _________________ to retail, small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and farming, sectors for which SBI is the single-largest formal lender. Farm loan waivers, administered by state governments, were not expected to _________________ bank portfolios.
   amplified, cut
   expanded, dent
   prolonged, lump
   incremented, jut
   All are Correct
   Option B
   

    

2. Relief material sent for Kerala floods are _________________ at Customs clearing houses waiting for duty to be paid. Waiving duties in such situations is simple enough and must be done with dispatch, given the scale of destruction and suffering brought about by floods in Kerala. More complex is _________________ the development pathway to avert enhancing vulnerability to extreme weather incidents flowing from global warming and other factors.
   insecure, shifting
   dislodged, revising
   stuck, recalibrating
   stuck, righting
   All are Correct
   Option C
   

    

3. The quality of mercy, we know, is not _________________ , that is, forced. Can the quality of success be stretched? Does success in one field qualify someone for success in another? The answer is obvious: a nifty _________________ might not be good at long-distance running, leave alone playing chess or the piano.
   laborious, dawdler
   strained, sprinter
   stiff, person
   difficult, ambler
   All are Correct
   Option B
   

    

4. The compound average annual growth rate over the UPA’s 10 years was an _________________ 8%. Gross fixed capital formation as a proportion of GDP in current prices went up from 29% in the last year of NDA-1to 33% in the first year of UPA, touched a high of 36.7% in 2007-08 and _________________ below 33% only in 2013-14, when it was still 31.3%. It fell to 30% the following year and has remained stuck at 28.5% thereafter. Without a step-up in investment, growth cannot reach its full double-digit potential.
   depraved, slipped
   derisory, slipped
   despicable, slipped
   impressive, slipped
   All are Correct
   Option D
   

    

5. The Karnataka Authority of Advance Rulings (AAR) has _________________ in ruling that services by an office to branches in other states will be treated as ‘supply’ that attracts goods and services tax. The claimed rationale that these services are being _________________ for furtherance of business, is absurd. There is no payment attached to intra-firm supply of services and, hence, charging a levy is illogical.
   conducted, offered
   deported, assigned
   erred, rendered
   acquitted, submitted
   All are Correct
   Option C
   

    

6. AFSPA is a draconian law that has no place in a democracy. No _________________ of the state should have the unfettered authority to kill or maim citizens without establishing _________________ of the kind for which such penalties have been specified in the law. Ideally, AFSPA should be removed from the statute book. As things stand, the law exists and is operative in several parts of the northeast and in Kashmir.
   organ, culpability
   organ, chastity
   organ, purity
   organ, clarity
   All are Correct
   Option A
   

    

7. The court had ordered status quo at and around the disputed site till the Allahabad High Court had disposed of the _________________ title suits before it. The court is seized of the dispute again, and is probably months away from delivering a judgment. The government would be well-advised, as also other parties, to make it abundantly clear that the court’s _________________ would be honoured.
   appropriate, inception
   relevant, verdict
   apposite, prelude
   important, voucher
   All are Correct
   Option B
   

    

8. Vajpayee has been seen as BJP’s Nehru (to L K Advani’s Valabhbhai Patel). One could also make a case that he was BJP’s Shastri — for coming across as not only for the people, but also from the people. But the love — and there really isn’t any other word for it — that people across the social and political _________________ felt for him never came at the _________________ of him ‘dumbing himself down’.
   gamut, cost
   scope, cost
   spectrum, cost
   variegation, cost
   All are Correct
   Option E
   

    

9. L K Advani was the leader of the blood-stained Ram Janmabhoomi _________________ that transformed BJP into an electoral force. However, the party needed a liberal face —a mukhota, a mask, in the words of RSS ideologue Govindacharya — to attract and retain allies. Vajpayee fit the bill. He was affable, eloquent, the opposite of straightjacketed in manners and tastes. Prime Minister Narasimha Rao chose Vajpayee, leader of the Opposition, to lead the Indian _________________ to a Pak move to condemn India at the UN Human Rights Commission.
   commotion, acceptance
   agitation, resistance
   disturbance, alacrity
   perturbation, affinity
   All are Correct
   Option B
   

    

10. No one can grudge him the capacity to project leadership or communicate effectively his achievements. The predecessor UPA government, in contrast, failed to claim any credit for the telecom revolution it engineered — rural teledensity _________________ from 1.5% to 45% over its tenure —the fastest rates of growth India has ever achieved, a sharp fall in poverty, _________________ reduction in maternal and infant mortality, electrification of 97% of India’s nearly six lakh villages, comprehensive food security, the Indo-US nuclear deal that ended India’s pariah status for sensitive technologies and opened doors to technology control regimes.
    soared, soporific
    soared, sluggish
    soared, brisk
    soared, apathetic
    All are Correct
    Option C