English Questions: Fill in the Blanks 79

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. There is a disequilibrium deep inside the economics profession. Consider this: Elinor Ostrom is the only woman to have won the economics Nobel prize since it was __________________________ in 1969. As many as 78 men have won the prize. The skew is only one example of a problem that has _________________________ implications for society as a whole.
   created, facile
   constituted, slight
   instituted, profound
   erected, trivial
   All are Correct
   Option C
   

    

2. The communities that bore the ___________________ of the famine, as millions died and hundreds of thousands of families migrated in search of food. Yet, even as colonial authorities at various levels of government dealt with the problem at the “aggregate” level, no one had thought of going into these villages and taking stock of life before and after the famine. The anthropologists perhaps ___________________ that very soon the window of opportunity to capture reliable data would close.
   impact, speculated
   thrust, gussed
   brunt, reckoned
   collision, supposed
   All are Correct
   Option C
   

    

3. While the interviews and speeches of governors and deputy governors work as powerful signalling and reassuring measures—both to the markets and to the general __________________________—the silence has also been an eerie signalling mechanism that was shaking our __________________________. It is good now that there is some scope for debate and dialogue.
   folk, horror
   nation, dismay
   populace, conviction
   citizenry, confidence
   All are Correct
   Option D
   

    

4. The China _________________________ is mostly about the rise and decline of the Chinese growth rate; its massive foreign exchange reserves; its high investment rate; its excellent infrastructure; how it became the manufacturing hub of the world; how it is _________________________ hydrocarbons and other natural resources from all over the world; how it bullies its neighbours around the South China Sea.
   chronicle, imbibing
   account, sop up
   narrative, sucking up
   narration, cozening up
   All are Correct
   Option E
   

    

5. Cynicism is required as geopolitical ___________________ gush over the latest détente between Pyongyang and Washington. As US Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama can attest, trusting the Kim dynasty is an _____________________ in Albert Einstein’s definition of insanity—doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
   cards, laze
   wags, exercise
   swings, conserve
   sways, ignore
   All are Correct
   Option B
   

    

6. The question is why economics as a ______________________ is not very accommodative of women, if one goes beyond the crude explanation that men have a biological advantage in mathematics. Various studies have shown that economics has a ____________________ gender gap in promotion and salaries that cannot be explained by productivity differences. This problem of sexism is a threefold barbed-wire mesh keeping women from a level playing field with men.
   discipline, persistent
   punish, fickle
   control, cadicous
   drill, brief
   All are Correct
   Option A
   

    

7. Through August, 80 field workers were ________________________ by malaria; half of them later dropped out from the project. Eventually, the survey was only completed in February 1945. By the end, field workers had spoken to 15,769 families chosen, in somewhat random fashion, from 386 villages. Care was taken to make sure that the villages ____________________ provided a complete picture of the famine.
   encompass, ignored
   besiege, overlooked
   beset, surveyed
   trouble, neglected
   All are Correct
   Option C
   

    

8. A programme like the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY) is operationally guided by the ministry and _______________________ the board-directed strategy. This is control on the banks through the ________________________ of circulars, which doesn’t affect private banks. Comparing the PMJDY numbers of private banks and their public sector peers is sufficient to make the point.
   consults, oppression
   pursues, domination
   faces, bloodlust
   bypasses, tyranny
   All are Correct
   Option D
   

    

9. My first thought was that perhaps the data showing such ______________________ in primary school enrolment was wrong, so I checked the data on primary school completion rates, the proportion of the relevant age ______________________ who successfully complete primary school. Here too I found the completion rate was lower in 2014 compared to what it was some 30 years earlier.
   retrogression, cohort
   regression, emulator
   relapse, stranger
   recession, apostate
   All are Correct
   Option A
   

    

10. Moon deserves credit for convincing Trump to _________________ on the “fire and fury” threats and the mad tweets. His decision to welcome North Korean athletes—and Kim’s sister—to last month’s Olympics was a brave gamble that may be paying off. By acting as mediator and adult, Moon managed to herd two of the globe’s wildest personalities into a shared orbit of potential ______________________.
    buoy up, agreement
    lighten up, negotiation
    cave in, transaction
    slacken, intervention
    All are Correct
    Option E