English: Sentence Completion(Based on IBPS PO Mains 2017) Set – 60

Directions(1-10): In each of the following questions a passage is given in which there is a blank. Choose the most logical and appropriate option from the five options given that can be filled in the blank.

1. It’s true that his reign has been reconsidered time and again: it is one of those extraordinary junctions in history – when Rome’s republic teetered, crumbled, and reformed as the empire – _________________________________. It is perfectly true to say that Augustus ended the civil strife that overwhelmed Rome in the late first century BC, and ushered in a period of stability and, in some ways, renewal, by the time of his death in 14 AD. That’s how I was taught about Augustus at school, I suspect not uncoincidentally by someone brought up during the second world war.
   as a sinister figure who emerged on the tides of history out of the increasingly ungovernable Roman republic
   and systematic elimination of political opponents
   that it’s not the ruthless crushing of his enemies and domination of the known world that attracts Zuckerberg
   that looks different depending on the moment from which he is examined
   All are Correct
   Option D
   

    

2. Vladimir Putin shrugged off the question in the most nonchalant way at the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok: sure, we know who these guys are, he said, and it’s no big deal, really. Let’s just wait until they finally decide to come forward and tell their side of the story. Which some members of the opposition found unconvincing: if you’re a political activist in Russia distributing leaflets at rallies, you can expect a pre-dawn visit from riot police breaking down your door. But if you’re accused by a foreign country ____________________________, you get a polite invitation from the president to speak to the press.
   as if he had more pressing matters to deal with than an international arrest warrant with his name on it
   of attempting to carry out a brutal assassination on their soil
   that they popped over to Salisbury to visit the “famous 123-metre spire” of its cathedral — twice
   as Russian diplomats call, without much affection, the spies posted in their embassies
   All are Correct
   Option B
   

    

3. Mumsnet may be responsible for a lot of questionable things – penis beaker, anyone? – but will it actually end the human race? Will it stop us reproducing? This seems ________________________________, women are scaring other women into “a pathological terror of childbirth”, says an expert. Catriona Jones is a lecturer in midwifery at the University of Hull who studies “tocophopbia”. She suggests social media is partly to blame for this fear-with-no-name (which, of course, now has one).
   women tell each other birth horror stories nowadays, this is not an exercise in fiction
   the pain that leads up to it: labour
   a tad excessive but apparently by sharing stories about childbirth there
   a field of enormous cows mooing
   All are Correct
   Option C
   

    

4. Twenty-five years ago today the Oslo accord was signed by Israel’s prime minister, Yitzhak Rabin, and PLO chairman Yasser Arafat in the Rose Garden of the White House, with Bill Clinton acting as an enthusiastic master of ceremonies. Despite its many shortcomings, ___________________________________, and it was clinched with a hesitant handshake between the two leaders.
   the accord represented a historic compromise between the Jewish and the Palestinian national liberation movements
   the resolution of all the outstanding issues between the two sides
   primarily responsible for dashing the hopes pinned on the accord was not Arafat
   the whole land of Israel, which includes Judea and Samaria, the biblical names of the West Bank
   All are Correct
   Option A
   

    

5. What does a bad Tory leader reach for when in a fix? Immigration, of course. Theresa May is reported to be planning to announce “strict immigration controls” in her party conference speech, the last refuge of the disreputable politician. Her record on immigration is one of such spectacular failure from every point of view that she might be wiser to divert attention elsewhere. But no: the Times reports that ___________________________.
   the state of the economy and the fluctuating needs of industries and public services
   the leavers stirred race-hate and panic in the referendum
   the bedlam party in power and the gradual laying down of solid policies by Labour
   she is summoning a special immigration cabinet meeting on the eve of conference designed to rally the rebels
   All are Correct
   Option D
   

    

6. For Theresa May the backstop is a slowly closing trap, crushing her hopes of a Brexit deal between hard Brexiter opposition to staying in a customs union and DUP resistance to a special deal for Northern Ireland. Her survival strategy will involve pressuring Varadkar to drop the idea of a comprehensive, “all-weather” border backstop as the price of a Brexit deal, _______________________________. What many UK politicians don’t understand is that Varadkar, like May, is politically boxed in.
   using this “threat to the union” argument to drag her party towards an “unpalatable, but at worst temporary” form of customs union
   briefing sympathetic journalists, and ramping up the diplomatic pressure
   the government bowed to backbench pressure to accept amendments
   the more frustrating in Dublin because London no longer seriously disputes the “how” or “what” of a border solution
   All are Correct
   Option B
   

    

7. The model was pioneered by the notorious conman Robert Maxwell. He realised that, because scientists need to be informed about all significant developments in their field, every journal that publishes academic papers can establish a monopoly and _____________________________________. He called his discovery “a perpetual financing machine”. He also realised that he could capture other people’s labour and resources for nothing. Governments funded the research published by his company, Pergamon, while scientists wrote the articles, reviewed them and edited the journals for free.
   uses one of the most ruthless and profitable business models of any industry
   have allowed the big academic publishers to deny these rights
   charge outrageous fees for the transmission of knowledge
   use the technical term, daylight robbery
   All are Correct
   Option C
   

    

8. Salty, foul water flows through the pipes of Basra: _________________________________, drugs smuggled in across the borders and cooked up at home with Iranian raw materials. Millions of landmines from wars past hem in the city, even as militias – the armed wings of Shia political parties, given new life by the fight against Isis – tyrannise its people. Even the clean, clear river that my brother and I used to fish from is now a muddy creek filled with sewage and sickness.
   they call the looting of the Iranian embassy in Basra a brutal and savage attack
   paving the way for Iran’s expanded influence through the Shia parties that took power in Baghdad
   where the conflicts of the region are often seen through the lens of sectarian strife
   a city racked by high unemployment, broken healthcare and education systems
   All are Correct
   Option D
   

    

9. I grew up in the long shadow of a military coup. To be a child in a country where relatives and friends suddenly disappeared, were detained indefinitely without trial, or in some instances executed, was to grow up very quickly. But the most difficult thing to process was seeing those who had lost family to the government’s brutality scramble to make peace with its members, or even join it, _____________________________. It’s still a depressing thing to return to Sudan and see men who I remember as a child returning from prison gaunt and hollowed out with starvation and torture, sit among the government’s ranks, fatted, safe, and soft with power.
   the power of narrative, spun Bannon’s myth before he had even properly set foot in the White House, and wrote hagiographies after
   once you see relevance and proximity to power or influence as a basic motivator of elites
   some politicians fear most is not defeat, it is irrelevance
   once it became clear the military regime was staying
   All are Correct
   Option D
   

    

10. Given that situation, it may seem that two motions passed by the European parliament this week are positive ones – at the last moment, __________________________. Both motions are unwelcome to the tech giants, and will serve to regulate the internet – but both are wrongheaded and counterproductive, and will make the internet worse.
    activists have expressed concerns that these won’t work
    extending copyright to include the link text and snippet used by Google
    they were inserted into legislation, having previously been rebuffed
    the noted British pianist James Rhodes battled a totally invalid automated copyright takedown from Sony Music Entertainment
    All are Correct
    Option C