English Test for NIACL AO Prelims Exam Set – 13

Direction (1-5): 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. British politics now follows the ______________ pattern of addiction. Inside the addict’s head the most important thing is getting to the next Brexit fix, scoring the best deal. But from the outside, to our European friends and family, it is obvious that the problem is the compulsive pursuit of a product that does us only harm. On Tuesday night Theresa May thought she had scored: a slender majority in parliament voted for an imaginary agreement in Brussels, ______________ of the hated “backstop”.
   troubled, garnished
   tortured, stripped
   bedeviled, equipped
   harassed, decked
   All are Correct
   Option B
   

    

2. Well this is all going swimmingly, isn’t it? Another evening of parliamentary ______________ after which nothing of substance has been achieved. But what pantomime! We’ve seen the prime minister join her party in demanding changes to the deal negotiated by – the prime minister. She backed an amendment that unpicked a deal she ______________ , thereby instructing herself to go back and try harder. Meanwhile, Labour demanded – and failed to get – a delay, without really knowing what it was for.
   impersonate, affronted
   mummer, challenged
   pantomime, negotiated
   comedy, grappled
   All are Correct
   Option C
   

    

3. In a 2012 Financial Times article, which identified fresh food as the next major supermarket battleground (tell that to up to 9,000 people now facing ______________ at (Tesco), one expert revealingly described fresh food as “the biggest single determinant of the quality image of a superstore operator”. Key words there: quality image. As opposed to actual, objective quality. Retail magazine The Grocer this week ______________ fresh food counters as key to customer “perception”, but “an expensive luxury” which, say analysts, have been “haemorrhaging” money for years.
   verbiage, bemused
   prolixity, bewildered
   employment, muddled
   redundancy, described
   All are Correct
   Option D
   

    

4. And that feeling is plain to see in the cash-strapped corridors of ______________ power at Liverpool city council. The city’s mayor, Joe Anderson, is a colourful and outspoken character who often divides opinion, but he has been ______________ in calling out the unfairness of a funding formula that means his authority will lose a staggering £444m between 2010 and 2020 – that’s 64% of the council’s overall budget.
   hamstrung, consistent
   liberated, incongruous
   beneficial, erratic
   effective, liminal
   All are Correct
   Option A
   

    

5. Did you know Gandhi was racist?” A white friend sits opposite me, grinning so widely I wonder if there’s going to be a ______________ . “We know,” I reply, “we all know.” Her smile fades quickly and she moves on. I stop listening, the noise in the cafe dies down and the soundtrack to a sad Bollywood film fills the moment. She thought I didn’t know. Why don’t I talk about it more? I hide the ______________ of black people because Gandhi was one of the few saviours we had in our toxic community. Anti-blackness was a punchline I wasn’t expecting.
   culmination, pharmaceutic
   punchline, trauma
   capper, contentment
   auction, medication
   All are Correct
   Option B
   

    

Directions(6-10): 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.

6. There is a booming trade in legal Brexit highs for MPs. The newest variant to hit the Westminster street is a confection put together by Kit Malthouse, a leave-voting Tory. His product has been endorsed by a remarkable spread of Conservative MPs, from former remainers to hardline Brexiteers. They grandiosely call it the “Malthouse compromise” – as if it were a magisterial vision for peace among nations and not a ragged ______________ to postpone Tory civil war.
   a. accept responsibility
   b. stitch-up
   c. accuse of
   Both a & b
   Both b & c
   Both c & a
   Only b
   All are Correct
   Option B
   

    

7. Several things stand out from all this. First, Tory tribalism. The tantalising prospect of reforging party unity saw remainer Nicky Morgan making common cause with Brexiteers Iain Duncan Smith and Jacob Rees-Mogg. It must have felt great. The problem is that it is a consensus ______________ … cake. The Graham Brady amendment called for alternative arrangements to replace the backstop.
   a. availed of
   b. built on
   c. relied upon
   Both a & b
   Both b & c
   Both c & a
   Only c
   All are Correct
   Option E
   

    

8. It would be amazing, as a food writer, to report that this is because a newly food-conscious generation have risen up, ______________ of the supermarket and into their local cheesemongers. But plainly they have not. For every new-wave fishmonger or butcher that opens (Clifton Seafood Company at Bristol’s Wapping Wharf; the wet fish counters at Nottingham’s Cod’s Scallops chip shops; The Butcher’s Quarter in Manchester; London’s Ginger Pigs), hundreds more have closed in recent decades. It is impractical for the vast majority of us to regularly use independent food shops.
   a. go away
   b. march in
   c. marched out
   Both a & b
   Both b & c
   Both c & a
   Only a
   All are Correct
   Option C
   

    

9. As Anderson will tell you, the perilous state of the city’s finances means new and sometimes risky ideas have to be floated each day. His big policy is “invest to earn” – with the council purchasing assets, making investments and attempting to instigate regeneration around the city in order to create cash to ______________ into its diminishing coffers.
   a. pump back
   b. circulating reflux
   c. backflow
   Both a & b
   Both b & c
   Both c & a
   Only a
   All are Correct
   Option D
   

    

10. Our primary education, influenced by generational attitudes and exacerbated by class and race structures, is our base before we walk into a classroom and are told what to think. The different ideologies ______________ to us are either embraced or eventually unlearned – and I’m hoping a generation of British Indians would have unlearned all the casual racism we witnessed against black people.
    a. passed around
    b. passed down
    c. parcelled out
    Both a & b
    Both b & c
    Both c & a
    Only c
    All are Correct
    Option B