English Test for NIACL AO Prelims Exam Set – 5

Directions(1-5): In each of the following questions there are sentences. There is error in one of the parts. Mark the option which contains error parts as your answer. If no part contains error mark option E as your answer.

1. (A) The sentence of former Bangladesh Prime Minister Khaleda Zia to five years of rigorous imprisonment /(B) by a special judge’s court in Dhaka on charges of corruption has upended politics in an election year. /(C) Her arrest and possible disqualification from contesting — unless higher courts decide otherwise — has created a political crisis for her Bangladesh Nationalist Party, and equally a challenging opportunity for the ruling Awami League. /(D) The BNP is entirely dependent for leadership on the Zia family.
   A
   B
   C
   D
   NE
   Option A
   sentence = sentencing

    

2. (A) Unsurprisingly, States with a record of investment in literacy, nutrition and primary health care has achieved high scores in NITI Aayog’s first Health Index. /(B) Kerala, Punjab, and Tamil Nadu are the best-performing large States, while Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Bihar, Odisha and Madhya Pradesh bring up the rear. Health-care delivery is the responsibility of States; the Centre provides financial and policy support. /(C) Being able to meet the Sustainable Development Goals over the coming decade depends crucially on the States’ performance. /(D) Yet, health care is not a mainstream political issue in India, and hardly influences electoral results.
   A
   B
   C
   D
   NE
   Option A
   has = have

    

3. (A) India’s stock exchanges are not too keen on the idea of competing with their global peers. /(B) Instead, they are happy gaurding the home turf against foreign exchanges that do a better job of finding new clients. /(C) On Friday, the National Stock Exchange, the Bombay Stock Exchange and the Metropolitan Stock Exchange of India announced their decision to stop providing data feed and other support to overseas exchanges that list derivatives linked to Indian stocks and indices. /(D) Any existing agreement allowing data-sharing with foreign bourses, except that which is related to exchange-traded funds, will expire in six months.
   A
   B
   C
   D
   NE
   Option B
   gaurding = to gaurd

    

4. (A) Elizabeth Warren, Democratic Senator of Massachusetts, has announced her likely candidature for the 2020 U.S. presidential race. /(B) In her statement she put racial and gender-based inequality front and centre in her campaign agenda, as much as income inequality faced by the middle class. /(C) For these ills of the American economy, she blamed the excesses of under-regulated Wall Street /(D) corporations and billionaires with the money muscle to bend political rules.
   A
   B
   C
   D
   NE
   Option
   candidature = candidacy As nouns the difference between candidature and candidacy is that candidature is the condition of becoming a candidate while candidacy is the state, or act of being a candidate.

    

5. (A) A 23-year-old pregnant woman in Tamil Nadu tested positive for HIV after receiving a unit of blood at a government hospital blood bank, /(B) indicating glaring lapses in screening procedures. The blood was donated on November 30 and transfused to the pregnant woman on December 3. Testing all donated blood units for a number of transfusion-transmissible infections, including HIV, is mandatory in India. /(C) The ELISA test used in all blood banks to screen for HIV has very high levels of sensitivity to diagnose samples positive for the virus. /(D) It can be said with certainty that the blood bank had failed to screen the blood for HIV.
   A
   B
   C
   D
   NE
   Option E
   

    

Direction (6-10): 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.

6. Bangladeshis will hope the BNP gets its act together, because the withdrawal of the party from the electoral fray has not been beneficial for democracy. While it did not make _____________ sense for the BNP to boycott polls in 2014, the consequent victory by walkover did not help the Awami League to assert its _____________ . In what is effectively a two-party polity, the absence of the BNP as an opposition within Parliament had externalised dissent and led right-wing forces to up their intimidatory tactics to attack liberal, secular voices. Since the end of dictatorship in 1990, Bangladesh alternated between Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League and Ms. Zia’s BNP, with short interregnums of army and judicial rule, till the League’s re-election in 2014.
   tactical, legitimacy
   advisable, equity
   strategic, fallacy
   calculated, status
   All are Correct
   Option A
   

    

7. Coming soon after the announcement of a National Health Protection Scheme in the Union Budget, the Index uses metrics such as institutional deliveries, systematic reporting of tuberculosis, _____________ to drugs for people with HIV/AIDS, immunisation levels and out-of-pocket expenditure. The twin imperatives are to _____________ access to facilities and treatments on these and other parameters, and raise the quality of data, including from the private sector, to enable rigorous assessments. At the same time, as NITI Aayog points out, data on other key aspects such as non-communicable diseases, mental health, governance systems and financial risk protection lack the integrity to form part of a good composite index.
   access, decline
   access, impair
   access, vitiate
   access, improve
   All are Correct
   Option D
   

    

8. Index derivatives such as the SGX Nifty that is linked to stocks that form Nifty, have gained the _____________ of large foreign investors for many reasons. These instruments are traded for longer hours in offshore exchanges, including hours when Indian exchanges are closed for business, making them more investor-friendly. Places like Singapore and Dubai, where these derivatives are traded, are low-tax jurisdictions that offer investors the chance to lower their transaction costs as well. The fact that offshore derivatives are denominated in dollars adds to their allure. In India, in contrast, the securities transaction tax and the capital gains tax _____________ foreign investment in financial assets. The proposal to extend trading hours in order to attract investors too has failed to take off.
   assistance, jeff
   clientele, support
   aegis, inspire
   patronage, discourage
   All are Correct
   Option D
   

    

9. Despite the considerable achievements of Ms. Warren, who had not held public office before 2013, the obstacles ahead for her _____________ presidential run are formidable. First, the general expectation is that the field for the Democratic nomination will widen considerably over through 2019, given that more than three dozen Democratic candidates-in-the-making are said to be considering joining the race, several of them for the first time. Some, such as Kamala Harris of California or Cory Booker of New Jersey, could hold stronger _____________ with millennial voters and people of colour.
   considered, disgust
   suggested, entreaty
   proposed, appeal
   designed, charisma
   All are Correct
   Option C
   

    

10. Studies show that blood banks in India have a success rate of less than 50% in contacting donors who have tested positive for transfusion-transmissible _____________ . Under the 2004 National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO) Action Plan, VCTCs are required to inform the blood bank of a donor’s HIV-positive status to stop the person from donating blood in the future only when the confirmatory test done at the VCTC too is positive. Since only half of the _____________ donors are contactable and even fewer visit a VCTC, it is imperative that NACO finds a viable alternative without compromising the donor’s identity.
    afflictions, refused
    infections, consented
    morbidities, clashed
    communicable, dissented
    All are Correct
    Option B