Paragraph Completion Questions New Pattern English

This set contains questions based on Sentence Fillers/ Paragraph Completion which has been asked repeatedly in recent banking exams. Practise this set and prepare yourself for upcoming exams like SBI PO, IBPS PO, Clerk and other exams as well. Sentence Fillers has now become an important question of banking exam.

Direction: In each of the following questions a short passage is given with one of the lines in the passage missing and represented by a blank. Select the best out of the five answer choices given, to make the passage complete and coherent.

1. It is important for HR and talent management professionals to understand the distinction between happy, satisfied employees and engaged employees. Engaged employees are happy, satisfied employees, but not all happy, satisfied employees are engaged employees (………………………………………………….). Similarly, satisfied employees are happy to show up to work each day and do their work, but will be equally happy to take their satisfaction elsewhere for a salary increase.
   
   A) The renewed interest in improving employee engagement in organizations has originated from actions executives took during the recession.
   B) Engaged employees speak positively about their organizations to their co-workers, potential employees, and customers.
   C) Happy employees, for example, may gladly show up for work on most days, but that happiness does not necessarily translate into productivity and profitability
   D) Not all satisfied, emotionally invested professionals are engaged at the same level in an organization.
   E) HR and talent management professionals must understand these various engagement levels before embarking on an employee engagement initiative because action steps to improve engagement need to be customized based on where employees fall on the scale.
   
   View Answer

   Option C
   Explanation: The last point starts with Similarly and discuses about satisfied employee, at the end its says that BUT satisfied employee will be equally happy to take their satisfaction elsewhere. The use of Similarly shows that last statement i.e the blank also discusses something related to the comparison between satisfied and happy employee, the use of BUT indicates a difference i.e in the previous case the reverse of the said sentence will be true. Option C) fulfills both these points.
2. (…………………………………………………………….). As the economy continues to recover and talent remains the last true competitive advantage, business leaders are right to be concerned about employee engagement. There is a real fear that the 70 percent disengaged workers will leave, taking their knowledge and talents to competitors, or worse, stay with the organization physically, but not mentally. The timing could not be more crucial for HR and talent managers to prioritize engagement as a strategic initiative.
   
   A) Engaged employees feel emotionally connected to the organization, understand what it takes to help the organization succeed, and drive for that result.
   B) To achieve stronger bottom line results, it is essential that HR and talent leaders partner with business leaders to create and communicate a culture of engagement.
   C) Increasing an organization’s employee engagement and commitment can dramatically impact and fuel operational excellence, innovation, and the ability to compete.
   D) HR and talent management professionals should ensure communication plans are built into all employee engagement initiatives.
   E) When implemented correctly, employee engagement initiatives can improve employee morale, create a more positive corporate culture, and significantly impact the bottom line.
   
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   Option B
   Explanation: The sentence after the blank says that Business leaders are right to be concerned about employee engagement. The last sentence in the paragraph says about HR and talent managers to prioritize engagement. This shows a link between business leaders and HR managers and ther both are related to employee engagement. Option B talks about the same theme and introduces the paragraph.
3. (……………………………………………….). We are managing numerous fluctuating priorities, working with increased expectations, balancing competing demands for our personal and professional goals, and handling ongoing conflict and ambiguity in complex environments. Consulting firm AON Hewitt estimates that 35 percent of U.S. employers in 2013 offered stress-reduction programs to their employees, and that estimate is expected to grow (AON Hewitt, 2013). HR and talent management professionals are increasingly looking for ways to reduce employee stress, and many employers—like Google, Aetna, Target, and General Mills, to name a few—have found that introducing mindfulness into their workplace not only lowers employee stress, but improves focus, clarity of thinking, decision-making, emotional intelligence, and more.
   
   A) Mindfulness has roots that go back 2,500 years and uses an anchor—often breathing—to center attention and to bring awareness to the present moment
   B) Physiological or biological stress is an organism’s response to a stressor such as an environmental condition
   C) One child was said to have lost all their eyelashes due to stress, while others worried about academic failure and some had to be comforted.
   D) Psychologist Ela Amarie of the Switzerland-based consultancy Mindful Brain observes that there are three characteristics of mindfulness; intention, attention, and attitude.
   E) In today’s work world, we face multiple stress inducing demands and pressures as well as constant connectivity through smart phones, social media, and tablet computers
   
   View Answer

   Option E
   Explanation: The passage is about stress reduction in employees. So the starting sentence must introduce this idea of stress. Option B and Option Eboth talk about stress. But Option E) relates it to work world, which is more close to the theme of the passage. Hence E) fits the blank.
4. Thought leaders are increasingly calling today’s turbulent business world a “VUCA” environment—one that is volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous.(………………………………………….). Organizations that lack resilience, that ability to bounce back after setbacks, are often stressful places to work, a situation in which far too many employers and employees are well versed.
   
   A) But if you’re looking to build resilient teams or entire organizations, it’s the resilience of all those relationships that may matter even more.
   B) But all isn’t lost; it simply means shifting our focus from developing resilient leaders toward developing collectively resilient groups.
   C) To succeed in this environment, organizations must be more adaptive and agile than ever before—they must be resilient
   D) Keep piling on ever bigger sales targets or changing mandates from on high, and eventually, even the most resilient individual is likely to break down.
   E) Stress lowers employee performance, productivity, morale, and strains workplace relationships.
   
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   Option C
   Explanation: Option C) matches with both- previous and the next sentence of the blank. It mentions the environment and also resilient.
5. The workplace is often strained, stressful, and overwhelming.(…………………………………………..). As human beings, that is simply an impossibility; employees cannot leave their emotions and personalities at home. By building work communities that are safe and secure, yet also encouraging and stimulating, HR and talent management professionals can also create teams that are more productive, satisfied, and high-performing.
   
   A) Employees have been taught to check their feelings at the door to focus on their work—to “compart-mentalize” their personal and professional selves
   B) Developing resilient leaders will help them better grasp and support the benefits of building resilience at all organizational levels.
   C) Each time a community meets—whether it is a team, a smaller working group or an entire division— the community leader should open with a few simple questions.
   D) Encourage employees to keep a running list of everything that is on their minds so they can get it off their minds.
   E) Deeply focused, uninterrupted reading is an excellent way to train and sustain the brain’s capacity for absorbed attention.
   
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   Option A
   Explanation: The sentence after the blank says that IT IS IMPOSSIBLE for an employee to leave theit emotions at home. Means the previous statements is about the same theme. Option A) fits the blank.
6. Providing street and public lighting can account for up to 38% of energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions in some cities. New energy-efficient technologies and design can cut street lighting costs dramatically (up to 60%) and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by the same amount. (…………………………………………) The savings also allow municipalities to expand street lighting coverage to additional areas that include low-income and other underserved areas.
   
   A) Providing street and public lighting is one of the most expensive responsibilities of a municipality.
   B) These savings can reduce the need for new generating plants and redeploy scarce capital to delivering energy access to populations in remote areas.
   C) The project actually has produced 9.7 million kWh, 10 percent more electricity than anticipated, for a total utility savings of about $1.2 million
   D) Municipalities are often not willing or able to implement LED retrofits because a significant portion of the generated electricity savings will not be realized through reduced operating costs
   E) The limited knowledge of LEDs and capacity to retrofit, operate, and maintain LEDs in most municipalities create an unwillingness to retrofit city streetlights.
   
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     Option B
   Explanation: The next statement after the blank starts with, The savings also.. It means that the previous sentence i.e the blank also talks about savings.

7. (……………………………………………………………………….…). To counter this new normal, organizations need employees and leaders who are agile, adaptable, and flexible. In a word, resilient. HR and talent management professionals can help by creating resilient organizational cultures. This will require a fundamental shift in thinking, away from squeezing the most productivity from employees and towards enabling employees to take care of their physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual needs, thereby building resilience.
   
   A) A key to a resilient organizational culture is empowerment, which can come in many forms.
   B) Employees need to be given the freedom to take regular renewal breaks throughout the day to help rejuvenate, metabolize, and embed learning.
   C) Today, “business as usual” means rapid change, an influx of new technologies, economic turbulence, uncertainty, and ambiguity.
   D) The more employees move into “fight or flight” mode, the more reactive and impulsive they become, and the less reflective and responsive.
   E) It is important to establish safe and secure communities and acknowledge, according to Schwartz, that the “struggle to feel valued is one of the most insidious and least acknowledged issues in organizations.”
   
   View Answer

   Option C
   Explanation: The sentence after the blank says that to counter this NEW NORMAL i.e something has changed and also the author says that employees and leaders should be flexible, this also points towards adapting to changes. Option C) talks about the same change and introduces the passage.
8. (…………………………………………………………). Based on the 2010 GDP statistics published by both the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, the traditional BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) countries are now the seventh, eleventh, ninth, and second largest economies in the world, respectively, while the newest member of the BRICS (South Africa), is among the top thirty economies in the world. Moreover, companies based in emerging economies and those expanding into them in search of growth opportunities are experimenting with new business models even as they build on and extend traditional approaches to strategy and management. At a minimum, emerging markets will complement traditional “developed” markets in strategic importance in the foreseeable future.
   
   A) Interest on management research on the emerging economies also is increasing by leaps and bounds.
   B) One way of categorizing the works in this virtual issue reflects the conceptual lenses and empirical focus.
   C) The twenty-first century is the century of the emerging economies, both in market growth and, just as importantly, in changes to business strategy
   D) Guo and Miller (2010) study the dynamic of guanxi networks and their impact on business organization, helping to develop a new conceptual lens for understanding social structure in different institutional contexts and stages of entrepreneurial formation
   E) We need more “green” type research when studying management phenomena in novel contexts, especially emerging economies.
   
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   Option C
   Explanation: From the sentence: companies based in emerging economies and those expanding into them in search of growth opportunities are experimenting with new business models , WE CAN CONCLUDE that the passage talks about emerging economies and the changes in business strategy in the companies based in these emerging economies. So Option C) acts as an introduction and fits the blank.
9. (………………………………………………………………..). Not only has it been shown to assist language acquisition in learning impaired children, enhance students’ academic performance in exams and alleviate anxiety and depression but its mere presence improves cognitive functioning. Several studies reveal increases in levels of attention, memory, mental arithmetic and learning. A popular explanation for this improvement in cognitive performance proposes that if the music is liked then this increases arousal which in turn increases performance.
   
   A) Listening to music is a well-loved past time for many people but recent research suggests that it provides both health and psychological benefits as well
   B) Given that music can generally be characterisedby this feature , it maybe predicted that background music, instead of increasing performance , would actually reduce performance.
   C) The arousal and mood hypothesis proposes that listening to a liked piece of music is just one example of a stimulus that can increase a participant’s arousal and mood.
   D) Research into music education continues to demonstrate educational/cognitive and social skill benefits for children who make music.
   E) You might use a streaming music service while you’re doing chores around the house or studying, but how would you feel if your surgeon was rocking out in the operating room during a procedure?
   
   View Answer

   Option A
   Explanation: The last sentence tells us that the passage is about music. The passage is based on the theme how music can help us improve in various matters. Option A) introduces the passage by mentioning music and says that it has benefits attached to it. SO A) fits the blank.
10. Cross-cultural psychology has demonstrated important links between cultural context and individual behavioural  development.  (………………………………………) The long-term  psychological consequences of this process of acculturation  are highly variable, depending on social and personal variables that reside in the society of origin, the society of  settlement and phenomena  that  both exist prior to, and arise during, the course of acculturation.
    
    A) This is distinct from acculturation, which would involve the surrender of the immigrants’ traditions, heritage and identity into the American melting pot.
    B) Given  this  relationship, cross-cultural  research  has  increasingly  investigated  what  happens  to individuals who have developed in one cultural context when they attempt to re-establish  their  lives in another  one.
    C) One of the most important things to consider when doing business internationally is mastering the art of cross-cultural communication.
    D) Diversity in the workplace means leaders need to be ready to build strong teams with cross-cultural members from different backgrounds.
    E) Through our world-class line-up we strive to inspire and create lasting opportunities for collaboration; cross cultural exchanges; economic opportunities and skills development.
    
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      Option B
    Explanation: The passage is about cross-culture psychology. The next statement after the blank says that the consequence of this cross-culture is highly variable. This statement points that such thing can be said after a study or research. Option B) talks the same, i.e about cross culture and invetsigations/study.

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