Improve your English with English quiz. English Quiz to help you improve your score for exams like Bank, SSC, Railway, UPSC, UPSSSC, CDS, UPTET, KVS, DSSSB and other Government exams.
Directions (Q1-Q5): Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions given below it. Certain words have been printed in bold to help you locate them, while answering some of the questions.
China’s rising power is based on its remarkable economic success. Shanghai’s overall economy is currently growing at around 13% per year, thus doubling in size every five or six years. Everywhere there are start-ups, innovations, and young entrepreneurs hungry for profits. In a series of high-level meetings between Chinese and African officials, the advice that the African leaders received from the Chinese was sound, and more practical than they typically get from the World Bank. Chinese officials stress the crucial role of public investments, especially in agriculture and infrastructure, to lay the basis for private sector-led growth. In a hungry and poor rural economy, as China was in the 1Q70s and as most of Africa is today, a key starting point is to raise farm productivity. Farmers need the benefits of fertilizer, irrigation and high-yield seeds, all of which were a core part of China’s economical takeoff.
Two other equally critical investments are also needed: roads and electricity, without which there cannot be a modern economy. Farmers might be able to increase their output, but it would not be able to reach the cities, and the cities won’t be able to provide the countryside with inputs. The government has taken pains to ensure that the electricity grids and transportation networks reach every village in China. China is prepared to help Africa in substantial ways in agriculture, roads, power, health and education. And that is not an empty boast. Chinese leaders are prepared to share new high-yield rice varieties, with their African counterparts and, all over Africa, China is financing and constructing basic infrastructure.
This illustrates what is wrong with the World Bank. The World Bank has often forgotten the most basic lessons of development, preferring to lecture the poor and force them to privatize basic infrastructure, which is untenable, rather than to help the poor to invest in infrastructure and other crucial sectors. The Bank’s failure began in the early 1Q80s when under the ideological sways of then American President and British Prime Minister it tried to get Africa and other poor regions to cut back or close down government investments and services. For 25 years the bank tried to get governments out of agriculture, leaving impoverished peasants to fend for themselves. The result has been a disaster in Africa with farm productivity stagnant for decades.
The bank also pushed for privatization of national health systems, water utilities, and road and power networks and has grossly under financed these critical sectors. This extreme free-market ideology, also called “structural adjustment”, went against the practical lessons, of development successes in China and the rest or Asia. Practical development strategy recognizes that public investments- in agriculture, health, education and infrastructure- are necessary complements to private investments.
The World Bank has instead wrongly seen such vital public investments as an enemy of private sector development. Whenever the bank’s ideology failed, it has blamed the poor for corruption, mismanagement, or lack of initiative. Instead of focusing its attention on helping the poorest countries to improve their infrastructure, there has been a crusade against corruption. The good news is that African governments are getting the message on how to spur economic growth and are getting crucial help from China and other partners that are less wedded to extreme free- market ideology than the World Bank.
They have declared their intension to invest in infrastructure, agriculture modernization, public health, and education. It is clear the Bank can regain its relevance only if it becomes practical once again, by returning its focus to financing public investments in priority sectors. If that happens, the Bank can still do justice to the bold vision of a world of shared prosperity that prompted its creation after World War II.
Q1. The author’s main objective in writing the passage is to
(a) Make a case for the closure of the World Bank since it promotes US interests over those of other countries.
(b) Illustrate how china can play a more concrete role in Africa.
(c) Criticize the World Bank for playing a crucial role in China’s development but neglecting Africa.
(d) Use China’s success as an example of the changes required in World Bank ideology.
(e) None of the above
Q2. Which of the following cannot be said about structural adjustment?
(a) It is the World Bank’s free market ideology adapted by Asian countries.
(b) Under this strategy public sector investment in priority sectors is discouraged.
(c) As a development strategy it has failed in Africa.
(d) With this strategy there has been a lack of adequate investment in critical sectors.
(e) None of the above
Q3. What advice has the author given to the World Bank?
(a) Support China’s involvement in developing Africa
(b) Reduce the influence of the US and Britain in its functioning
(c) Adopt a more practical ideology of structural adjustment
(d) Change its ideology to one encouraging both public and private sector investment in basic infrastructure.
(e) None of the above
Q4. Choose the word which is most similar in meaning to “untenable”.
(a) arguable,
(b) flawed
(c) plausible
(d) legitimate
(e) pardonable
Q5. Choose the word most opposite in meaning to the word “crusade” as used in the passage.
(a)Scrimmage
(b)Strife
(c)Ravage
(d)Expedition
(e)Stoppage
Directions (Q6-Q10): In each of the following questions five options are given, of which one word is most nearly the same or opposite in meaning to the given word in the question. Find the correct option having either same or opposite meaning.
Q6. Tyrannize
(a) dominate
(b) euphony
(c) consonance
(d) entente
(e)covenant
Q7. Contentious
(a) extirpate
(b)innocuous
(c) agonistic
(d) deracinate
(e) insipid
Q8. Repudiate
(a)opulent
(b) embrace
(c) perpetuate
(d)pretence
(e)Slither
Q9. Fervour
(a)persuasion
(b)espoused
(c)repudiation
(d) vehemence
(e)certitude
Q10. Superfluous
(a) gratuitous
(b) essential
(c) sabotage
(d) prostrate
(e)sardonic
SOLUTIONS
Q1. Ans. (d)
Options (a) and (c) are false while (d) is more comprehensive than (b).
Q2. Ans. (a)
Refer the fourth paragraph of the passage, it is “This extreme free-market ideology, also called “structural adjustment”, went against the practical lessons, of development successes in China and the rest or Asia.”
Q3. Ans. (d)
Refer the last line of the fourth paragraph, “Practical development strategy recognizes that public investments- in agriculture, health, education and infrastructure- are necessary complements to private investments.”
Q4. Ans. (b)
Untenable means not able to be maintained or defended against attack or objection and flawed means having or characterized by a fundamental weakness or imperfection. Hence both are similar in meanings.
Q5. Ans. (e)
Crusade means a vigorous campaign for political, social, or religious change. Hence ‘stoppage’ is the word most opposite in meaning to it.
Q6. Ans. (a)
Tyrannize means to treat cruelly hence it has same meaning as dominate.
Euphony means the quality of being pleasing to the ear.
Consonance means agreement or compatibility between two opinions.
Entente means a friendly understanding.
Covenant means an agreement.
Q7. Ans. (c)
Contentious means controversial hence it has same meaning as agonistic.
Extirpate means eradicate or destroy completely.
Innocuous means not harmful or offensive.
Insipid means lacking flavor, tasteless.
Deracinate means uproot from their natural geographical environment.
Q8. Ans. (b)
Repudiate means refuse to accept; reject hence it has opposite meaning as embrace.
Opulent means luxurious.
Pretence means an attempt to make something that is not the case appear true.
Perpetuate means to continue or sustain.
Q9. Ans. (d)
Fervour means intense and passionate feeling hence it has same meaning as vehemence. Persuasion means convincing.
Espoused means adopt or support.
Certitude means conviction or certainty.
Repudiation means rejection of a proposal or idea.
Q10. Ans. (b)
Superfluous means unnecessary hence it has opposite meaning as essential.
Gratuitous means done without good reason.
Sabotage means destroy or damage.
Prostrate means reduce to extreme weakness.
Sardonic means satirical.
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