English Quiz for SBI Clerk Mains
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 (1-7): Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions given below. Certain words/phrases have been printed in bold to help you locate them.
Privatization is a broad concept and its meaning goes slightly different in different countries. Privatization generally refers to inducing private sector participation in the management and ownership of Public Sector Enterprises. In a narrow sense, privatization implies induction of private ownership in state owned enterprises. It is the process of transferring ownership of a business, enterprise, agency, public service or public property from the public sector (a government) to the private sector, which usually operates for a profit. Privatization was a global trend in the late 1980s and early 1990s to reform the loss making and inefficient public sector enterprises. In countries with many state-owned enterprises, including developing countries, post-socialist countries, and countries of Western Europe, privatization is the transfer of enterprise ownership in whole or in part from the state to private hands. This is often referred as denationalization and “destatization”.
One of the main arguments for the privatization of publicly owned operations is the estimated increases in efficiency that can result from private ownership and business practices. The increased efficiency is thought to come from the greater importance that the private firms make on profit maximization. While there is no blueprint for transforming a largely government –controlled economy into a free one, the experience of the United Kingdom since 1979 clearly shows one approach that works: privatization, in which state- owned industries are sold to private companies. By 1979, the total borrowings and losses of state-owned industries were running at about £3 billion a year. By selling many of these industries, the government has decreased these borrowings and losses, gained over £34 billion from the sales, and now receive tax revenues from the newly privatized companies. Along with a dramatically improved overall economy the government has been able to repay 12.5 percent of the net national debt over a two-year period.
In fact, privatization has not only rescued individual industries and a whole economy headed for disaster, but has also raised the level of performance in every area. For example, At British Airways and British Gas, productivity per employee has risen by 20 percent. At associated British Ports, labour disruptions common in the 1970s and early 1980’s have now virtually disappeared. At British Telecom there is no longer a waiting list- as there always was before privatization- to have a telephone installed.
Part of this improved productivity has come about because the employees of privatized industries were given the opportunity to buy shares in their own companies. They responded enthusiastically to the offer of shares: at British Aerospace, 89 percent of the eligible work force bought shares; at Associated British Ports 90 percent; and at British Telecom 92 percent. When people have a personal stake in something, they think about it, care about it, and work to make it prosper. At the National Freight Consortium the new employee owners grew so concerned about their company’s profits that during wage negotiations they actually pressed their union to lower its wage demands.
Some economists have suggested that giving away free shares would provide a needed acceleration of the privatization process. Yet they miss Thomas Paine’s point that “what we obtain too cheap we esteem too lightly.” In order for the far-ranging benefits of individual ownership to be achieved by owners, companies, and countries, employees and other individuals must make their own decisions to buy, and they must commit some of their own resources to the choice.
Q1. According to the passage, all of the following were benefits of privatizing state-owned industries in the United Kingdom EXCEPT:
(a) Privatized industries paid taxes to the government.
(b) The government gained revenue from selling state-owned industries.
(c) The government repaid some of its national debt.
(d) Profits from industries that were still state- owned increased.
(e) None of the above
Q2. According to the passage, which of the following resulted in increased productivity in companies that have been privatized?
(a) A large number of employees chose to purchase shares in their companies.
(b) Free shares were widely distributed to individual shareholders.
(c) The government ceased to regulate major industries.
(d) Unions conducted wage negotiations for employees.
(e) None of the above
Q3. It can be inferred from the passage that the author considers labour disruptions to be
(a) An inevitable problem in a weak national economy
(b) A positive sign of employee concern about a company
(c) A predictor of employee reactions to a company’s offer to sell shares to them
(d) A deterrence to high performance levels in an industry
(e) None of the above
Q4.The passage supports which of the following statements about employee’s buying shares in their own companies?
(a) At three different companies, approximately nine out of ten of the workers were eligible to buy shares in their companies.
(b) Approximately 90 percent of the eligible workers at three different companies chose to buy shares in their companies.
(c) The opportunity to buy shares was discouraged by at least some labour unions.
(d) Companies that demonstrated the highest productivity were the first to allow their employees the opportunity to buy shares.
(e) None of the above
Q5. Which of the following statements is most consistent with the principle?
(a) A democratic government that decides it is inappropriate to own a particular industry has in no way abdicated its responsibilities as guardian of the public interest.
(b) The ideal way for a government to protect employee interests is to force companies to maintain their share of a competitive market without government subsidies.
(c) The failure to harness the power of self-interest is an important reason that state- owned industries perform poorly.
(d) Governments that want to implement privatization programs must try to eliminate all resistance to the free- market system.
(e) None of the above
Q6. Which of the following can be inferred from the passage about the privatization process in the United Kingdom?
(a) It depends to a potentially dangerous degree on individual ownership of shares.
(b) It conforms in its most general outlines to Thomas Paine’s prescription for business ownership.
(c) It was originally conceived to include some giving away of free shares
(d) It is taking place more slowly than some economists suggest is necessary.
(e) None of the above
Q7. The quotation is most probably used to
(a) Counter a position that the author of the passage believes is incorrect
(b) State a solution to a problem described in the previous sentence
(c) Show how opponents of the viewpoint of the author of the passage have supported their arguments
(d) Point out a paradox contained in a controversial viewpoint.
(e) None of the above
Directions (8-9): Choose the word which is most nearly the same in meaning to the word given in bold as used in the passage.
Q8. Destatization
(a) deterritorialization
(b) escalate
(c) reinforce
(d) spiral
(e) cumulate
Q9. Enthusiastically
(a)apathetic
(b)lackadaisical
(c)fervid
(d)phlegmatic
(e)tepid
Directions (10): Choose the word which is opposite in meaning to the word given in bold as used in the passage.
Q10. Consortium
(a)syndicate
(b)cartel
(c)alliance
(d)fraternity
(e)dispersal
