Improve your English with English quiz. English Quiz to help you improve your score for exams like SBI, IBPS PO, IBPS Clerk and other govt exams.
Directions (1-10): Read the passage carefully and answer the questions given below it. Certain words/ phrases have been given in bold to help you locate them while answering some of the questions.
We are well into the 21st century yet half the world’s population live in squatter settlements and work in shadow economies, which generate more than one-third of the developing world’s GDP. Slums are not caused by the poor but by governments denying people the right to own and exchange property. When people own their own property they have incentives to invest time, money and energy to improve it because they know that they will be able to benefit from any such improvements. I.e. the ability to obtain mortgages etc. in short, property rights begets capital, which begets innovation, which begets wealth. Sadly, the poor typically don’t have secure title to their land as there are bureaucratic restrictions on transferring title or there is no clear system for titling.
Without legal deeds they live in constant fear of being evicted by landlords or municipal officials. Illiteracy is a major reason poor people often choose not to seek the protection of local courts since in so many countries laws established under colonial rule have been translated into local languages. When entrepreneurs do set out to legally register business they are discouraged by red tape and costly fees. In Egypt, starting a bakery takes 500 days, compliance with 315 laws and 27 times the monthly minimum wage. The proprietors of such businesses cannot get loans, enforce contracts or expand a personal network f familiar customers and partners. As a result the poor have no choice but to accept insecurity and instability as a way of life.
In India severe restrictions of free transfer of property in most rural areas inhibit investment and encourage urban flight. Planning policies however discourage building homes for these migrants as numerous homes are destroyed if they do not comply with planning rules, essentially forcing people to live in slums and perversely blaming it on population growth. UN Habitat the UN agency for housing the poor, has implemented more plans to stabilize the unplanned aspects of urban growth but grandiose plans like UN schemes and government housing projects simply ignore or worsen the underlying problems.
It is when governments grant people legal means to control their assets that they empower them to invest and plan ahead. In Buenos Aires, economists studied the experience of two Argentine communities. One had received legal title to its land in the 1980S and surpassed the other group which had nit, in a range of social indicators including quality of house construction and educations levels. The Commission on Legal Empowerment of the Poor – a UN- affiliated initiative made up of two dozen leaders- is exploring ideas to extend enforceable legal rights to impoverished members of society and is seeking to bring about a consensus on incentives for national and local leaders. As the growth of illegal settlements amply demonstrates, the poor are not helpless all they need is governments to grant them fundamental human rights of freedom and responsibility.
Q1. What did the Argentine study indicate?
- Argentina’s economy is booming and the percentage of poor has fallen.
- When the government gives people the legal means to control their assets they plan for the future.
- The government succeeded in widening the gap between the rich and the poor.
(a) Only (A)
(b) Both (A) & (B)
(c) Only (B)
(d) All (A), (B) & (C)
(e) None of the above
Q2. According to the author, which of the following factors is responsible for the creation of a slum?
(a) Migration of landless labourers to cities
(b) Municipal authorities building low- cost housing for the poor
(c) Unchecked population growth
(d) Government failure to secure property rights for citizens
(e) None of the above
Q3. The author’s main objective in writing the passage is to
(a) Exhort the UN to play a greater role in rehabilitating slum-dwellers.
(b) Praise government initiatives for migrant slum-dwellers.
(c) Convince governments to empower the poor.
(d) Enlist aid of developed countries to tackle the issue of slums.
(e) None of the above
Q4. What benefit does the author see in providing land ownership rights to the poor?
(a) Steady increase in GDP
(b) Gaining independence from colonial rulers
(c) Municipal services afforded to the poor will improve.
(d) None of these
(e) All of the above
Q5. Which of the following is TRUE in the context of the passage?
(a) Additional UN projects will exacerbate the plight of slum-dwellers.
(b) Although the government allocates land for them the poor choose not to invest in building houses.
(c) With the spread of slums populations are drifting back to rural areas.
(d) In order to accumulate profit slum- dwellers avoid legally registering their business.
(e) None of the above
Q6. What impact do planning policies have on the development of slums?
(a) They encourage the poor to invest in land thereby perpetuating slums.
(b) They focus on developing rural rather than urban areas so people have to live in slums.
(c) They offer alternative practical suggestions for construction of low-cost housing.
(d) They advocate demolishing homes which violate planning rules, encouraging slums.
(e) None of the above
Q7. What is the objective of the commission on Legal Empowerment of the poor?
(a) Coerce international leaders to implement housing projects
(b) Bring sanctions against countries denying their citizens the right to housing
(c) Selecting experts to recommend ideas to do away with poverty
(d) Establish practical ways for governments to empower the underprivileged
(e) None of the above
Q8. Which of the following difficulties do unregistered businesses face?
- Banks do not give loans in the absence of security.
- They are unable to earn the loyalty of any customer.
- They cannot enforce contracts.
(a) Only (A)
(b) Both (A) & (C)
(c) Both (A) & (B)
(d) Only (B)
(e) None of the above
Q9. What does the growth of illegal settlements indicate?
(a) The government needs to implement more restrictions on property transfer.
(b) Capital earned from underground economies is beneficial to a country’s economy.
(c) The poor are capable of investing resources in their development.
(d) UN housing projects are not properly implemented.
(e) None of the above
Q10. Which of the following prevents the poor from obtaining a business license?
(a) They do not want to make an effort.
(b) Government officials are discourteous.
(c) They lack funds to bribe government officials.
(d) They are intimidated by bureaucratic procedures.
(e) None of the above
Directions (11-15):Read the passage carefully and answer the questions given below it. Certain words/ phrases have been given in bold to help you locate them while answering some of the questions.
The greens’ success has clear policy implications, especially on issue of nuclear power, ecological tax reform, and citizenship rights. But success also has implications for green parties’ themselves. Greens have always faced a unique ‘strategic conundrum’ arising from their radical alternative politics with participation in most green parties shed their radical cloth in an attempt to recapture votes, even at the expense of green party unity and purity. Most were rewarded with electoral success well beyond what had been imaginable in the 1980 s. the price to pay has been tortured internal debates about strategy, and now questions about green party identity and purpose.
Today the key questions facing green parties revolve around not whether to embrace power, but what to do with it. More specifically, green parties face three new challenges in the new millennium: first how to carve out a policy niche as established parties and governments become wiser to green demands, and as green concerns themselves appear more mainstream. Second, how to take green ideas beyond the confines of rich industrialized states into Eastern Europe and the developing world where green parties remain marginal and environmental problems acute.
Third, how to ensure that the broader role of green parties – as consciousness raisers, agitators, conscience of parliament and politics- is not sacrificed on the altar of electoral success. Green parties have come a long way since their emergence and development in the 1970 s and 1980s. They have become established players able to shape party competition, government formation, and government policy. But this very ‘establishment’ carries risks for a party whose core values and identities depend mightily on their ability to challenge the conventional order, to agitate and to annoy. For most green parties, the greatest fear is not electoral decline so much as the prospect of becoming a party with parliamentary platform, ministerial voice, but nothing new to say.
Q11. Which out of the following is closest in meaning to the first of three challenges mentioned in the paragraph?
(a) Niche of green parties is being eroded by mainstream parties.
(b) Green parties are finding it difficult to find new strategy.
(c) Green parties have become stronger over a period of time.
(d) Some green parties are becoming grey.
(e) None of the above
Q12. Which of the following is the important point that the author highlights?
(a) Challenges before green parties to change their strategy from green activism to green governance
(b) How should green parties win confidence and support of governments?
(c) Transformation of green parties in recent decades,
(d) Green movement is not strong in developing countries.
(e) None of the above
Q13. How best cam mainstream political parties, in India, keep green parties at bay?
(a) By imposing green tax
(b) By allow carbon trading
(c) By including green agenda in their governance
(d) By hiring Al Gore, the Nobel prize winner, as an ambassador.
(e) None of the above
Q14. Word which is most opposite in meaning to “ministerial” is
(a)pastoral
(b)sacerdotal
(c)ecclesiastical
(d)facilitator
(e)abbatial
Q15. Word which is most similar in meaning to “implications” is
(a)exhaustive
(b) innuendo
(c)emphatic
(d)blunt
(e)manifest
Solution
- Ans. (c)
Refer to the study done by the economists in Buenos Aires.
- Ans. (d)
This is what the entire passage dealt with.
- Ans. (c)
This is a natural corollary to the question above.
- Ans. (d)
It will empower the poor to invest and plan ahead.
- Ans. (b)
Since the allocation does not come with a proper title; there is always the fear of eviction.
- Ans. (a)
Planning policies discourage building homes.
- Ans. (d)
The commission is exploring ideas to extend enforceable legal rights to impoverished members of society and is seeking to bring about a consensus on incentives for national and local leaders.
- Ans. (b)
Statement (b) does not follow because of the word ‘any’.
- Ans. (c)
The passage says: “As the growth of illegal settlements amply demonstrates the poor are not helpless…”
- Ans. (d)
They are discouraged by red tape.
- Ans. (a)
The first challenge for the green parties is spelt out in the second sentence of the second paragraph, “how to carve out a policy niche as established parties and governments become wiser to green demands.” Option (a) is closest in meaning to this.
- Ans. (a)
Option (a) is the correct answer according to the passage.
- Ans. (c)
The passage says ‘Established parties and governments becomes wiser to green demands, green concerns… appear more mainstream’ and of green parties having ‘nothing new to say’ in view of this. option (c) is the best answer
- Ans. (d)
Ministerial means relating to or entrusted with the execution of the law or the commands of a superior and facilitator means a person or thing that makes an action or process easy or easier.
- Ans. (b)
Implications means the conclusion that can be drawn from something although it is not explicitly stated and innuendo means an allusive or oblique remark or hint, typically a suggestive or disparaging one.
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