Direction :Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions given below it. Certain words are printed in bold to help you locate them while answering some of the questions.
 The Emperor had inherited a peaceful and prosperous kingdom at a young age after the untimely death of his father. A few months later a man arrived at court. He stated that he was from a far off land and had the gift of foresight. He impressed the Emperor with his witty remarks and was appointed a courtier. The Emperor and those at court all enjoyed hearing accounts of his travels. One day the newly appointed minister said, "Your Majesty, you are destined to great things. It is written in the stars. I have learnt the art of fortune telling. Do not be content with your kingdom along. Travel, See the world and conquer. There are many who are oppressed. They will bless you for rescuing them from the tyranny of their rulers." The Emperor was stunned to hear this but he refused to discuss the matter at the time. The courtiers too were astonished to hear this and began debating among themselves. "It is true," they said, "Our Emperor's father was a great warrior and he ruled wisely. Perhaps there is truth in this." So the newly appointed courtier shrewdly planted the idea of waging war against other kingdoms at court. After hearing several repeated arguments in favour of this idea the Emperor finally agreed. He was a young man and a battle seemed to be exciting against a smaller neighbouring kingdom The Emperor knew the ruler was cruel and felt justified in waging war against him. Having the superior army the easily defeated the king. Everyone celebrated. But the campaign did not stop there. With every victory the new minister would urge the Emperor on to the next battle. The soldiers grew tired after over two years at war but did not complain out of respect and loyalty to their ruler. Meanwhile the situation in his kingdom began to deteriorate. With no one to look after the daily administration and to resolve disputes, signs of neglect began to be seen.
The Emperor was no longer bothered if he wars. The new minister who was in charge of these funds kept a large part for himself and grew richer. An old man who had been a minister in the Emperor's father's court grew worried and decided to do something about this situation. A few days later when the Emperor was out riding in the forest he suddenly saw the old man. He greeted him like an old friends and inquired what he was doing there. The man pointed to two owls in the trees. "I am listening to their conversation". What are they saying?" the Emperor asked unbelieving. "They are negotiating the marriage of their children. The first owl wants to know wheter the other will be gifting his daughter fifty villages on her would have to gift her one hundred and fifty as the villages were in ruins and as such were worthless but with the Emperor as ruler there would be many such villages." When the Emperor heard this he realized the error of his ways. He returned home immediately, rewarded the old minister putting him in charge of reconstructing the ruined villages and dismissed the fortune teller from his court. 

What was the Emperor's reaction when he saw the old minister? 

Directions: Read the passage given below and answer the questions that follow based on the information given in the passage.

IN GORILLA society, power belongs to silverback males. These splendid creatures have numerous status markers besides their back hair: they are bigger than the rest of their band, strike space-filling postures, produce deeper sounds, thump their chests lustily and, in general, exude an air of physical fitness. Things are not that different in the corporate world. The typical chief executive is more than six feet tall, has a deep voice, a good posture, a touch of grey in his thick, lustrous hair and, for his age, a fit body. Bosses spread themselves out behind their large desks. They stand tall when talking to subordinates. Their conversation is laden with prestige pauses and declarative statements. The big difference between gorillas and humans is, of course, that human society changes rapidly. The past few decades have seen a striking change in the distribution of power—between men and women, the West and the emerging world and geeks and non-geeks.

Women run some of America’s largest firms, such as General Motors (Mary Barra) and IBM (Virginia Rometty). More than half of the world’s biggest 2,500 public companies have their headquarters outside the West. Geeks barely out of short trousers run some of the world’s most dynamic businesses. Peter The, one of Silicon Valley’s leading investors, has introduced a blanket rule: never invest in a CEO who wears a suit. Yet it is remarkable, in this supposed age of diversity, how many bosses still conform to the stereotype. First, they are tall: in research for his 2005 book, “Blink”, Malcolm Gladwell found that 30% of CEOs of Fortune 500 companies are 6 feet 2 inches or taller, compared with 3.9% of the American population. People who “sound right” also have a marked advantage in the race for the top. Quantified Communications, a Texas-based company, asked people to evaluate speeches delivered by 120 executives. They found that voice quality accounted for 23% of listeners’ evaluations and the content of the speech only accounted for 11%.
 Academics from the business schools of the University of California, San Diego and Duke University listened to 792 male CEOs giving presentations to investors and found that those with the deepest voices earned $187,000 a year more than the average.
 Physical fitness seems to matter too: a study published this month, by Peter Limbach of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology and Florian Sonnenburg of the University of Cologne, found that companies in America’s S&P 1500 index whose CEOs had finished a marathon were worth 5% more on average than those whose bosses had not.

Choose the word which is most nearly the OPPOSITE in meaning to the word printed in bold as used in the passage.
Spread

Direction: Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions given below it. Certain words / phrases have been printed in bold to help you locate them while answering some of the questions

Princess Chandravati was very beautiful. She loved all kinds of ornaments and always wanted to wear the most precious and lovely jewels. Once, a jeweler came to the palace and gifted the King a wonderful diamond necklace. It glittered with big and small diamonds. It was certainly a very expensive necklace. The princess fell in love with it as soon as she saw it. So, the king presented it to her.
 From that day on, the princess always wore that necklace, wherever she went. One day before, going for a swim in the pond, she took the necklace off and put in the hands of her oldest and the most trustworthy servant. "Hold this and be careful. This is the most precious necklace in the whole world, " she said. The Servant was an old woman. She sat under tree, holding the ornament tightly and waited for the princess. It was a hot afternoon and the servant was very tired so she dozed off under the tree. Suddenly the servant felt that someone was tugging at the necklace and she woke up with a start. She looked around but it no one was there and the necklace was gone. Scared out of her wits, the old servant started screaming. On hearing her scream the royal guards rushed to her. She pointed towards the direction in which the thief may have gone and the guards ran off that way.
 There was a poor and dim-witted farmer walking on the same road. As soon as he saw the royal guards running towards him, he thought that they wanted to catch him and started running. But he was not a strong man and could not outrun the hefty guards. The royal guards caught him in no time. “Where is it? " they demanded. shaking him. “Where is what? " the poor farmer stammered back. The necklace you stole!" thundered one of the royal guards. The farmer had no idea what they were talking about. He only understood that some precious necklace was lost and he was supposed to have it. He quickly replied, " I don't know where it is now. I gave it to my landlord.”

The guards ran towards the landlord 's house. "Give us the necklace right now ! " the guards demanded of the at landlord. "Necklace? I don’t have any!" the stunned landlord replied. Then tell us quickly who “does demanded the soldiers. In order to get the royal guards off his back, the landlord pointed towards a priest who was walking by his house and said, "He does." The guards now caught hold of the priest who was walking towards the temple and thinking about the lunch he had just eaten. The priest was stunned when one of the burly guards jumped on him and asked about the necklace. He remembered that the minister, Bhupathi, was at the temple. He took the guards to the temple and pointed towards the praying minister, “I gave it to him, "he said. Bhupati too was caught and all four men were thrown in jail. The Chief Minister of the kingdom knew Bhupati well and was sure that Bhupati would never steal. He decided to find out who the culprit was. He hid near the jail where all four men were put and heard them talking First, Bhupati asked the priest, “Panditji, why did you say that you gave the necklace to me? I was quietly praying at the temple and now you have landed me in jail for no fault of mine.” The priest looked apologetic. He pointed towards the landlord and said, " I didn’t know what to say. He set the " guards on me. I was simply passing by his house and was on my way to the temple." The landlord looked at the priest sheepishly. Then he turned towards the poor farmer and yelled. “You lazy good-for-nothing man! Why did you say that I had the necklace? " The farmer, trembling under the angry gaze of all three men, said, " I was just walking home. The guards caught me and I did not know what to say." On hearing, this conversation, he Chief Minister understood that all the four men were innocent. He immediately ordered the royal guards to search thoroughly, near the pond. The guards searched high and low till they saw something clinging the tree. On the tree sat a monkey with the princess’ favorite necklace around his neck. It took a lot of coxing and bananas before the monkey threw the necklace on the ground. The’ king apologized to at the four men and gave them gold coins as compensation. He requested his daughter to wear the necklace only indoors.

What did the king do after the necklace was found?

Most people who bother with the matter at all would admit that the English language is in a bad way, but it is generally assumed that we cannot by conscious action do anything about it. Our civilization is decadent and our language-so the argument runs-must inevitably share in the general collapse. It follows that any struggle against the abuse of language is a sentimental archaism, like preferring candles to electric light or hansom cabs to aeroplanes. Underneath this lies the half-conscious belief that language is natural growth and not an instrument which we shape for our own purposes. 
Now it is clear that the decline of a language must ultimately have political and economic causes it is not due simply to the bad influence of this or that individual writer. But an effect can become a cause, reinforcing the original cause and producing the same effect in an intensified form, and so on indefinitely. A man may take to drink because he feels himself to be a failure, and then fail all the more completely because he drinks. It is rather the same thing that is happening to the English language. It becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts. The point is that the process is reversible. Modern English, especially written English, is full of bad habits which spread by imitation and which can be avoided if one is willing to take the necessary trouble. If one gets rid of these habits, one can think more clearly, and to think clearly is a necessary first step towards political regeneration: so that the fight against bad English is not frivolous and is not the exclusive concern of professional writers. 

The author believes that – 

In the following passage, some of the words have been left out. Read the passage carefully and select the correct answer for the given blank out of the four alternatives.

Now, what exactly does big business want? Though they cite some ____________ worded performance indicators to compile the index, the true intention appears to be
something ___________. They want land at throwaway prices even _____________ it is fertile agriculture land; they want licenses to be issued immediately even if the
proposed activities are likely to result in environmental _____________; they want labour laws to be favourable to them so it becomes easy to hire _______ fire and
exploit workers; and they want the government to respond favourably to their ‘bailout’ demands from time to time so they can transfer their risk on to taxpayers,
notwithstanding the fact that they enjoyed their profits during their heyday..

they cite some ____________ worded performance

Read the passage carefully and choose the best answer to each question out of the four alternatives.
The peacock, which happens to be our national bird, is regarded a good omen. It is also considered to be vain because of its habit to draw attention to itself. Different religions see the peacock as a symbol in varied ways. In Christianity, it represents all -seeing God and is often used as a symbol of immortality. The Chinese believed that a glance from the bird could impregnate a woman. According to Hinduism, Saraswati – the Goddess of knowledge and wisdom – rides a peacock and when God Indra transformed himself into an animal, he chose to be a peacock. In Buddhism, the peacock symbolizes purity, and their feathers are used for purification ceremonies.

The Buddhists used the peacock feather in performing

Directions: In the following questions, you have to passage with 5 questions following each passage. Read the passage carefully and choose the best answer to each question out of the four alternatives.
Some people say that man's desire for war is due to his fight for survival and that war is necessary to preserve his virility. Yet, war nowadays leaves a legacy of the weakest men and stimulates not the noble but the bestial qualities of mankind.
 A venture of some kind is necessary for man; he will inevitably deteriorate physically and mentally if his life is one of ease and luxury lived in an atmosphere of ‘Safety First.’ This is the real reason behind our love of sports in the open air. It is no use being a millionaire if one suffers from chronic in digestion; a tramp with good innards is far happier. Nothing that money can buy is worthwhile without good health. There is no better way to perfect health and physical fitness than to walk over or climb hills and mountains.
 But mountains give us much more than mere physical fitness; they exercise the mental faculties as well. Climbing a high and difficult peak is as much a mental exercise as a physical exercise. It calls for sense and judgement for planning and thinking ahead, for anticipating difficulty and danger, for responsibility towards one's companions, and best of all, it brings the mountaineer into touch with the beauties of the universe. 

What is the best advantage mountaineering brings to an adventurer?  

Directions: Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions given below it. Certain words/phrases have been printed in bold to help you locate them while answering some of the questions.
 A new analysis has determined that the threat of global warming can still be greatly diminished if nations cut emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases by 70% this century. The analysis was done by scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). While global temperatures would rise, the most dangerous potential aspects of climate change, including massive losses of Arctic sea ice and permafrost and significant sea-level rise, could be partially avoided.
 “This research indicates that we can no longer avoid significant warming during this century,” said NCAR scientist Warren Washington, the study paper's lead author. “But, if the world were to implement this level of emission cuts, we could stabilize the threat of climate change", he added.
 Average global temperatures have warmed by close to 1 degree Celsius since the pre-industrial era. Much of the warming is due to human-produced emissions of greenhouse gases, predominantly carbon dioxide. This heat-trapping gas has increased from a pre-industrial level of about 284 parts per million ( ppm ) in the atmosphere to more than 380 ppm today. With research showing that additional warming of about 1 degree C may be the threshold for dangerous – climate change, the European Union has called for dramatic cuts in emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.
 To examine the impact of such cuts on the world's climate, Washing ton and his colleagues ran a series of global studies with the NCAR - based Community Climate System Model (CCSM). They assumed that carbon dioxide levels could be held to 450 ppm at the end of this century. In contrast, emissions are now on track to reach about 750 ppm by 2100 if unchecked. The team's results showed that if carbon dioxide were held to 450 ppm, global temperatures would increase by 0.6 degrees Celsius above current readings by the end of the century. In contrast, the study showed that temperatures would rise by almost four times that amount to 2.2 degrees Celsius above current readings if emissions were allowed to continue on their present course. Holding carbon dioxide levels to 450 ppm would have other impacts, according to the climate modeling study.
 Sea-level rise due to thermal expansion as water temperatures warmed would be 14 centimeters about (5.5 inches) instead of 22 centimeters (8.7 inches). Also, Arctic ice in the summertime would shrink by about a quarter in volume and stabilize by 2100, as opposed to shrinking at least three quarters and continuing to melt, and Arctic warming would be reduced by almost half.

Direction: Choose the word which is most opposite in meaning to the word printed in bold as used in the passage.
Q. Diminished