Directions (Q. 1 to 6): Read the following passage and answer within its context.
The world dismisses curiosity by calling it idle, or mere idle curiosity - even though curious persons are seldom idle. Parents do their best to extinguish curiosity in their children because it makes life difficult to be faced every day with a string of unanswerable questions about what makes fire hot or why grass grows. Children whose curiosity survives parental discipline are invited to join our university. Within the university, they go on asking their questions and trying to find the answers. In the eyes of a scholar, that is mainly what a university is for. Some of the questions that scholars ask seem to the world to be scarcely worth asking let alone answering. They ask questions to minute and specialized for you and me to understand without years of explanation. If the world inquires of one of them why he wants to know the answer to a particular question he may say, especially if he is a scientist, that the answer will in some obscure way make possible a new machine or weapon or gadget. He talks that way because he knows that the world understands and respects utility. But to you who awe now part of the university, he will say that he wants to know the answer simply because he does not know it. The way a mountain climber wants to climb a mountain simply because it is there. Similarly a historian when asked by outsiders why he studies history may come out with argument that he has learnt to repeat on such occasions, something about knowledge of the past making it possible to understand the present and mould the future. But if you really want to know why a historian studies the past, the answer is much simpler; something happened, and he would like to know what. All this does not mean that the answers which scholars find to their questions have no consequences. They may have enormous consequences but these seldom form the reason for asking the question or pursuing the answers. It is true that scholars can be put to work answering questions for the sake of the consequences as thousands are working now, for example, in search of a cure for cancer. But this is not the primary function of the scholar, for the consequences are usually subordinate to the satisfaction of curiosity.
1. Common people consider some of the questions asked by scholars as unimportant
(a) since they are not worth asking or answering.
(b) because the question is related to new machines and gadgets.
(c) because the common man doesn't understand questions without years of explanations.
(d) scholars ask very minute, specialized questions beyond the comprehension of the common man.
2. In the statement ‘that is mainly what a university is for', ‘that' refers to
(a) parents refusal to answer questions.
(b) children's curiosity that survives parental strictures.
(c) questions not worth answering.
(d) the aim and scope of the university to provide an opportunity to curious minds to find out the answers to their questions.
3. According to the passage the general public respects
(a) new inventions.
(b) any useful invention.
(c) any invention that makes life easier for them.
(d) a scientist who invents gadgets and machines for them
4. The writer compares the scientist to
(a) a historian and mountain climber.
(b) a historian.
(c) a mountain climber.
(d) a scholar.
5. The primary function of a scholar is different from the search for a cure for cancer because
(a) the answers to the scholar's question have no consequence unlike the results
for the research involving a cure for cancer
(b) the answer sought by the scholar is selfish unlike the consequences of cancer
research which are for the common weal.
(c) the primary function of a scholar is satisfaction of his mental curiosity, while
research involving a cure for cancer demands a constant, systematic and planned pursuit by several scholars.
(d) several scholars work for a cancer cure while a single scholar works with a selfish motive.
6. Idle curiosity means
(a) curiosity is lazy.
(b) idle people are curious.
(c) curiosity is apt.
(d) casual curiosity.
7. Find the correct match of definition/ meaning with usage for the word:
WOULD
Definition / meaning
(a) willingness
(b) obstinacy persistence
(c) determination
(d) improbable or real condition
Usage
(5) He would go for a walk even when it was raining.
(6) He would do as you say.
(7) He beat the ox, but it wouldn't move.
(8) If you came across a snake what would you do?
(a) 1-8, 2-5, 3-6, 4-7
(b) 1-6, 2-7, 3-5, 4-8
(c) 1-5, 2-7, 3-8, 4-6
(d) 1-7, 2-5, 3-6, 4-8
8. Choose the most appropriate passive construction of the sentence:
‘He is doing his job well'.
(a) His job is done well by him.
(b) His job is being done well.
(c) He has been doing his job well
(d) His job is being well done.
9. There are three underlined words below, followed by their usages. Determine the sentences, in which the use of words is correct or appropriate.
Pray, Prey, Prying
(a) If you pray with faith, they say, it will be answered.
(b) He has fallen a prey to cheats
(c) Prying into the affairs of others is bad.
(1) a and b
(2) a and c
(3) a, b and c
(4) b and c
Directions (Q. 10 to 14): The following is an except from a recent article by David Ewing Duncan. Read the passage and answer the questions within its context.
Eye surgeon Virendar Sangwan has perfected a procedure so cutting - edge that most who have tried it have failed. In an operating theatre in the central Indian City of Hyderabad, he surgically implants corneas grown in a Petri dish from stem cells by his colleague Geeta Vemuganti in patients with damaged eyes. Together they perform about 80 corneal regeneration procedures a year, making the L.V. Prasad Eye Institute, where they work, one of the most prolific facilities in the world using stem cells to regenerate tissues of any kind.
The Sangwan-Vemuganti team uses stem cells found in the tissues of living adults, not ones derived from embryos. Teams all over the world are working with adult stem cells, trying to coax them to regrow cells in hearts, brains, livers and other organs, but progress is slow. Besides corneas, scientists have had some success regrowing skin cells and bone tissues, but those procedures remain experimental. "A number of programs around the world have tried to perfect this treatment, but they have had bad outcomes," says University of Cincinnati eye surgeon and stem cell specialist Edward Holland. "It is impressive what they are doing at Prasad". In addition to the Hyderabad project, only Holand's program and a half-dozen others in the world conduct operations using corneas grown from stem cells.
The treatment uses stem cells harvested from the limbus, located where the cornea touches the white of the eye. For those with damaged corneas, these cells- called "limbic" and "conjunctiva" - are harvested from a patient's good eye, if he has one, or from a close relative. They are placed in a Petri dish and chemically tweaked to grow into the lower layer of a cornea, called epithelium. It is then transplanted into thee eye of the patient where in most cases it takes hold and grows. In 56% of the cases at the Prasad Institute, patient could still see clearly after 40 months later.
Indians are well known for reverse engineering, meaning they can deduce hos drugs are made in order to produce generic versions. But in this case, Sangwan and Vemuganti, a pathologist, developed the technique on their own from reading papers and running experiments in the lab. Sangwan says he had a number of patients with burned eyes who could not be helped with standard corneal transplants from cadavers, so he persuaded Vemuganti to try growing corneas in her lab. "You know how to grow cells, and I know how to do the transplant surgrey," Vemuganti recalls his saying. "Why don't we work together?" she smiles and shakes her head. "I had no clue, if this was going to work."
Vemuganti's major innovation was developing a platform on which to grow corneas. First she designed a circular glass tube about the size of a stack of coins. They she overlaid the lass with tissue from a human placenta which is "a good surface to grow corneas on," she says. After that she placed stem cells in four places around a circle, added a growth medium and watched the corneas begin to grow.
Commercial interests among stem cell companies for the procedure has been scant because of the perceived small volume of patients, says venture capitalist Antoun Nabhan of Bay Capital, who sits on the board of Cellerant, a leading stem cell company in San Carlos, Calif. But corneal stem cell treatment may have wider applications, say ophthalmologist lvan Schwab of University of California at Davis. "There stem cells are similar to others in the body that make mucous membrane," he says, "These techniques of growing stem cells might one day be used to treat mucous-membrane tissue in the sinuses, bladder, and other organs."
10. According to the article Sangwan-Vemuganti team's cutting-edge procedure of implanting cornea grown from stem cells is considered a major advancement by the experts because
(a) they derive stems cells from embryos.
(b) their labs are customized to grow stem cells.
(c) they regrow cells in hearts, brains, livers with stems cells from tissues of
living adults
(d) they derive stem cells from tissues of living adults and grow cells in labs.
11. Sangwan- Vemuganti procedure is carried out on
(a) Patients requiring any corneal transplant
(b) Patients with damaged corneas
(c) Patients with damaged eyes of any kind
(d) None of the above
12. The world recognizes this Indian innovation because Indian scientists are normally known
(a) to be good at analyzing and finding out a method of how an existing drug is
made.
(b) as they are good researchers of drugs.
(c) as they are good at carrying out experiments to create generic drugs
(d) as they are able to carry out drug trials on large samples.
13. The pathologist, Vemuganti, started growing cornea in a Petri dish
(a) by following procedures published in research papers
(b) by inventing a totally new procedure
(c) by experimenting with procedures published in journals
(d) by following the instructions of the transplant surgeon.
14. In the context of the passage chose the correct set of meanings for the words:
‘platform' and ‘generic'
(a) Lab table; related to genes
(b) Method; related to genes
(c) Lab experiments; without a brand name
(d) Methodology; without a brand name
15. Choose the option which is closest in meaning to the word
SUBTLE
(a) Innocent
(b) Elusive
(c) Dangerous
(d) Insidious
16. The following sentence has a missing punctuation mark, choose the right answer.
My mother who is from the village is very superstitious.
(a) Brackets
(b) Comma
(c) Semicolon
(d) Apostrophe
17. For the pair of sentences below choose the right option.
(1) Those are them
(2) Those are they.
(a) The first sentence has an error
(b) The second sentence is erroneous.
(c) Both sentences are incorrect.
(d) Both sentences are correct.
Directions (Q. 18 to 22): Read the following passage and answer within its context.
TRIPs agreement provides a comprehensive set of global trade rules for the protection of copyright patents, trademarks, industrial designs, trade secrets, semiconductor lay out designs and geographical indications, that apply to all the member- countries irrespective of their levels of development, natural and human endowments and history. Every members- country has been asked by the WTO to amend its national patent law to conform to that universal globalised format for legislation relating to pharmaceutical, agrochemical, food, allow, etc.
Under Article 65, the developed countries have been asked to change their laws within another five years, and the less developed countries within an additional five years. The least developed countries have been asked to make those changes by 2005 AD.
This attempt at global standardization and uniformity by way of TRIPs agreement is in conflict with the main trust of the Rio Earth Summit of 1992 that set out the conditions for sustainable development. These two reveal tow contrasting types of international approaches and norms.
While the 1992 Earth Summit and the 1993 Convention on Bio-Diversity (CBD) focused on ‘diversity' as being fundamental to sustain life and development, TRIPs and WTO are pushing for ‘conformity' to international standardized norms on patents, services. Labour, investment and what not irrespective of their history, ecology, level of economic development, etc. But despite their diametrical opposed viewpoints , 170 countries signed CBD upholding the need for diversity, and 50 countries signed the TRIPs agreement in 1994 claming the urgency of uniformity, with a very large element of common names (130) in both.
The Convention on Bio-Diversity (CBD) in its Article, 16.5 specifically asserts the intellectual properly right must not be in conflict with conservation and sutainable use of bio-diversity, a provision that has been totally ignored by those who composed the TRIPs agreements. While in case of agriculture the higher yield of patented products induces the farmers to switch from a more varied production pattern, the resulting narrowing of genetic base makes the economy and society more vulnerable to plant disease and epidemics. It is true that the move towards cultivation of a smaller number of higher yielding varieties and the uniform spread of the same variety over a large space predates the present debate on patent, particularly since the introduction of the green revolution technology in the mid-sixties, but there can be no doubt that the latter has brought about a qualitative change in the scenario and has created possibility of a vast quantitative change too in that direction. So far no attempt has been made to reconcile the two conflicting approaches of CBD and TRIPs. If diversity is so important for sustaining life, how can WTO demand conformity to standardized global formats?
18. The author points out that intellectual properly rights and their administration mechanism is
(a) throttling the interest of global bio-diversity.
(b) working to help sustain global bio-diversity.
(c) being sustained by global bio-diversity.
(d) what the global bio-diversity needs.
19. Which of the following has not been said by the author in the passage?
(a) A high number of countries have signed both CBD and TRIPs two
conflicting treaties.
(b) A narrow genetic base, if stuck to for long, is fraught with danger.
(c) Although a nondiscriminatory approach has been followed in the applicability of TRIPs, there has been a confessional attitude in prescribing a time frame for Transition, as per needs of the respective countries.
(d) The author is supportive of international conventions and treats such as TRIPs, CBD, etc.
20. Out of the countries that signed CBD, the percentage of those that signed the TRIPs also, is
(a) 76.5
(b) 74.5
(c) 78.5
(d) 80.2
21. According to the author, a higher-yield seed variety is not always welcome as it also ultimately leads to
(a) diseases among the consumers
(b) disease among the plants
(c) monopoly of developed countries
(d) monopoly of developed countries.
22. As per the TRIPs agreement not much differentiation is made between a developed country such as the USA and an undeveloped country such as Sudan. This is
(a) definitely true
(b) probably true
(c) probably false
(d) definitely false
23. A single word equivalent for the statement "Speak falsely with deliberate intent' is
(a) repudiate
(b) programme
(c) disparage
(d) equivocate
24. Choose the word with the correct spelling.
(a) paraphernalia
(b) programme
(c) pediatrics
(d) beserk
25. Which two sentences in the following convey the same idea? Choose from the combinations listed below:
(1) Wasn't there any checking at the airport?
(2) I want to know if there was any checking at the airport.
(3) I wonder if there should have been any checking at the airport?
(4) There should have been checking at the airport.
(a) 2, 3
(b) 1,4
(c) 3,4
(d) 2,4
26. Chose the most appropriate sentence from the following:
(a) You should at once report it to the concerned authority
(b) You should report it at once, to the authority concerned.
(c) You should report it at once, to the concerned authority.
(d) You should at once report it to the authority concerned.
27. Find the correct match of grammatical function with usage for the word:
AFTER
Grammatical function
(1) adjective
(2) adverb
(3) conjunction
(4) preposition
Usage
(5) You may go after having your lunch
(6) It appears to be the after effect of the disease
(7) Many graduates are hankering after jobs
(8) He came soon after
(a) 1-8, 2-5, 3-6, 4-7
(b) 1-6, 2-5, 3-8, 4-7
(c) 1-5, 2-8, 3-7, 4-6
(d) 1-6, 2-8, 3-5, 4-7
28. Neophyte is the opposite of
(a) student
(b) clown
(c) veteran
(d) professional
29. Find the maximum number of times that any one of the given words fits the set of sentences.
disabled
flimsy crippled lame
(1) Don't make ______________ excuse.
(2) Liberalization may have _____________ smaller manufacturers.
(3) Being a defaulter at the stock exchange makes him a _________duck.
(4) A ___________ person may limp.
(a) in all the four sentences
(b) in three sentences
(c) in two sentences
(d) in only one.
30. Which of the following does not make a sensible word/ phrase when added to the given word?
FIRE
(a) fly
(b) engine
(c) stick
(d) escape
31. Arrange the sentence 1,2,3,4 to form a logical sequence between sentences I and II. Choose the alternative where the four combinations make a meaningful sentence.
I. We all value having the freedom
1. which many of us fail to honour
2. to make the choices we want in our careers.
3. but with great freedom comes great responsibility
4. so most companies fall prey to the policies which become rigid
II. and that's probably one reason we find most companies not following what they preach
(a) 1, 3, 4, 2
(b) 2, 3, 1, 4
(c) 1, 4, 2, 3
(d) 3, 2, 1, 3
Directions (Q. 32 to 34): Read the edited excerpt of an article by Nelson Vinod Moses and answer the questions in this context.
A successful non- resident Indian employed in the United States returns to a backward Indian village and transforms the lives of the villagers. Sounds familiar? At 31, Ashwin Naik is pacing through the path Shah Rukh Khan traced in his offbeat Bollywood movie, Swades. Naik had just quit his cushy job in a genomics firm in the US to join MIT Sloan School of Business. With a month in hand, he headed home and traveled through the remote areas of Banglkot district in Karnataka. The woeful social conditions he saw moved him. Naik chucked the MBA course and in six months set up Vaatsalya Healthcare, a rural healthcare delivery system.
In February 2005, Vaatsaly's first hospital opened in Hubli. Two more centres were opened in Gadag and Karwar to offer specialist services of surgeons and facilities such as physiotherapy for children suffering from cerebral palsy. "We introduced pediatric surgery for infants below six months," say Naik, "Else, patients would have to be taken to distant cities of Hobli or Bangalore." Naik plans 100 more units in five states in the next three years. Mere charity by an affluent, middle - class professional? Far from it. Vaatsalya is one among rapidly spreading ‘for profit' social enterprises that serves ‘for profit' social enterprises that serves the poor and brings in profit. Mumbai - based Ziqitza, an ambulance services company, is another. It never refuses a patient for money, and charges Rs. 50 to Rs. 200.
Done fleetingly in India and elsewhere till now; entrepreneurial minds with a social conscience are methodically creating such models at a greater pace. "There has been a boom in the past two years," says Varun Sahni, country director of Acumen Fund, a US- based social fund that invests in companies that target low income communities "Currently, there are about 1,000 in India."
The timing seems perfect. There is a wide market acceptance and funding has been coming in easily. These enterprises work across a swathe areas including healthcare, education, rural energy, agriculture arts and crafts, banking and more. ‘ For profit' entrepreneurs are obsessed with social and environmental impact in addition to the financial returns. Since they are answerable to the investors, they try expanding the business rapidly; SKS Microfinance, for instances, started in 1998 and has now over 900,000 customers, 440 branches, and an outstanding loan disbursement of over Rs. 452 crore as of August 2007.
32. Identify the appropriate business model of the kind of enterprise by the author.
(a) Servicing societies at no profit
(b) Profiting from poor people
(c) Setting up enterprises for masses of low-income groups on experimental
basis
(d) Setting up enterprises for social causes for profit and expand rapidly
33. Which of the following companies does not illustrate the idea explained by the author?
(a) SKS Microfinance
(b) Acumen Fund
(c) Ziqitza
(d) Vaatsalya Healthcare
34. According to the author, which of the following options describes ‘for profit' entrepreneurs most appropriately?
(a) NRI's paying back to their motherland.
(b) Those affluent, middle-class professionals treating it as charity.
(c) Those who work towards getting financial returns on social business by
expanding quickly.
(d) Those who have sympathetic investors for their business ideas for poor.
35. A contextual usage is provided for the word below. Pick the word that is most inappropriate. MALINGER: The young man made it a point to malinger in spite of the assigned work load.
(a) Wander
(b) Laze
(c) Evade
(d) Argue
36. The following is a scrambled sentence with the segments marked 1, 2, 3 and 4. Choose the alternative with the order of segments that best reconstruct the sentence.
1. For all the padre's rhetoric about the English as God's Chosen People, the
padre had a whole tribe of Anglo-Indian first cousins.
2. Padre Rotton was an even more striking case.
3. By various Indian wives, all of whom were at that moment engaged in
fighting on the rebel side in Avadh, where they took an active part in
besieging the British Residency in Lucknow.
4. These included James Rotton who could not speak English and the twenty-
two Muslim sons of his convert cousin, Felix Rotton.
(a) 1, 2, 3, 4
(b) 2, 1, 4, 3
(c) 1, 4, 2, 3
(d) 2, 4, 1, 3
37. Choose the sentence in which the given word is used correctly (grammatically and semantically) ALMOST
(a) As I crossed the road a scooterist almost hit me.
(b) Crossing the road a scooterist hit me almost.
(c) A scooterist across the road almost his me.
(d) A scooterist almost hit me crossing the road.
38. In the following sentence choose the erroneous segment.
We took a taxi (A)/So we would be on time (B)/ for the meeting (C)
(a) Error in segment A
(b) Error in segment B
(c) Error in segment C
(d) No error
39. Find the odd one out from the group of words which are related in some way or the other.
(a) Din
(b) Cacophony
(c) Racket
(d) Cadence
40. Fill in the blanks with the correct alternative.
Caw is to crows as___is to cows.
(a) bleat
(b) snort
(c) low
(d) bellow
Download SNAP 2007 Question Paper for English as PDF
Answer Keys
| 1) (d) | 2) (d) | 3) (b) | 4) (a) | 5) (c) |
| 6) (b) | 7) (b) | 8) (b) | 9) (c) | 10) (d) |
| 11) (b) | 12) (c) | 13) (b) | 14) (d) | 15) (b) |
| 16) (b) | 17) (c) | 18) (a) | 19) (d) | 20) (a) |
| 21) (b) | 22) (a) | 23) (b) | 24) (c) | 25) (b) |
| 26) (d) | 27) (d) | 28) (c) | 29) (c) | 30) (d) |
| 31) (b) | 32) (d) | 33) (b) | 34) (c) | 35) (d) |
| 36) (b) | 37) (c) | 38) (b) | 39) (d) | 40) (c) |
Posts
Accounting Ebooks 
